I'm getting ready to teach a beginning quilting class at the Three Black Sheep Shoppe, which is my fave yarn shop, that now also carries fabric. After my lecture demo, there was some interest in doing a workshop on Quilt As You Go, and so that challenged me to design an easy peasy class just for beginning quilters.One of my favorite jumping off points, as you might have guessed, is to work with strips. Since we'll have a kit of ten colors in long quarters, we will cut a strip from each color, sew them together into two sets of five colors and then cut those into equal sized squares. Cut twice more, diagonally and we have the parts to make up the blocks above. I am sure many of you have done this before.
Then repeat with the rest of the strips.
I couldn't decide at first how I wanted to sew them together, so I took some photos, and copied and pasted them into patterns using Microsoft Word. Yes, Word! I went nuts with the possible layouts!
They look so complicated and 'advanced' but it is all in the arrangement. Do you think it will scare away beginners or make them excited to make quilts?
It would scare me, Melody, but I'm an old (less than computer savy) quilter. What was that about sewing and then cutting apart... you lost me there. (See, I'd never make it to the computer stuff.)
ReplyDeleteHugs
This looks very cool - I need to learn how to do this on Word! I've been quilting for a while, and I could totally see me do sth like that!
ReplyDeleteThis is my teacher hat on now, if they are biginner beginners, I think initially it would be good to have a selection of say 3-4 quite different designs to show them anything more gets quite overwhelming. The more experience they have or the more questions they ask about additional layouts, the more of the examples I would show them. Just my 5c worth :-) (and we don't even have 5c pieces anymore in NZ lol).
I would explain how they are going to make the squares first. Then, show them all the options of what to do with them afterwards.
ReplyDeleteSome good points were made in the prior comments. Any way you look at it... this is COOL and your students will want to DO THIS.
ReplyDeleteI like the red box quilt best.
Love the first arrangement. Broken down into small steps, it will be fun to make
ReplyDeleteexcited! Lois
ReplyDeleteIt sounds perfect to me! Make the title of the class "Endless Possibilities" and let them know you'll demonstrate and I think the class will be filled to capacity! Lucky students!
ReplyDeleteI don't think it will scare the beginners away if you show an example of the strata component along with the finished sample.
ReplyDeleteYikes! I'm amazed at how many variations you came up with! Now you need to write the tute on how to do this in word... I would love to play with designs like that! Can't wait to hear how your class goes...
ReplyDeleteSlightly confused here--5 strips in each of 2 colorways I get, but there are only 3 strips in each block. Are you cross-cutting squares that are only 3 strips, alternating sides for the bottom? Or cutting the center strip in half? It looks wonderful, by the way!
ReplyDeleteHere's an easy to follow tute:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reddawn.net/quilt/hwells.htm
BTW, some of these designs use only one block of the two blocks we make. More confusion! Of course in my class, this will all be shown, with examples, and explained clearly.
I think it's a wonderful class for anyone. Love your designs and colors, what fun.
ReplyDeleteHi Melody
ReplyDeleteI'd show them ONE layout at the beginning. Then, when they've got most of their blocks done I would demonstrate with their blocks, setting them up in the given arrangement and then turning them to show some other arrangements. Then I would challenge them to come up with a different one that they like better. Some will want to stick with what you started with, others will run with the idea and get great pleasure from putting their own interpretation into it.
Thanks for the link because it does show things clearly. I couldn't understand where you were getting 5 stripes sewn together from. Looked like 3 to me.
ReplyDeleteBut what a cleaver idea! I will have to give this a try.
Hi!!! I am a brand new quilter so I would say both!!! Scared and excited!!! But always ready for a fun adventure!!! Your first photo looks amazing!!! I can't imagine many not wanting to try it!!!
ReplyDeleteThese are wonderful designs, Melody! I think they're great for your class. The construction is easy and with lots of designs to choose from, everyone's quilt will look different.
ReplyDeleteThat is totally cool! I would be scared UNTIL you showed me how easy it was; then I would be excited. Will you please share how you created these patterns in Word - I'm very interested in that! :-)
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