I'm a quilter now!

According to my quilting teacher every finished quilt is supposed to have a name. This one is called "I'm a Quilter Now!" This is the quilt I worked on in my beginners quilting class. I learned all kinds of stuff and so many techniques! I finished it last weekend but in my mind it's not really done until its been washed. I got a chance to wash it this weekend so it's officially done!

quilting progress

Hi all- I feel like I am really lagging with my blogging. Life is just busy.

Last night I had my quilting class and I actually started turning my quilt top into an actual quilt! For those non quilters out there a quilt isn't a quilt until you actually sew the top to the batting in the middle to the back. I'm learning how to do it on the machine vs. hand quilting it. It's not easy because you have to maneuver three somewhat heavy and bulky layers around. I found that my first run of stitching has super uneven stitches. Some were really small and others were bigger. I think it just takes time to get the rythm down pat.

This is the quilt after the three layers have all been pinned together, before starting to sew it together.

quilting class

Ok, so I haven't done any sewing yet, but this is the layout for my quilt. I chose a light pink sort of textured fabric for the sashing and I'm going to do little squares of matching fabric in between. I can't remember what they are called. There will be pink around the outside of the squares too. I'm hoping to work on it tonight, but it's not looking like it will happen. I'm feeling kind of lazy and it's already 6:00 and I have to make dinner.

quilting progress

So tonight I finished the final square I needed to do. I spent two hours at the fabric store yesterday trying to pick out the sashing fabric. I ended up with the plain blue you see behind all of the squares. I don't know that I'm sold on it, I wanted something with a pattern of some sort. I'm hoping that my instructor will be able to suggest the perfect fabric for me, otherwise it'll be the blue.

quilting progress

Last night I leaned a new technique that was very time consuming. The instructor said it's her favorite technique but it was a lot of work so I'm still not sure how I felt about it. It's called paper piecing and it's sort of like using a pattern when sewing clothes, but it's also not like that. The square is finished but the paper is still sewn on to the back. The basic idea and purpose of it is to be able to create more complex shapes accurately. It's too complicated to explain here but the pictures sort of kind of tell the story. I also did another square that's a heart but I don't have pictures of it yet. I'll post those this weekend along with my homework. Now it's time to go watch Grey's Anatomy!

Quilting progress

I'm usually passed out in bed by this time. I had to stay up to finish doing my homework for my quilting class and I'm so excited about it I stayed up to share on here. Yeay! I'm so excited about my class!

Latest quilting progress

I have to make this quick as I need to go work on the rest of the squares I am supposed to finish before Wednesday. I'll write more of the detail about how I made these squares later, it's really cool.

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!

First quilting class

Tonight I had my first of 6 quilting classes. I really enjoyed it and it went by really fast. It was three hours long but felt like one hour. I learned how to cut and measure properly and how to make sure I'm sewing 1/4" seams. I did one square that has three long rectangular pieces and one with 9 square pieces. The 9 square piece is done but I didn't take a picture of it.

I learned some really cool techniques and that I don't have to do some of the things I thought were necessary when quilting. Not doing those things is a huge time saver!

I'll hopefully be taking pictures each week to share my progress.