Sew Saturday ~ Quilting 201 & SS Class

Last weekend was definitely a sewing weekend.  Friday was my second free-motion quilting class.  Quilting 201 taught by Sam Prescott.  I came away from the second class much more confident in my FMQing.  :)  She even had me use the store's long arm quilter.  Oh my!  That thing can flat out move.  :)

 

Here are some of the designs we worked on.  The pictures are from the teacher's quilt.  I forgot to take pictures of my own practice pieces, but I can assure you the teacher's sample is better than mine.  :)  I still have a long ways to go, but with practice I think I can do a passable job.  My favorite thing to do are the swirly e's and l's like you see above.  I was terrible at doing the stars and by the time we got to our last design, feathers, my brain shut down and I could not make them look right at all.

 

After spending all day Friday working on FMQ, I got to go to my fun Star Shadow class.  First though, I had to prepare for the class by pre-cutting all the fabric.  I LOVE the purple colors I chose.  Is anyone surprised I chose shades of purple and lilac? 

To be honest when I first signed up for the class I wanted to do a patriotic quilt, and I still plan on using this pattern for a red white and blue wall hanging.  The store I went to didn't really have any Americana colors.  What they did have was an amazing selection of batiks.  I kept drooling over the purple batik, so I went with it.  I'm so glad I did.

The pattern had lots of different sized pieces.  To keep them all straight I wrote the size on a scrap of paper, then put each size in a small baggy with the paper showing, then I put all the same value fabric together in a bigger plastic bag.  This made it easier to find them.

The first lesson was on using the "Magic Wand" and "Wing Clipper" to make flying geese.  Tia told me the magic wand was so wonderful that it would even do the dishes for me when she sold it to me.  It didn't do the dishes, but it did make my perfectionist heart very happy!  So did the wing clipper.  Both were very handy tools.  There is very little waste and it helps you get perfect points.

Look at those geese ready to fly.  :)  That was the hardest part.  From there it is pretty easy to put together the star shadows.

Loris and Tia from Ruby Street Quilt Works were our teachers and they did a fabulous job.  I will certainly take another class from either of them in the future.    My afternoon ended up being very frustrating because of my machine.  It kept catching the fabric in the feed dogs.  UGH!  I spent the better part of 2 hours struggling with it before I finally figured out the problem.   By the time I got it figured out it was almost time for the class to end.  I decided some retail therapy was in order, so I bought some more fabric for my next quilt.  :)

Even though I only completed one or two of my star shadow blocks while in the class I was able to go home and complete several more.  In fact I have been working on my blocks a little bit each day.  It was fun to show my boys the "Stealth Bombers" I was making.  It was even more fun to watch them flying through my sewing machine.  

Creative Blessings,
Heather North

P.S.   Here is a picture of Loris's quilt.  I love the reds, creams and deep pinks she used.  Picture this in the fabric you see above and you will get an idea of what I am making.