Quilting – a new adventure

To continue my quilting theme, I thought I would mention that I don’t really like the cutting part of the quilting.

Now, to those of you who have not been bitten by the quilting bug, I know it seems a little silly (nay, stupid) to cut up big chunks of fabric into tiny little pieces, only to sew those tiny little pieces into big chunks of fabric.

And, you know, that’s true. Sort of.

It’s the color and placement of that color to make a block (design) and then sew those blocks together to form a design that’s the fun of it.

Go here and play with the color and block placement. Small changes can make big differences in how the block looks and what secondary patterns might emerge once the blocks are laid out to form the quilt.

But.

You have to cut all that fabric. And there are very specific rules about it. Very. specific.

I have read the discussions of how to get a perfect cut 4,263,482 times and I still can’t get my strip of fabric to 1) not have a wavy edge to it somewhere along the line or 2) be the same width from top to bottom. I don’t know why. I know my reading comprehension is good. I know I have read the English version of all the quilting magazines and books. I know I don’t get distracted along the way and take a little vacation in my mind. I’m holding a rotary cutter for crying out loud, I am absolutely focused on the cutting (and I have all 10 digits to prove it).

I have considered that the invisible quilting gremlins come by and tug ever so gently on the fabric to screw me up, but nobody else seems to buy that explanation.

I have all sorts of gizmos that are supposed to help me get the perfect cut. Yeaaaahhhhh…..

Recently, I was in a quilt shop not far from the house and found out that the owner was going to be conduct an applique class.

I had thought about trying applique. I’ve seen some beautiful examples of it and wondered if I could do it. I’ve done handwork, and really enjoy it. I have done crewel and cross stitch in the past. I love counted cross stitch and, if I didn’t have a job that required me to look at a computer screen all day, I’d probably still be doing that. As it is, I just don’t have the eyes for it anymore.
I also like the fact that it is handwork. You don’t have to have a sewing machine set up and sequester yourself from the activities of the family. You also don’t have to necessarily have a big block of time available to you. I can’t tell you the number of times I wished I could sew a little, only to realize that I only have 15 minutes before I have to be back in the kitchen to start the green beans. With applique, you can trace and cut out your pattern pieces, stash them away, and work on them in the 5, 10, 15 minutes you have between tasks. But the real upside to applique is, say it with me, no cutting long strips of fabric that summon the quilting gremlins!

So, I signed up for the class. This is the second quilting class I have taken. The first one, taken several years ago, was on hand quilting. It was an introductory class, and maybe I had read and tried too much, but yikes! It was elementary to the point of being useless. The instructor knew less about the subject than I did (really) or perhaps she just wasn’t a good teacher…whichever, I kind of felt cheated. Nevertheless, I took a chance on the applique class – different shop, different instructor, different outcome, right?

Not so much. The instructor/shop owner was flustered and flighty most of the class. Of the two hour class, she may have been with us about 30 minutes. She kind of did a drive by of certain elements, but left just as many topics unaddressed. The class was for two 2-hour sessions, so I will be taking the second half the end of the week. I hope the instructor has more time to spend with the class. There are only three of us, so we should be able to get all our questions answered.

The project we’re working on is not something I would pick and probably won’t be something I’ll display – it’s a little too folksy for me. But it will hopefully provide me with the motivation to start a project that I do like.

I found a very nice site online called Hoopla Patterns. They have terrific authentic reproduction patterns and the owner, Froncie Quinn was super nice. The pattern I have ordered is called Bias Pomegranate:

Technorati Profile

powered by performancing firefox

Technorati Tags: quilting, applique, crewel, counted cross stitch, quilting class, Hoopla Patterns, reproduction patterns, Quilting, patterns, applique