Pinwheels Through Cyber Space

At this point in my quilting journey, I came to a crossroads.  I really wanted to learn more about quilting but trying to figure it out on my own wasn't allowing me to progress as much as I would like.  I took to the Internet and came across this website called Craftsy.  I was instantly amazed!  They offered online classes in quilting and one of them was FREE!  I signed up for the Craftsy Block of the Month 2012 with Amy Gibson from Stitchery Dickory Dock.  I must confess that I didn't actually make the block quilt, but I watched every lesson (some lessons more than once) for the sole purpose of learning.  On the first day of each month, you could always find me curled up somewhere watching the new available lesson for that month.  My husband certainly had a few chuckles just seeing how absorbed I was in the whole thing.  I learned about quarter-inch seams and piecing several different blocks together.  I learned about paper piecing and slashing.  I learned the appropriate way to assemble a quilt and how to baste it correctly.  I learned how to bind and how to machine-quilt!  These are such basic quilting skills, yet this was the first time I was learning them from someone who knew what they were doing and not going on pure instincts.  It was wonderful!  The only downside of this course was it took the entire year of 2012 to complete, so I didn't learn everything all at once.  

One of the first things I did learned was how to make triangles and I decided that I wanted to do a simple pinwheel quilt using all triangles.  I found my fabric at Joann's and went to town cutting and piecing.  I have to admit that I wasn't prepared for how thick it could get at the point where the triangles meet together and you have 8 pieces of fabric all sewn together.  My machine wasn't always happy with me, but we pressed forward.  I put a small border in white around the blocks to help give it a finished look.  I used the backing as the binding and tie-quilted to finish it off.  I was really pleased with how it turned out.