FanFaire Block of the Month Class with Krista Moser

Last weekend was a blast. The local guild brought in Krista Moser for an absolutely fabulous class. I attended with my mom, and we had such fun! From left to right in the picture above is Mom, Krista, and myself.

We kicked everything off with a trunk show Thursday night. Krista's energy is contagious, and her stories are great. This was my favorite quilt that she shared - Woven Jewelbox. The modern design really appeals to me.

I also really liked this quilt. The striped fabric gives an illusion of curves and movement. It hasn't been published quite yet, and if I remember right, it's still waiting on a name.

You see the quilt draped on the table? That's the one we would be doing in class! It's Krista's brand new FanFaire Block of the Month. We were the first group to get to do it, but the pattern should be coming out soon.

Krista recommended that we bring lots of variety of fabrics to class. This was my fabric pull the night before class. Mom generously shared her grey yardage for the background and the light purple for my accent triangles. Most of the bright fabrics came from my stash, but Mom contributed a few of those, as well.

I always get excited when I'm setting up my space for a class. I thought of a new trick this time, too. I popped the lid off of my fabric box so it wasn't in the way the whole time. That made it so much easier to keep everything accessible and contained. Though I can tell you that it didn't stay this neat for long!

We started bright and early Thursday morning with some coloring. I decided I wanted my blocks to fade from light to dark, but I wasn't sure if I wanted the dark to the center or the outside. I colored half of the star each way, and realized that the dark needed to be on the outside to contrast with my lighter triangles. I also decided after coloring that each block should have a pop of the adjacent color.

After coloring, we got right to work. Krista designed this quilt to showcase all of the fabulous things you can do with her new 60 degree diamond ruler. It's truly the most versatile and easy to use ruler I've ever had. It can do diamonds, triangles, hexagons, parallelograms, and trapezoids. It has blunted tips and quarter inch holes to make lining up the points a breeze. And it doesn't slip. I highly recommend this ruler, and I hope Creative Grids will let Krista redesign their 45 degree diamond ruler to be more like this one.

One of the best parts of this class was that it was a full two days! It was so nice to really have the time to do everything without rushing. We worked at our own pace, and Krista was always present to help and encourage. My friend Jennae aptly described it as "sew day with an expert". Krista is such a fun and friendly expert, too!

I was one of the slowest people in the class, mostly because it takes me so long to settle on my fabric choices. But even I was able to finish all of my diamond blocks over the two days! It's an amazing feeling to leave a class with so much already accomplished. It makes me want to set everything aside and just finish this quilt, but my deadlines insist otherwise.

When I got home, I laid out the blocks on my design wall so I could get a good look at how everything came together. Thank goodness for friends! I'm in love with the way these blocks came together, but I couldn't have done it without Mom and Julie sharing some of their fabrics. I just didn't have enough variety in my stash to get what I was going for.

Mom's blocks came out beautifully, too! She stuck with the rainbow theme with just two colors per block, and she was able to completely finish the center during class. Her quilt is going to look so cool!

Have you ever made a quilt with diamonds? Or do you have a diamond quilt you've been wanting to try? They're not as scary as they look! I'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

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