Baltimore on the Prairie

I was able to attend a one day class at this years Baltimore on the Prairie conference. This was my first year attending and it is just a wonderful applique conference, I am so lucky it is so close my home. The conference is held at Mahoney State Park half way between Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska on the Platte River. It is a beautiful setting, the hummingbirds were very active outside the dining room windows and very appropriately the bird feeder was visited by a Baltimore Oriole.

I have lived in Nebraska for 25 years and this is the first one I have seen here.

I took a class on template free applique. This is another term for back basting, which is the method of applique I prefer. I am mostly self taught so this class appealed to me. It was taught by the wonderful Jan Carlson.

She is from Maryland and in 1993 she and three of her friends started the Baltimore Applique Society. She is a wonderful teacher, I learned so much in that one day class. We laughed a lot, made friends with applique lovers from all over the country, and heard great stories of when Jan first got to see the original Baltimore Albums quilts in museums and got to make patterns from those quilts for fund raising opportunities for preservation of the quilts.

Our class project was this cute little red and green applique quilt. I brought background fabric from the Civil War Bride and intend to use my class block for a label on that quilt.

Those are 1/4 inch berries - YIKES! The one day classes are the first day of the conference, the rest of the conference is three days with an instructor. There were five teachers at this years conference and they all had beautiful Baltimore Album blocks, I would have loved to take any of the classes but time did not allow this year. Baltimore on the Prairie is definitely on my calender for next year.
The instructors for next years conference and pictures of their blocks will be posted on the website Sunday evening at the conclusion of this years conference. http://baltimoreontheprairie.tresajones.com/

Happy Stitching all....

Cheri