Testing 1, 2, 3 and a quarter inch

As I described in my last post, I've admitted my addiction to quilting and how a fabric store is a very dangerous place for me. I may have admitted it, but I'm not going to treatment. 

The Fire Escape quilt that got me the 

purple ribbon.

Monday night, I had an opportunity to be a part of a quilt pattern testing at the Calico Hutch Quilt Shop in Hayward, Minnesota. Even cooler for me was the opportunity to meet one of my favorite quilt designers, Terry Atkinson. Terry designed the quilt that I entered last August to the Freeborn County Fair and for which I got the Championship ribbon. Her pattern directions are so well written, may be in part because she uses test groups before sending the pattern to the printer. 

Terry's Shadow Song pattern

Every six months, there is a "Quilt Market" where retailers go and see the new fabrics and patterns. The spring market is next month in Salt Lake City and Terry is introducing quite a few new patterns. Including the one we tested last night. 

The pattern is called Shadow Song and our job was to follow the directions and make at least one of each of the blocks. I'm not great with keeping everything perfectly square, so I sometimes end up with misshaped squares. I got thru the first block and wanted to sort of hide it because it looked so strange and I was sure I had done it wrong.  Then another woman talked about not getting everything to line up. and then another. While I was concerned with understanding the pattern, someone else figured out that Terry had one cutting error at the very beginning that was causing the problem.  The direction said to cut the square to 3-1/4 inch, but the correct cut was 3-1/2 inches. Just a 1/4" makes a big difference. 

So Terry got her pattern tested and a crucial error was caught before it was sent to the printer the next morning. And I got to meet a quilting rock start. At least in my book. 

I love the Calico Hutch's back room with super high ceiling & amazing quilts covering all the walls

Talk about a place that distracts me!

A new design from Terry - A cute pillow with zippers for the design

Everyone is into making bags now. This is called "Stack & Stow"

Here's another newbie from Terry - Texas Two Step.

Carolyn & her staff made us hot fudge sundaes!

This is one of the blocks and the one with the cutting issue.

She almost got one whole row done.