Easy Arch challenges at JCC Folk School

Full moon, and a beautiful clear night at John C Campbell Folk School. April/May is a great time to spend a week at the school in Brasstown, NC. My class was Easy Arch, and 6 women from all four corners of the US spent a week with colors and creativity, exploring new directions with their quilt designs.                                                                                                                                                  

Some very exiting quilts were made, and I know many more will be made as a result of the fun we had.

 Linda from Florida,chose 3 colorways in vibrant batiks, yellow/orange, blues/ and purples. All put together she has a glowing piece, most likely it will be a lap quilt, or she really could use it for display on the wall. That's how beautiful and well made  it is.

Some of Linda's small leaves. Think the black one is my favorite.

Linda brought her feather weight to work on, absolutely beautiful machine. This is what you can do on a straight stitch machine!

Laura  from New York decided to play with her black and white with a touch of yellow fabrics. Very productive and made 4 sets of blocks. The close-up also shows her very nice first attempt at a curved border design.. This works very well with her blocks. Very successful, and as you see even softer colors are exiting with this block design.

Going to her brighter, bolder stash, these smaller blocks were cut on the diagonal as well and when assembled I thinks this turned out very fun. Not decided if there will be a border added on yet.    Scrappy but very controlled because of the color scheme.

 One of Pat's (from Oregon) very favorite colors to work with  is purple. Two of her pieces used a lot of her favorite color! To me they were so much like the Smoky Mountain colors. She worked on a smaller scale but very effectively  used the chosen colors. One of the pieces has wonderful reds, and almost has a "fire" feel to them. When quilted these smaller pieces will be outstanding!

   

The wooded areas around the school campus has many treasures during spring time.
These "Lady slippers" were tucked away on a quiet spot on the trail.

As were these white miniature lilies. Nature is beautiful.

 Marcy from California for sure brought a bold collection of print fabrics. This is what she enjoys working with, and using the Easy arch she brought them all together in a very unconventional way.

 She  sewed several collections of blocks, and made the bold fabrics shine. I would love to see these pieces finished!

This color combination really speaks to me, the touch of red/pink gives the blocks a cohesive look.

 Stephanie from North Carolina also has a great eye for the bold and unusual fabrics. She very successfully used  many stripe and geometric fabrics in the same piece. The blue piece was her first collection of blocks and she made 2 sets which was assembled into this striking piece. The yellow/orange piece above turned out very exiting, very much because of the black surprise element and very skinny polka dot bias strips that was inserted between the curves. This was very effective in giving the blocks movement.

                                                        

Rebecca from North Carolina made what I call "over the top" blocks. She used the most rich and saturated colors together all in one piece. Or rather she made two pieces, both very vibrant and so fun. Perfectly matches her personality! The polka dot fabric for sashing was found at the local quilt shop in Murphy, and that is my favorite sashing for the week.     

Lots of quilts with purple this week, maybe I shoud be using it more, it no doubt makes beautiful quilts!

Fun week, with fun ladies. I enjoyed so much spending time with them all, and hope to see them again soon. Good luck in your quilting endeavors!