Triple huggies this morning from my crazy doodle girl. Must be a sign that 2023 is going to be a good year!
New Year’s Eve was spent participating in a 5 hour mystery quilt livestream sponsored by Stitchin’ Heaven and Craftsy. What fun! There were over 2,000 people on the YouTube channel watching along with me. Yes, there were some technical glitches, but that’s to be expected with live programming. The hosts shared tips and tricks during each step of the process. They explained various methods to do HSTs using different tools. They adhered to the published schedule. Prizes awarded were nice and plentiful. The finished quilts revealed at the end were quite lovely. I did all of the prep work ahead of time and I only managed to get 1 sample of each type of block made, I did make a lot of headway on the prepping the sub-units, though.
Several folks complained about the pattern being too hard. I think their real issue with the pattern is the amount of prep work and piecing required for each 8-1/2″ block (16 HSTs that have to be oriented specific ways). One of the co-hosts was the pattern’s designer. She rated it as a confident beginner pattern and explained her rationale for giving it that rating. Yes, HSTs are appropriate for a confident beginner, but the number of match points and small units in this 8-1/2″ block means those confident beginners better have lots of time and patience in their quilty toolboxes.
One takeaway for my own teaching practice is to state at the beginning of my session what I expect students to accomplish before leaving that day. One completed block of each type used in the project is a viable goal. I’ve heard that I should plan 30-60 minutes of student work time for each block being taught in a workshop. Large, intricate blocks will require even more time.
Hope you have a peaceful New Year’s Day. I’ll be trimming up 500+ HSTs so I can resume block assembly on my NYE mystery quilt project.
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