Beginner Quilting Class: A Sneak Peak

Would anyone like to take a guess at what I have been doing since class on Wednesday? If you look at the picture below, you might think it a rat's nest...but no....it is not.....

I know the quilters out there know or at least have a guess as to what I have been doing....and if I tell you I am tired, shoulders are sore and I am eager to finish this task, well, that is an understatement.

To be honest, if I did not know myself and had just happened upon this photo, I would have guessed a rat's nest...just saying.

I have been taking each and every block that I have sewn together over the past 5 weeks and trimming each and everyone up to the perfect 6 1/2 size. Well, at least they are supposed to be perfectly that size, lets just say, a few of mine are not. Oh well.

I wish we could have been taught to do this as we went along, because I tell you one thing, this is a job to have to trim all of the blocks at one time. I know on my next quilt, how I will do this task.....as I go.

Once I have all of the trimming done I will start sewing the rows together and sewing the quilt top together. We were instructed to cut the small inner border, and the larger outer border. Leo was nice enough to change the size of both borders at the end of class this week, making them a bit larger. No problem, lets just buy a bit more fabric shall we? Oh, well....maybe sales have been slow at the shop this week! LOL!

Since I have so many extra quilt squares and would really like to make my quilt larger, I am going to add two rows on each of the sides. I may add one row to the top and the bottom as well. Basically, I will be mostly using the rail fence, a couple of friendship stars and a few flying geese. Boy do I have a lot of blocks left over, I bet I have almost another whole quilt top worth of blocks. I am sure I will find something to do with them!

TAA-DAA!!!!! This is because I could not wait to sew this together and had to lay this out on the floor to see what it was going to look like. Here is the almost finished product. Nothing is sewn together in this photo, just laid out on the floor.

We are pretty much left on our own to sew the finished blocks and put the quilt together. We did cut the outer and inner borders in class, and if we enlarge the quilt, like I want to do, then we have to make the adjustments to the outer borders. By ourselves!

I am trying to decide if I could add a block to each corner to finish the outer border off and make it fit the extra rows. I don't know what I am going to do. The quilt is a full size and if I add the extra rows, it will fit our bed perfectly, so that is really what I would like to do.

Leo pitched a new class he wants to teach after we finish this class. I really would like to take the class, but I am not really impressed with the technique he is going to teach. The best way I can describe it is this.....he is teaching the more difficult blocks, such as the wedding ring quilt blocks. However, these are really not pieced, they are sewn in a way to make the eye think they are pieced. I think I am going to pass on this class, I could be making more quilts on my own, and not having to listen about you know...buying a machine!

The last class will be the "Show and Tell" class, everyone will bring the finished quilt top to class and show them off! Thank goodness we have two weeks before we go back to class.I feel like I have so much to do, so much to sew, and so much to figure out on my own, my head is spinning. Believe me when I say, my cup is running over!

Oh, and don't worry, you guys will see the preview "Show and Tell" first, before I go to class with the quilt top......but first, I have to finish the darn thing!

UPDATE: This just happened, I swear, I could not make this stuff up if I wanted to, my mind does not work that way.....maybe you will laugh, I was scared to death at first.

Since I have been taking this quilting class, I have used my iron and ironing board more than I have used it in years. I really hate to iron. But the quilt blocks all have to be ironed, as this is a very important step, according to Leo. Now, it has been really hot here in Texas, and well....as of late, when I am ironing blocks for my quilt, and I'm the only one here at the house, I have been wearing only a t-shirt and my unmentionables.......True......it is cooler that way.

Well, I just got an email from someone I did not know....I almost was not going to open it....when I did this is all it said.......

"Iron in your jeans"

Oh My Goodness......I just about died thinking someone had seen me ironing in my unmentionables.....I spent several minutes scrambling to see who in the world would send an email like this, and who had seen me in my living room ironing like a sexy desperate housewife...HA!! I was mortified. It took a minute to realize this was just a spam email....but can you believe that? That is it for me, no more ironing without at least shorts on....I may not wear jeans, but you can bet that is it for ironing in just the unmentionables.