Hello, I’m Kelly, and I’m a Hexamaniac! WARNING: There is no cure for Hexamania, and it is highly contagious!! 🙂
I am also the author of Hexagons, Diamonds, Triangles, and More: Skill-Building Techniques for 60-Degree Patchwork.
I’m thrilled to be scheduled to teach at Empty Spools Seminars (Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar / Quiltmaking Workshops) at Asilomar, March 19 – 24, 2023 (Sunday – Friday)! I LOVE working with 60-degree shapes and sharing that love – and loads of tips – in the classroom. At Empty Spools, the opportunity to be with the same awesome group of students for FIVE DAYS while we explore these interesting shapes together…….and, having the ocean literally a brief walk away….sounds like a piece of heaven to me! Whether or not you’ve worked with these shapes previously, this workshop will equip you to create wonderful, interesting quilts that use hexagons, equilateral triangles, 60-degree diamonds, and more!
In this blog post are photos of a few of the “60-degree” quilts / tops that I’ve made, giving you some idea of the vast variety of block and quilt options that are available to you as you become familiar with the 60-degree family of shapes and how they work together! I’ve interspersed other information about the workshop between photos. Onward!
Two of the things I find most exciting about this workshop opportunity is the time available to us to explore the relationships and interactions between these shapes and the opportunity for participants to create their own unique quilt top(s). Whether a participant chooses one of the settings that I offer or designs their own, each participant determines which blocks and block shapes will be used in their quilt.
I love 60-degree quilts that are “value-driven” such as Inner City (far left), Tumbling Block (middle left) and Tumbling Perspective (near left). In addition to instruction about the actual 60-degree shapes and how they work together, we’ll also discuss the use of color and value to create the illusion of depth and dimension.
Will we explore set-in seams (aka inset seams, “Y-seams”) in this workshop? Yes! It wouldn’t be a “MasterClass” in 60-degree patchwork without set-in seams! However, many blocks and quilts that use 60-degree shapes in their construction do not require “Y-seams”, and we will explore many blocks and settings without “Y-seams”, too! Just to put your mind at ease, I have taught thousands of quilters to sew “Y-seams” on the sewing machine, and I’ve not had an unsuccessful student yet!
For this workshop, I have curated a “template kit” of a variety of my Kellyquilter Acrylic Templates for this workshop, mandatory for all participants (this is covered by the class “lab fee” referenced in the Empty Spools brochure and on their website). The template kit will provide the participant with a variety of templates that can work together in a multitude of combinations to create at least 50 different quilt blocks AND can be used as setting pieces. The templates are mathematically accurate and make precise cutting a breeze! This kit will give the participants plenty of block options without “breaking the bank”! I will have additional acrylic templates (shapes and sizes) available for purchase, should the participant wish to add to their “toolbox” before the end of the workshop. The purchase of additional templates is completely voluntary! No pressure!!!!
I also LOVE using my templates to “fussy-cut”, adding even more visual interest to my blocks and quilts / quilt tops. We will spend some time discussing “fussy-cutting” during the workshop, thereby allowing the participants to explore and play with fussy-cutting, if they wish.
Fussy-cutting is SO FUN!!!!!
We will work / play with pieced quilt blocks in the shape of hexagons, diamonds, triangles, and six-pointed stars.
I do hope you’ll join me on this 60-degree adventure! If you have questions, you may email me at kelly@kellyquilter.com. You can see more of my quilting adventures on Facebook at Kelly Ashton: Quilting Lectures & Workshops and on Instagram at kellyaquilter.
Happy quilt-making!!
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