I LOVE QUILTING!

Tonight was the last night of the Beginner's Quilting class. During sesison 3, we talked about having a pot-luck for the final class, so we DID! :0) Meatballs, a Chicken/angel-hair dish, veggie salad, tuna salad, and 2 varieties of brownies. DA-LISH! Tonight was a Show-n-Tell of the final quilts; sharing stories of the final steps of completing the quilt. Pictured "up front" is Keri, the School's Community Education Coordinator. She heard through the grapevine that we were having a potluck, so she stopped in (with gummiworms) and chit-chatted. She ALSO is a running acquaintance; remember the marathon post? You can read about her there, having run her half-marathon.

But LOOK at what these turkeys did! How does THIS work? THEY needed to cough up the bucks to take the class, THEY needed to cough up the big buck to buy the supplies, but yet, LOOK at these goodies that were gifted to me! This bag is ADORABLE. Joy used one of her excess blocks and glued it to the front.

....and inside........



.....a lovely frame, cute 'lil pin, and a Quilter's magnet that says "When Life Throws you Scraps, Make a Quilt." Hythe also gifted me a tiny trinket box containing a spool of thread and a personal "thank you" for what I can ONLY assume was for using my backup machine. Crazy lady! I didn't mind it AT ALL!



So, was the class a hit? I THINK so! I sure loved it, withOUT a doubt! And the quilts turned out so lovely!





My first quilting class success **heavenly sigh** They were already asking if (WHEN) I was having the next class........."The Advanced Beginner" :0) We're already talking about getting together in May.

I LOVE QUILTING!

Two finishes, so why not another NEW project???

I met my goal on Saturday by cutting through all the shirts and piecing the 24 9-blocks. DUH ME though---I didn't have my camera handy to get a pic. When I was done with that, I was fairly tuckered out after having such a late night Friday. I hung out with DH and the girls Saturday night, watching the HULK as a family, and puttered online perusing Bonnie's site. I was getting antsy for yet another NEW project. WHY??? I have no idea, but I went to peek......

Sunday morning brought anew energy, and I was downstairs by 8:30 am. I had been playing with the idea of creating a quilt label for each of the ladies in my Beginning Quilting class, so.....I DID! Now that they have been gifted (at tonight's 4th session class) I can freely blog them without giving away any surprise :0) At the same time, I created some labels for a few quilts that have been labelless for too long.

I needed to prepare the Quilting & BInding tutorial for tonight's class, so I pulled out the Class Act that was quilted Friday night and plugged away at completing the binding. Rather than hand-sewing the binding to the back, I carefully machine-stitched using a very small "seam allowance." There are a few small spots where the sewing lines show up along the border on the front, but....eh! Minor! This baby isn't gonna be hanging in any quilt show! :0)


So----binding done......slap on the label......Project #4 of the year complete!








NATURALLLLLLLY, with so many other projects laying around the sewing room, what is one to do but start yet another FUN project?!?!?! I kinda got excited when looking at Bonnie's Diamond Strings pattern. My bin of strings had almost reached the "I-can-no-longer-close" stage, so it was time to do something with them. Her method of piecing these babies was AMAZINGLY quick........in no time, I had 14 sheets completely sewn and ready for cutting.

After cutting and taking this lovely shot, I headed upstairs. The girls and I threw in KUNGFU PANDA and they all volunteered to help me tear off the paper backing. What sweathearts!
After the movie, dinner, and some baths, and once they were all tucked in bed, I headed back downstairs to see how far I could get on the blocks. How far did I get??? Finished up 48 corner pieces which would create 12 complete blocks once sewn together. But, it was 10:00, and I was ready for bed........(YES! I DO SLEEP!)

As mentioned, tonight was the 4th night of the Beginning Quilting class which got the ladies quilting & binding. Well.....no one got as far as binding, but I used this wall-hanging (that was created from their Session 1 practice squares) to show a demonstration of a complete binding. It was nice killing 2 birds with 1 stone here :0) My FIFTH finish of 2009!



Oooooooo, and look! Once all the ladies were comfortably quilting away tonight, I pieced the 12 blocks of the Diamond Strings. At this point, I don't think I'll make any more string blocks; rather I'll play around with some wide sashing OR alternate some plain blocks amongst these to make a twin size. ??? I'll play tomorrow night once the girls are in bed.





A few working shots of tonight's class.....

"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)

Linda's top

Yeah Linda! One of my "students" emailed last night with a pic of her pieced top center. Her colors are beautiful; she purchased her fabrics through Connecting Threads. I can't wait until Wednesday for the next class! Thanks for sharing Linda.


