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Not really OT rambling thoughts of a despairing teacher (of quilt making)

First - I would like to thank everyone who so kindly offered to relieve me of that ugly table runner I just finished. You are all most kind, but the "thing" has a new home with a lovely lady in Melbourne over here in OZ.

Now I have a question for those out there who teach quilt making. I have just restarted classes here for the year and one of my keenest students turned up last night and announced that she wanted to make a scrap quilt from her leftovers. Bravo! I am all encouragement.

Then she took out her scraps - about three FQ sized red fabrics was the final choice from a very small collection. OK, not much to build a scrap quilt on but it was a start and I didn't want to dampen the enthusiasm. So what sized quilt did she want to make so we could start to work out how much fabric she would need to gather up? "Oh, I don't know." Hhmmmm!

Well, what sort of scrap quilt did you have in mind? A string quilt - "Oh yes, I love them" - or a series of pieced blocks made from scraps - "Yeah, they look reat" - or a charm square style assembly of plain locks - "Oh, that would be nice and quick and easy wouldn't it" At this point I began to see a pattern developing! So after pouring through a dozen books we took a break, ate some chocolate cake with a cup of coffe, and F decided that she would "get into it" next week!!

So my question is -

What do you say when you get one of THOSE questions?

For example -

How much of this nice fabric do I need to make a quilt? No I hadn't thought how big or what sort of quilt.

or

Can you help me make a quilt? No I don't know how big or what style of what colour or what . . . . . . . . . . .

or

I want to make one of those quilts - I think I saw it here (I have about 400 books plus 1500 magazines here, NOT including patterns) - and it has yellow in it somewhere. You must know the one I mean!

(((sigh)) I love teaching, I really do, but some days . . . . . . . . Maybe I am getting too old for this ####.

Reply to
CATS
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I sit my students down by the bookshelves, (I have about 20 running feet of books and magazines) and give them a cup of tea.. And a bit of cake.... Then I leave them to it for a bit. I do tell them that they can make "anything that makes their heart sing" and I make sure that they make a sample block before they buy any fabrics.. If they want a million fabrics for a scrap or charm quilt, and do not have the numbers, I swap them from my overwhelming stash, but this can be difficult for them. I have caught a student trying to calculate the exact sqaure-inches she has taken, in order to replace them....

Try not to tell them what to do, as it doesn't work...

Happy sewing

Helen Howes Our Lady of the Biscuits

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Reply to
Helen Howes

I gave F a stack of books to browse through - I think that was my mistake rofl.

The rest sounds scarily familiar.

When the girls delve into my stash they have to cut strips only from the WOF (or width of FQ) and they add up how much fabric they have taken and pay me what I estimate it will cost to replace it (ATM considerably less than shop prices lol). So if they need 2" strips of 50 different fabrics they owe me for 100" or 2.5m. The money they pay goes in the pot and every so often I will "hit the sales" (often with one or two of them in tow) to buy replacement fabrics.

We live in a small town with no LQS. Some of them have never done anything but cut from my stash for any of their quilts. Others will shop for "feature" fabrics and then hunt through the stash for co-ordinating ToTs, or even vise versa. The stash keeps turning over and they have the option of only paying for the fabric they use and not accumulating a stash. They all keep notebooks and write down what they use and we settle up from their calculations - often not until they have finished their quilts. It makes them keep track of the cost of their quilting, and allows me to keep buying fabric even though I don't get to sew much anymore. We also have a stash of coloured quilting thread for when someone needs just a little of a particular colour, and we buy bulk quantities of Vliesofix, stabiliser, etc. It saves us all money and we are rarely out of anything we need.

Reply to
CATS

Cats,

What a great idea to "share" your stash like that! An absolutely brilliant resource, particularly when there is no LQS. So cool!

Hanne > I gave F a stack of books to browse through - I think that

Reply to
Hanne Gottliebsen

Reply to
recarlos

Now he sounds like a real "keeper"!! lol

Reply to
CATS

I wish you lived next door to me! Roberta in D, wondering why anybody would not want stash

"CATS" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:45bef911 snipped-for-privacy@news.chariot.net.au...

Reply to
Roberta Zollner

I would suggest that she cuts squares and sew them together. When she gets tired of cutting and sewing, that will be the size of her quilt. LOL On a serious note, I think she needs to work from pattern. Let her peruse by herself. There's only so much hand holding you can do. Part of the learning process is trial and error. I've got lots of those under my belt! Good luck!

Reply to
Ceridwen

Cheryl you are amazing! And what a great stash you must have (drooling on keyboard now thinking of it). I just have one question: What kind of women are these who are content to sew without accumulating a personal stash? I think I took up quilting specifically to justify my desire to own fabric. LOL. Seriously, you obviously have a great system are are doing some fine things for your quilty community.

Sunny

Reply to
Sunny

You're sending it to ME????? Oh Cheryl thank you!!!!

Reply to
Sharon Harper

lol no, but not far from you!

Reply to
CATS

Oh well - ya can't blame a girl for trying!!

Reply to
Sharon Harper

As one who tried to convey to my mom what I wanted to make, my answer is to just let the person look through books until the perfect one is found, or let her sketch/draw it out on paper.

Oddly enough I found my perfect one when I wasn't looking. I wanted something that would be easy to sew, using a lot of different fabrics like a charm quilt, and having one repeated fabric somewhat like a Chinese Coins quilt has solid bars. I found a pattern for a brick quilt with every other brick being a black print that gave the quilt the less busy look that I want. I'll be using all my bright novelty prints plus whatever fabric looks best with them all, so my main fabric might be black, blue, or lime green. I'll ponder the specifics when I get my BOM done. Debra in VA See my quilts at

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Reply to
Debra

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