1. My First Assignment - enjoy some window shopping:

My first trip to a formal Quilt Show left my mouth watering to learn more. I'm sure that's what Sue had in mind when she made that my first assignment.

We browsed up and down the aisles of quilts on display, and studied some of the differences between them.

There were "Cheater Cloth" quilts --- those whose fabric was printed to look like different pieces, but were in fact solid fabric. The variety was impressive and so were the designs. The Cheater Cloth style fabrics provide a shortcut that is acceptable in proper circumstances.

We spent more time studying "Pieced Tops" and the variety of styles on display. Many of the Pieced Top designs have wonderful stories at their core. My favorite was the "Log Cabin" design because it reflected historical frontier days, a cabin with it's fireplace in the middle.

I understood that each of the Pieced Top designs had a traditional name, some historical, some contemporary. I was not going to learn them all in that one afternoon, but just learning a few helped me understand the tradition behind them.

The difference between "hand-pieced quilts" and "machine-pieced quilts" was not always obvious for me on that beginner trip. The tradition to be learned was that a hand-pieced top should always be hand-quilted, meaning the top and bottom and batting were sewn together by hand, not by machine.

Machine-pieced tops were usually machine quilted, though some of them looked more like they were hand-quilted to me. I'll be learning that particular technique in a future lesson.

If you have the opportunity to visit a quilt show, preferably one by a local quilting group in your community, give yourself the gift to go and enjoy. It will be worth your time and the door fee to see what others have done.

Continuing with my "Window Shopping" assignment, I visited all the quilt shops listed in my phone book. For a beginner that was like sending a kid into the candy store. It was hard not to want everything.

A retail quilt shop is definitely nothing like the fabric aisles at any department store. When you visit a quilt shop for the first time, be prepared to get excited!

Here I learned about buying "Charms" -- packages of multiple fabrics in coordinated colors and patterns, all pre-cut to 5" squares. Some were in little flat packages or boxes. Some were stacked together and rolled into a "jelly roll" shape so you could see what colors and patterns were included.

Then there were stacks and rows of "Fat Quarters" -- fabric cut into 18" x 22" pieces that could be purchased as singles allowing you to gather up whatever color and print pattern combination you want, or as groups of Fat Quarters prepackaged in coordinating prints.

Recognizable Bolts of fabric were available by the yard, or portion of yard -- I watched one lady haul six bolts to the counter and buy 1/4th yard of each (not to be confused with Fat Quarters, her quarter-yard pieces measured 9" x 45".

Bolts were arranged in groups of coordinating color and print design that drew the visitor's eye. It would be easy to put together a beautiful combination at arm's length from anywhere in the room. Just choose your primary (reds, yellows, blues, or whites/blacks) and move to that corner of the room, or somewhere in between for blended shades of anything.

It's like painting a picture with your imagination. All of the beautiful charms and quarters and yardages reach out to grab you to their heart, offering dreams of lovely finished quilts.

But what if you don't have a project picked out? What if you haven't decided WHAT to make just yet?

The answer could be a "Quilt Kit" that includes not only the pattern and instruction, but all the fabric needed to make the pieced top.

There were Kits available in many designs ranging from "beginner" all the way to "expert" dificulty level -- and each was available in distinctly different color pallets. That's not only great marketing, it's a real help to the shopping quilter to see it all in one package, in proper amounts, and ready to take home for a fixed price.

Each new store I went into I saw some of the same, but also some surprisingly different collections. Visiting all the stores gave me a broader feel for the possibilities.

It was entertaining, inspiring, sometimes overwhelming, but still worth the exercise. I heartily recommend everyone doing the same as often as they can.

Happy Quilting!
LLoni

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