I finally was motivated last night and headed downstairs at 6:00 pm. I dug into the stash for the Now-n-Forever BOM quilt; I'm doing it and have already completed the first block. It SHOULD be easy enough to complete this project since it goes until October, with each block coming out on the 14th.

I also plunged into step 1 of DoubleDelight and completed it by 10:30 pm, with only trimming remaining. I am losing interest in quilting my tops that are stacking up, but my piecing motivation has returned thanks to the DD.

I'm off......
Happy Monday

Post 200! "Class Act" - Night 2

Wowsers! Post 200 already! Sorry, but didn't have time to get together a give-away, but will keep it in mind on the "back-burner" and will see what I can do soon!

Tonight brought night 2 of the Beginning Quilting class. We started out with sub-cutting our strip sets from Monday night. And then..........





........a WHOLE lot of power chain-sewing. The end result was 48 identical blocks. Linda here is a coworker at the school, over in the Elementary wing. I'll admit that I went to her classroom yesterday to get her "take" on Monday night's class. I was thankful that she was excited about how the night went!



And POOOOR Janet! She really kept her patience when her machine decided to "act up" on us. She's getting used to a new machine (C'mas present); and she was really being tried tonight. Her thread would break every few blocks, and it seemed that no matter what we "trouble-shot", nothing seemed to be a remedy. New thread, new needle, rethread......nothing seemed to be the magic key. :0(


Hythe (pronounced Hi-eth) is plugging along and has my backup machine over the weekend to complete her "homework." She's such a perfectionist :0) She's trying her hardest to get perfect points, perfect piecing..... She's been a hoot :0)



And then we have Melissa, who seems to avoid the direct view of the camera! Reallly, look at the top cutting pic......EVEN when I crouched down to snap a pic, I couldn't get a nice shot of her face..... hmmmmmmmmmmm. Melissa, are you hiding from me when that camera comes out?!?!?!?!???!?!



Joy has been dubbed the "class over-achiever" since she's been the first to complete most of the tasks at any given time. Joy's layout provided the first "oooohs" & "aaaaahs" of the class. NOW I understand that "cool" feeling that many of you have blogged about after you've taken a class. There is a FUN commradery (sp?) that is created and it's FUN watching the quilts come together!

And see?????? Regarding Melissa "hiding" her face.......Case-n-Point! Here YET AGAIN I wasn't able to get a nice pic of her :0) But her layout brought yet more "ooooohs" & "aaaaaahs" from all of us. That magenta makes the eyes go all googly; such a NEAT illusion is created by her choice of colors.

I feel bad that I needed us to wrap up at such a strict time tonight (since I was playing vball at 9:00). SORRY LADIES!!!! I promise that we can hang-out longer for the next 2 sessions if you want. The room is ours until 10:00 each night!

Tomorrow night is Parent-Teacher conferences for me, so I don't foresee any quilting on the radar tomorrow night. BUT, we have Friday and Monday off of school for a Winter Break. I think I will concentrate on finishing the quilting on the Country Spirit quilt.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

"Class Act" - Night 1

Tonight was the first night of my "Beginning Quilting" class, and it was a blast and a hit at the same time! The ladies were a riot and came from a wide mix of sewing backgrounds. However, they all did share one thing: they all were beginners at quilting. So, it was a night of going back to the basics: mastering the 1/4", folding and cutting fabric using a rotary cutter, how to read the markings on the ruler (which they ALL picked up quite easily!), some strip-piecing and chain-sewing.

At one point, one of the ladies said she "felt bad that we are taking you away from your quilting tonight." Golly! Bless her heart, but I didn't mind one bit! I really had a blast! I am very surprised at how much they really were sponges, soaking up whatever tips and advice I shared. And of COURSE, I started by saying......"You can ask five different quilters the same question, and get five different answers and perspectives."

They all understood because one of the ladies used cooking as an example. We've all followed recipes, but after making that recipe enough times, you kinda "make it your own" by tweaking it. PERFECT example!



Wednesday will be the next class, during which time we plan to subcut the pieced strips and sew the cuts into blocks. I also have ambitions for them to piece all of the top, including borders by the end of the night Wednesday. No biggy if we need to push some of that off until the following class though.


I did "bargain" with them about class time Wednesday night since I need to be packed up and out of there by 8:30 to get to Volleyball. They, again, were all understanding, and we decided to move class time 1/2 hour earlier or to simply "show up when you can." I'm SO thankful it was a hit (at least to me).

Happy Monday!

Co-worker update: Blood pressure has been stable to most of the day, only changing when she is repositioned. Other than that, not much news.