Storm At Sea

This  past week, I went to Quiltfest in Hampton, Virginia.  I usually go every year but for the past two years, I've had the extra fun of going with my niece and taking classes together.  She is a fairly new quilter and it's been really great watching her grow in her craft--which she manages to do in spite of a VERY busy work schedule and a child with lots of activities (oh, for the energy of twenty years past!).
Anyway, I am the one who has chosen the classes for us and, I'll have to say, last year I was a miserable failure at it.  The first class was so bad and I felt terrible that THIS was going to be my niece's first experience of having an "in-person" teacher.  The second class had a great teacher--it just wasn't something I really wanted to make.  (I took all the strips I had cut for that class and made lots of clothesline bowls--so it wasn't really wasted).
We signed up earlier this year and, thus, had a better selection of classes.  For me, Storm At Sea has always been one of those "impossible to achieve" quilts.  I've tried to do it 3 times and failed three times.  I really don't like paper piecing and tried to use regular piecing techniques and just never could get those points.  So, when I saw this class offered, I decided to bite the bullet and give it ONE MORE TRY.  I was delightfully surprised.  And I think you can see from my photo that I was also successful--at last.
The teacher was David Sirota (quiltmavendave@gmail.com) from New Hampshire.  This was really his first "big" teaching event and he did a great job.  His method is called "No More Tears" and there is no paper to pull out when you're finished.  This technique won't work on ALL paper piecing patterns, but it will on most blocks that build from the center out like this one.  He really puts on quite a show with his patter but there is a LOT of good information thrown in.  He did call my niece and me "the quiet ones" because we worked on our blocks--and watched all the others in the room respond to him.  It was very interesting.
The first day, we took a class with Susan Cleveland from Minnesota using the Dresden plate template and I think I'm actually going to finish that quilt also (no clothesline bowls this year!).  More later.