Well, I’m finally back in the quilting mood! That is, as time allows… still. There always seems to be a lot of work that limits my sewing time. Plus running around that means more hours in the car now that I’m living out in the country. However, even though there are still quite a few sewing items packed away, I’m happy to say the sewing area is busy again. 🙂
I have now signed up for some more Craftsy classes. And I have to say this certainly works for me. I know many people like this platform because it allows users to play back to see part of the class time and time again. That actually hasn’t been my case. What I like is that it allows me to skip ahead to the parts I am most interested in! LOL 🙂
My quilting goal this year is to improve my free motion quilting skills. Like many of you, one of my favorite resource quilters is Leah Day. I thought her free motion quilting project was very interesting, and have occasionally played one of her videos to see how she quilted a particular design. I did not feel inclined, however, to follow along quilting all the samples, mainly because I just couldn’t see what I would do with them. I mean, even if I sew something as a sample, in the end it has to have some practical purpose for me. So when I saw Leah was offering a free motion quilting class on Craftsy using the 2012 BOM sampler, things clicked for me.
So I have now sewn all the blocks, in preparation for Leah’s Free Motion Quilting a Sampler class. Now, I don’t know about you, but quilting in many ways is like cooking for me. That is, I tend to read through a recipe… and then do things my own way. And that is pretty much how this sampler quilt is turning out. The thing is, the purpose behind this sampler is to teach several quilting techniques, all of which I already know and have been using for years. My purpose, on the other hand, was simply to sew up the blocks needed to be able to take Leah’s class.
Case in point: one of the BOM lessons focuses on curved blocks. I do know how to sew a curve, but in this case chose to applique the circles (and then cut in four), simply because it was faster for this particular block:
I am also an English Paper Piecing junkie. So I obediently sewed the first EPP block as instructed…
… but was too bored with the second one, so I dipped into my stash of 3/4″ hexies and put this more traditional block together, involving many more hexies than the block taught in the block. It IS my quilt after all, isn’t it? 🙂
The last lesson in this BOM series was on Paper Piecing. I dutifully printed out the patterns, picked out the fabrics, sat down to sew… and wouldn’t you know it… BALKED! I still don’t know why or when this happened, because I used to love PP. And now I hate it. Go figure. So I dug through all my boxes until I found the one with the orphan blocks. Yes, I actually preferred taking the time to do that rather than PP. And I found one of my very first blocks, left over from a Jacob’s ladder quilt I made way back in the nineties! So this one will go in the quilt, whether it fits Leah’s lesson or not. I’ll figure it out.
I also found another block… and this one was actually a paper pieced one. Not the design used in the BOM sampler, but paper pieced in the end. Does that count?
Ok, so the blocks have all been sewn and are ready for quilting.
I decided to do this as a quilt-as-you-go project, so will be working on each block individually and will then join them with a narrow sashing. All stacked up and in order, I am amazed at how little space a quilt actually takes up, considering all the warmth it provides. Ok… so let the free motion quilting begin!
Oh, yes… an additional note. I don’t know what you all do with your leftover itty bitty scraps. I do have mine organized in little plastic baskets, but they do tend to overflow after a while. So for the time being I have set aside some pieces of muslin, on a table next to the ironing board. I sprayed a little basting spray on the fabric, and as I cut the pieces for my blocks I scattered the leftover bits on the muslin. And the base for a collage is ready for quilting, embroidery, embellishing.. what have you!
I am a self-learner. I taught myself to sew and to quilt. And I taught myself how to draw. I am learning how to dye my own fabrics and am dabbling with mixed media. I am a quilt designer and teacher, and design and publish my own line of quilt patterns. With this blog I would like to share the bits and pieces of my life.
One Comment
Dear Angie: I did almost the same with the Craftsy 2012 BOM. I made some of the blocks as they came, but there were some I didn’t want to repeat, like EPP. But I like Paper piecing. Not a lot, but enough to understand there are some designs that are IMPOSIBLE to get with other technique. I used this quilt also to teach my students Modern designs in patchwork, so we made our own design, and as you, we’re quilting them one by one to join them with binding (another class topic). What I liked most about this 2012 BOM was to meet Ann Gibson. I admire her skills, her mood, and her good pronunciation helped me to improve my English skills. You have noticed that, didn’t you?