Adventures in teaching - part two

Ok, on with the rest of the classes I taught this year.

 

These equilateral triangle quilts are from the equilateral triangle quilt class I taught at Stitchbird.

 

This is yet another class I taught twice this year, once at Stitchbird and once at Nancy's Stitch Studio.  Unfortunately, I only have photos from the Stitchbird class, but they were both great fun and my students did an amazing job.

 

The next few photos are from the free motion quilting class I taught at Stitchbird.  This was a two hour technique class, and so much fun.

 

I think free motion quilting is one of those things that is really nice to learn in person.  It's truly not that difficult, but having a little bit of encouragement and someone to make suggestions can make all the difference.

 

My students did amazingly well in this class, busting out a few of my favourite designs and then moving on to coming up with their own.  Awesome!

 

Last, but certainly not least, is my Garden for Birds class.  This one runs over six lessons, and is a form of sampler quilt, with students tackling a variety of blocks, piecing and applique. 

 

This class is always a blast to teach, because the quilts people produce are always so different from one another.

 

A few cats crept into these quilts, as well as other more creepy crawly creatures...

 

I would not have thought of doing an all solids version of this quilt, but I love how graphic and modern it turned out!

 

Another cat!  And I love this warm autumnal colour scheme!

 

The quilt above was made for its maker's third baby, who I'm sure will love it!  A couple of people in this class (and in other classes) had only just started sewing.  I love seeing people's confidence grow as they get to grips with sewing, and I'm always delighted when I get to the end of a class and know that people are converts to quilting!  

In this class, everyone started quilting their quilt by the last class, which I really strive for.  I always think it's nice, especially with a first quilt, to at least start the quilting in class.

So, that was my year of teaching.  It was pretty busy (not least because I was flat out at work at the same time), but so enjoyable.  Do you have any questions about teaching patchwork and quilting?

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I See Fire Quilt

For our local guild exhibition, we set a challenge based around the dresden plate block.  The idea was to make a small (36" square or smaller) quilt using one or more dresden plates, but to put your own twist on the block.

This quilt was my entry.  As you might be able to tell from the name, it was inspired by this Ed Sheeran song.  I wanted to create a fiery lava like background with dark swirling bits.  This quilt was a long time in the making - I started back in April, although I was plotting it for a while before that.

 

The background is made up of 2" finished squares cut from my stash of peach/red/purple fabrics - a combination I've had pulled for more than 2 years.  The dresden pieces are made from a variety of fabrics, but mostly from a bundle of black based fabrics from Distressed Threads.  The added a heap of interest and variety to these little pieces (and yes, all those dresden blades were a huge pain in the neck to make!).

 I joined all the dresden blades together in groups of five (quarter circles), and then joined them in a slightly random meandering pattern.  I stitched all the dresden blades in place using a straight stitch.  Once the top was finished, I straight line quilted around all the dresdens, and then quilted swirls and pebbles in the background.  I used two layers of batting to make the quilting really stand out, which worked quite well.

Because the top is quite busy and all that quilting can get a bit lost, I wanted to use something solid on the back.  You definitely get a better look at the quilting, and you can also tell that I used a red and light pink variegated thread.

I was really happy with this finished quilt - it was definitely quite a jump out of my comfort zone and is probably the closest I've come to making an art quilt (although it's definitely still very abstract!).  I'm even more happy now because it won a merit award in its category at the show!  My Garden for Birds 2 quilt won two merit awards as well - one in its category of small bed quilt made by one person, and one as a quilt by a first time entrant.  A pretty good haul of ribbons from my first ever exhibition, I reckon!

Quilt Stats
Pattern: original design
Finished Size: approx 34" square

Fabric: many

Backing: Oakshott shot cotton

Binding: Skull Stripe, from Dem Bones by Sarah Watson for Cloud 9 Fabrics

Pieced and quilted by: me

I'll be linking up with finish it up friday at crazy mom quilts.

Garden for Birds 2

Oh my goodness, I finished a quilt!  It feels like a very long time since I had a finished quilt to share with you, and I've been missing the feeling that comes with finishing something.

Anyway, a bit of history.  This quilt originally started out as a quick design sketch (yep, I am really great at drawing...).

And then I made the first version, for a friend's baby, in kind of similar colours to the original design (although a number of things changed).

This latest version uses a completely different colour palette (inspired by this quilt which my friend Anne has been working on) and the design has changed yet again.  I've been working slowly on this quilt for a while (you can see my WIP post from early June here) but this weekend I really needed to get it finished.

