Stories for a winter's night

I had a quilting class today. It was a half-day thing for making a piece called a Feature-Fabric Quilt. I'm hoping to get it set out and photographed tomorrow morning so I can post it. I also spoke to the ladies at the quilt shop about my Log Cabin quilt. I've decided that it won't be a wall hanging after all so I think I'll get it machine quilted. Several of the women I spoke with told me that a small quilt the size I made could take up to a year to finish by hand, since I don't know what I'm doing and can't devote all my time to it.

So my options are that I pay about $40 to have them do it by machine or spend $80 and they'll send it out to a group of Menonite women near Waterloo (St. Jacob's or Elmyra) and they'll do it by hand. I think that since the piece may end up getting thrown up on by cats, I'll go with the machine work. However, I have not given up on hand quilting. I have a log cabin square that I'm going to turn into a pillow at some point. I think I'll practice on that.

So anyway, I spent the class sewing strips together on an old tempremental machine, and cutting squares out of said strips. I now know what I need to do to complete the project, but it really does seem like very little bang for four hours work. Oh well, art takes time. :) I decided to reward my hard work and sooth my aching back by travelling off to the Wal-Mart where I picked up the last Starscream on the shelf. He's getting reaquainted with Skyfire as I type this.

All in all, it was a productive day. And now I am going to get back to work on Life After Death, chapter 9.

I had my second quilting course tonight. It went very well indeed. My squares are sewn together into a big square and the instructor showed me how to square it off and add the borders. I'm hoping to have that all done by the next class (on the 26th) so that she can show me how to attach the batting and backing and how to hand-quilt the piece.

I also purchased tha fabric for my next piece. It's for a one-day course (on the 29th) on how to make a "focus fabric" quilt. It's made up of two types of squares. One is made of the focus fabric and the others are made of four strips of complementary fabric. ... I'll post a picture once I get the fabric cut.

I had my first quilting class tonight. It was a whole lot of fun. Unfortunately we didn't get any of the quares completed, but I have two weeks to do my homework and I'll post a pic as soon as the first square is done. I think I'm really going to enjoy this, and funds permitting, I'll sign up for the next class!