Quilting Lesson 3: The Big Cut.

In the life of any DP9 quilt, there comes a day when the quilter must make the big cut. Last week, my quilting student armed herself with a rotary cutter and got to work chopping up her beautiful nine patches.

I did not envy her the task. I've never made a large scale DP9, so my chop-chopping has been on a more minimal scale. But she had ten blocks to chop into, and she did them justice.

This was her first cut. I KNOW. It looks SO good.

And that first cut is definitely the hardest.

We also chatted about layout, layout organization, and how to assemble and press rows. Last I heard, she was already hard at work getting the individual blocks laid out and sewn into rows, and it really wouldn't surprise me if she shows up this week with a near-finished top. (We still have borders, of course, but seriously. This girl has serious quilt love!) 

In other student news, I taught my husband how to baste a quilt last night. (He volunteered to help me baste because it seriously kills my pregnant back.) Being an engineer/scientist, he insisted on knowing the theory behind each step in the process, and when we were done, his mind was already coming up with contraptions he could build to streamline the basting process. I still did about 75% of the basting, but it was really sweet of him to help, and I can tell Fava that his quilt was made with help from his papa. I'm pretty sure I have a quilting plan in place, and if I have thread that will work, I'll get started today!