Hello all, Mary Ellen here.

Still cogitating on those modern quilt ideas. Got an e-mail today from Craftsy.com about a Joe Cunningham class called Pattern Free Quiltmaking. Hmm… Went over to have a look. Signed up for it.

I have always been a rule bender. Not so much a rule breaker, just a bender. I never, even as a kid, wanted to blindly follow rules unless I could see the point. (I have a terrible time with speed limits!) I think this is caused by the other hemisphere of my mathematical, analytical brain wanting equal time. This appears in my quilting from time to time, as it does in all of the other parts of my life. Sometimes the perfectionist geometer is in charge wanting perfect points, symmetrical layouts, and precision in the measurements. Other times not so much. Love to create with random width selvage strips, like to make my own fabric with OTF (off the floor, as named by quilter Ami Simms) scraps stitched to a foundation, and have enjoyed wonky piecing as done by Gwen Marston (and her ex-husband Joe Cunningham) for years. I loved making my wonky house quilt, as I’m sure those of you taking Jackie’s seminar class will as well.

This new Craftsy class sounds like a lot of fun. After I watched Joe’s intro piece, (click here to see it), I knew I was going to give this a go. Whenever I am teaching a class and tell the students just to grab a piece at random, I can see some of them break out in a sweat. Quilt Police be da*%$*(ed! I say. Sometimes it’s fun to let go, and just see what happens. That’s how you make YOUR quilt, not just someone else’s quilt in different colors. I’m thinking I’ll get some ideas for presenting a class like this down the road. Anybody want to take it?