Free Motion Quilting Class at Craftsy: Wendy Butler Burns

While I've been researching a number of topics, one of the main areas that I've been researching, this past year, has been in the area of free-motion quilting.  I've been looking at quilt books, DVDs and taking classes to find ways a beginner quilter, or even an experienced quilter could learn to create beautiful free-motion quilting.  And, I'm really excited to be able to share with you insights about a Free-Motion Quilting (FMQ) class offered by Craftsy.com 

First, if you have not yet taken an online quilting class, I think you are missing a great opportunity.  Craftsy.com is also a premiere source for online quilting classes, as well as other craft classes too.  They guarantee 100% satisfaction, or a complete refund of your class fees within 30 days of your registration.  You can take your class anytime, at your liesure, always able to start and stop  at any point.  Plus, with Craftsy.com your class will always be available to you for you to repeat anytime you would like, and as many times as you would like!

This FMQ Class is taught by Wendy Butler Burns, a very talented quilter and teacher.  Craftsy provided the following  highlights what you will learn  in this class and I think they fulfilled these and more in the course materials:

• Start simple & stress–free by quilting 5 easy designs with the walking foot                                
• Tackle 10 beautiful FMQ designs from simple stipples to feathers‚ vines‚ bubbles & more                                
• Learn best practices for setting up your space and battling the bulk of your quilt                                
• Understand what threads to use on your project & why

Course Materials were provided in PDF format for: 

• A Welcome document that contains insights on the teacher, overview of all the lessons, machine quilting basics, including oodles of tips & tricks for free-motion quilting with great visuals.
• Supplies & resources document
• and a  great quilting glossary is also provided

The overall course is 5+ hours and consists of ten lessons with well thought out and organized content. Lessons cover everything a beginner needs to know about FMQ:
# 1: Introduction (9:25 minutes)
# 2: Preparing Your Quilt (37:34 minutes)
# 3: Stablizing Your Quilt (28:31 minutes)
# 4: Take A Walk (41:34 minutes)
#5:  Marking Free-motion Quilting (19:44 minutes)
# 6: Simple Free-motion Quilting (44:59 minutes)
# 7: Complex Free-motion Quilting (23:03 minutes)
# 8: Thread Talk (29:43 minutes)
# 9:  Whole-Cloth Quilting & Troubleshooting (25:26 minutes)
# 10:  Borders & Binding (48:38 minutes)

 Every lesson includes a variety of tips, insights on tools, tricks.  Wendy walks the students thru the design, drawing it first on paper, and then showing how to stitch it out on your home sewing machine.

Easy to ask questions and get a response from the teacher.  I also enjoyed seeing questions that other students have asked and the teachers' response to all questions.

The Craftsy tool also provides an easy to use place for taking notes.  Plus, the class video will stop to give you time to log your notes.  Your notes will be there for you to refer to anytime you want, even if you repeat the class months later.  And, you can print your notes any time to your local printer.  

All of the Lessons are easy to follow and packed full of appropriate info.  I was very happy to see that "Thread Talk"  included excellent insights on needles, thread weights, proper spooling, and setting tension.  These are all items that frequently give new free-motion quilters challenges and if don't get a good handle on them early on, quilters tend to not enjoy FMQ.

Designs are broken into four  main categories:

1. Take a Walk provides insights on using your walking foot,
2. Marking Your Quilt provides insights on using stencils,
3. Simple FMQ shares insights on stippling, the zigzag stitch, continuous star motif, and the traveling vines motif,
4. Complex FMQ shares insights on round spirals, square spirals, Feathers,  continuous flowers, and bubbles.

SewCalGal highly recommends this Free-Motion Quilting Class for quilters that want to learn free-motion quilting, as well as those that have learned some FMQ but want to increase their confidence level and/or get a solid refresher on basics FMQ techniques.

The course fee is $39.99 which I feel is an excellent value. 

Once you sign up for Machine Quilting‚ you’ll have unlimited access to the course‚ including online discussions and over 15 pages of downloadable resources‚ tips and ideas. Watch on your own schedule‚ at your own pace‚ and as many times as you like… your access never expires.

Craftsy does offer a variety of classes for a number of hobbies and they are adding classes all the time.   In addition to classes, they also hold workshops.  I spotted the Lemoyne Star Quilted Trivet Workshop  that has a special for $11.99 that I signed up and would love to have you join me. 

I did have one technical problem while taking this course.  While I thought it might be my PC, I wasn't certain what to do about it.  Craftsy quickly responded with a recommendation for me to clear my browser's cache and they shared a link to a guide to help me do this.  As I confess I forget to do this periodically, I wanted to share it with you.  It definitely helped for the video to be viewed without an interruption.  ( Click here for the guide to clear your cache)

I hope you'll check out Craftsy.com and give their classes a try.  I do think you'll really enjoy taking their classes and definitely enjoy this FMQ class, if you are interested in learning free-motion quilting. 

Where you can find Craftsy:

http://www.craftsy.com
http://www.facebook.com/quiltingclub
http://blog.craftsy.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/beCraftsy