back to school

I am late posting to my blog this morning because I spent the early morning at the local high school teaching an IB class to make quilt blocks. I go back next week for their second lesson. Fortunately their teacher, who roped me into this, is a neighbor and I taught her to quilt so they won't be leaderless when the two quilt classes I am teaching are done. I am not sure how making a quilt fits into English class, but that's not my problem!

We told the class (boys and girls) that we are bringing a sewing machine and they are all going to sew a narrow border around the blocks that they have painted. They groaned, but I bet they have a lot of fun when we get the machines out. I have to remember to put the speed control on medium because it is my experience that boys treat the sewing machine pedal like a gas pedal in the car...the stomp it all the way down with their big feet and floor it to go full speed ahead. I don't want them going so fast that they sew through a finger.

Teaching the class got me to thinking about the first quilt I made. Those were the days when we were expected to sew quilts by hand. I was in a class and I did sew all the blocks by hand but it made no sense to me to sew the sashings and borders by hand. So I sewed them on my machine and just stared my teacher down when I saw she was going to comment on it. Here is the quilt, softly faded but still loved.

This quilt is included with my biography in my new book (now at the printers) titled: Sashings and Settings, The Basics and Beyond, published by Landauer Publishing Corp.