Thread: What would you expect from a beginner class?

I have also been sewing since I was a small child. For many years I made Thing for my home most of my own clothes and even made clothes for my husband, but I always wanted to quilt. I pieced some small things, but never finished them. About 5 years ago I decided to follow up on my dream to make a quilt so I went and signed up for a beginner's class. I am so glad I did. I got lots of tips and tricks from the teacher, the ladies in the shop, and even my classmates. I also gained confidence and a completed project and it was fun. It was comforting knowing that if I had a question, there would be someone there every week to help me. For me it was well worth the time and money.

All of these ideas should be implemented into a beginner sewing class for quilters. I had been a seamstress all my life. I learned excellent sewing skills from my mother, who had been a home ec teacher, plus, I took four years of home ec in high school. When I decided to learn how to make quilts, it was a totally different medium than sewing garments, etc. I had sewing "skills" but not the knowledge or tools required/needed for quilting, so I took a beginner quilting class. We made various blocks for a small quilt so that we would learn various techniques such as piecing, paper piecing, applique, etc. We learned how to make borders, sandwich our quilt, and then she had us quilt it by hand to learn how it is done. I think a beginner quilting class is really a good idea in order to learn the concept, etc. Back when I was learning to quilt, YouTube and internet searches were not available like they are today. Good luck if you decide to pursue teaching students to quilt!

I have also been sewing clothes for years but had never made a quilt until May this year. I read loads of magazines and books and spent a lot of time on the computer teaching myself the basics. Then I decided to take a beginner class and boy, was I glad I did. When you learn on your own, you miss out on valuable information and time saving shortcuts that more experienced quilters have learned over the years. Besides the items listed by Patpitter, the class I took taught all the most commonly used blocks, which was awesome.

I took a Quilting 101 class at a LQS two years ago. Class time was 4 Monday mornings from 9 to noon. Had a fully complete log cabin block quilt when it was done. People were expected to have basic sewing skills and bring their own machines to class. She covered basic tools, fabric preparation, how to cut fabrics with rotary cutter and ruler, piecing and chain piecing, pressing vs ironing, sewing 1/4" seams, measuring quilt for borders, sewing on borders, sandwiching using safety pins, SID quilting and both machine and hand binding. Basically all the foundation skills.

Craftsy has a free class for beginner quilters. I'm not a new quilter but I signed up anyway.
Great tips and it is a great review of fundamentals.
AND best of all it is free
.

My Quilters Guild offers 7 3 hr sessions of beginner classes for any member-new or repeat. I will be teaching it along with a friend and some other members. We will cover fabric selection, rotary cutting, finding that 1/4"seam and tool selection (rulers, etc), basic quilting terms; session 2 will be putting together a rail fence block (nesting seams, getting a 12.5 block, pressing) and introduce handquilting; a session on creating an applique block (we'll cover several methods and ask that they choose one); a block of Sarah's Choice, so that they will do a 1/2 square triangle, a flying geese, fit them together as a pinwheel(and open up that meeting corner seam so it lays flat); a session making and "easy pineapple" to show how a complex looking block is very doable; drunkard's path block (sewing curved seams) and "breaking down blocks" to show all the parts they have learned up to this point; a final session of sashings and borders, preparing to quilt or preparing for the long armer. We typically follow-up a couple of months later with a workshop to help them actually get it all finished/binding. We then encourage that they show their sampler at the next Guild show. We ask that beginners do have working knowledge of their machine and basic sewing skills. We even have many members that are experienced quilters that will "drop in" to either help and mentor or re-take a particular class that they want to polish skills.

I had been a sewer for decades before I took these beginner classes and wanted to learn to quilt. I wholeheartedly recommend anyone take some beginner quilt classes even if they do sew--it was SOOO helpful.

