Learning to Quilt

My sister and I are considering learning how to make our own quilts, but we're not really sure where to start.
There's a local woman who offers lessons. I was thinking it might be a good place to go, but I don't know if it's necessary. Is this one of those hands on learning things, or can it be taught through magazines and books?

I've been quilting for a couple of years or more now, and have really never had a lesson, just looked at other quilts, invested in a couple of good books and bunches and bunches of mags. Really it depends on you, if you need to be "shown", take a class, if you can follow written instructions well, a book will do ya just fine. Wish you were closer to here, I'd love to give pointers!

Books!
Georgia Bonesteel does some good ones, but the quilts are so beautiful, they can intimidate..
Start at the library, books are x-pensive.
Take the lesson if you can, though. What the heck, right?
Do you have a "good relationship" with a reliable sewing machine?
Quilts are great-I love the planning & the peicing!

Can you show us some pics of your quilts? I cannot sew, but have seen some beautiful works of art called quilts. I grew up sleeping under a quilt made by my Great-Grandma; Mom could look at it and see Grandpa's old shirt, someone's old pyjamas, etc. I used it until it was ragged!

Originally Posted by Me-n-my guys

Do you have a "good relationship" with a reliable sewing machine?

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Haha! a good relationship? Mom has a very very good sewing machine that my grandmother bought her for her first wedding. She'd let me use it, but I think she'd have to give me another lesson. Her's is much more difficult to use then the ones we used in home ech in highschool.
I actually have some money coming to me from Coles (my brother bought me a book that I already have). So I'm trying to decide between a how to quilt book and a cook book...humm...decisions decisions.

you do not need lessons to learn to quilt...my grandma taught me when i was 7 and i love quilting...there are many great books out there, and talking to other quilters is a good idea too...i started on an antique singer sewing machine, and although i can't use it for other sewing projects i do, it works great for quilting

I think you might enjoy this. http://www.catswhoquilt.com/free.html

I think it depends on whether you are hand-quilting or machine-quilting. I have 2 sisters-in-law that do just beautiful hand-quilting. They do everything by hand including putting the blocks together.

They both attended quilting lessons even after they were good quilters to get extra information, learn more about putting what colours together, etc.

I would personally recommend the quilting lessons - you may find you'll have less frustration later.

Originally Posted by Sylorna

Haha! a good relationship? Mom has a very very good sewing machine that my grandmother bought her for her first wedding. She'd let me use it, but I think she'd have to give me another lesson. Her's is much more difficult to use then the ones we used in home ech in highschool.
I actually have some money coming to me from Coles (my brother bought me a book that I already have). So I'm trying to decide between a how to quilt book and a cook book...humm...decisions decisions.

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Yep! What I mean by that, is do you have a machine that you can sit down in front of & know WHY it does what it does, like when you see a bad stitch, do you know how far you can adjust it to fix it? Or why did it just break that needle? If you DON'T know that machine, you'll just waste time trying to figure out what is going wrong all the time. Not every machine is the same, obviously. And when you have a full blanket's worth of material stuffed up under it, it helps to have it running properly, because it's a real pain in the arse to drag all that material out to fix something, then start over. When that happens to you, you'll know exactly what I mean..