The Fibonacci Quilt with Carole Lyles Shaw

Earlier this month I took an online class with Carole Lyles Shaw. I’ve known Carole online since 2015 – she was in the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop with me. My goodness – Carole has been working it while I’ve been screwing around. I’m so proud of how much she has accomplished in the past few years!

The class I signed up for was her Fibonacci Quilt. I took the live version, both to learn the quilt, and also to learn what I need to do to provide quality online classes myself.

I pulled fabric from my stash for this one, cutting into a treasured Cherrywood bundle (Kiwi Berry), combining it with some Kaffe Fasset yardage from an estate sale, and pieces of Windham Palette left over from my Nazca quilt backing.

I shot this photo and sent it to Carole before class, asking for her opinion. Not sure why I did that – I know she’s busy, and I was also in love with the pull. I probably just wanted her to tell me I’m a genius. I wasn’t thrilled with her feedback that I needed a darker green, but then my friend Regina told me the same thing. Grr. Much of my stash is packed, so I found a piece of Island Batik that went nicely, and also a small piece of dark green Carolyn Friedlander from my Bullseye quilt project. Obviously, they were right. I had fallen into the trap of using all mid-tones again.

On class day, most of my family was mildly perturbed that I was fully unavailable from 10 – 4. I pointed out that under normal circumstances, I would be gone from 9 – 5 or longer, and we all moved on with our day.

I set up my laptop near my computer, gathered all of my supplies, and logged into class. It was a delightful experience. I didn’t take many in-progress shots – I was too busy learning.

I finished most of the quilt during class. That is one thing I love about online classes – I can mute myself and just sew my heart out. I started my blocks just following the pattern, but eventually my scraps cried out to me, and I started sewing little improv blocks to sub in for the larger units.

It was amusing to me that so many of my classmates agonized over different design choices. Moving fabric around, adding fabrics, taking away fabrics. It’s fun to take a modern class with people who are new to improv quilting. There are no rules here, just guidelines, and that can be really hard to wrap your mind around.

My first improv class was with Sherry Lynn Wood. I believe I said to my friend – “I didn’t know we were just going to be screwing around here.” Now I’m the one just happily screwing around, listening to my fabric and making my own quilt. Pretty much every project, unless I’m testing a pattern, involves some level of making it my own now.

Another thing I do to keep myself happy in class, is not agonize over any of it. Class is a place to learn and play. I will learn what I can from the teacher, then move along with the project. If, at the end of class, I don’t love what I made, I have permission to stop working on it. If I decide it would look better with other colors, I can make it again in those colors. Taking a class is not a commitment to finish a quilt. I do often finish, but there are plenty of half made quilts in my stash. I may revisit them someday, or my children may be giving them away someday. Either way, it’s okay.

By the end of the evening, I had the top complete. The next day I added the borders. Then it took a few weeks to get it quilted. I had the perfect Peppered Cotton wideback, in garnet, waiting on my shelf. I visited my pile of batting scraps next to my longarm, and puzzled the batting together. I made sure to use the same batting, Warm and Natural in this case. But, I didn’t actually piece the batting. I just butt pieces up against each other, sometimes overlapping a bit to cover the area I need. I’ll tell you, having a longarm is a blessing on many levels. I never, ever do this for client quilts, or for show quilts. This is a solution for every day quilts only.

My spool of Fantastico variegated thread in Bonfire was perfect, too. I used Modern Squares from Urban Elementz for the edge to edge quilting on this one. It wanted to be custom quilted, but my schedule didn’t allow for it this time. I do think I will revisit this pattern, though. It comes together so quickly, but is still fun to make and look at.

Overall, I simply cannot believe that all of these fabrics and threads, acquired at different times for different projects went so well together. This has got to be one of my all time favorite quilts. I have a nice little scrap pile left over, too. I’ll be making a bonus quilt at some point. Definitely more improv, and I’ll probably play with the Fibonacci sequence some more. My son and I have been talking about it. He loves math, and I can sometimes keep up with him, but only when I introduce geometry. It’s his weak point, and brings him down to my level.

Carole has a couple of on-demand classes, which are intriguing. I’m definitely tempted by Mid-Century Modern Curves. I just have to get my house situation settled first!

Have you tried any online classes yet? I am so pleased that so many of us are embracing online learning. Online learning is so much better for me – I have some social anxiety issues, and many of them are solved this way. I also am pretty comfortable teaching online, and I’m excited to start offering classes soon.