Silk batting for WWII parachute quilt arrived

Yeah!  The silk batting came from Harriet's Treadle Arts today!  My sister-in-law and I will be able to make a very nice quilt now out of the four-square turquoise, green and yellow parachute quilt top and back my great-grandmother made....but it will have to wait for summer, but I'll keep you posted :-)  Here's a photo of the 67 year old quilt in the making...(sixty-seven years of wrinkles need to be ironed out!)  

Fortunately, my mother kept this in her cedar-lined hope chest all that time.

"Quilting Academy" bloggers forge the way

KIRSTEN'S BLOG ABOUT QUILTING ACADEMY FRESHMEN YEAR

I'm really looking forward to reading not only Lesley's "Quilter's Academy" blog at
LESLEY'S BLOG ABOUT QUILTING ACADEMY
but also Kirsten's blog as she works her way through the "Quilter's Academy", too.

These two front-runners are going to help me through.  Are you thinking about beginning "Quilter's Academy", too?

Quilter's Academy - Freshman Year

While participating in Harriet Hargrave's class in October 2010, I decided to follow her and her daughter Carrie's "Quilter's Academy" books, published by the ultimate in quilting books, C&T Publishing.  A fellow quilting blogger from Austrailia started in 2009.  Her beginning is here:

BLOCK HEAD: Quilter's Academy - Freshman Year

I created the first project just today and here is the end result:

After viewing  Lesley's " Austrailian quilt blogger's site, I can see that she has made remarkable improvement in her quilting over the past two years and this is my humble beginning for all to see.  I have hope of improvement!  Thanks also to Kirsten for her inspirational "Quilter's Academy" blog.  It will be wonderful to have two readily available resources as I delve into this project.

Here is my first project top and left over materials all bagged up and waiting for me to return to it in "Quilter's Academy" Vol. 2 Sophomore Year...isn't Ziploc handy?

The next project is Harriet's "Woodland Winter Quilt" on pg. 33 of "Quilter's Academy" Freshmen Year.

Harriet helps you figure out the math in this project.  It was nice to learn the "formula".

There will be 60 3x3" 1 1/2" strip blocks in blue, red and light

12 3x3" light blocks and

49 3x3 blue blocks

At first, you sew strip sets and cut them out, then cut out the solid blocks.  The completion of this project will be my first quilt top.  Again, I will lay aside this top for now and move on to Carrie's "Cowboy Corral" quilt on page 36.  I must admit that this quilt top really appeals to me and it will be fun to finish it and give it to someone in my family who will enjoy it.  I just love these fabrics!  It should be fun to fussy cut the horses for this quilt and give it a real "Old West" look.  (It's hard to tell, but the deep red has dark gold stars.)

There's an entire page dedicated to fussy cutting from panel prints on page 37.

I am going to refer back to 

BLOCK HEAD: Quilter's Academy - Freshman Year

for tips from her experiences sewing through the series.  I owe her a big thank you for  "breaking a trail" with this series of books.  This will be a thought process that I appreciate being able to learn.  It's not easy like following a pattern, but rather teaches you how to figure the math and do it for yourself.  That's the great American way!