First Quilting Class

My mom emailed me and she commented on how often she checks my blog for updates - I took that as a hint that I need to post a little more than once a week. She's a pretty darn busy lady these days, and if she can tell that I haven't been posting too much... than anybody can! :P

So onto my first quilt-related class ever! Yeah, I've been quilting for a good 4 years and finally do a class. It was absolutely wonderful. I'm so glad my friend talked me into doing it - I did say no at first. I was worried about a few things, but instead I had a blast and time just flew by! :)

The instructor explain how stenciling works, and then she gave us a little 4" chicken to "practice" on. It took me about an hour.

I think I'll call her "Dotty the Lippy Chick". Or maybe it should be "Chicken DO have lips!" The cool thing about these stencils is that you can wash them, iron them and even leave them outside and they won't fade! They did suggest that you don't sew through the painted stuff though.

All it uses is regular white fabric/muslin, freezer paper, acrylic paint (yeah, the 97 cent stuff at WalMart!) and a pattern to trace from. Or you could buy stencils. Another idea to is buy a coloring book and trace those.

This is the main project on a 13 inch square piece of fabric. I was really ambitious and brought twenty-seven 13" square pieces... and only used one. D'oh! Well, the directions weren't clear... no biggie though. I'm going to cut them down to 6.5" squares and do more stenciling after I move.

For some reason it was harder to control the color on a bigger piece. In my chicken you can see shading and tones of different colors, but in my basket I'm pretty much one color through out each stencil part. But it still was so much fun!

Another perk about stenciling is that it's almost like embroidery or hard applique for people who don't have the skills or money to invest in those stuff. Two stenciling books are "Fast and Fun Stenciled Quilts" and "American Stenciled Quilts" both by Vicki Garnas. Currently they're available really cheap on Amazon - like 39 cents and $2.15. I did flip through them, but I think once you understand the method you'll want to come up with patterns of your own. I'm planning to buy a coloring book and make my own later by tracing the designs onto the freezer paper.

Tonight is prom night... and my poor husband is stuck chaperoning and cleaning up after the kids. I ran to the store after he left and I grabbed a bag of his favorite candy. I also did some cleaning up and vacuuming, just to make the place more "welcome home" like. Hopefully that'll cheer him up some. :)

And I've been packing. Oh, the packing! Shh... I packed fabric. That was hard to do... what if I need some?! But lets face it... I haven't even used my sewing machine in a week and half. Well, I did get a binding hand sewn through out the week. And I got some eggplant batik in the mail today. Let's not forget the 9 spools of Aurifil thread I ordered today. I'm on my VERY last spool of Gutterman thread. I swore off Coats and Clark because it linted up my machine like heck! :P I got blues, greens, pinks, purple, yellow and grey. Yeah. No black or white or neutral. I love scrappy quilts, and I also like using colorful thread. I will even put a different color in my bobbin, really helps me watch my tension too.

Hope you're all doing a lot of quilting for me - I don't see myself accessing the machine any time soon. I just wish it were May 19th already. I'll just load up my car in the meantime! :)

Leah