Eight new and experienced quilters came together Friday night and Saturday to create wall/lap quilts using the Friendship Star block (also called Spinning Stars, Ribbon Quilt, etc.) This is a basic 9-patch that uses half-square triangles to create the block. To make the piecing easier for the beginners, we used the Accucut to cut the triangles and the squares. Everyone had stacks of triangles to match and stitch. These were easy to chain stitch together - 96 total sets. Shannon has quite a pile of triangle squares here!
Once quarter inch seams were established, everyone stitched along merrily with only the occassional sewing machine jam or a set sewn wrong sides together. Seam rippers did not gather dust!
Once the triangles were assembled, blocks were laid out in a 9-patch arangement. Rows were sewn together and the blocks assembled. Now comes the "wow" factor as everyone sees how their chosen fabrics work together.
At one point, Michelle realizes that she is now a quilter; she arrived in the morning as an ordinary person, and by afternoon was a quilter. She needs the T-shirt! And she needs to add her borders! Be sure to measure across the middle to square it all up.
Once the borders were added, we pin-basted so the quilts could be quilted by machine. No one opted for hand quilting this time! Linda decided she would try free motion quilting and did quite a nice job on her Pfaff! Gardening gloves and all!
Cindy also chose free motion quilting (first time), broken needles and stress. She remembered to breathe, but still tightened up the muscles across her shoulders. Would a glass of wine before stitching help? Maybe we'll try that next time!
Others followed lines drawn onto the fabric.
We ended with the binding, mitering corners and all! Hand sewing the binding is a job for at home, but what a day! Everyone deserves a T-shirt! Click on the photo album for more photos!
This was an amazing class; I learned so much! And what a great group of ladies! Thank you and I will certainly be attending more classes.
Posted by: Sandra | March 06, 2011 at 01:37 PM