Sunday, April 22, 2012

Beginning Quilting

I teach a beginning quilting community college course a couple of times a year. The project I teach has all of the elements of traditional quilting, including strip piecing, applique, adding borders, quilting, binding and adding a hanging sleeve. This is one version of that project. In the first class, I talk about choosing fabric and the supplies each student will need. I also show my first quilt and point out there are almost no points on any of my stars. In addition, I show some of my more recent quilts but I want to make sure they know I was a beginner once, too. In a recent session of this course, I met a lady who was as passionate as myself about quilting and she inspired this design. The project I usually teach has a simpler applique design but as soon as Nancy learned how to piece the background she began making more backgrounds in different fabrics. Each background had a different theme so it needed a different applique design. So far, between the 2 of us, we have created 4 other applique designs. Our idea is to do seasonal banners and this rose is the banner for February. We have also finished designs for December, March, April and October. I will post pictures of those soon. Did you take a beginning class or are you self taught? What was your first project?

2 comments:

  1. My first project was a quilt I designed myself at age 17, a twin-sized bed quilt for my college dormitory room.

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  2. Wow, Mary Ann, I'm impressed! That's quite a project for a beginner! Do you still have it?

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