More Sewing March 2014

I have a bunch of sewing pictures between the girls' craft days, Makenna's skirt, and a project of mine thrown in too.  I am going to lump some together here.

First, Makenna's skirt.  She learned to put in a zipper and some darts.  It turned out very cute.  She recently wore it to her first day of Young Women, but she paired it with a bright yellow shirt.  It was very cute.

The zipper!  It does still need a "hook and eye", but I didn't have one on hand.  Required a trip to Satwa.  Oh darn. ;-)

Then the girls started their quilting class.  It is being taught by a friend from church.  There are 6 girls from our homeschool group taking the class ranging from 13 to 10 years old.  Darcy, the teacher, is a master quilter.  I have been to every class to help (being the mom with sewing experience), but I have learned lots from her too.  During the 6 weeks, all the girls made the same project.  But could quilt it however they wanted.  We are just starting the next 6 weeks, but that's a different story.  Helping the girls quilt each week made me want to get out some scraps and work on a project of my own.  This table runner was the end result.  I really loved how it turned out.  I gave it to Kristie Balbert, our piano teacher and Isaac's test proctor as a thank you for administering 10+ hours of tests to Isaac.

And here are a few shots of the girls from week to week at quilt class.  It's Makenna's favorite activity of the week!  This was their first class.  They received their project folders and worked on the first patch, "London Stairs". 

Here Makenna is working on the Eiffel Tower applique block.  I didn't take a picture on 9 patch or pinwheel days.  

Jess holding up her finished quilt top.  

And now showing off the three layers (quilt top, batting and backing) ready to be quilted.  I need to take some more pictures of the girls' quilting.  It turned out creative, unique and well done.  Our classes ran out so the binding didn't quite get finished.  We will knock that out along the way of the next session--Tumbler quilts.  

I am including some pictures from Darcy's show and tells that helped teach and inspire the girls, and me.  

Work in progress for Valentine's.

Sewing life hack.  Save kleenex boxes for threads and scraps.  

This was during the last day--binding--that turned out to be much trickier to teach than expected.  Dear patient Jess didn't complain about never getting a turn on the machine (my girls are the only sisters in the class and the only ones who have to share.  Usually it's not a problem as the trade off sewing and ironing), and managed to entertain herself.  

This shot represents a big of relief after a minor freak out.  My machine developed issues that I couldn't solve at Darcy's, but after more cleaning, rethreading, attempt, rinse and repeats, I got it up to speed again!