Karen Eckmeier workshops

I am so blessed to be a member of Illini Country Stitchers, our local quilt guild here in Champaign-Urbana!  One of the many benefits is that our program committee tries to bring in "big name" quilters for lectures and workshops at least 3 times a year.  I have taken workshops with Ami Simms, Carol Doak, Pat Speth, Becky Goldsmith, Toby Lischko, Jody Barrows, Kimberly Einmo, just to name a few!  This past week it was a joy to take workshops with Karen Eckmeier!

I already had her Accidental Landscapes book from my landscapes phase...who am I kidding, I still am in a landscapes phase!

I purchased her Layered Waves knowing she was coming, but didn't look at it until the day before!  Good grief!  I didn't know what I was missing!

One of Karen's mantra's is that she doesn't wish to contribute to the UFOs of the quilting world!  (Where have I heard this before, Mickey Depre!)  Everybody in the landscape class left with at least their landscape done.  I had my borders on and was ready for quilting by the time I left.  I did get it quilted at home that evening (after a nap and a little knitting).  One of the ladies had her's quilted AND bound by the end of class!  I had taken my little box of embelishments with me, and embroidered the sea grass in the lower right hand corner.

Karen is a fantastic teacher, and gave great explanations.  This is the second day when we were working on our layered waves.  She demonstrated on one of the students fabric choices.  We were told to bring 6 fat quarters.  We could choose a color family, or go wild.  The student here chose greens.  She also ended the day with a glorious tote bag!  She was also the one who had her landscape done!  And they call me an over achiever!  LOL!







Going through my stash to find fat quarters, I came across the fat quarters that I had purchased when I was in Tuscon, Fall of 2009.  Perfect!  I added the turquoise Moda Marbles.  I got inspired to add a flight of curving flying geese ala Caryl Bryer Fallert.  So I drafted my first set and made them.  One benefit of looking at things through a pictures is that I know see that I need to rearrange a few things!  Watch this post for further developments!

I am sure you were all wondering what I was going to be doing to fill my time now that Circle of Life was done!  Not to worry!  I am so inspired by this new technique in my tool box!