Teaching and taking – Two teaching gigs and a fun sashiko class

 

What a week! I taught at Meissner Main and at the Independence Hall Quilters in Arnold, CA and, I took a sashiko class at Meissner Folsom – whew! It was all fun.

I taught Yes You CAN Free Motion Quilt! at both Meissner Main and to the Independence Hall Quilters in Arnold, CA. Meissner’s had a small and mighty class. Everyone was so well prepared, well machined and enthusiastic! It makes it easy and fun to teach such a great group.

I also visited the Independence Hall Quilters in Arnold, CA for the day. I have never done this in my 16 years of teaching: I forgot my “bag” and my white board. My “bag” includes my projector, laptop, camcorder and money pouch with change and my Square. I use my white board to write on as well as project upon. Ugh. I have not taught this way in years:

The whole students-gathered-around-thing is not the best, it’s hard for everyone to see. Plus it takes a lot more time, having to demo twice. With my tech set up, everyone sees as though their eyes were mine and I can teach more in the same time period.

I don’t know what I was pontificating about here. I do want to share that guild member Lynn Wilder, precision piecer and pattern designer extraordinaire, ran her projector and screen down to the workshop for me to use. Saved the day! I was grateful.

What a group! Everyone was there ahead of time, well prepared and ready to rumble!

It was SO gratifying to have a full class of 20 (some had left at this point)! I loved the enthusiasm and hospitality. And no one groused at all about the lack of tech. I am so glad to be back to in-person teaching and I was so thrilled to see them fill their class.

Arnold did leave its mark on me:

All those pines and oaks were busy doing their spring thing, yellow pollen.

And then I got to take a class! I am in the Folsom Meissner Sashiko Club and I’m so excited to be learning to use my Babylock Sashiko machine:

If you’re not familiar with it, it is a single purpose machine; it does sashiko only. And the stitches look just. like. hand stitched sashiko! It is a tricky machine to use in that you MUST use it exactly the way it was designed, there is no room for error. I love, love my machine and I’m tickled to be learning how to use it.

Our project this month was a Log Cabin:

And Ellen Schmidt was our Guide to all things sashiko machine. She figures all the details out and then we just have fun! You can’t see it in this photo but she added a lovely line of sashiko at the neckline of her top.

This was assembled entirely with the sashiko machine. It is formed on a foundation, in the same manner as a traditional block, but secured with sashiko stiches. I taught Sat, then drove to and from Arnold (4 1/2 hrs total on Monday) and then had this class the following morning.

I had no time to ponder my fabric choices, so I chose a classic combination and pulled fabric from a nest that I had created for another quilt.

And here it is with more stitching added in different colors, stitch lengths, etc. I did not want to put just normal lines of stitching, wanted to nest groups of stitching together. I also did not want to make this too precious, I wanted this to be a learning piece. Hence, there are boo boos and other things, but I don’t care.

Detail of the stitching. Fun!

And then there’s that vintage quilt that I’m plugging along on….

Yes, this, again. I know, you thought I posted this photo last week. Well this is a new rip out.

Sad story. I worked for well over an hour on tension:
Thread combo # 1, should have worked. Worked probably 30 min on tension, gave up.
Thread combo #2, again, should have worked. Learned something from the previous combo, worked this one for only maybe 20 min and gave up.
Thread combo #3, matched top and bobbin. Sigh. Not the aesthetics I wanted, but it worked. I’ll take it.

FYI – I could have fixed this tension issue quickly by dropping down to my older BERNINA that has a dial, not computerized tension settings. My high end machine tension is adjusted in 1/4 increments. My older machine has a dial and could have gotten precisely to the right tension. But no, that would have “taken too much time”😊

And this is the result:

Finally, dead on perfect tension. Yes, that is micro stippling. Funny thing is that my vision has gotten bad enough that I can now see perfectly well without my glasses to machine quilt. The photo makes my feathers look like they had tension problems but they did not.

And this is why I micro-stipple around feathers:

See how the feathers pop on the micro-stippled side and not so much on the side without? Yeah, it’s worth it. Is it going to take me forrrrr ever? Yes. So be it, it’s worth it. You very well may see a similar photo in my blog posts for the next few weeks. It’s going to take awhile.

And Hubby ate his first meal in the kitchen!

Oh the joy! It really looks a lot better than the photo. We’re getting excited! But I haven’t moved anything in yet, still waiting on appliance install and other details. I’m not using it yet, just the water, sink and counter.

I’ll be sharing at:

Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday
and
Finished or Not Friday