What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 It is so important to have yet so hard to figure out the perfect studio space. I started quilting professionally in 2005, and my sewing/studio room was 11' X 11'.  Surprisingly, I made my first 3 award-winning quilts in that space. That same house was locally notorious as The Yellow House in our town of El Dorado Hills. Later, when Matt went to college, I took over the bonus room above the three-car garage, about 550 square feet with 2 design walls and a trundle bed for guests. Even though the space was big I still had to organize ...

I'm excited to announce that I will be teaching at Empty Spools next year. I have had a lot of inquiries for classes and retreats, so here is your chance. I'm taking this year off from traveling and teaching except for a few local quilt guilds because of COVID and family and personal health issues. So, if you're looking for classes from me, you will have to wait until 2023 (unless you're a member of one of this year's guilds).  I do have some YouTube classes, but in-person is so much better. 

Waratah: Commercial fabrics ...

One of my favorite quilt makers is Melinda Bula. Last year Melinda was so generous and recorded a series of classes on how to make her quilts. Her dogwood design is a beauty and one of the simpler ones*. It was fun and a challenge for me because I did not buy a fabric pack from her. The most difficult part was finding so many different whites, but I’m pretty pleased with the result.

The next issue was the machine quilting. Melinda does it in a painterly sort of way, layering many threads on top of each other. I ...

It's mind-blowing to me how many businesses have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and those of us in the quilting, sewing, and fabric industries have not escaped the pain.  Fortunately, the quilting business is made up of creative minds and that ingenuity, along with some tricky tap dancing, has kept most  folks upright and moving forward. I don’t know about you, but when I'm given a challenge, and I've faced  several big ones in my life, I need to overcome and conquer.  That does not mean I don’t have a good ...

I don’t usually do this, a year end post, but for some reason I wanted to wrap up some of my latest projects. Unlike many people, I did not get loads and loads of things done this year. I spent a lot of time fretting and eating and drinking and read lots of books. But I’ve had a creative spurt this Fall.

This was one of my favorite projects – candy cane towels! I’d seen the pattern on Pinterest and then I discovered it was on Ravelry. I made an appointment with my local weaving store, Lofty Fiber ...

Video's at at the bottom. So you will read the post!  

Video is at the bottom of this post.

I am not sure if this is an orange or yellow dahlia. But oh, I love them so much. There are some beautiful dahlias on show at certain times of the year at the Fort Bragg Botanical Gardens. I was in heaven. This is one of the pictures I took and started when I got home. Could not wait to make it into an art quilt. I did a video of the process of making this flower. I am also showing you the steps I take to make my art quilts. I ...

It is so exciting to get this NEW 3 Zinnia quilt done. I hope this class will help you through the process of making this spectacular flower quilt.

I give a lot of tips and tricks to handling 3 flowers at once that will help even if you are only making one flower.  I have put some chapter time stamps on this video so you can easily find something you want to review again or if you want to skip ahead.  

9:08  Numbering Your Petals

10:40  Layering the Centers ...

The history of making the 3 Zinnia quilt starts several years ago with me dying fabrics for my upcoming classes at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. I had seen past students having trouble with color and values and I thought that if I could make kits, they would all be successful and that is all a good instructor wants -  for their students to be successful.  So I became a dyeing machine. Morning, noon, and night, I was in the dying studio (the garage) working on perfecting my colors.  It was ...

What is a Saturday without a new video post from me?  I made a new video called Zinnias on Parade - these are pictures from classes I've taught all over the country and at big shows. I thought you might like to see students' progress in a one day, 6-hour class.  These beauties are in different stages of development and some of the fabrics used for these flowers were made from my hand-dyed fabrics (made in my garage) from back in the day.  Some are the student’s own fabrics, too, and they are all beautiful no matter what fabric ...

Well, here's the last class in the Dogwood series.  I've has much fun teaching you this pattern and I hope you are having fun, too, making a beautiful Dogwood quilt.

I will be introducing new patterns and kits in the future but the Dogwood ...

My concentration is still iffy but I have managed to get a few things done and a lot started!

One fun, little project I have been doing is making pillowcases. Knitters love making socks, weavers love making hand towels and quilters love making pillowcases. We have always used bolster pillows on our bed and when we were first married, I embroidered our initials on them. When I got over stitching our initials, I bought unusual cases. But it was the wonderful quiltmaker, Jane Sassaman who really inspired me. Scroll to the bottom of this blog to see the delightful cases ...

I do want you to watch the ...