"Class Act" - Night 3 & some homework

Wednesday night was the 3rd session of the Beginning Quilting class I'm teaching. These ladies are the best bunch! I mean, there wasn't ANY complaining at all when I asked them to get crawlin on the floor to start getting those borders on! AND, Janet here had a WONDERFUL night with NO machine problems! Woo-hoo!

The night started with piecing border strips using a 45 degree seam. I used a tutorial from McCall's Quilting: 45 Seam to show the ladies the technique. After a few "unsewing" sessions, all the ladies were able to get the border strips pieced.

I shared Bonnie's method of "measuring borders", which is when the ladies found themselves on the floor. :0)







However, it didn't take too long for all of us to realize that with this quilt being small enough, we could use the counter space that was available in the classroom. Hey---and LOOK! We can see Melissa's face this time!!! :0) *snicker*

Time flew, and it was time to leave before we knew it. The ladies still had the outer border to finish, so they all decided it was okay to have some "homework." They also decided they would be okay piecing the backing together before next Monday's class.

I put a request out via email to my ladies for one more piece of homework, if they are feeling up for it. It should take about 30-60 minutes. Here are some visuals to assist the email.......

Ladies---if you've made it here but haven't checked email, go take a peek. More details are in the email :0)


Layer the backing/batting/quilt top so that 3" of excess remain on all sides.







Baste away using as many pins as humanly possible! *giggle* Okay....don't overkill, but my motto: "You can NEVER have too many basting pins!" It's better to over-baste than not baste enough. You don't want those layers to shift much during quilting, otherwise you'll find that you have tucks and puckers :0( Tip: Pin in the light areas because we will be quilting diagonal lines in the darks. BUT, having said that, I do have some pins in the darks where the quilting lines will not be.

Most people will say to mark the quilting lines BEFORE basting....*shrug*.....yeah, it's good advice, but I've marked after basting in the past, and I did so this time as well. We will be marking on Monday night----OOOOOOO! Bring your rotary rulers to use as a straight edge!!! I didn't think of that until just now. I'll bring the marking supplies.......

Once marked, you'll be ready to quilt away!








From start to finish tonight (BASTING AND QUILTING), it took just about two hours, so Monday night should REALLY bring on some amazing progress, bringing you VERY NEAR completion! Wooo-hooooo!




See you Monday!









Game plan tomorrow: Cut the shirts for the Seven Shirts & Seven Steps. A piecing step was posted last night, so I'm anxious to get started on it. DoubleDelights will just have to wait patiently.

Happy FRIDAY! Ymmm.....Happy "almost Saturday" (just turned 11:30 pm)