Play day!

Yesterday was a play day. I couldn't really afford the time for a play day, but it seemed like a good idea at the time when the play day was booked.

On a serious note - if anyone is in the $25 class at the Hobby Horse TODAY, the class has been canceled (and the schedule will be adjusted to accommodate the missed class). The parking lot is a mess with ice and they're working on getting it cleared up. That gives me some free time this morning, but I'll just plug away at more sample making and be that much further ahead.

The planning for the play day actually started over a year ago. Ronda bought a copy of this book for each of us. The Quilter's Year Book.

Quilter's Year Book

Each week, there's an activity to do related to quilting. Of course, I'm bad at getting it done - some stuff I've done, some pages have samples that need to be glued in. I think we got to the fourth or fifth week (yes - we started last January) and we came to this page.

The activity of the Week - Top of the Class

It's about classes. What teacher would you like to take a class from? After much discussion on our part, we decided that it wasn't the teacher that we cared so much about (we're NOT groupies by any means), but the technique. What technique would we like to learn and it had to be one that we were both interested in. We ended up agreeing on a walking foot class.

Sounds easy - right? Well, it took forever for us to find a class that fit both of our schedules. Almost a year! But yesterday was the day.

I was fairly well prepped for the class. Mostly - I had forgotten to take my rulers, but we didn't need them much so I was able to borrow from Ronda. Oh - and I forgot my painter's tape so I "borrowed" a piece from her as well.

There were five of us in the class. There are two good books on walking foot quilting - this one by Melissa Marginet. The one that we mostly used in class.

Walking Foot Quilting Designs by Melissa Marginet

The second book is called Walk by Jacquie Gering.

Walk by Jacquie Gering

I see there are others - you can check them out here.  Personally, I like Melissa's book - she's Canadian. We need to support our Canadian authors and teachers!!!!

I was a very good student (that doesn't happen often) and followed (for the most part) the instructor's lesson plan. Here are my samples. I used a King Tut variegated thread on the top. Pretty cool effects. Remember - those orange letters were for the touch test (designed by Shirley). I'm using up the samples for new samples!

Walking foot sample number one

Walking foot sample number two

Walking foot sample number three

Some of those examples are not finished so I hope to get back to that so I'll have good samples to show in the event that I want to teach a class on walking foot quilting. There's definitely a place for walking foot quilting. There's an issue with ruler classes, free motion classes, walking foot classes, quilting classes in general. The instructors address the techniques and patterns in the class, but I don't see much of it on big quilts. That's a problem which I address in my samples and my teaching. How do you take those techniques and learn out to put them on a large quilt? It's important!

I could have learned this on my own, but that wasn't the point. The point was for Ronda and me to have a play day AND to learn something that neither of us had taken before. It was a great day and I have to confess that we did a wee bit of shopping. BUT - I have several samples that I'm in the process of making and I really am missing some fabrics for them. I'm all good now and I'll use that as the jumping off point to supplement from my stash.

What sewing machine did I take? Well, I took my small class friendly machine. It's the HUSQVARNA VIKING Opal 690Q. Here's a link to my TOP TEN reasons why I love the machine. It might not be apparent from reading my top ten, but it has the SAME features I love that are on the bigger machines that I sew on at home - the sensor foot in particular. The other thing I love is that it's lightweight. If you have a larger machine at home and want a full-featured machine that's lightweight and portable - this is the one! I know it's a lot of money, but it's so nice to have those features - I hate sewing on a machine that doesn't have them. This is the best of both worlds - top features and lightweight.

There was a major accident on the highway on the way home, but we had been warned so we took some back roads to bypass the mess. I imagine that mess caused a lot of headaches as people made they way home last night. People need to be more careful on the roads!

Breakfast was a bit sketchy this morning. There was no almond milk! My grocery shopper failed me. Even my oatmeal was very dry without a wee bit of almond milk in it. I guess grocery shopping is on the list of things to do today.

A quick note about classes. It amazes me how classes for popular teachers - I'm talking BIG name teachers fill up so quickly and are often very expensive. Some of them are good teachers and some of them are not. People flock to them like ants to a picnic. Why? I don't think it's because of the techniques that they are teaching. No - it's because people want to be part of that person's "group" and be able to say I took a class with "famous teacher x".

I know that I get pressure from my guild to bring in big-name speakers and teachers. I don't think it's necessary to spend all that extra money to bring in a NAME when we have other people that can do the job just as well or even better. Why or why are we so struck with big names????  It doesn't matter which industry you look at or which hobby - everyone wants to spend time with famous people. It's totally crazy! I'd go for a good quality technique class over a class with someone famous any day! You'll learn way more because people are there to learn, not to be a groupie. 

On that note, I"m out of here for the day!

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!!!