Aw man, I made a huge long list & then deleted it because I assumed this was just a single class & my list was too long! lol

Ok, first off, I know around me there are only classes for people that have never seen a real, live sewing machine in their lives. It is intensely frustrating because the purpose of those classes seems to be to con clueless people into buying fancy machines and totally unnecessary piles of notions. For the rest of us who started sewing back in junior high, there is nothing available except the occasional skill class. I just want to cry when I see beautiful quilt tops that end up quilted SITD solely because that's all that's taught in local classes. So, my personal bias is that it would be nice to have a class that doesn't include really, really basic lessons about things like how to turn on my machine, plug in the foot pedal, lower the presser foot, thread the needle, pin together two pieces of fabric, or use a pair of scissors. And while I have quite a collection of notions, it is overwhelming to hear about a long list of items (all available immediately after class) that I just "have" to have. There are only a few actual essentials. After that, there is another fairly short list of items that aren't necessary, but will make a big difference in the ease or quality of your quilting. Beyond that, the rest are quilting luxuries and very few of those should be promo-ed in a beginner's class.

For skills, I would love to see a sampler quilt, but I know those aren't really done anymore. So if that's not feasible, maybe a mini-quilt to practice straight line (walking foot) quilting, and then a lap quilt to learn FMQ techniques. There really isn't much to straight line quilting, which I suppose is why so many places are eager to offer one-day classes where people are given pieced samples with triangles and squares to do SITD or cheater cloth prints to do straight line quilting.

For FMQ, on the other hand, there is a lot more to consider both with machine & technique, but the results are undeniably stunning when done right. Heather Thomas has an amazing YouTube video series of her live classes on beginner FMQ (tools, tips & techniques for beginners); and, of course, Leah Day has built a reputation as the premiere source for FMQ on the web.

And after the quilting, it would be helpful to explain about bindings (hand or machine finished) and labels. I think binding would be especially important because honestly, that was the hardest thing for me to learn from on-line videos.

Here are the other things I'd like to see included at some point in a Beginner (but not totally clueless) Class:

Tools
What do I actually need to start quilting?
If I had another $100 to spend, where would it make the biggest difference?
Care & Repair: how often to change needles/rotary blades, clean/oil machine, soak cutting mat, sharpen scissors, etc
Marking Tools (ironing, testing to make sure they come out)
Basting Tools (curved pins, Pinmoors, spray baste, Elmer's glue & how/when to use each)
Needles -- selecting the right needle for piecing/quilting/binding by hand & machine, matching needle/thread, numbers
Thread -- cotton, poly, rayon, blend, silk, mono; thread thickness & ply numbers
(if you will be talking about binding by hand, a brief mention of thimbles would be good)

Tips
Extra Wide Fabric vs. Pieced Backs
Selecting a Batting (warmth, allergens, natural fibers, price, durability, washability, drape)
To Pre-Wash or Not to Pre-Wash?
Same or different colored thread in top & bobbin? (risks/advantages of mismatched threads)
Stacking fabric for rotary cutter
Strip cutting/strip piecing (sewing)
Using a "charger" (fabric scraps for start/stop to save thread & level presser foot)
Continuous line quilting/Reducing starts & stops
When to cut/not cut on the bias
How to make HST & QST & how to identify which is which once it's cut

Tricks (aka, Troubleshooting)
Problems related to:
Dull rotary blade
Dull needle
Top Tension
Bobbin
Stitch length
Presser foot is up
Threading
Poorly formed/skipped stitches
Teeny-tiny stitches or giant stitches
Jog in stitch line
Fabric is bunching, pulling, puckering or moving
Difficulty moving fabric under darning foot
Ruffles in border
Pieced square/rectangles that need squaring up
Thread keeps breaking

Apologies for the long list. As you can tell, this isn't the first time I've thought about this. lol. I can't tell you how many quilters I've run into at LQS that have somehow managed to get their first quilt all pieced & then they want to quilt it and they're just totally lost. I can relate to them and I do my best to share YouTube links with the new quilters because I've been there myself, but a live class that actually covered the "Beginner Plus Basics" for those who managed to figure out how to sew a straight line and use a rotary cutter/ruler on their own, would be really nice. By me, many people get hooked into quilting after years of watching F&P or SwN on TV, so they bring some basic knowledge with them plus lots of ridiculously difficult and creative ideas of quilts they'd like to make.