I thought I'd share what I'm planning for my lesson 1 on Saturday. I'm going to talk about how my Grandmother and Mother inspired me to quilt and bring a couple of my early hand quilted quilts to show. Then, I'm going to move into my machine quilting and buying my Bernina and my mentor. I'll bring these two quilts. They are the first and second quilts I ever free motion quilted. This is EARLY in my quilting. My mentor showed me her tumbling block quilt and I had seen one or two on Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson. I new the angles, and I didn't know any better than to try it without any additional instruction or pattern. I was so proud. (Look at all those bad corners and "off" angles) I quilted this one in a large stipple. Not at all like my stippling now. But, ya' gotta start somewhere. This was my second quilt. I marked it from a plastic template. This is to show where I started and where the class participants should expect to be at the end of the class. And, I'm thinking of renaming the class from... Quilting with a Domestic Sewing Machine (big yawn) It was never supposed to be more than a working title, but after I wrote the lesson plans, I was out of creative thought. to.....drumroll please? Just add Practice. ta-da...duh, but better. Because I want to show how you get from that burnt orange quilt to this quilt that is traced from the same template. To get from one to the other just takes practice and that's what I can't teach. But, if I share everything else I know, they "Just Add Practice." Quilting with Lane. AKA what I learned from Harriet, Diane, and Leah. Leah (and a lot of other professional quilters) have been blogging about copyright. I'd hate to think that teaching what I think of as my own method, but is based on what I've learned from studying Harriet Hargrave, Diane Gaudynski and Leah Day could ever be a problem. I've taken information from each of them. I'll always make sure I give credit to them and to "the hundreds of other creative quilters that inspire me". All I do is put their ideas together in my own way, I think that's what Leah meant when she said "all art is dirivative". And I added practice to what they each shared with me through their writing. I know it's not a problem now and I doubt it would ever come to that. I'd actually be flattered if some teacher in a few years taught a class that was inspired by Harriet, Diane, Leah, and Lane. I'd love to be added to that list. Everybody have a great Wednesday. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go... Now, tell me you didn't hear the whistling in your head after that. Lane