Going to Guild - Charlotte Angotti

A new month means a new guild meeting, and April is one of the few months when Gracie gets to join me.  I always hope for a good program with lots of quilts when she is with me, since there is nothing worse than a bored child at a serious lecture.  Luckily we were blessed this month with the hilarious and prolific Charlotte Angotti!

I wish I had been able to take the class with everyone else on Saturday.  It sounds like they had a blast, and the work shown is fantastic.  I love how she uses very basic blocks and LOTS of fabric to create dramatic patterns.

I love how she puts dozens of one color together to create depth and texture.  She said, "You can put all these reds together because they have the same name.  It's a rule."

At one point I asked about machine quilting.  Charlotte tossed this quilt to me so I could examine it.  She says she does all of her own quilting on a domestic machine, all in her own meander.  In truth, it looks almost like a feather, and is incredibly beautiful.  But she's right;  upon examination, the same "pattern" was in virtually every quilt there.  She also uses lots of bright, variegated threads so the quilting really stands out.

But when she tossed the quilts and handed them around and folded them any which way, she said something that stuck with me.  She said that her quilts won't last because she's so hard on them; that if she witnessed an accident on the way home, of course she would use her quilts to cover up the person in shock.  She said, "These aren't Smithsonian quality quilts.  These are wrap-around-a-family-member quality."  And I ask you...which ones are the most precious?



P.S. If you ever get the chance to see Charlotte in person, make sure to ask her what kind of batting she uses.