Hawaiian Quilt Class

 I thought I would share how my online quilt class is going. Lesson Two opened on Friday. It's all about putting your applique design down on your background fabric. I'm not quite there yet. I'm still working on Lesson One....the designing part. Good thing it's a work at your own pace type of class.   :<) Some of the other students in the class have already cut their designs out and have it put down on their background fabrics. Wow! There are some really pretty quilts in the making! If I have my design in fabric by the end of the five week class I will be very happy.  :<)

This first picture is of my fabric choice. The dark fabric is for my applique....the lighter for the background. I'm doing a full/double size quilt....or at least that is what I hope to be making if I can ever get through the designing part.

The next picture is of my basic design. It is about a quarter of the size of what the final design will be. Rough cut circles were used instead of the actual flowers. This was done pretty much to see how things looked together and how happy I was with placement. 

The last picture is of my design. This one is about half the size of what the final design will be. The flowers were added....and some changes were made. Again, it was done to see how things looked together...and how I like the placement of the different elements. I really like the way this one looks....although the different elements are just a touch too close together. If I was going to make this I would go back and scale things down a bit so that there was more space between the various elements. Since it is just another "mock up" of sorts there was no need to bother with any of that.

Yesterday afternoon was spent working on the full scale version of my design. Spent some time enlarging and copying so that I ended up with about four different sizes of flowers and buds to work with. Wanted to make sure that my flowers were at a size that looked good in the space they would be in. Since this is a full size pattern I'm only working with one quarter of it...instead of the entire design like I did with the "mock ups" I did earlier. The design is all drawn up and I started working on adding seam allowance. Once all the seam allowance is added I will be able to cut the pattern out and finally put it to fabric. Of course I plan on taking a picture of it first...printing it out four times.....and laying all those together to make sure that I'm truly  happy with the final design. It would be a tragedy to cut out the fabric only to discover that there is something about the design that I'm just not happy with. I would rather spend more time with the eraser.

The class, over all, has been absolutely wonderful!! I have learned so much!! And I have learned exactly what I had always wanted to learn....how to *design* my own Hawaiian quilt. The rest of the class will be on applique, layering, basting, quilting, and finishing the quilt. I will follow along but it's not quite as important as this first part was. I mean, I have already made an Hawaiian quilt....a small one.....and I have another one in progress (more of a sampler of Hawaiian quilt blocks)....so I know the basics. Plus I've been doing needle-turn applique for years. For me the important part of this class was the design part. I won't say that I won't learn anything else from this class because I doubt that will hold true. I've found that there is always something new to learn as long as you have an open mind. It doesn't matter how well you do something or how much you think you know about it. There is always something new to be learned.....even if it's a small thing, like an easier way to thread a needle. So I look forward to the next few weeks of class and wonder what new things I will learn.  :<)

Update on the civil war quilt:  Section three is still up on the design wall waiting to be finished. It kinda got put on hold with the quilt class....which is understandable. There is still time left in the month to have it finished by month's end....the top anyway.  :<)

Spinning update:  Still been squeezing in some spinning time each day even with the pleasant distraction of class.  I've acquired a fascination with spinning lace weight yarn these days. Could have something to do with the Estonian lace piece I am currently knitting.  :<) I finished spinning up a couple of shetland/alpaca batts and was so tickled with how fine the singles were that I decided to pull out some yak down that's been collecting dust in the fiber room. I thought it would be fun to spin that into a lace weight yarn. Not so much. It is coming along. Not as fine as I was hoping for...and not as fun to spin either. The staple length is soooooo short!! I really have to pay attention and inch-worm my way along. Guess I've gotten so used to spinning without really having to think about it that I'm finding this a bit tedious.....to say the least. I ended up walking away from my wheel yesterday when I found myself getting frustrated because I simply could not keep my singles as consistent and as fine as I was wanting to. Now I should probably say that spinning a fine single is not something I can do easily. I really have to focus on it. My comfort weight is a dk or sport weight yarn. So I'm not going for a cobweb lace weight yarn. A nice fingering weight would be lovely. Something about 20 wpi. That's what I'm knitting with right now and while the lace piece I'm working on won't be able to fit through a wedding ring, it is something I will be very happy with when it's done. Besides it would be nice to add a few skeins of finer yarn to my yarn baskets. I have a nice selection of dk, sport, and worsted weight yarns right now.