Friday, April 22, 2016

Quilters, and The Villages Views

These are some of the students who were in my March "Beyond First Time Quiltmaking" class. They learned machine appliqué to make a "Candy Pop" quilt from Christa Watson's book Machine Quilting With Style. 
Jane
Micki
Dawne
Toni
Pat
Shelly
Frances
After Beyond classes, I taught another Free Motion Quilting workshop.

For students'  first free motion quilting, I suggest they write their name and date on their fat quarter-sized quilt sandwich. 

That information is good for documenting improvements in the future.

I'll teach at the Lifelong Learning College again in September. For more information, click on the "Teaching Schedule" tab at the top of this blog.

A recent finish is this 11-1/2" X 13" mini. It's improv, hand-appliqué, domestic machine quilted. 
The shapes were scissor-cut from solid fabrics - no drawing. Then needle-turn appliquéd to the Kona Ash background. Oval spiral quilting is a nice change from circles.

For the first time, I faced a quilt. It makes a nice finish for the right quilt top. I like that I could leave openings for hanging with a wooden dowel. Backing fabric is "Good Neighbors" by Amanda Jean of CrazyMomQuilts, purchased at Connecting Threads.

I'm leaving you with views of a new area on the south side of The Villages. This is the Sharon Rose Wiechans Preserve where we can enjoy a lovely spring walk, and see wildlife - maybe even an alligator.

That's a wooden boardwalk across the wetlands.

Beyond the preserve, hundreds of new homes are being built.
The Villages continues to grow. The last count I heard was 110,000 people. Did you know there are more than 1,000 quilters in Quilting Guild of The Villages?! Central Florida MQG has 52 quilters.

Dan and I continue to agree that we made a good decision moving here... coming up on four years ago. Where does the time go?! Linda

11 comments:

  1. Candy Pop was a good choice for the class project and the quilts are looking very good. How pretty is that preserve, and right in the heart of things. A refreshing respite from the busy-ness. I like your small quilt and the faced finish works nicely.

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  2. I continue to think "The Villages" are lucky to have you teach!!! Not so sure about going to a walk and seeing an alligator ..... do we WANT to see an alligator that is not in some sore of a confinement?

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  3. Is that 110,000 people? Not houses, right!!!

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  4. Love the mini quilt with it's oval quilting! I'm interested to see that Frances has a piece of cardboard taped to her machine. Is that an idea of yours Linda? Do you know the exact reason she has it there? I guess it stops sewn pieces 'disappearing'... I have lost scissors and unpickers under that part of my machine before!

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  5. I'm not familiar with facing a quilt. Love your new finish. The oval quilting is perfect for the design.

    Four years already?! That went fast!

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  6. Students' work is impressive. Good students have a good teacher. Well done.

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  7. Love your mini! And the class looks like fun :)

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  8. I love seeing all of those versions of Candy Pop!! How fun!! :-)

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  9. What a perfect first time machine app project! They are all beautiful! Loving your little mini. I haven't tried 'facing' a quilt, yet. I've only taken a quick look at one tutorial, and it looked awfully complicated. Now, if YOU did a tute,,,,,,hint, hint! Glad you're so happy at The Villages! XO.

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  10. I wish I could take your class! And I can hardly believe so much time has passed since you moved there.

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  11. Good idea for practicing your free motion techniques -- a mini. If I had time, I'd like to play with all the great ideas I read on your blog; but alas, with so many large UFOs to finish up, it just isn't going to happen anytime soon. Great pics of your surrounding areas. One day I may have to take a trip to central Florida to see it first hand.

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