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Student Success with Quilt Plans

behind the scenes free motion quilting
pieces of paper with quilting designs on them to determine a quilting plan

A significant benefit of teaching quilting is having outstanding students share tips and tricks. When the latest alums of From Whole Cloth got the lesson on quilt plans, they understood the assignment! A quilt plan is a drawing you make up before you sit down to quilt so you can figure out what motifs you want to use and how you might use your quilting to highlight some of the pieced design.

From cutouts from the student workbook to homemade flash cards, I wanted to share how Mitzi and Hanan made quilt plans for the class project.

Each student makes a throw-sized quilt using as many of the motifs from class as possible, so they need to figure out what they want to do to make their quilt awesome.

Mitzi

Mitzi drew out motifs on scrap papers and moved them around until she was happy with the layout.

paper squares with free motion quilting designs on them from student, Mitzi. she rearranged these until she was happy with the layout.

As you can see from her finished project, her quilt plan became an awesome quilting reality. You should also note that Mitzi freestyled and added drawings and new motifs—you know, because she could. The confidence to quilt on your own machine is a powerful thing!

Mitzi's finished quilt in rainbow colors with black sashing

Hanan

Hanan printed out the pattern’s coloring sheet and the sample doodles from the course workbook and moved them around until she was happy.

digital free motion quilting designs from class workbook that Hanan arranged into her desired layout

She also wanted to plan for the border and sashing, so she color-coded the sections and put motifs in based on the color.

coloring sheet with sashing color coded for sashing free motion quilting designs

Her final project was fantastic.

Hanan's finished quilt with red blocks and green sashing

Students who completed the project received this cool finisher pin for their outstanding work. You can watch the finisher video from last class on my YouTube channel.

the pin students of From Whole Cloth get when they finished the class. it has Joni's logo on it with "from whole cloth" and "team thread" around the edges