The first quilting class I took many many years ago was in Olde Town Alexlandria, Virginia. We made a sampler: curved piecing, eight-pointed star, applique (3-piece bird), Y-seam and bias edge stabilized by straight edge. (I used to know the names of these blocks, but have forgotten in my "older" age. Perhaps, Hole in the Barn Door, Drunkard's Path are two of them. We sashed, used corner stones, border, binding, sleeves, and quilting. To me, this covers about 90% of the techniques. We pieced the blocks by hand which gave us control. We stitched in drawn lines for accuracy. The instructor said if we could make these blocks by hand it was an easy transition to machine piecing. It was such fun and I have never looked back.
As I recall it was a six week course and we added sashing, etc by machine.