Tag Archives: quilt class

Class With Cindy Grisdela

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When attending the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival this spring I took a class with Cindy Grisdela and attended her lecture about color. Both were worthwhile.

Cindy’s class was based on her Full Wild quilt, which she entered in QuiltCon. Here’s a picture of her with the quilt, taken from her blog:

When I got home I wanted to let most of the blocks I made in class rest for a while, but I did make a small wall hanging with one of them. It’s called Drip, and I’m not crazy about it but I just had to do something with one of those blocks!

The rest of the blocks I put away because I want to consider what other colors to add. My usual problem is using TOO MANY colors, so I tried to restrain myself. Now I want to add more colors. Here’s a picture of some of the blocks just before the blocks were put away–they aren’t joined yet.

To be continued.

In her color lecture, Cindy suggested making a color wheel, saying it would be interesting to see what you had in your stash. Here’s my snapshot of her color wheel.

When I recovered from the recent quilt show (Heart of the Triad, blog is here), I decided to make a more elaborate color wheel. I drew it in EQ8 and printed templates from my drawing.

This was a fun project, AND I had all of those fabrics right here in my stash! I couldn’t resist using the light grey Tula Pink fabric with all the fun colors as background. The color wheel finished about 18″ square.

Anyway, I enjoyed Cindy’s lecture and her class, and I recommend both if you have the opportunity to attend.

 

Classes, First Quarter 2024

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Here’s what I’ll be teaching at Studio Stitch in the first quarter of 2024.

Strip Swirl, January 18 & 25.

I made this quilt from scraps (of course!) but it could be made from a jelly roll for a more coordinated look.

Make Your Own Tilda Quilt, January 23 and 30.

Tilda fabrics are just beautiful! But they’re almost all mid values, which makes them challenging to use in a quilt. I designed this block and then made the entire quilt top a replica of the block! Learn how I did it and either use my design or make your own design in class.

Love Pillow, February 2

This is a chance to use your zipper foot, walking foot, and zigzag foot if you’d care to! And you get a cute pillow in time for Valentine’s Day.

A Little Orange, February 10

Yes, it’s being held out a window by hand, so the picture isn’t as nice as the ones taken by the magazine folks!

This is the quilt I had published in Quick + Easy Quilts recently, though their quilt was in holiday colors. This is the orange one I made to test the pattern before submitting it. It’s easy and would make a great second quilt for a relative beginner.

NOT Paper Pieced, March 5.

This is a quick and fun quilt that I made to use up a group of coordinating fat quarters.

Help! (UFO Rescue), March 15 and/or 16

This is my quarterly class for customers to bring anything unfinished and I’ll try to help. Some people sign up just to get some dedicated sewing time away from household chores!

And that’s it for the first quarter! Best wishes to you for the coming year!

 

Fall Classes

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Studio Stitch has published the fall class list. Of note for those of you with embroidery modules, there are some new embroidery classes that look like fun.

For quilters, here are the classes I’ll be teaching!

In September it’s basic binding. This is something many quilters struggle with and I promise to make it easier.

Also in September I’m teaching a class to rescue some orphan blocks! As I’ve mentioned, I have a lot of those and I suspect other quilters do, too. Here’s the quilt for the class:

And note that the blocks do not have to be all the same size/shape/etc. We have work-arounds!

In October I’ll be teaching two quilts (but at different times!). The first is Weathervane. There’s a kit for Weathervane available at Studio Stitch or you can just bring the pattern (also available at the shop) and your own fabric. (There’s a discount on the class if you’re using the kit from the shop, plus of course you get 15% off the kit since it’s for a class. Just sayin’–double discount!). This is a good quilt for perfecting your half square triangles.

Then later in October I’m teaching Wish, a pattern from which I made this Quilt of Valor.

There are fun classes by other teachers as well. You can hop on over to the shop’s website to check them out.

If you’re local I hope to see you soon!

