May makings- pottery and a couple of quilts

 At the beginning of the month, I began a series of three wheel throwing classes led by Katy Nickell at Oil and Clay Studio here in my town. My daughter has done this before through several other classes, so I signed her up with permission even though it was geared to older teens and adults. The other three in the class had also had quite a bit of experience with wheel throwing and with this teacher, which left me as the only beginner. I learned that I am not used to being a beginner in a group!

pottery by several in the class--I think the bowl in the front is mine

a planter I made in the second class

We glazed our pieces this week, another new thing. It will be interesting to see what they look like after they have been fired! After that first day, I was super inspired to go home and do something I know I can do and do well--sew up some quilts. And I finished up two this week.

This quilt started with a 5" square set (a charm pack) from the Lady Bird fabric line designed by Crystal Manning for Moda Fabrics. I used a pattern called Charming Nine from Sharon Holland Designs, and that required a lot of other coordinating fabrics from my scraps and fabric stash. And I think because of the charm pack, I also chose to make the quilt with fewer blocks than the pattern, so it ended up 52" x 58" rather than the 5' x 6' quilt in the pattern.

After I finished that, I started on a quilt one of my co-workers asked me to make for a gift. It has been a while since I have made a baby quilt and I LOVED it. It was cut, pieced, and quilted within a week. Unlike the All The Things quilt made of leftover quilt blocks that I worked on all April (and maybe March?) but still haven't finished because it is a large throw size quilt and I decided it should be hand quilted with chunky thread. 

So the baby quilt is for a girl, and based on the inspiration photo sent by the mom to my co-worker, I made this:

It is a mix of quilting cotton squares with flannel squares of little woodland animals and those big floral prints used on the back. 

I was fighting the lighting a bit in these pictures--just a bit too much shadow to see it well. Looking forward to handing it off tomorrow. I spend a bit of time this afternoon adding the first quilt on this post plus a couple of other recent finishes onto my Etsy store. And gearing up for my June "beginner" project--dyeing fabrics with natural dyes.