Saturday, April 25, 2009

More quilting stuff...

I'm so excited about this! The teacher for my quilting class reccomended getting the super large self healing cutting mat and the big clear marked ruler because it makes the process so much easier. They aren't cheap by any means so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get them. However I found out they were 50% off at Joanne's so I got both of them for less than it would have cost to buy just the cutting mat!!! Yeay super yeay!!!! I'm so stoked to have the right equipment! Look how much of my table it fills up!

I just finished my homework for quilting class. I had to finish the other 9 square piece. I want to share the techniques that I learned that I found to be very useful.
One thing I have always thought I needed to do was to do a reverse stitch to lock it down. The teacher told us not to do that as it will eventually get locked later on when stitching other parts of the quilt together. She is all about saving time! She also taught us to always have a piece of fabric under the needle before starting and after finishing. This is kind of hard to explain in text but basically when you are ready to start sewing two pieces together front to front you already have a different piece of fabric underneath the needle when you start. Just push your new fabric up to the edge of that one and keep sewing. When you get to the end cut the extra fabric off of the first end and add it back onto the end. Doing this keeps you from getting a birds nest with your thread because it's continuously under the needle and ready to go.
Another helpful hint was that we didn't have to iron open the seams! I love this tip!!! I hate ironing and it has to be my least favorite part of quilting. rather than ironing open the seam she taught us to iron light to dark. If you iron the light side of the fabric down to the dark side it won't show through later on.
She also showed a great way to make sure the corners are always lined up which has been a problem for me in the past. Anyhow, here are all four of my finished squares, I'm so proud of them!


I'm really excited about this class. I've been looking forward to the next one since I got done with the last one! I can't wait to see it finished!

1 comment:

Butterfly said...

Don;t you just love Joann's bargains. I love their 50% sales I signed off up for their coupons and get them in the mail and online very couple of weeks. I never pay full price there,

Enjoying following your quilt project. I hate ironing too but will iron fabric for my quits all day long. I use Mary Ellen's Best Press - The Clear Starch Alternative and it really works wonders to blocks and also when when pressing a completed top.

Looking forward to the next installment,

Leona

PS Can you email me your snail mail adress!