[QUOTE=Watson;8656308]All of this has been invaluable, thanks.
I am going to be teaching my first classes this year. The first is going to be a class for people who think that they MAY want to take up quilting. Just me introducing the basics of quilting in general terms. It will be a four hour class.
The second will be a Learn to Quilt class based on HST's and will truly start from scratch. The only requirement is that you know how to use your sewing machine to stitch a straight line. This will be 5 4 hour classes with lots of homework and they will end up (hopefully!) with a finished baby quilt or wallhanging.
I'm really looking forward to it.
Watson[/QUO
The first quilting class I took was for hand piecing - rotary cutters were just starting to be used -
I am glad I started there - the "old-fashioned" way - requirements were: fabric, scissors, template plastic, needle, thread, and pins, pencil or pen to mark templates - we copied the instructors templates. I don't remember if we traced over them or around most of them. I do remember that my hexagon block turned out too big because I traced around the master template. So by the time the piece was "increased" twice - my block was too large. Learned something there!
It was a 12 block sampler quilt.
Might consider using Jinny Beyer's hand piecing book as a reference.
We did not get to layering.
I learned a lot - plus the equipment expense was minimal.
Sorry, Ms. Instructor. I do not remember your name, except for my grandmother's flower garden block turning out too big, the class was excellent.
I sometimes think in order to be a quilter, I should have a machine with a very large throat, a long-arm, a huge cutting table, with a mat to cover it (which I did have for a while - miss it terribly), the best iron available, decent ironing board (they don't seem to get mentioned much in the equipment lists), plus every tool notion mentioned in the swing/quilting books. Forgot the die-cutter!