Winding and winding ways

A week or so ago I joined a couple of friends for a craft day at a little workshop in the next city over. I'm afraid I can't really say what the teacher teaches! There was one lady making baskets and another lady working on a loom. It looked like a few students were in the middle of making basque dolls (heads missing) and some painting students' art work were up on the walls. There was fabric and paper and clay and beads and flowers and yarn and everything strung up everywhere and we had to move piles to sit down. (Not much for organization.) My friends and I said we'd come for the glass accessory "class" so the teacher brought out little mismatched boxes filled with beads and chips of glass and she moved a bit of furniture to get to some glass slabs. She placed all this in front of us (along with tea) and said "Have fun." I figured out we were supposed to artistically place beads on a piece of glass of our choice so I pawed through the bead boxes and placed my beads in various designs. When I said I was done the teacher offered me another cup of tea.

I guess I could have figured out that firing glass takes a bit of time (a few hours) and there was no more action forthcoming from anyone so that was the end of the class. This week however my friend went and picked up our glass pieces and I must say, for very little work (and the class was only $7!) I have a nice little pin for my sweaters or something. Now that I know what the results are like I'd like to try this again! But how many pins does one need...

On to other things.

I'll have you know that I got out paper and pencil and started making a pattern for the Winding Ways quilt. I may have to give up on this quickly. I used Kathy Somers' directions for drafting a pattern but ran into snags right away. There are templates to trace at the bottom of her tutorial BUT in her own words she says,

"Templates are provided below for the extremely lazy, but I cannot guarantee the size of the finished block. If you are really that lazy, download the following gif file and resize it."

Heaven forbid if I admitted to being extremely lazy (but I am) so I took the challenge to draft my own templates using a large piece of paper, rulers and a compass. I got as far as drawing the lines on the paper (cats thinking I'd invented a new game) but my dang compass that Takumi must have used in 3rd grade was too small! I put aside the project for a day and went to the major stationary store to buy a decent sized compass. Do you know how much they cost! A "real" compass was running over $20! NO WAY! I'm going to make ONE quilt pattern! For that money I'd do better to send away for the book!

So I left the stationary store without a new compass (think of the cost of driving all the way to the next town and back just to buy a compass that I didn't buy!) and I came home to either give up on the Winding Ways or find another way. So far this quilt is living up to its name! Okay. Let's try it this way. Tie a cord to a thumbtack. Tie the other end to a pencil. Adjust cord. And adjust again! And again! Yes, the cats are thrilled that the game now includes cord.

And I made a Winding Ways pattern. And I traced it and cut out the templates and even transferred the design to fabric. And cut out the fabric. But wait! My seam allowances aren't very even (I do a slip-shod job of cutting). I'm not going to be able to sew these on the sewing machine. The seam allowances don't line up. So try doing the curves by hand. Not too good. I've made a little tent. I guess my drafting skills need improvement (and better drafting tools than thumbtacks and cord).

Today I'm going to be EXTREMELY LAZY and use Kathy's templates that were offered in the first place. And try this again on the sewing machine. And when that is all attempted I may have to go looking at Amazon.com...