Design Wall Monday 7-18-2011

Been a while since I did a design wall Monday. So I will jump into it again. I am the worse blog writer. I do quilting things for teaching and personal projects, but when it comes to telling about them. I feel that they are not anything worthy enough to write about, a snip here or a one seam here kind of thing. My quilting projects are mostly teaching samples for my classes at the present time. I get so wrapped up   into getting the project done and to the shops that I forget to take pictures of them.  I have about 5 projects going at the present time, and only one is at the stage to be on the design wall. This current project is a class sample for the Quilters’ academy book number 3. It is a wonderful book to learn different techniques for half square triangles, flying geese block tricks and basics about sewing on the bias. I started out with a plan to make the sample quilt that has 9 different blocks that consist of 16 half square block that are arranged in different configurations. I sewed one block together and thought that my students would get frustrated with getting the points aligned. So I modified the blocks to incorporate flying geese and s2s blocks. Sixteen 2” blocks are a pain to put together, let alone teach it to others. Some of my students are somewhat beginners and I want them to feel like they can do the quilt without getting frustrated and quit.

This morning as I was sewing the sashing to the blocks and trying to keep everything square with the star points I made a decision that this quilt will be to difficult for some people. Since I already have one row sashing sewed on I decided to make a small table runner out of it. The other blocks I rearranged to make a modified table running that is in the book. The bottom line I will teach the techniques and the students can arrange the blocks as them want later.
I will try to post about my new sewing machine baby that I simply love for free motion quilting tomorrow. Till then, jump over to Judy’s blog and see what others are doing.

Whirlwind and changes

Well the last two months have been a whirlwind. From working a large quilt show here in Jacksonville FL for 3 days, to a 7 day cruise to the Eastern Caribbean, to coming back to work and couple of weeks later finding out that my hours at work will be cut to 24 from 40 hours. The plus side of fewer hours, maybe I can get reorganized to start putting some more quilting and piecing classes together in the local area. I also want to put into place a business plan to start my own business. Just not sure if I want to go into the direction of teaching quilting on a large scale or do my second love of computers. Starting a computer consulting business is very risky in that the field is flooded with everyone thinking they can give help about computers. I would love to combine the two fields together, teaching quilting and how to use the computer to the best advantage. So many things can make quilting easier if you can use the computer, from software programs, such as EQ, to drawing quilting designs on the computer first. Just the use of taking a picture and looking at the fabric in a different media will give you a different perceptive to fabric choices.
The one thing that I do know is that I will have to work on my computer certifications, bring them up to date. I finished school 4 years ago, and have not done anything with getting a job in the field or keeping my certifications up to date. So some of my extra time will be hitting the books again. The cut in hours will only be a short lived thing, the next step will be finding a new job in March when this job, ( with the cut hours) will lose the contract money completely.
On the teaching front I started teaching a beginners class from the Quilters' Academy book again. This time I have 4 students. The first night is a really fast and whirlwind of a time. Trying to get the terminology covered and try to start cutting on fabric, within a two hour time frame, is almost impossible. Last night was the second class and things went good, a couple of things about sewing the strip sets together and learning to rip is always the at the top of the things happening in the beginners class. With the extra time I will be able to post more about the classes and things from the Quilters' Academy book that I discover as I do the project myself.

Where does time fly off to!!

I can not believe that it's been two months since I blogged. I really need to do it more often. I think the last thing that I left off with was having a FMQ (free motion quilting) class to teach. Both of the classes that I taught went very well. They all said that they enjoyed it and learned a couple of things. In teaching any class the one thing that I want a student to leave with is the satisfaction that at least they got what they paid for and to learn at least one new thing. I have another FMQ class scheduled in November.
The other class that I taught was the beginners quilting class that I used Quilters' Academy book by Harriet and Carrie Hargrave. With 5 students it went very well, resulting in another class in October that will continue with parts from the first book. It is almost impossible to cover a large percentage of the ideas and instructions from this book in only 8 hours of class. To do it right it has to be done in about 16 to 20 hours. It is better to learn the basics and in short increments than having student that are overwhelmed by massive piecing instructions. I believe that some quilters have not learned to think more than what a quilt pattern says to do. The ability to understand and create a pattern is far more rewarding than to just copy something that someone else has done before.
I hope to make time to show tutorials on my blog with step by step instructions on doing basic concepts. Like how to get perfect points and having a nine patch be the right size when you get finished. One of the things that I showed my students in the Quilters' Academy class that when they finished the center block in the sampler, to know how to fix the seams so that is comes out the correct size. Just because the nine parts are the same at the beginning does not always come out the correct size at the end. Knowing the size of the blocks and using the ruler you can figure out what seam is off and correct it from that point. Without ripping the entire block apart.

