Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Back in April I was meant to be in Texas for a week-long quilting workshop (a short detour on my way to Utah for my conference). Of course, none of that happened, but the teacher of the workshop, Sheila Frampton-Cooper, has now segued into online teaching and recently started her first improv quilting course, a block-of-the-month (BOM) course over 12 months. But these aren’t traditional blocks—they are improv blocks and the first lesson (over several 10-min videos) showed us how to do freeform curved piecing, WITHOUT pins, and the more usual straight pieced blocks. I’m familiar with straight pieced blocks as I’ve made a lot of improv quilt tops using scraps, and all have involved straight piecing.

With the lockdown restrictions in place in California where Sheila lives, she’s done it all herself—all the filming (3 cameras!), sound, lighting, mixing/editing, etc.—and the result is fantastic and super professional! I watched her first lessons for Month 1 on Friday and made my first blocks this weekend. My DH reckons they look like licorice allsorts, and I have to agree!

Sheila’s Improv BOM class is here: http://fiberartworkshops.art/.

My colour palette; the ‘black’ is a very dark navy/black

My first two straight pieced blocks

My first curvy pieced blocks

Licorice allsorts! (Photo attribution: By Ali K – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12459893)