You know, this is a hard one... my wonderful, sweet DIL has been working little by little since she married my son almost 6 years ago on a quilt for him. She had no exposure to sewing at all, let alone quilting.
Having taught classes for many years i know enough not to be a discouragement to new quilters by putting too many demands on them at once. Well, although we worked on the quarter inch seam concept many times somehow that idea is a little hit and miss for my DIL. Bless her heart she is really excited about sewing even though the project has now dragged out for years!
Because we cant get together to sew as much as we would like, she has taken the initiative to do some sewing a little at a time at home (i made sure she has a machine she can operate and a SewEzi table cuz she loves mine!). DIL excitedly texts and photos each block as finished and joined to rows. I can tell already we’re gonna have a problem in the final analysis, but she is very happy with her progress.
I usually prefer to wait until the student has their own “aha!” moment and wonders why something doesnt look quite as expected (as in why dont my seams match, etc) then we look at what they see and come up with solutions that make sense at the time. For new quilters sometimes the changes needed just make more sense if its their idea!
Ok, so DIL sez last month that she would like to give her hubby that quilt for Christmas and would i be able to quilt it in time. Loving MIL sez yes... we can take a look. DIL sez she is worried she might not have done a few things right. Since the time frame is tight i am planning to meet with her and take a look and make some suggestions but offer to fix some things so we can get the quilting done. The plan is to gently show where some seams maybe need a little help. In this case i might have to take sections apart but maybe not tell her all of that. But then on the next quilt stress those items. I probably should mention that my son and DIL have some developmental challenges which is why i am being extra specially patient and encouraging teaching wonderful DIL to quilt. She is such a wonderful woman and she loves my son (and us) so very much!