 

I'm teaching this quilt over a series of classes at Nancy's Embroidery, so I simplified some of the elements to make it more suitable for beginners.  I also added a greater variety of blocks to cover a variety of different skills.

 

I really had fun with this version - for example, those gingko leaves are reverse appliqué.  I cut the light part out of the fabric, put the green fabric behind, and machine blanket stitched it in place.  The two tone binding was a last minute choice - I really wanted quite a plain binding to calm the quilt down slightly, but I still wanted enough contrast so you could actually see the binding.  The light/dark split was the obvious solution (the light grey looks solid, but is actually the grey crosshatch from Architextures).

One thing that I was not very happy with in the last version of this quilt was the quilting.  Ultimately I didn't feel like it improved the quilt, and kind of only added to the chaos.  For this version, I really wanted to avoid that and went with a simple crosshatch pattern for the quilting.  I love how a crosshatch adds instant softness to a quilt, and in this case it totally does not distract from the piecing and appliqué.

I found a couple of garden themed fabrics in my stash that were just perfect for the backing.  I especially love that green fabric - I wish I'd bought more (and may have to hunt more out!).

So this quilt will be hanging out at Nancy's for the next couple of weeks, before I take it off to be entered in the Capital Quilters' exhibition.  Wellingtonians, if you'd like to make your own version, I believe there are still places in the class and you can get all the details on the Nancy's website.  I think it will be a fairly challenging class for a beginner, but if you come ready and keen to learn, you will learn a lot.

Quilt Stats
Pattern: my Garden for Birds pattern
Finished Size: approx 36" by 42"

Fabric: many

Backing: Petunia in Pink from Little Azalea by Dena Fishbein, Field Day in Green by Josephine Kimberling for Blend Fabrics

Binding: Kona cotton in Steel, Architextures grey crosshatch

Pieced and quilted by: me

I'll be linking up with finish it up friday at crazy mom quilts.

WIP Thursday

Running late for WIP Wednesday - hotel wifi is not always reliable...

 

I've had a stack of fabrics running from lightest peach through brightest red and on to plummy purple pulled for ages.  I didn't have a pattern in mind, but then I decided to take the opportunity offered by the need to make a quilt for my local guild's Dresden plate challenge.

 

Getting this colour wash effect was surprising difficult and involved a lot of rearranging!

Now I'm working on hundreds of tiny dresden blades.  This quilt is a bit of a moving feast so I'm keeping the final plan under wraps for now.

It's still Wednesday somewhere, so I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced:

By the way, I've drawn the winner for my Sew Me a Song giveaway, and it was comment number 63. I've been in touch with the winner Ella already!  Thank you so much to everyone who entered.

WIP Wednesday

I'm still working on my Garden for Birds Quilt.  It has changed a bit from the original plan - that's the fun thing about a quilt like this.  Here's where I'm up to at the moment.

I'm hoping to get this quilt top finished up this week.  Then I'll have to think about the quilting.  On one hand I think something super simple since there's already so much going on would be good - on the other hand I think different FMQ designs to complement the different blocks could be cool too.  I guess we'll see what kind of mood I'm in when I come to quilt this one!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced:

P.S. Don't forget to enter my giveaway - it's open until Friday.

WIP Wednesday

A good friend of mine is expecting her first child soon - a much longed for baby girl.  I'm so pleased for her (and also for myself, because I've been hanging out to make a baby girl quilt all year) and to celebrate I designed this completely over the top quilt.

I hope my sketch is encouraging to anyone else who is thinking about designing their own quilts - you can see that my drawing skills are pretty minimal (yes, those are birds and flowers) but that hasn't stopped me and it shouldn't stop you!

I really wanted to create a quilt that was fun and a little bit crazy, and would allow me to use lots of different colours and fabrics.  This quilt uses a variety of different techniques, including piecing and appliqué, but the intention is that it's simple enough for even a fairly novice quilter to make.

I spent the weekend at my first ever quilting retreat.  It was awesome - I got a bunch done and it was lovely to hang out with lots of quilting obsessed people like me.  I took the opportunity to make a start on this baby quilt.  I'm pretty happy with where it's going so far and can't wait to work on it some more this weekend.  I have to give a special shout out to my friend Helen (aka the appliqué queen) - she was on the retreat too and she did a beautiful job of the machine blanket stitch on the central appliqué block - thanks Helen!

Have you been to a quilting retreat before?  I'd definitely do it again - my only complaint was that it was too short!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced: