Saturday, November 03, 2012

A Class with Elizabeth Hartman

A little while ago I took a workshop with Elizabeth Hartman at Sew Modern.  We learned two different methods of making letters.

The first was an appliqué technique using fusible webbing.
 We started with pieced fabric and ironed fusible webbing letters onto the back.
 After ironing the letters onto our background fabric we machine appliquéd them using a zig zag stitch.

The VA is for my Virginia, not the state.  I originally intended to turn this into a wall hanging but now I'm not so sure.  I might turn it into a very simple quilt.  Any ideas?

The second technique was a type of paper piecing using freezer paper and Elizabeth's Refrigerator Magnets pattern.  This is a very tedious technique but sometimes I'm in to mood for that sort of thing and it really does turn out great.  It's a good way to piece letters like this without fiddling with lots of tiny pieces.  Plus you have your letters all planned out before hand without having to measure anything.  Unlike traditional paper piecing, which involves sewing fabric to a piece of paper with the pattern printed on it, this freezer paper technique has you cut apart your paper pattern and iron the pieces onto your fabric as you build your block.  The benefits to this technique are that you can reuse your pattern pieces since you're not sewing through them and you can press your seam allowances open which is a very good thing when you're working with such tiny pieces as these.  Not everyone may think that last one is a pro but I'm ALWAYS an open seam presser.  It makes your piecing so much flatter and crisper, and I love the way it looks.
I put this in the back of a quilt that I will share with you soon.

I'm not usually a class kind of lady when it comes to this sort of thing (though I am a classy lady) because I figure I can just teach myself.  Although this is true, when some friends asked me to take the class with them I realized how fun it can be to spend the day sewing with a group of quilters and it's extra cool to spend time with someone like Elizabeth.  Not to mention she was a great teacher.  Also, piecing/appliqueing letters wasn't the sort of thing that I was very interested in attempting before but it was great to branch out a little bit and try something different.  I came home and immediately started thinking about an alphabet quilt for Ginny.  It was a great day and I would definitely recommend a class with Elizabeth to anyone!