Quilting Class - Week 1

On Sunday, I went to the first of six sessions for a beginner's quilting class at a local quilt shop.  Throughout the course of the class, we'll be making blocks to complete the quilt below.

The basic techniques are taught in-class and then you finish the blocks up on your own at home.  This first week, most of the time was spent going through how to straighten your fabric, press it, and cut the strips.  The last hour of the class was spent actually sewing the center pieces of the log cabin blocks to the first strip to form the "logs" of the block (the two cream colored pieces next to the red square in the above picture).

By far, I was the most experienced quilter there.  There was another woman who is probably in her 60s that has made some quilts, but nothing very recent.  Most of the other women there (6 of us total) had either done no quilting or had just tried it once or twice without much success.  Despite not really "learning" anything at the first class (it was all stuff I knew how to do), I had a good time.  The instructor said that while there are 16 log cabin blocks, people just really have to make 4 of them in order to do the appliqued heart during week 4 or 5.

When I got home from class, I cut the remaining strips necessary to sew all of the log cabin blocks.  The pieces are all set to go, I just have to start sewing them onto the blocks.  It will be a bit tedious since you have to add one strip, then press, then add the next strip, and press, and so forth.  There's a total of 12 "logs" that have to be added around the center square, so its 12 times of sewing and pressing on each block.  Plus, to make sure it goes together correctly, you have to make sure everything is the proper size after each log is added.

These are the fabrics that I'm using for the quilt.  The red is the accent fabric to match the red in the pattern picture above.  Then I have 3 shades of blue that will replace the greens in the picture.  Then I have three different creams/tans to use as my "lights".

 

I hope that I'll be able to get to putting the log cabin blocks together this week so that I can bring them to class completely finished.  Plus, I'll then be able to share more pictures along with counting the fabric as stash used. ;-)