Wednesday, September 08, 2004

My first quilting class...

The class is taught at the Arlington "Fabric Corner" store. We're doing 6 blocks from:

First we're starting with Blocks in Box which is basically a ninepatch with a border and the border has corner blocks. This block isn't in the book - it's basically "the honeybee" from the book but without the appliquet. hmmm... i like the honeybee... but we're saving our appliquet till the end so i'll have to save that for another quilt.
The class is quilt as you go, so we're going to do 3 blocks then learn the quilting. So far I've got 4 fabrics, which should be enough for the top of all 6 blocks. Then I'll pick out a sashing, border and backing fabrics. The back can actually be something different for each block because it's quilt as you go and then it'll be reversible. I'm so excited. I cut out my templates yesterday when I got home and tonight I'm hoping to get my fabrics washed and pressed. The sewing is all by hand - which is so cool, and totally new to me.
Only problem is I'm not sure how much we're supposed to get finished before the next class. She said 15 minutes a day, I don't have that but I do have chunks of time like an hour every few days. Once I get the 9 patch put together I'll post a pic. I think that's all we have to do, but I couldn't say for sure. I'll probably just do as much as I can.
Tonight I'll be at my aunt and uncle's, we're working on a quilt already, a small one and if my aunt picked up background fabric we can start the appliquet of the log cabin basket we made. More appliquet :) Now I need a trip to JoAnn's to get the rest of my supplies I didn't want to buy at the store since it was kinda overpriced. I did however buy the book there (could have saved 8 dollars elsewhere but i figured it was a good thing to do), and I bought a lot of supplies but some basic stuff like pins (which I have a few of already), seam ripper (have one someplace) and large scissors I could get elsewhere. For now with the square ones I'll probably use my rotary cutter, i want to get a mini mat for it to bring to class too, even though no one else is using one but that's because it's more of an investment and I already have one. I also need a small ruler (only have large ones).
So I have 25 dollars more on my budget still - since I decided 75 for the class supplies - and i have a 10 dollar gift cert to JoAnn's so if i keep that under 20 I can get the rest of my fabric later in budget (we get 20% off fabric for our quilt).
That's my night - it was great and now I have these really long straw needles to get used to, but I already see great possibilities using longer ones for quilting (i just switched to petites for cross stitch recently). And I'm off - to read a bit in my book maybe.

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