I had signed up for a workshop last week.  The class assignment was making a quilt that was designed by the guest speaker.  More on that at another time; I’ll leave this one where it is until I finish the Irish chain and then it should be a quick finish for the top after that.  One thing I learned during the class was from my  table mate, who happens to be in the same quilting bee as me.  If you need to make a cut and it’s wider than your ruler, slide another ruler next to it which will stabilize the fabric for a clean cut.  In this picture, I had a 6×24″ ruler and a 2.5×18″ ruler and needed to make a cut 8″ from the right.  I lined up the 6×24 ruler 5 1/2″ from the right, then put the 2 1/2″ ruler to the left of it.  The rulers didn’t slide at all when I cut it. That worked out well!

I have been quilting in the meantime and in a large portion I have been using stencils from Cindy Needham.  She has a large variety of stencils and I can’t pick my favorite because they’re all fantastic.  Some have a specific use – borders as an example.  And nearly all of those (maybe all of them) come in 3 different sizes.  She also has a large number of stencils that are perfect for backgrounds.  One that I’ve been using is lines in triplicate.  I’ve been using it as a crosshatch and really like it.  Cindy suggests a different marker instead of the pounce pad.  It worked out “okay”, but before too long, I switched to an air erasable marker and gave up on the chalk pretty soon!

The quilt is still on the long arm so it’s hard to take good photos to show off the loft but here’s an attempt to give you an idea while it’s under tension.  It’s a lot of marking which means it’s a lot of quilting.  I looked at the timer and yep…I’ve spent a fair number of hours on this one so far!  I made the mistake of buying navy blue for the bottom fabric so every misstep with the light thread is going to show up – lesson learned the hard way but it is what it is!