Apple Pie – 2025, 25" x 25"

When I am preparing a new class, I often like to experiment with my ideas by sewing them together. What happens if I take my own class? What happens if I experiment with what I want to teach? What happens if I ignore all of my other obligations and make a new quilt? 

"Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right."

Oprah Winfrey 

NEW YEAR MOJO
We all want the fiery energy that drives us to get in our maker space and stitch for hours. We all love the quilting ideas that wake us up in the middle of the night. We all need the satisfaction of that final seam. But sometimes we don’t get those things. We get to feeling down, or the time just isn’t there, or real and imaginary obstacles jump in our way. I know those feelings oh-so-well. 

One tried and true method for me to get my quilting mojo back is a new class. In particular, I LOVE the Improv for Everyone series that I teach in January and July of every year. The focus of this class for me is to find an idea I have been thinking about and push it around to see what happens. This time the ideas are all about Fat Curves, Skinny Lines, and Patterning. 

I am so fired up about this class that I hit pause on the rest of my life and just went into my studio and started stitching. I thought it might be fun to share some images of the process of making Apple Pie while also talking a bit about the workshop that inspired it.  

Fat Curves & Skinny Lines was originally taught at A Gathering of Stitches, a truly unique workshop held every summer in Maine. It is the ONLY quilting retreat I know where students regular jump in the nearby lake for a swim.

One of the key components of this workshop is the sketch, so I started there. 

I have a laundry basket of scraps, and I grabbed several handfuls and ironed them. I think I like scraps because they have ideas built into them. Also, they aren’t precious. 

I added some left-over piece work and a little bit of yardage. This would be my palette. But I also gave myself room to add or subtract fabric as needed.

Because I had lots of tiny scraps, I decided to make a multi-colored polka which is a favorite but also incredibly labor intensive!

I have also been playing around with a truly improvisational plaid, so I added that to the mix.

Hours and hours and hours later, I was getting close to having enough dots to move forward.

Inserting the circles into the crazy maze of dots was a nail biter, but I did it. 

While I was making the dots, plaids, and curves for Apple Pie, I was also making other units that I will introduce during class on Saturday, January 3, 2026. I hope you will join me! Details are below. 

NEWS & EVENTS

Improv for Everyone—Fat Curves & Skinny Lines—Only $40
Virtual Workshop
Saturday, January 3, 2026
1PM—5PM East Coast Time

We will explore the territory of BIG improvisation-ally pieced curves while also adding SKINNY pieced lines to and around the curves. It all starts with a sketch that we use as the leaping off point into improv design and piecing. Satisfaction guaranteed. Workshop fee includes live workshop, recording of workshop, handouts, link pack, and invitation to the Maria Shell Workshop Group on Facebook.

Improv ED — Virtual Workshop 
Thursdays 2026
January 8 & 29, February 5 & 26, March 5 & 19, April 2 & 23, May 7 & 21, June 4 & 25, 2026
6-9pm Eastern Time

Are you Improv Curious? Do you love to make improv units, but you can’t seem to sort out how to use them to create a quilt composition? Would you like to have a better grounding in basic design elements–line, shape, figure ground, pattern, scale & proportion, and color? Then this is the workshop for you! We will dive deep into different design elements from an improv quilt making approach. This workshop also features guest speakers, demonstrations, feedback and consultations, prompts, lectures, community conversations, peer posses, a private Facebook group, and MORE.

May you never lose your Sewing Mojo.

Maria