What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 I've had a nice week at home with my shop closed all last week. I got our laundry room repainted after we had the ceiling in that room repaired and retextured. I also got some touch-up painting done in our main bathroom after we had some work done to one spot on the wall and the entire ceiling.

Our new family member, Sheba, has been busy all week too.

We put up our Christmas tree without any ornaments. Then we were gifted a few ornaments. Since Sheba had been leaving the tree alone we put them on the tree ...

 I have been sewing like crazy over here but not able to share any of it yet. It will be a few more weeks before I'm able to share. So how about some customer show and tell.

First up is Linda C.'s Birds in Toyland quilt. This quilt is from a book called Birds in Toyland from the Piece 'O Cake ladies.

Next we have Susan W.'s completed Accidental Landscape class project.

I really love the beaded flowers she added in the bottom corner!

Debbie E. was given some special shirts and asked to make a quilt ...

  Alamosa Quilt Company has participated in the monthly online FabShop Hop for over a year now. There are always great prizes each month but this month the grand prize is an embroidery machine with a retail value of over $2200! You got to be in to win it though! All the details are lower down in this post so keep scrolling and get ready to starting hopping.

 These Needle Grip-Its are fabulous for hand sewing!

You put one on your thumb and one on your forefinger, right where you pinch them together to pull the needle through. They help reduce hand fatigue by gripping the needle to help you pull it through your project so you don't have to pull as hard. They stick very well and can be used several times before they stop sticking. I'm not sure how long that is because I'm still using the first two!

For proper placement, pinch your thumb and forefinger together pretty hard like you are ...

 I just finished a new shop sample last week. The quilt has been sent off to be long arm quilted so it isn't currently hanging in the shop yet.

The pattern I used is called Diva 5. It's a great pattern for a panel and includes instructions for the three current most popular panel widths of 24", 30" and 36". I had to adjust the pattern just a tad because this panel has a printed border around the outside that I wanted to cut off, but it's very easy to adjust. All I needed to do was ...

 Alamosa Quilt Company has participated in the monthly online FabShop Hop for over a year now. There are always great prizes each month but this month the grand prize is a serger with a retail value of over $1700! You got to be in to win it though! All the details are lower down in this post so keep scrolling and get ready to starting hopping.

 I shared this idea with you previously in July. Click here to read that post. I finally got it finished!

Here is what it looks like all stitched but not sewn into a pillow cover yet.

For those of you who are curious, here is what the back looks like before I sewed it up into a pillow cover.

I cut a piece of batting the finished size I needed the pillow to be. Next time I would cut the batting about an inch larger than the finished size. I added the fabric directly on top of the batting and ...

 I have a new fabric collection which means a new shop sample. The fabric collection is called Whimsy. It's a really nice "basics" collection. A basics collection is a collection of fabrics that are designed to be blenders or "go with" fabrics for the trendy, designer prints. These are the fabrics everyone needs to have in their stash to compliment the designer prints and allow them to shine, the supporting actors so to speak.

But just because these fabrics are basics doesn't mean they don't look fabulous on their own in a project! Most of the prints ...

 I started doing a little cleaning in my sewing room. As so often happens, I found an unfinished project. I started it thinking I would kit it up for my shop, but decided to use a different pattern to feature the panel. So everything got tossed in a corner. 

Last weekend I decided to at least get the top together.

It's big for a kid quilt, 60" by 67.5". I don't know if I will quilt it myself or not, but at least the top is done. I don't have a purpose for this quilt anymore ...

Yes, I did it; I sat down at the sewing machine this weekend and actually sewed! This is the sum total of two days' work, not much in the grand scheme, but it's HUGE after these last two weeks of being sidelined! Yay!! These were already precut and labeled before my little trip onto the brick sidewalk, if they hadn't been I'm not sure I could've gotten this far. I'm unable to use the rotary

Yes, I did it; I sat down at the sewing machine this weekend and actually sewed! This is the sum total of two days' work, not much in the grand scheme, but it's HUGE after these last two weeks of being sidelined! Yay!! These were already precut and labeled before my little trip onto the brick sidewalk, if they hadn't been I'm not sure I could've gotten this far. I'm unable to use the rotary

 For this rug I used 9 yards of fabric. It finished at 26" by 36" but as expected the size shifted after washing and drying. It's now 24" by 37".

I have enough strips cut to make another rug using these exact same fabrics. For that one I can't decide how I want to order the six different fabrics. Should I use all of each fabric so the stripes are wider or should I pick a fabric order and use one strip of each so that the fabric changes every 6 inches or so? I'll think about ...

 Does your family know what they should do with all of your sewing, quilting and crafting items when you pass away? I know, no one wants to think about what happens when they are no longer here! But let's face it, it's gonna happen. Why not help your family out and leave them a Quilter's Letter of Instructions. 

My friend Deb over at Quiltblox.com has written a really great article about doing just that. She even has a list of questions you should think about before starting and a sample letter that you can download and ...

 I liked my first rug so much I decided to make a couple more. For this one I started with 9 yards of fabric cut into 1" by width of fabric strips.

Then I joined all the strips together and rolled it up into a ball. The ball is about 8" in diameter.

Now I'm crocheting it into a rug. I simply chain stitched until the chain is about 2" longer than the finished width of the rug I want and started single crocheting. I'll just continue to single crochet until I run out of fabric strips. It ...

 I received a really lovely fabric collection recently called In the Garden. The collection includes two convenience fabrics - one is a panel and the other is yardage. They are both featured in the shop sample.

Above is the front of the quilt. It features the printed block panel. These blocks are about 20" by 20" and look like I did a lot of work to make them, but I didn't. It's printed just like that! Other uses for this fabric is to use one of two of the blocks as the outside of a tote bag, use one ...

 Today is the last day of the Online BlowOut Event.

I still have plenty of good deals available! Click here to go directly to the BlowOut Event section of my website.

 I pieced this quilt several weeks ago as soon as the fabric arrived but I just got it back from my longarm quilter and finished the binding.

This is such a fun and easy pattern. It's a Villa Rosa pattern called Honor and it takes one yard each of five fabrics (this includes the binding fabric). The fabric collection is called Secret Garden. I sell fabric in half yard increments on my website so if you want to make one just like this you'd need to get a quantity of 2 of each of the fabrics. 

For my ...

 Today is the official first day of the online BlowOut Event. There are lots of great shops participating along with me. Click this link to go to the clearance section of my website and check out the great deals.

I have lots of great fabrics, kits, patterns, books and notions in my clearance section that are up to 75% off. This month I am featuring batiks in my clearance section. All batik fabrics are $9 per yard, full yard increments only.

If you'd like to check out some of the other shops participating click the following link: FabShop BlowOut ...

 The official start of the Online BlowOut event isn't until Monday, August 7, 2023, but I'm giving my customers a head start. Click this link to go directly to the clearance section of my website.

 Last week was rugs, this week it's pillows.

Both of these are 18" pillows. I'm working on writing up the pattern and then I plan to make up some kits using these exact fabrics and then probably some other fabric combinations.

The first one I made is the blue one at the back in the photo above.

This pillow is made from the Winter Solstice fabric collection. It has an envelope back and the outside edge is finished with binding just like you'd do for a quilt.

The front pillow shown in the first photo above is ...