Maggie B.

Last weekend was our Guild's 3-day workshop with Maggie Bonanomi. It was a lot of fun to spend so much quality time with my rug hooking friends. Each of the attendees received kits to make the velveteen strawberries and puzzle balls that are included in one of Maggie's books. I got the strawberry stitched up this weekend - I added beads instead of using dyed pins like she suggested.

And I'm well on my way to finishing the puzzle ball - just need to get the fancy stitching done along each of  the seam lines and attach each section to each other. 

Maggie suggests using cotton stuffing for these small projects - I believe she uses the kind of cotton balls for removing makeup - but I went to my local upholstery shop and bought a bunch of cotton for $2 - I think it's used to pad arms on chairs and couches - and it worked perfectly for these. I stuffed it in there really tightly and it gives a nice heft to the project. 

This is the small heart mat I made when she taught us her Wonky Technique. I had never realized it before, but she never uses a wool cutter for her strips. Instead, she tears a piece of fabric that's between 3/4" & 1" wide - then she uses scissors to cut that strip up the middle. It ends up imperfect and wide - gives a really nice effect.

And here is the main project I worked on for the class - made a little bit of progress on it and hope to get it done kinda quickly - using that wide cut helps it move right along.  

The highlight of the workshop came on the last day when we got to see the projects from her new book in person. If you'd like to see them you can click on this link to view the Guild's blog - there are lots of photos there.

This photo below shows my favorite item from her new book - she showed us how she cuts her letters freehand for her applique projects so I think I might like to try and make one similar to this using a bit more color. Fun weekend!