Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Cubes, cubes and more cubes....


The ladies got a good start on their Hollow Cubes,Too blocks on Saturday.  I like to teach some classes in two sessions, like these 3D cubes. There are a lot of steps to making cubes, especially the hollow ones, so if they can concentrate on the construction of the actual cube, without worrying about how to finish it, it's more manageable.
Plus there is a lot of strip sewing and cutting involved in making them and it's good incentive to work on them through the week when they know they will be coming back the next week to work on putting it together. I hope by next Saturday they will be ready to begin sewing some pieces together.

Here is my design wall to show the process to the students as they made their first cubes.
Lots of pretty fabrics as always! We are using the book ABC 3D Tumbling Blocks and More! by Marci Baker. Her techniques make this interesting quilt very doable.
    
To make this block look 3D you have to have a combination of three fabrics that are light, medium and dark or it won't be effective. Sometimes that is the hardest part...coming up with a good combination of three fabrics. 

 Later in the day I taught a second quilt class, the Tumbling Block quilt. I have taught this one before, but it never ceases to fascinate me. You make this block using strip piecing methods as well, so there is lots of cutting, sewing strips and recutting. It's worth all the work when you have a finished quilt to admire!
 They are going to see how many sets of cubes they can get sewn and cut before next Saturday, and spend some time playing with them to get some ideas on how they would like to arrange them.
You need to choose sets of 3 fabrics for this quilt as well, in shades of light, medium and dark.
 I am so excited to see what both groups of ladies have ready by next week!

2 comments:

JustCindy said...

I never get tired of looking at the hollow box or the tumbling blocks. Great fabric choices.

Julianne said...

I love the look of the cube quilts but I have not been brave enough to try it yet.