Sew Susan Sew: The Beginning

The Quilting Addiction

As far back as I can remember I have always enjoyed working with my hands. In the most recent years this has manifested itself into two obsessions - gardening and quilting. I thought this blog would be a good place to store photos and some short narratives of my progress in quilting. The perfect therapy for days when I can't get out in the garden.

I owe my introduction to modern quilting to Hiromi Ota. In February 2011, during a visit to our family vacation home in Sisters, Hiromi asked if we could go to The Stitchin' Post as she was interested in taking some quilting classes. By the time we left the store we had both signed up for Jean Wells' Colorwork Table runner workshop. Below is the project I made from that workshop.

Our dining table runner - March 2011

Building off the technique I learned from Jean my next project was a queen-size bedspread. This project was going to require learning some new skills: quilt-as-you-go method (found a great resource for this online) and free-motion quilting. I signed up for a class in free motion quilting at The Stitchin' Post, taught by Barbara Shapel. I was sewing on my 17-year old Pfaff Triptonic which took a bit of practice in order to get the proper thread, needle and tension combination, not to mention synchronizing the speed of the machine and the movement of the fabric. Fortunately this project gave me lots of practice. I think it took about 50 hours to do
the quilting.