Quilting

Ive been hit by the Quilting bug.  I've always wanted to learn but didn't know anyone to teach me.  Most of my crafts I learned to do by watching videos and reading tutorials online. The only reason I didn't try this method was that I had borrowed my Mom's sewing machine and tried to make a few stitches.  The fabric went wild, stitches all over the place, the material caught in the machine so I thought this time I needed to go a different route.  My Mother is always so busy so she really didn't have time to show me.  One day at church I got talking to a lady about knitting and crochet and mentioned how much I wanted to learn to quilt.  Perfect timing as she then told me she was part of a charity quilting group and she'd love to have me come to one of their meetings.  When I went to the meeting I found out that they quilt by hand.  I was taught how to make a stitch and was given a corner of the quilt to work on.  These ladies are wonderful.  They range in age from 80 to 95 and have so much knowledge to share.  They gave me a bag of fabric scraps and told me to have fun at home until the next week's meeting.

When I got home I just kept thinking how much quicker it would be to piece on a machine.  I pulled the sewing machine out and decided to give it another try.  I downloaded the manual from online and printed it out and read it from cover to cover.  Seems there is a presser foot lifter that I should have lowered the first time I tried to sew.  Once I tried this the rest was easy.  Over that week I pieced my first quilt and had a blast doing it.  Here is the quilt top with the backing.

Since I made this about 4 weeks ago I've pieced another quilt top and have been learning to free motion quilt it with Leah Day at http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/

She has many video tutorials and lots of information at her site.  She also has a small shop where she sells just the products she personally uses to quilt.  I've also signed up for her class at http://www.craftsy.com called Free Motion Quilting a Sampler.  They also have a free class where you make all the blocks that you'll use to learn to free motion quilt them.  The-Craftsy-Block-of-the-Month. Craftsy is a great platform to learn many different techniques for all kinds of crafting.  I've signed up for several free and paid classes.