What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Thanksgiving is over.  So it is now time to decorate for Christmas.  For me that means pulling out my Christmas quilts along with a few winter quilts. 

For gift giving, I particularly enjoy creating table runners and smaller wall quilts.  I find recipients appreciate items that focused on a particular season and it is less important to "match" their "current colors" or "decorating style".  It is a great opportunity to experiment with a new fabric collection or even a new "style" of quilt.

The project today will be a fabulous gift option -- in either traditional or non-traditional Christmas fabrics?  I ...

Were you a Black Friday shopper this year?  

This has been an enjoyable weekend with family in Kansas City.  I've been trying to get some Christmas shopping done -- which of course meant braving a few stores on Black Friday.  I am finding that if you wait until mid-afternoon the shopping experience is much less stressful.  However I have been thinking about some more crazy Black Friday experiences

Back in my early-adult years, I remember getting up before the crack of dawn to stand in long lines for particularly enticing Black Friday offers. 

The one I remember best is the ...

Last month I challenged the Tech Know Quilter Masters members to create a harvest themed quilt.  You will definitely want to scroll down and check out their designs.  They are super creative.

I decided to challenge myself to complete a harvest themed quilt myself.  I will walk you through my process and share with you the blocks and quilts in this weeks video tutorial.  

I remember agonizing over my first purchase of Electric Quilt.  I loved quilting and had a ton of patterns and books – more than I could ever use in my lifetime.  Can you relate? 
 
I wasn’t completely convinced I needed the software.  However, I also realized that those purchased patterns were not always accurate and there were quilts that I saw in magazines and at shows that did not have patterns.  And I didn't necessarily want to make an exact replica of the quilts from patterns I had bought.
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Once I started using the software, I knew I couldn ...

Last week I shared my 3 blocks from one concept where I started with an initial candy corn block and then used the block to create the sashing and smaller individual candy corn blocks.  All with no additional drawing required.

If you missed the tutorial, you will want to go back and watch it here.

In last weeks tutorial, I also shared two quilts completed with an on point layout.  However one of the beauties of using Electric Quilt is the ability to play the ...

Last week I shared my 3 blocks from one concept where I started with an initial candy corn block and then used the block to create the sashing and smaller individual candy corn blocks.  All with no additional drawing required.

If you missed the tutorial, you will want to go back and watch it here.

In last weeks tutorial, I also shared two quilts completed with an on point layout.  However one of the beauties of using Electric Quilt is the ability to play the ...

It has been a hectic week.  It has been a privilege to welcome a new group of EQ enthusiasts into Tech Know Quilters.  It was super fun to meet up with some of them at a private help session on Thursday. 

For those that were part of the Fall Migration webinars, your bonus is still a work in progress.  It has been taking a little longer than expected.  But I hope to get it out to you shortly.

In MN, the weather has finally started to feel like fall.  I have my jacket on (huddled over my computer) as I ...

Every month I offer a challenge opportunity to my Tech Know Quilter Masters members.  These are my more advanced students.  The challenges give them an opportunity to expand their Electric Quilt 8 skills -- but more importantly their design skills.  The members have mentioned that I should participate in the challenges as well.

Quilting should be easy.  However, sometimes getting all those points to match up can take the fun out of the quilting process.  So I thought I would create a "no stress" block that is both easy to draft and easy to piece.

The fabric collection I decided to use, is one of the free monthly downloads from DoYouEQ.com.​

The ...

Here is the quilt from the video.

Feel free to draft this quilt in EQ8.  Or bonus points, if you use the block in a different layout.  I would love ...

Each month, I provide a challenge to Tech Know Quilter Masters members.  In July, their challenge was to use a random color generator to generate three colors.  Then to design a quilt using those three fabrics.  The only other color that could be added was a background.  They were also allowed to use "fabrics" to replace the random color.

I decided to challenge myself to complete the challenge and will be sharing my process and quilt in this blog post as well.

Here are the designs submitted by Masters members in ...

When I went to play with rotating and fussy cutting some of the Waters Edge fabric pieces, I quickly realized some ...

Last week I mentioned that I was away at a quilt retreat.  It was so fun catching up with some quilting friends and even getting a bit of quilting done.  Of course not nearly as much as I was planning on.  But I did get the binding on two quilts and borders pieced and added on a third quilt.  I thought those borders would take me 1/2 day -- boy was I wrong.  But I do like how the quilt turned out.

As this posts, I am enjoying an extended weekend with members of my local quilt guild.  For me this means some time actually piecing a quilt or two and catching up with some dear friends.  It is always inspiring to see what everyone is working on and hear about their latest fabric and tool finds.

I also get super inspired when members of Tech Know Quilters share what they are working on as well.  I consider them my "online guild".  They provide me inspiration each and every day.  I will be sharing a few of their virtual projects in this ...

I hope you are finding ways to stay cool.  It has been super hot in MN this week, so I've been trying to get caught up on a number of computer projects.  And I need to find some time to settle on a project (or two) for my quilt retreat next weekend.

In this weeks EQ8 video, I had fun playing with the Swath tool.  If you haven't had a chance to use it -- let me share my tips with you.  

For fabric I used the Stonehenge Basics collection by Linda Ludovico by Northcott ...

Last month I challenged the Tech Know Quilter Masters members to design a flag.  They came up with some amazing designs -- that I am featuring below.  I had planned to participate in the challenge myself, but became engrossed in some other projects and hadn't gotten to it.  However inspiration struck this week.

Many of those in the United States will be celebrating Independence Day next week.  In honor of those who have served our country in military service, I designed a Quilt of Valor quilt that can be made from a panel.

Quilts of Valor are made to cover service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing.  You can read more about Quilts of Valor here.

Northcott Fabrics has designed fabric collections specifically focused on Quilts of Valor.  Their collection used in my quilt is Stars and Stripes VII - Stonehenge,  Although ...

Back when I was starting to design patterns, I did a quilt that combined 6", 9" and 12" sampler blocks as part of a block of the month for a local quilt shop.  It ended up being one of my favorite sampler quilts and the inspiration for the layout I am presenting today.

Did any of you participate in this BOM at Quilted Treasures in Rogers?  If so, I would love to see pictures of your quilts.

Last month the challenge for my Tech Know Quilter Masters members was to create their own Jacobean quilt block.  This allowed them to spend time practicing with their Electric Quilt 8 applique tools. At the bottom of this post, you can check out some of their designs.

I wanted to carry that concept into the tutorial for today -- but knew I didn't want to get super complicated.  So as I was perusing some of the applique motifs in the Electric Quilt library, I came across the category "Flowers with Stems".  This category includes some fantastic motifs and I began ...