April 30,2012 Sophie returns from lunch to construct her log cabin block.
What a fun lunch the quilt shop had for us, we made a taco salad in small corn chip bags. Talk about an easy lunch to serve for a group…this idea is a must for my recipe box. Not only was the food we ate “ fun”, so are the ladies who I am making new friendships with. I thought to myself, if I hadn’t taken these quilt lessons, I would never have gotten to meet them. We were so busy talking and laughing, Linda had to come over and shoo us back to class.
I was impressed with Linda and her teaching techniques for she wanted us to learn from reading the pattern versus her telling us what to do step by step…could I have learned without quilt lessons? The log cabin block consists of strips and a square block which we had cut before lunch. Now back to the cutting area to recut our strips into several different lengths as per the pattern.
Now the fun of sewing the pieces together and actually making a block. Before starting the sewing, Linda made sure that everyone had a quarter inch foot on their machine. A quarter inch seam is the norm for quilting unless the pattern tells you different. We took a scrap of fabric and aligned the edge of the fabric with the right edge of the foot. We then sewed a line to check out how acurate it was…it was not perfect, but close enough.
During today's Quilt Lessons, I found a new "best friend". My seam ripper is a life saver when I need to un-sew a seam.
Linda had us layout our strips by length, which would be the sewing order. I took my 2 1/2″ square (center of block) and sewed a light colored 1 3/4″ x 2 1/2″ strip to it…I tried to go real slow, keeping my machine at a consistent speed and maintaining that quarter inch seam. I kept my quarter inch seam allowance on the short strips, but as the strips got longer, my seams wandered to different widths. I had many opportunities to use my handy dandy seam ripper! I guess in the quilting world you call it unsewing, not ripping. I now have a new best friend…MY SEAM RIPPER!!!
I love my 1st Quilt Block!
With every strip I added, the block was becoming bigger and more colorful. Finally the last strip was added and I was in awe that I had created this block all by myself…OK, I admit, I had a little help! Time had run out so Linda sent us home with homework to have done by the next class…complete the other three blocks.
I enjoyed every minute of the quilt lessons, and couldn’t wait to go home and work on the other three blocks…I think I’m getting hooked!
Have you taken quilt lessons and learned a special technique or tip that you will share with us? (see “leave a reply” below)
I love your block, too. My first block was called Dresden Plate and was all done by hand. It was quite a challenge and left me wondering if I wanted to continue tackling this hobby. It’s better to start with something simple and grow from there. I wonder how many people have been turned off to quilting because they started with something way to difficult for a beginner.
My first quilt that I made, I was in middle school. It was made out of two different fabrics and 5″ squares. I’m sure that I never knew about nesting seams and keeping a quarter inch seam…I’ve come a long way since then!