 

What I’ll Be Teaching

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In the first quarter of 2023, I’m teaching a scrap quilt, a beginning quilting class, a special binding class, and Quilt As You Go. All classes are through Studio Stitch, and you can get sign-up information here if interested. Meanwhile, here are my notes on each class.

Superfans!

Yes, I’ve shown this quilt recently, and I’m teaching it in a two-part class on January 27 and 28. That’s a Friday afternoon and a Saturday morning. This means everyone can leave a sewing machine set up between classes but have a night of rest half way through.

Beginning Quilting

Probably not directly relevant to anybody reading this, but it will start February 11 and run for 6 Saturdays. For the first time we have a book to be used with the class so folks will have a reference at home.

Improve Your Binding

In this class we will explore several ways to improve binding techniques as well as some nice (easy) embellishments for binding. One of my friends calls this a “game changer” for binding.

Quilt As You Go (QAYG)

It seems that most quilters want to at least try QAYG. There are a number of ways to do it. I will teach the way I think is most effective and show some of the other techniques as well. As a bonus, we’ll be making the Bauhaus pattern by Zen Chic as we learn the techniques for QAYG.

I liked this pattern by Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic so much that I made it twice

I’m sure most of my readers are nowhere near Greensboro (North Carolina, U.S.A.), so won’t be taking these classes. However, if you have related questions I’ll try to answer them. If you do live near Greensboro, join us and have fun! Further information is on the Studio Stitch site, here.

 

 

Classes Coming Right Up

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Studio Stitch is moving down the street for a better location, so all these classes will be at 1616 Battleground Avenue, Suite D-3 (Greensboro, NC). There’s a bakery in the same shopping center, so I think everyone is looking forward to the move!

In March I’ll be teaching my Easy Kaleidoscope Quilt. It’s like stack-n-whack only easier. In addition to learning to make the quilt so no two blocks are alike, we’ll set the blocks on point. Here are a couple of samples:

Magic Kaleidoscope, 30″ x 30″

And here’s a close-up of some of the blocks in the blue one:

In April I’ll be teaching Better Binding Painlessly, which is always popular. It’s mostly about binding a quilt entirely by machine, though the techniques can be used for a more traditional binding with the back hand sewn.

In May the class will be a cute bag made from a shirt. The larger the shirt, the larger the bag!

June’s class is another stash-busting scrap quilt, made much easier with the use of the right tools!

If you’re in the area, consider joining us! To obtain more information, go to the Studio Stitch website and subscribe to the newsletter. That way you’ll be the first to know when registration opens for each class.

 

Teaching Again!

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Hooray! The pandemic is finally well enough controlled around here for Studio Stitch to start offering classes again!  We’ll still all wear masks, which means classes will be scheduled for half days so we won’t have to figure out lunch.  But it is SO encouraging to have the opportunity to be with other quilters again and feel a little bit normal.  Most of us have now been vaccinated, so it feels much safer, though we will continue to take care!

Here’s what I’ll be teaching in the next couple of months.

Better Binding Painlessly, May 11. This is a basic binding class that teaches techniques and answers common questions about how to bind a quilt without going crazy doing it.

Little Landscapes, June 1 in the afternoon and June 2 in the morning.  This is an introduction to landscape quilting.  We make little landscapes in class to learn the basics so you’ll be ready to make landscape quilts of any size on your own.

This pine tree has green flannel for foliage and lots of free motion quilting for texture
I made this after reading Happy Villages by Karen Eckmeier

Plaidish, June 10 afternoon and June 11 morning. This is a free pattern available from Kitchen Table Quilting. It’s a great way to learn about color, value, and matching the corners on tiny pieces.There’s more information about all of these classes, plus many others, on the Studio Stitch website.  If you’re near Greensboro, I hope to see you 🙂

Before and After

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First, just to say I’m making masks like everybody else. I did verify where they are actually needed locally before I started. Enough said.
Now, back BEFORE everything was turned on its ear, we had this fun “Easier Than It Looks” class at Studio Stitch. It was fun to see the fabric choices!

And best of all, Betti sent me a picture of her finished top!  I think it’s spectacular!

