Roller Rink class

On Sunday we held our second monthly class for the miniature versions of the Modern Patchwork quilts. Show and Tell from the first month Metropolis projects was fun -- Ginger and Tina are making full-size quilts, so they're still working, but Liz and Sue had finished projects to show off.

Liz has a wall hanging ready for her office!

Sue made a lovely wall hanging with three Metropolis blocks.

The Roller Rink block itself is extremely simple to construct, so most of this month's focus was on selecting good runs of fabric to make a nice gradient. We talked about value, and how to use Joen Wolfram's 3-in-1 Color Tool for getting a nice even spacing between the steps of a gradient. I love that tool -- it's like having an entire collection of paint chips at your fingertips! Once everyone settled on their fabrics, the minis went together in no time at all.

Liz's block had a great contrast between the greens and a fuschia border...like summer watermelon! I know that she has already quilted and bound it too -- way to go!!

Nancy joined us this month and made a little wall hanging with a wonderful African feel. I think she was inspired in part by the Newington group quilt. I was impressed at what a difference it made switching to black-and-cream prints rather than black-and-whites.

Sarah used shades of grey with a terrific orange contrast border. My photo doesn't really do justice to the orange.

Ginger chose some cherry pinks with chocolate and cream borders -- I can't wait to see this one, because after I made Jess's quilt last year that has become one of my favorite color combos. Somehow Sue managed to sneak out before I photographed her block, which was bright greens bordered with vivid red and the lightest possible tint of green. She did a great job contrasting the colors. Tina is using the same greens that Sue used, but bordered with royal and turquoise blues; it will be interesting to compare her analogous color scheme with Sue's complementary-color project.

One thing (which I mentioned in class) that I really love about this block is that, the last time I checked there aren't a heck of a lot of opportunities to use the full seven-color Roy G Biv spectrum -- seven-point stars and heptagons use weird angles -- but this block uses seven two-inch squares: that spells Roy G Biv in my book! My sample block takes advantage of this. I'm not going to add anything else to this little thing. A bit of quilting, a pillowcase facing, and some jingly bells hanging off the bottom. Maybe seven chakra-colored sequins or beads just for the glitz factor.

I whipped up a single block on Sunday morning before class. When I pulled out the fabrics that I decided to use for every month, I realized that I could fussy cut circles to have a chakras block! If I were yogic-minded, I would hang this in my studio.

Tune in next month for the Glam Garlands block!!