What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 I thought someone said the weekend was supposed to be nice, warm, and sunny. WRONG! When I left the house to teach an in-person class, the skies were stormy, and at one point, I ran into a torrential downpour. And when I arrived at my destination, the sun was shining! We've had rain for the last three days—guess what? I don't get to try my new hose and water the new plants! Darn! 

Hopefully, the weather will be somewhat nice this afternoon so I can do some gardening. I know - ME! Excited about gardening! I love puttering ...

Where is the time going? It seems like it was January 1, not so long ago, and now it's May 15. 

And where did the warm weather go? I started out in shorts and had to change to long pants as it was cool. 

We had two great presentations in the morning, and while I love all the classes, I love the machine embroidery and software one. So many creative ideas, and people are using their machines and software in so many creative ways. Well, that goes for the digital cutters as well. 

But I had created this large ...

Happy Mother's Day to everyone. Gosh -- I totally forgot it was Mother's Day; thankfully, I got a text from Spain to remind me. 

DH is still away and wished me a good day and hoped the girls would bring me something nice. Nice? I don't want anything but peace and quiet. And we all know that's not going to happen. 

Murphy is PERSISTENT with that ball of hers. I throw it, but it's never enough. I try to hide it, but she barks. And then this happened. 

MOM -- I needed a bath

She dropped the ...

 Longtime readers know that I’ve made quilted jackets only to later cut them up and make them into zippered pouches and totes.  When will I learn my lesson?  Apparently not anytime soon… 

I made this tote years ago from a Jinny Beyer kit.  But I made it before I learned about bag interfacings and underlayers.  The bag is gorgeous but would just collapse on itself.  For over 10 years I’ve had the fabrics and paper pattern (this is paper-pieced). So I decided to make a bag that would actually stand on its own.   But as I made the ...

For our Quilted Jacket sew along, the first thing that needs to happen is selection of a pattern. So many future decisions depend on the jacket style, so let’s talk about patterns this week, and we’ll get started with the sew along next week. Full disclosure here, I am not an expert on jacket sewing. I’ve made several but it has been many years, so I am going off memory and the books I still have. If you have more experience, please feel free to add your tips to pattern selection in the comments. Also, the patterns ...

One afternoon last week, I had the opportunity to while away a bit of time in a Macy’s department store. When I was still working, I would make the one hour drive down to Greenville twice a year to look for good quality clothing. I still love shopping at Macy’s, even though I haven’t been in years, and My Sweet Babboo dropped me off for a bit of retail therapy. I didn’t have a lot of time, just enough to blow through a few sale racks, but what I saw on the way out made me ...

There is a saying in Scotland "Ne'er cast a clout till May's out!" which basically means May might be officially a Summer month but that doesn't mean it will be warm :)  

I have had some softshell fleece sitting in my sewing room taunting me every time I walked past it for a couple of months now. Given the less than summery weather we have been having lately it seemed like the perfect time to finally break out of my comfort zone and make the rainjackets for the grandsons that I have been dithering over.

I don’t really care for pullover sweatshirts. To me they are not that comfortable as they are mostly made for people taller than I am, and tend to bunch up on my shorter torso. I much prefer a cardigan style, and wear sweaters like that most of the time. But when I wanted to have something with our MINI club logo to wear on outings, the only choice (other than a thin t-shirt) was a sweatshirt. These were ordered for our group before lockdown, and I got mine at a dinner last February. It has sat in my closet ...

When Helen's Closet published its Pona Jacket pattern a few months ago, I wasn't sure I wanted to make it - wasn't sure the really boxy shape of the jacket would suit me. But then I started seeing versions pop up on Instagram and some of them were so nice, I just had to try it.

I didn't really have anything in my stash that would have been perfect for this, but I found a Cotton & Steel quilting cotton I purchased for a quilt back so decided to make a practice version with that. (It's an ...