Pick Up Sticks

 I took two classes at the recent American Quilt Society's Quilt Week in Des Moines.  It was a wonderful experience just to be there, but ever so much fun to be in classes with other quilters.  I have not done much of that in a long time, and the intensity of quilters who go to Quilt Week is above my own, so somehow it is comforting to me that  I am not alone in my obsession with fabric and the idea that cutting big pieces of material up into small pieces of material and ten sewing them back together into big pieces of fabric really is something wonderful.  My teacher for the second workshop that I did was Becky Goldsmith, and the quilt we did was different from the applique quilts that I know her for.

The quilt is called Pick Up Sticks for reasons that are pretty clear.  I think there is a lot of fun in this quilt and it can come out a number of different ways.  There were people in the class who were like me, using one color palate for the sticks and a plain background.  My table mate had a white background and all the colors of the rainbow for the sticks and that worked really well.  Another woman had a very busy background and plain sticks.  This quilt has some wonderful elements to it and you can make it a number of different ways--and a quick and pretty easy baby quilt.