Learning the Language of Quilting

Now that I had almost two decades of quilter's almanacs and the conviction that I could learn to quilt thanks to the two aunts who inspired me, I decided in the spring of 2008 to enroll in a quilting class. I felt it necessary to learn how to do things correctly and knew that I had much to learn. Every time I looked at the pictures of the beautiful quilts in the books I had, I was overwhelmed and really didn't know where to begin. It was blatantly apparent that in order for someone to use the books, one needed to have some cursory knowledge about quilting--I had not really been exposed to this art form in a formal sense of the word.

In retrospect, I was very fortunate to have signed up for the class at the local Community College and was equally lucky to have signed up under a wonderful teacher.  It just so happens that the Community College offers "Community Service" classes under which this beginner quilting class was made available--and I would strongly suggest this as a strategy for learning to quilt. As an additional suggestion, local fabric shops or sewing machine shops typically offer beginner classes where one can learn to quilt, sew, or generate projects.

My initiation into quilting was through this community service class which was offered as a "beginner" class and the project was to complete a "Star and Chain" quilt.  The teacher brought samples of her quilts and a quilt top that provided a nice example of what was expected of our resulting project. Appropriately, the teacher did not begin with sewing. Rather, she provided us with four sheets of paper on which the directions were written and wherein certain quilting terms were delineated.  The class was small and we read through the directions while looking at the quilting block samples the teacher had brought to class. One of the most valuable, but sometimes difficult skill she taught us at the first class was how to "read" a quilt, which I will discuss later. By beginning the class in this fashion, I believe we were not distracted or intimidated with having to read a book, look at a book, or look at the pictures in a book in the first class. Rather we read several paragraphs from the sheets of paper she provided, looked at the samples she brought to class and discussed quilting vocabulary--terms like, "keeping your points," "sashing," or "lattice." During our second class we were to bring our assigned books and our sewing machines. She demonstrated how we were to fold our fabric to "stack and whack" so as to economize our time in the preparation of our quilt block pieces. Once we began to sew, she helped us perfect the "quarter inch" seam, demonstrated"pressing," and "squaring up" the blocks and many other time saving shortcuts when working.

Only one student in the class had experience in knowing how to "read" a quilt and for the rest of us, it was a mystery--but not for long! By the end of that first class we knew how to not only "read" a quilt, but also calculate the amount of fabric we would need to construct a quilt of a given size by knowing the dimension of each block, the size of the pieces that made up the block and then calculating the fabric. Of course this is more difficult for quilts that are not simple blocks but by teaching us this skill, each one of us could determine the yardage needed of given fabric to make a quilt.

Some things the teacher did correctly. She:
1. Taught us how to read a block, thereby taking out the mystery of construction as well as helping each of us to see that small pieces make the big quilt, thus making it "doable." She made it appear that we could do this project from the beginning simply by beginning with one block.
2. Did not overwhelm us by referencing a book, but rather had samples of what we were to generate.
3. Exposed us to the Language of Quilting and used actual quilt pieces to demonstrate what she was talking about.
4. Was patient in discussing any questions that each of us had with regard to each term presented.
5. Selected a pattern that only had three colors, thus eliminating the potential for intimidation when walking into a fabric store to select fabric.
6. Went with the class to the fabric store to discuss and assist in the discernment of fabric coordination.
7. The teacher did not have us sew at the first class.

There were other things this teacher did well, the list could go on, but I will end it here for now. The most important point is each person who began the class ended the class with a quilt top that was satisfactory and to their liking. Most importantly, we were encouraged to work with fabric colors for which we each had an appreciation.

Here is a picture of the final product once the quilt had been machine quilted.