Till later
Cher

Quilters Academy sampler

Just want to show that I started working on class samples for my class that I'll be teaching in July. The color is a little off. I really have to learn how to edit photo with adobe photoshop element. There are two more parts that I want to work on this weekend. The sampler is from the book Quilter's Academy by Harriet and Carrie Hargrave. It really is a great book for beginners and quilt veterans alike. It teaches the basics and tells you the reasoning behind why you use a specific thread and needle. And why thing come out one way and they are suppose to come out a different way in the piecing process. In doing the series, a quilter can learn and also enjoy the process of piecing with very little frustrations.

Classes at LQS

Just want to pop in and say that I made arrangements with one of the LQS to teach two classes this summer. One is the Quilters Academy series book #1 by Harriet Hargrave. It will consist of four classes that hopefully will be just enough to make things clear but not to fast for a beginner quilter to understand the basic concepts. I plan on teaching from the book doing a couple of projects. Mostly giving the students the guidelines and hold anybodies hands that are not sure of things. I 'm really looking forward to teaching this class. I have always felt that something in the quilting community has been missing. After scanning the book I realized what they were.
The basics, in making quilts to clothing or even craft items, you can not make a good fit with poor or wrong size pieces. Understanding the reason why fabrics lay a certain way and the proper size thread and needle mix together is what results in a good to excellent items. The type of items that everyone wants to win a blue ribbon with. I see several quilts shops that I have visited through out the United States give a quilting class on one project. Telling the quilter to cut this many pieces and seam together this piece to that piece to make one quilt. This logic is OK if the quilter knows the correct way to lay the fabric and cut to achieving the correct seam. Or better yet how to change something to get the correct answer to have the perfect block. I hope to write in the blog the process of me sewing the samples for the classes to some pics and ideas that results in the classes.
The other class is Free motion quilting that will hopefully result in making quilters to believe that doing free motion quilting on a home sewing machine is not any harder than drawing on paper, but you need PRATICE to achieve the results that are so worth the effort.
With luck this weekend I will be cutting and sewing the first project together. Maybe I can have something to show on the blog soon.

New Year and New Ideas

Well the holidays are past and only 11 months till the Christmas 2010 is here before we know it. The Christmas wrapping and everything else was done by 9:00 PM Christmas Eve, with 10 minutes to spare. Overall the holiday was pretty good, no surprises and very, very little arguing from my children. All the Christmas decorations are put away, just have to wait or DH and DS to put them back up in the attic.

I am looking forward to getting several things done and a few things started in 2010. Especially getting the new career going with designing and teaching in the local area. I keep a list of several projects that I am doing (UFOs) and projects that I want to do. This list keeps me grounded as to not adding new projects, and keeps the list in perspective to what I want to finish. In the beginning of 2009 I had 114 items on the list and I might add that this was not a complete list of everything. Not all of these items are quilting, some are sewing garments, to painting, hand needlework, etc. This is the reason why I keep a list to ground me in the right direction, otherwise the list would be in the 2 to 3 hundred range and very little would get finished. As the end of 2009 I completed 25 items. Now you would think that the list would be 89 items on it, well I see things I want to do and buy the fabric or thread or whatever is needed, then a new item is added to the list. As a result the list as of the start of 2010 has 116 items.

New Beginning to the last career

Starting a new career is always a little scary at first. But this time I am hoping for some fun and less stress with this new career. After all it's not like I just started quilting and sewing yesterday. Of all the things I have done, sewing and needlework has been the longest learning process that as to date that engulfs 45 years of experimenting to perfecting. Other adventures have come and gone with some successful and some that just was not the right time or idea that I wanted to pursue. I am also hoping that if I call it a new career and not a hobby anymore then it will be successful and make it through this rough times that this economy is going through.


My overall plan is to start teaching at local shops to teaching in shops in other towns and cities in the southern states in about five years. That in late 2010 have quilt designs that I can publish and start the ball to selling my own designs. With luck I hope to be self employed by late 2011. If not 2011, for sure by the end of 2012.

Last but not least, please feel free to comment. I love to hear what other quilting bloggers have to say. I read somewhere around 2 to 20 blogs a week and love to find new ones. I have learned a tidbit here and there from others willing to share. That is one of the best parts of the quilting community is that so many of us quilters love to share and teach this wonderful craft.
If anybody has some helpful advise in the selling and designing of quilts or embroidery designs please let me know. Though I have taught needlework and sewing classes in the past, things do change. I am always looking to improve techniques and share with others. I believe that one of the most important things that we can do in life is to share and help others, even something as small as teaching someone to sew a quilt or garment.

Let the adventure begin
Cheryl