One of these days the pandemic will be contained and we’ll have classes again.  See you then!  I will continue to post about quilts weekly; you can just take it on faith that I’m washing my hands and leaving home only to deliver the masks I’ve made 🙂  Take care!

Twinkles All Around

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Twinkle is an attractive and easy quilt by Swirly Girls Design, and I taught it recently at Studio Stitch in Greensboro. We used the Tucker Trimmer for the half square triangles (HSTs) and everyone seemed to have a good time.

First, here’s my shop sample in a glamour shot:

Twinkle, a pattern by Swirly Girls Design, was made because I had some fabulous leftover fabric

Then, here are some of the wonderful blocks made by the people in class.  I’m sure I took more pictures, but apparently my camera quit part way through!

This one was two-color instead of scrappy and it worked quite well

BJ got several blocks made. Look closely and you can see the astronaut near the upper right corner

Arranging the stars on a design wall before sewing them together was very helpful–I don’t think anybody made a mistake!

And a few more for good measure!

Isn’t it fun to see everyone’s individual choices!

My next class at Studio Stitch is basic binding on March 14.

Give It What It Needs

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One of my objections to some of the quilting establishment is that every single thing about a quilt is supposed to be “perfect”—meaning made to the specifications of the current quilt maven, whoever (s)he may be.  I once signed up for a series of classes that lead through many quilting techniques to the ULTIMATE QUILTING ACHIEVEMENT: a quilt with many tiny pieces cut on the bias, all points perfectly matched!

I did make some quilts I liked in those classes! Design by Cindy Williams

Part way through the class I realized that, for me, learning to make everything more precise was not an enjoyable activity.  I quilt for my own satisfaction, and my version of fun involves developing designs rather than copying somebody else’s design as precisely as possible.  In fact, even when I buy a pattern, I rarely follow it exactly.  My “variations” on these patterns are a (friendly) joke among my quilting buddies: “Mary can’t just make the pattern, she has to change something.”

modern quilt design

I substituted one large block for 4 of the small ones.  

My goal is to give each task the time and energy it deserves, no more and no less.  For example, I think doing a quilt binding the traditional way, by hand, is a waste of time and energy in many cases.  A machine-applied binding is more durable, faster, and at least as attractive.  I even read one modern quilter’s opinion that a machine binding “adds an extra line of quilting on the back!”  So much for the quilt maven’s worry that the machine stitching from the front shows on the back!  I do occasionally apply a binding by hand, but there has to be a reason for it.

Lombard Street quilt pattern

I applied this binding by hand in the traditional way because I didn’t want machine stitching on the front to “fight” with the striped border

So what’s your opinion?  Which quilting techniques/designs/details are worth the trouble and which should be modified?  Leave me a comment!

Great Aunt Bess’s “Fizzle Drawer” and A Busy Week

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I have a number of pieces of antique furniture, as much out of obligation as desire. These belonged to my grandparents, great-grandparents, and in one case to my great-great-grandmother. One of them contains Great Aunt Bess’s “Fizzle Drawer”.

Granny once commented on it, saying that whenever her sister, Bess, had a sewing project that “fizzled”, the project went into that drawer. I’m not sure what happened after that. This would have been in the early part of the 20th Century, but I don’t even know whether the “fizzle” items were clothing or something else.  By the time I inherited the furniture they were long gone!

I think some of my UFOs probably should go in the “fizzle drawer”, but I don’t know when to quit, so I keep working on them.  This next one was a class I did not especially enjoy, but I’ve converted it to 4 large blocks to be combined into a donation quilt.

This next one is not a fizzle, it’s a set of place mats I made for a quick holiday class to teach this fall.  I developed this pattern YEARS ago for McCall’s Quick Quilts and have made many versions of it since.  Place mats are a nice hostess gift to have on hand.

We went to the “apple barn” this weekend and got some apples–must be fall!  Here is the view from the apple barn, looking across some trees heavy with red apples to the mountains beyond.  It doesn’t get any better than that!

How was your week?