A new beginning

June 10, 2020

Yesterday we tried our first online quilting lesson. I think starting with a design and planning session was wise, it is the easiest to do camera wise. Hardware for online video is very hard to get atm, and until I can figure out what we need I don’t really want to overspend. Now I at leaast have proof of concept. People enjoyed being able to connect as a group of quilters, that was a biggie and I am pleased that worked. Being online allowed a student further away to come back to class, that’s pretty awesome too. I rather hope that as I put more classes together my students from other countries may be able to join us too, although I am aware time zones may make this tricky. I will continue with the Tuesday discussion group for the Monday quilt project. It also came up that some people would like to take part but are short of fabric, so I am proposing making up some kits for the quilt. This is a rather lose definition of kit, it will be  bundle of fabric that I think will play nicely together. I am thinking of doing two options. Either a bundle of eight 1/2m pieces of ombre fabrics with 4m of background. There will be choices of bachground. Or a bundle of 20 fat quarters with 4m of background. This is essentially what I am using in my quilt. In either case there should be enough for a good size quilt but yes at some point you will run out and yes then you have to stop. As I am still not leaving the house I would either be looking for people who can pick up their bundle of fabric, socially distanced of course, or I would need to find a shipping company who will collect from me. I think Hermes does this but I am also aware they are not the greatest company. We will see how this goes, but the offer is there is there any interest?

This weeks discussion was a bit of a challenge as well as it being new to all of us, folded patchwork is a tricky technique. We did however cme up with a lot of ideas. From paper aeroplanes to cathedreal windows, there are actually a lot of things you can do within this instruction. We did cover that just putting a border on badly and getting a tuck in it would technically count. I think I have decided what I will be doing for mine. I think I am going to do a variation of the folded flying geese technique. maybe for yet more friendship stars and maybe for a few pinwheels which might look somewhat star like. Having 12″ will give me some space to play at least. In related news I have finally finished making the 100 3″ friendship stars. I can say I am really sick of them. Getting fed up with making them made me very worried that I would have poor acuracy. I could see issues in some of the blocks. Having now put on most of the sashings for the 4″ stars border I am much happier with my blocks. they are a thread or 2 off but pretty good. I think they looked more worrying becasue they are so small. A thread or two on a 12″ block will but much less obvious than on a 3″ block. Either way they are done and the actual border assembly looks like it will be a lot quicker than making the blocks. If all goes well I may be adding all 3 of the outstanding borders this week. Wish me luck.