Breakfast Club 2012 is Complete!

I had the joy of teaching the “Breakfast Club” at Quiltique for the past 13 months. For the past 12 months, on the second Saturday of each month, I’ve spent an hour with these amazing ladies. I get to talk them through the block for the month, and then they go home and sew.

Each month, they’ve brought in their blocks from the previous month. This last month, they brought in their completed quilt tops.

It was amazing. Over 40 women finished their quilts. That is nearly two-thirds of the class. And every single one was amazing. AMAZING! I’ve turned them into a little slide show for you here. Each of these quilts incorporates the same basic 12 blocks… done with different fabrics, and put together in different formations.

 
While presenting their quilts, the ladies had the opportunity to share what they learned during this last year. The answers were humbling. Some learned how to square up their blocks. Some learned paper piecing. There was one gal who had never used a sewing machine before starting on this quilt. Before we were halfway through sharing all the completed quilt tops, I was crying.

The crying might have been, in part, because of the late nights I’ve been working to keep up with my own projects. But it was largely because I felt so lucky. So very lucky to get to be a part of the quilting journey that each one of these ladies is on. I remember so many of the teachers that helped me… and now as a teacher, I’m learning so much from my students. Having to explain how to do something makes me so much better at it!

I will admit that I did have a favorite answer as I listened to these women share what they learned this year. One grey haired woman (older than my own mother) said that while working on her quilt one thing that she learned was… how to cuss!