Fun with Bonnie Hunter

Imagine my delight when I found out in late-March that I had gotten in to a Bonnie Hunter class with the Pine Tree Quilters' Guild of Maine. I have been a "floater member" for a number of years and attend their annual State  show almost every summer, but this would be my first time attending a class open to all members of the state guild. I did not expect to get in, thinking there would be a huge response, but had my fingers crossed. I was pleasantly surprised to get in, and to find out that the class was not totally full. Mind you, 36 ladies seemed like enough!
If you are not familiar with Bonnie Hunter, she is a well known scrap quilter who lives in North Carolina, and travels and teaches extensively- I don't know where she gets all her energy! She is also an incredible blogger at Quiltville's Quips and Snips, posting two or three times most days! She writes a column on using up scraps for Quiltmaker magazine, designing a new scrappy block for each issue, and she offers several Mystery Quilts each year to her readers.

Recently she has added international travel tours for quilters - not long ago she took a very lucky group of quilters to Bali, this summer she's off to Ireland, and then an Alaskan cruise. She has written four books...need I go on? You get the message- this is one busy and energetic lady! I guess I was hoping that if I spent a day in her close proximity, some of her energy might rub off on me!! Well.. not sure that happened, but I did have fun!  


The class was held in Bangor, a three hour drive for me, assuming no lineup at the border (which there wasn't). I left on Thursday morning so I could have a little "retail therapy" time before Friday's class. I was coming down with a cold earlier in the week and I had the worst runny nose ever, so I was popping cold meds all day long, in hopes of getting it "stopped up" so I wouldn't be sniffling and snuffing all through the class. Well.. it worked.. but obviously I was a bit overdosed on Pseudophedrine because at bedtime I was buzzed and did not sleep  one  minute  all   night    long. NOT  ONE  MINUTE!  Despite the lovely hotel room, the king sized bed.. not ONE minute. Needless to say I was not my normal peppy self on Friday... But regardless, it was a fun day. (By the way, do my local readers know about hotelcoupons.com? Find them online or stop at the Houlton Tourist Bureau - right at Houlton exit, and pick up the booklet. GREAT savings on hotel rates in New England - I stayed at the Marriott for more than 60% off the normal rate!)
The quilt is called Jamestown Landing and  the blocks are built from two very simple units- string-pieced

Bonnie Hunter of ME, Bonnie Hunter of NC and Bonnie #3

squares and half square triangles. Nothing too taxing!! lol  So I was looking forward to a nice relaxing day of sewing. It was fun to meet Bonnie and hear her "take" on making scrap quilts. She is definitely the queen of scrappiness! As I said there were 36 of us in a large room, and it was interesting to walk around and see everyone else's "scrap stash" - it boggles my mind to see so many fabrics that I've never seen before! I have a sizeable stash, and visit a lot of quilt shops in the run of a year, so I see quite a wide range of fabrics- but it always amazes me to see so many different fabrics! And isn't it good that we all have different taste?
Of course I didn't know anyone else in the class, but did have a nice chat with the two lovely ladies from Lewiston-Auburn who sat across from me. There was another Bonnie Hunter (from Maine) in the class! and a third Bonnie, so we decided there should be a photo taken of the three Bonnie's! Here they are above.

I managed to get fifteen string pieced blocks done and enough HST's to make two star blocks, one dark and one light star. Only 153 more string blocks and 28 more stars to go!! lol  Sadly I am going to have to put this project aside for a while as I have others that need more immediate attention- like my Guild Challenge which is due in two weeks (yikes!) But I can see this one will be as much fun as my Talkin' Turkey quilt was, so I'll be anxious to return to it when I can.



Bonnie always tells her students if they have made a quilt from one of her free designs, books or mysteries, to bring it along to class for Show and Tell so naturally I had to take my red Talkin' Turkey to show her. She was happy to see it and gave me a "well done" pat on the back. ( a little praise from the teacher always feels good...) Here we are posing in front of it...
And thanks to Stephanie Thibodeau from Lewiston-Auburn for sending me the photo below right. Stephanie sat across from me and was kind enough to take a few photos for me.

One of the things I enjoy most about following Bonnie's blog is that she posts photos/slide shows from all her classes on the road (I really don't know where she finds the time and energy!) Here are the posts from the class I took- this one shows some of the work as she walked around the classroom during the day. And this one features the Show and Tell that students brought to her two classes. Both classes she taught (Jamestown Landing and Smith Mountain Morning) are from her most recent book String Fling.
Thanks Bonnie! It was lots of fun to meet you and take the Jamestown Landing class!

Piece!
Linda

"We all have dreams. But  in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline and effort." ~ Jesse Owens