Or: How On Earth Does a Non-Quilter Create a Snowball in the Garden – and do they even have a Snowball’s chance of making one as nice as Pam’s?
We’ve just launched our very first (of many don’t worry!) quilting workshops at
Tracey’s Sewing Room but there’s something a little bit different about this particular class…
I (Tracey) will be on the other side of the sewing table!
That's right, I’m hanging up my instructor’s hat (for a moment) and placing myself in the extremely capable hands of master quilter Pam Taylor.
Under Pam’s guidance I’ll be in the learner’s seat alongside our six other beginner quilters and making my very first quilt. Pam has created a simple but striking design for us all called Snowball in the Garden!
Pam has been quilting for around 15 years and will be guiding us through the ins and outs of creating a quilt bespoke in both design and size.
Pam’s workshop has been carefully developed and is broken up into two six-hour sessions.
The beauty of Pam’s workshop is, not only will each design be unique to each quilt, but our finished products can be sized according to how much time we each have available to make our blocks! No half-finished quilts here because life got in the way. One of us might make a lap quilt, while others might make quilted table runners.
This workshop works for the attendees not the other way around!
A quilting journey begins…
My first task was to choose the fabrics for my version of Snowball in the Garden.
In Pam’s quilt you’ll see the white fabrics create the ‘Snowballs’ which will sit neatly amid her other fabrics in ‘the Garden’. One of the very best parts about sewing in general is being able to make unique pieces that you won’t find anywhere else and in my quilt’s case that would be those surprise zebras you will eventually see roaming around the garden!
Now that I’ve chosen my fabrics there is only one more thing for me to do before our first quilting workshop – try and get my head around some rather colourful lingo!
Quilting is full of lots of words that you’ve heard before but in the quilting world you’ll come across them and honestly, they’re kind of just a mystery.
If you’ve sewn before you might recognise a few. You’ll likely know fat quarter or colour wheel and other terms that cross the stitching dictionary but…
Are you imagining afternoon tea if someone requests you pass the Jelly Roll?
Are you bemusedly pointing up if asked where the Loft is?
Are you looking outside for Feed Dogs or Flying Geese Squares?
If yes, then welcome to our lingo learning club! Trying clicking here to find a list of a few terms we think are useful at the beginning of a quilting journey – kindly assisted by Pam.
So, what exactly are we doing…
Well, my fabrics are ready, and I’ve established that Layer Cake is not on the menu so we’re ready to meet Pam and begin our quilts!
The initial workshop will teach us how to design and cut the smaller shapes to build the blocks. From here we will take time between the first and second workshops to create as many blocks as we each need for our pieces. During the second workshop these blocks will be stitched together and then turned into our finished quilts.
As I’m learning along, I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to cover the whole workshop process – learning how to create the blocks with Pam, creating blocks on my own and then finally bringing all the blocks together, adding batting and backing and turning them into a finished quilt!
It’s daunting doing something that I’m not good at but it’s exciting too!
If you’ve ever thought about quilting, but you’ve managed to convince yourself it’s too tricky or you’re not crafty enough or that you’ve left it too late to try a new hobby why not follow along with my quilting journey.
I’ll be sharing the triumphs and the tragedies (hopefully not too many of those!) so you’ll get a feeling for how it all works – and who knows, maybe it’s for your too!
Stay tuned for the next instalment of this series I’ve decided to call:
How On Earth Does a Non-Quilter Create a Snowball in the Garden – and do they even have a Snowball’s chance of making one as nice as Pam’s?
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