Thursday, April 25, 2013

Sudden sewing

Although I have been plodding away on my Pine Burr blocks, I think I'll make one more before I show my progress.  (I've set myself a monthly quota.)  And I'm slowly making one triangle strip after another... 80 some more to go...

My Tuesday English class, which consists of two friends, did a bit of "fabric art".  These are the friends who were trying knitting too, with English instructions.  I know that these ladies would almost rather be making something than studying English, so Tuesday I suddenly brought out paper and fabric and iron and scissors and told them to draw a flower.  (I figured I needed to provide some structure.)

My friends were caught a bit off guard...  Why are we drawing flowers?

And then I had them trace their flowers onto transfer paper... and then I brought out my basket of scraps.

"Find some fabric, cut out your transferred patterns, cut them out and then iron them on."

I provided background fabric and batting and backing scraps.  Within an hour my two friends had put together a mini-flower quilt.  They were very interested in the transfer technique as they hadn't known there was such materials available.  And I made them free-motion quilt it themselves!  They did a great job what with never seeing a free-motion quilting foot before!

Mrs. Okusa put borders on her mini-quilt.  Mrs. Ide took her mini-quilt home to expand with her own ideas.

And this week...


Two pretty spring creations!  Mrs. Okusa has a pretty decoration for a small wall space,  Mrs. Ide turned her little piece into a springy tote bag!

I think the worked very well.  What wonders my friends could make if I just gave them a little more warning next time!

5 comments:

Julie Fukuda said...

My HS girls begged to learn quilting and it was amazing that suddenly English became a tool and not the focus and everyone was using it easily.

Nancy J said...

Your ladies must be thrilled, specially to see..what they can do,, and when finished.Who knows what will be next? Greetings from Jean

Timi said...

They look beautiful!!!

Pat Heinbaugh said...

Beautiful!!! These ladies do good work on short notice. Hugs, Pat in IN

Cassandra said...

How cool! You ladies are so creative!