My First Quilting Class!

You can probably tell I was excited to do this class.  I've only mentioned it in 3 previous blog posts!

I love penguins, so this was a no-brainer.

On our Sewing Night during the week before the class, I dug through mom's quilting stash and picked out some bright, funky fabrics to make my penguin quilt out of.  These are the winners.

I packed up mom's best quilting machine, some basic tools, and I happily set up my station.  I'm sharing my table with Alice, who was one of the founding members of our local quilt guild, along with my mom and 2 other ladies.  I was happy she was my table partner.

I believe they said there were 22 quilters at this class!  That sounds pretty big to me.

Shauna put on a trunk show the night before, and had everything out for us to peruse throughout the day.

She is a very hands-on instructor.  She set up her machine in the middle of the room and had us all gather around so she could show us her method of quilting.

This is the "test" quilt we got to practice on in the morning.  I absolutely love the way she quilts, and it totally changes the way I look at appliqué.  You fuse down only one layer at a time, then using the meandering method, you "draw" all over your quilt.  Then you fuse down the next layer, and so on.  Your backing, batting, and background are already together at this point, so you end up quilting it as you go.  So easy, so cute, and so much fun!!!  Look at that spiderweb!

She said any of us were welcome to use her machine, so I jumped on that like white on rice.  I've never set up a machine for meandering, and I knew mom's machine didn't have the right presser foot, so I didn't bother trying.  I just dove in!

This is my finished test quilt.  I did do some basic edgestitching on the tree branch, leaves, and the white stitching.  But boy, did I have fun with the meandering!  When I was drawing the lines on my pumpkin, I was squealing and laughing, and going woo hoo!  This opens up the whole world of appliqué quilting!  I LOVE IT!!!

I took some close-up shots of Shauna's quilts so you can see how she "draws" on her quilts.  And how cute are these critters?!

I absolutely love the cross-hatching on the snow shoes.

I don't have a lot of time to make decoration-related sewing projects, but learning this makes me want to make nothing but halloween quilts, just so I can put spider-webs all over them!

One thing my mom's machine is really good at is blanket-stitching.  I'm a big fan of this look.  And check out the detail on the scarf and cuffs.

This is one detail that I'm absolutely over the moon about.  The squiggly wire on the earmuffs!  XD

This is as far as I got that day.  I got my background all sewn together and layered with the batting and backing, and I sewed down the snow.  I was quite content to just work away one little layer at a time, but Shauna was so excited to see what all these colours looked like, that she made me lay them all out so we could have a look.  Then she called everyone over!  

They told me I was thinking outside the box.  I know I was, because when I was picking out these colours, I was breaking so many rules that my mom got frustrated and left!  Sorry!  I just know what I like, and I like bright colours!  Isn't he just too cute?

I can't wait to finish him!  I have no plans on tackling my penguin in the next couple weeks (boy quilts first!), but I think I should give myself a deadline of December 1, since that's when we decorate for Christmas, and I want to hang my penguin up on the door.

I had such a blast at my first quilt class!  Thank you, Shauna, for showing me an "outside-the-box" way of quilting.  This is the way it should be!  I can't tell you how much I love this method!