Quilting classes

 I thought someone said the weekend was supposed to be nice, warm, and sunny. WRONG! When I left the house to teach an in-person class, the skies were stormy, and at one point, I ran into a torrential downpour. And when I arrived at my destination, the sun was shining! We've had rain for the last three days—guess what? I don't get to try my new hose and water the new plants! Darn! 

Hopefully, the weather will be somewhat nice this afternoon so I can do some gardening. I know - ME! Excited about gardening! I love puttering, and moving mulch will be better if the sun is behind the clouds and cooler. I'll start with ten bags and see how far that goes (not far as I remember from last year), but a bit each day should do the trick. Getting complete coverage might take many days and many bags of mulch. I'll see how long my enthusiasm lasts. The individual bags are just easier than getting a yard of mulch dumped in the driveway. 

We had our last assignment class on Spice Market, and the reveal will be next month. This pattern is well—the instructions leave much to be desired, but we are managing to make it work, and I can't wait to see all the finished quilt tops. There are some fabulous colorways, except for one or two, I think everyone switched the colors up! 

Spice Market

Then we had the in-person jacket class. Instead of creating our own quilted fabric, I recommend using a quilted bedspread. Well, what a hoot when the students brought out the show-and-tell. That Wendy! She scooped this quilt at MY Value Village. 

Gorgeous Double Wedding Ring quilt

And she scooped it on her way to class! It's a great quilt to make a jacket. We all got a huge chuckle over this, as while I've been able to find quilted bedspreads, none of them had a pattern like this! She was lucky and paid $20 for it, which isn't bad. That one couldn't wait until seniors day for that, as I'm sure it would have disappeared quickly. I think it's a commercial pattern, but it's pieced, not a wholecloth! 

The remainder of the students all had interesting bedspreads that they managed to find, and the jackets will all be amazing. 

Now here's the thing—I like quilted jackets, but some of them have weird shaping and are very boxy around the back and shoulders or gigantic in the arms. I quickly threw the jacket from this book together, and when I tried it on, it fit amazingly well for a quilted jacket. I didn't take a picture, but I'll attempt to get one for tomorrow. I LOVE the jacket and can't wait to use my REAL bedspread. I'm not going to provide more details at this time, as this will likely become another class in the fall, and I dare not reveal any secrets on the blog. 

Patchwork Jackets book

What's funny is that I didn't think I would like the jacket. It's got some weird pieces, but it's a great fit. Now the question is, what should I do with the other jackets I've made in the past? I definitely had a body image issue, and everything I made needed to be at least two sizes too large. I did lose a bit of weight between then and now, but not enough to compensate for these gigantic jackets. There's one that I love, but I've never worn it because it's enormous. Do I take it apart and resew it in a smaller size? I'm tempted! And now you know why things take me so long to finish! 

Speaking of the forest, see how it's encroaching into my backyard. Once a year, I need to go behind the fence, snip, and pull all the stuff growing too close. It's not a big job; I might do that later today. I'll see how the weather goes. I see no rain in the forecast, but it's very cloudy, so you never know what will happen. 

The forest is coming through my fence

And look what I spotted on my doorstep last night. Someone conveniently moved the empty robin's egg the other day, but this looks like a big bird left me a note! 

Bird poop on the step!

I'm glad I wasn't flying yesterday, as there was a lot of turbulence in the air with the storms. I'm glad DH took one for the team and dealt with that, and not me. We went out for dinner—I know—two nights in a row for me, but that's OK. 

Then I went downstairs and sewed for a couple of hours, and it was glorious. While there was a deadline attached to that project, it was fun and easy to sew. Now I've run out of fabric, so I need a plan B. I'm missing fabric for THREE pieces of sashing. I'm going to whip out the scrap box to see if there's anything there. If not, then I will find another solution. 

I'm on a treasure hunt. I'm trying to find someone who made a specific quilt in 2010! I managed to find the distribution list for the class. The question now is how many of those email addresses are still valid? I also have the phone numbers, so I'll try those as well. I doubt the person reads my blog, so I'll try Facebook or something to see if I can locate her. I've sent a message, but she's not active on Facebook, so I'll see if I can find her another way. 

OH -- I have decided to cut back on teaching, and the more I tell the classes, everyone has had such a positive reaction, and I'm feeling so much better. I think some of them are as well, as they won't have to choose what to take! I am teaching this quilt below, but it starts in October. So, if you are interested, you have time to think about it, as I'll be posting more information closer to the starting date. This will be a class independent from any quilt store. 

Color My World by Wendy Williams

It's called Color My World by Wendy Williams. Perhaps you downloaded the pattern if you were a member of The Quilt Show. They offered it as their Block of the Month several years ago. Maybe you bought the pattern and it is stalled, or you downloaded it and did nothing with it, like me. Whatever, I'll be running that as a class starting in October (until June or slightly longer), so you can decide if you want to join in or not. The pattern costs about $50 CDN if you don't have it. It's mostly done with foundation paper piecing with freezer paper; obviously, there are curved seams. 

And there will be one more multi-part class at Thimbles and Things, starting in October. I'll tell you more another day. That's it! There won't be any other multi-part classes. Perhaps the odd one or two part here and there, but those multi-part ones just tie up all my weekends, and after 25 years, I'm done with that.

WAIT—that's not true. I'm done booking all my weekends. I don't mind having classes on one or two weekends, but not all four, which is currently happening. That doesn't allow me much flexibility, and working around long weekends and holidays is hard. 

All is good, and I'm excited. That's all that counts! 

On that note, I see the clouds disappearing as I write. The sky is crystal blue, and well, it's time to get those girls outdoors! 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!