What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Today started out early. Had to head out the door and get my routine done. First, bank, second, bowling alley, stopped for tea, and on to the grange. 

There was three of us again today. I can't wait for more people to show up! Had a good meeting. Showed what I learned in class and worked on my Five Alive piece. 

Once that was over ...

Today I was up about an hour before class. Patrick let me sleep. lol - So I got moving and got set up for our meeting. Since we had a big wind storm last night, all the leaves in the back yard went to the open field next door. Good thing our tree was cut down already. 

 I have learned something about myself. Actually, I've known it for some time now. I can get up and work like mad all day. But if I have an interruption to my schedule, I'm a zombie for the rest of the day. Case in point, I had a trunk show yesterday morning, which went very well and was not far from home. Hello to all the members of the Busy Hands Quilt Guild in Cambridge. 

Then I got home in time to join the Monday Sewing Group for a bit, and well, instead of logging off at the ...

About a week ago, I posted the first part of a little quilt I’d begun in a class. Since that time, I’ve finished that top, as well as a second one. Unfortunately, I don’t particularly like the results, so I doubt that I’ll actually finish them. Here’s the first one, begun in class. I think […]

Last week our local quilt guild, Desert Quilters of Nevada, hosted award-winning quilter MJ Kinman for a wonderful lecture at our quarterly meeting, followed by two days of classes. I took one of the classes, Bite-Size Gems, where we learned how to “translate” a picture of a gemstone into a pattern for a quilt or […]

 This morning I had to run into town to help Phil out. Once I had that done, I was back in time to attend my virtual class with Debbie Goff. While I waited a few minutes before attending my class, Patrick was making Grape Jelly and Grape Juice. He picked the grapes yesterday and was getting them ready to work on the juice and jelly. He made a lot of jelly. We had a really good year for grapes. 

At noon I was on the computer attending my class with Debbie Goff. I loved having the class all to myself ...

Good morning to all!!!  We are up, showered, fed, and ready to learn.  As I approach my table, there is a gift bag for each person awaiting us.  Inside are lovely little treasures.  How fun is this?  Up front, the teaching area is being set up and I've taken a seat on the front sofa so that my visual needs will be met.  I KNOW people think it's something else, but the fact is that I learn better

 OK -- I am JEALOUS of Elle. She keeps going through her stuff and getting rid of everything. I wonder what her house looks like? I bet there's not much there, and that gives me HOPE. I will get there - I just need to get over this last hurdle (the office). Then going back to the beginning and doing it all over again! 

At least the amount of stuff I will have to go through the second time will be about half of what I had to deal with when I started, and my mindset is also entirely different. I ...

I’ve had four different nudges to get back into teaching over the past two weeks. Three are for shows/organizations I’ve worked with before, and one is from a friend who knows my work. I responded to the three with my usual “I’m working on it, will send info soon” response as I dodged the professional responsibility to be punctual, thoughtful, and organized.

It’s the last one that got to me. My friend Judy mentioned I might get in touch with SFSNAD and see if they’d have me. She teaches there and has heard students ...

I spent the day with friends creating

Sewing Machine Covers 

Ta-da! It’s done!

Many years ago I took a shibori class through my Guild. I don’t remember who taught it, but I do remember she made a living through installation art and not teaching or writing books.

The best part of the class was her examples of different shibori patterns. This is what I came home with after a full day.

Definitely not the number of samples I expected. These were created using stitched resist and dye.

Prior to the class I produced this piece by wrapping fabric around PVC pipe and painting it.

I have also tried folding and clamping fabric ...

Just yesterday, this is what my latest quilt top looked like: As you can probably see, the center square was complete, but I hadn’t yet attached the borders. Those border sections to surround the outer triangles, which are just pinned in place, weren’t even cut out, as I was still figuring the dimensions of those […]

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been taking a fantastic set of online classes from Philippa Naylor. The last class in the series is a tutorial on making a feathered star quilt with a LeMoyne Star center. I’ve always loved both feathered stars and LeMoyne Stars, so this was a no-brainer for me. As I rooted […]

Guess what I’m teaching online again! in August at the Mancuso World Quilt Fest!  Enjoy the video below– and then go sign up for my workshops here:  https://www.quiltfest.com/register/world-quilt-show-online/workshops-by-instructor/sarah-ann-smith-bindings-facings/    For more info, you can also visit my workshop page here. 

These are three of my favorite workshops, and in consideration of SUMMER and being able to get back out into the world (WOOOOOT!), I chose half-day workshops so you can learn then go play and actually smile ...

Remember these gnomes that I showed you last week? I’ve added some different ones to the “collection” this week. I’d signed up several weeks ago to take a class at the quilt shop after seeing how cute the samples were. The design is by Embroidery Garden, and it’s easy to make with the embroidery machine; […]

I recently finished the Basic Cray Quilting Course with Kathy Seaman Shaw.

This class is a prerequisite for all her other classes, which are all free.

The class started in early January. This class is divided into 12 tasks and each one must be completed before you receive instructions for the next task. There are extensive written instructions for each task. The class is at your own pace.

The class contained an incredible amount of information, especially for a free class. The printed materials contain a lot of pictures. For techniques that were better explained visually, there were links to ...

The most recent of the online classes I’m taking from Philippa Naylor teaches techniques of making a miniature quilt. I’ve done some minis before, but I’ve usually paper pieced them; the bit and pieces of the sample quilt for this lesson are traditionally machine pieced instead. I’m not certain that I’ll make the entire quilt, […]

 What kind of a student are you? Are you the one that sits in the back, takes notes (or not), and then never does anything with the material? Are you the one in the front that EVERYONE wants to shut up so they can get out of the class? ( I LOVE these students, and I'm one of them) You could also be the one who sits in the middle, says nothing, absorbs lots, and goes home to review the material and plays, but never asks questions!! And there's are loads of other types in between.

Well, there are ...

I finished stitching a project this week that was designated my do-a-little-every-day project. The concept is simple. Every day I did something to move that project forward.

This is not a new idea, or my idea, but something I’ve heard a lot about lately. Pat Sloan talks about it all the time on her daily videos and uses it to finish UFOs. Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts also talks about this method. Karen uses it to focus on her more complicated projects, using a timer to work on those 30 minutes at a time.

I’m ...