How does a quilt teacher design a teaching quilt. – and why?

I've finished the quilt, well sort of. I need to add the binding and I have a bit of a bend on the left hand side, the quilting pushed it out, I'm not sure what I will do about it….Maybe add an appliqué, then again, what the heck I'm not perfect.

This is a class quilt and I thought you might like to see my thought process in designing it.

So what will the students learn?

First of all how to piece a background, and color and balance.

I used a very fine Indian cotton, it's a beautiful fabric used to make Sari blouses, but the seams have shadowed…. I don't really mind it and it's a good teaching exercise. The other thing is that it doesn't fray when I use it for raw edge appliqué.

Students in this class will create their own fabric. The Kokopelli is completely drawn on white fabric.

Shadow appliqué, it's my word, my idea, maybe others are doing it, I don't go to classes so I guess I don't know. It's adding different coloured outlines behind the appliqué.

Fabric illustration. I chose the fine cotton so I could draw on it and add my own designs to the fabric. For instance, the designs on the mountains drawn in ink.

Of course in finishing the quilt…….Sculptural Quilting.

I decided to use one color thread on the bottom part of the quilt instead of changing from orange to Turquoise.

My preference was to quilt it all in orange. Its also a great quilting tool for comparing a thread that matches the fabric and the difference where a quilting thread is a different color without having to be too darn fancy.