What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Quilting remains on the back burner this summer as I continue scanning and photographing family photos and mementos. I also started sorting through some of the stuff in our storage room, which resulted in the tossing of a few items, consolidating items into fewer boxes, and even selling some items to Replacements, Ltd.

I was pleasantly surprised when I unearthed this long-forgotten-about Barbie item, collected from my parents’ house after my mom died:

I don’t remember playing with it much, lacking both confidence and patience to invest time in it, despite the excellently detailed and illustrated instruction ...

There are times when a sewist uses a machine needle for a very short time and then has to change types. What to do with the partially-used (but not used up) needle? I’ve always simply put them back into their little plastic boxes, making sure they were as far to the left of the box […]

My Color Weave Quilt along kicks off Monday, Sept 16th and I’m doing something a little a little different this time around. I’ll be sharing everything via email rather than here on my blog. Lately I’ve been rethinking my social media strategy and looking at numbers. Because I get higher engagement via my direct newsletter, this will be an experiment to see if that format works best for a quilt along. Keep reading below to see how you can join in the fun….

Click here and download any of my free patterns to join my email list ...

The clearing out of our stuff continues, with this project infusing some much-welcomed fun and creativity into an otherwise tedious activity.

This is the culmination of a year of effort and collaboration with my local framer to showcase the seashells and sand dollars we collected on our honeymoon in 1982. These items have safely resided in a well-packed shoebox, backed with good intentions to turn them into something. I just could never figure out what. With those intentions now glaring me in the face, it was now or never.

I started with the desire to have needlework play a part ...

Yesterday I mowed half of the lawn in the morning and the other half at 7 p.m.  The rest of the day was spent sorting through the Cherrywood hand dyed fabric and grouping it  for my second destash sale this month at Wandaful Quilts.  I also moved the remaining 4 items from the #1 sale to the new ...

I’ve said many times that teaching machine quilting is my favorite thing that I do! Nothing beats the look of satisfaction on a student’s face when they realize that can indeed quilt their own quilts. That’s one of the reasons I’ve written so many quilting books. I use them as my textbooks in class, and they are great for “independent study” for those who can’t take a workshop from me in person.

Click here to get PDF downloads of my books and patterns.

My first book was published in 2015 and my latest volume came ...

My family and I recently took a fun trip to Washington DC. I’ve actually been a couple times before, but it was the first time all 3 of my kids have visited as adults. It was amazing and so educational! We visited as many museums as we could, took time to view all the monuments, and enjoyed riding bikes around the national mall – easy rentals were everywhere!

The best views of Washington DC are by bike!!

Because 2 of my kids are currently studying art in college, we spent a LOT of time at the art museums. I found ...

This summer I’ve been working a lot behind the scenes, preparing for upcoming teaching events and it’s my favorite thing that I do! Registration for Road to California just opened and already 2 of my 4 workshops sold out right away. It’s so exciting when that happens because I know folks are hungry for machine quilting education!

The good news is that there are still spaces in 2 of my workshops (as of this writing). I know they’ll fill up fast so if you are even thinking of attending, be sure to sign up asap. Read ...

It’s been almost a year since I started my family preservation project, consisting of digitizing all our photos and keepsakes.

I returned to it this month and became a scanning robot for about three weeks – totally worth it, though, because all this stuff will soon be out of the house.

My recent teaching trip to Alaska was amazing! If you’ve never experienced full daylight in the middle of the night, I can tell you it sort of messes with your mind, LOL! I flew into Anchorage and landed at about 10:30 PM local time. My body was tired after a long day of travel that started at about 6 AM, but my mind kept saying, “you can’t be tired – it’s still bright outside!”

It was about an hour drive to Palmer, which is where I was staying for my visit with the Valley Quilter’s Guild ...

I was recently unpacking from my latest quilty travels and as I was putting my quilts away, I realized I’ve made 5 different versions of the same quilt. How does that even happen?? LOL!! So today I thought it would be fun to share all of them together in one post, plus a few more bonus ideas!!

Click here to get my Bling pattern – PDF version
Click here to get my Bling pattern – paper version

The original version of Bling shown above was created for a magazine and originally came in one size only. I made it to showcase ...

I am enjoying sharing the making of this quilt in real time with no strict deadlines. If you’d like to follow along as I make this quilt, click here to read about Positive Direction Part 1.

Once I sewed the blocks together, I quickly got them up on my design wall following the quilt pattern layout. This wasn’t the final arrangement, but it let me see at a glance what it was going to look like.

Next, I spent a bit of time rearranging all of my blocks in a pleasing order. I wanted to keep the colors ...

I love traveling all over the country teaching my machine quilting methods and I pretty much say yes to any group who invites me. Over the next few months I’ll be traversing California at a couple of big shows. Next up is 4 days of workshops at Pacific International Quilt Festival, July 24-27, 2024. As of this writing one of my workshops is full, but there are still a couple spots left in 3 of them.

Click here for the most updated list of my workshops and to register for what’s still available.

Road to California Schedule – January ...

It’s fun to share some of the reasoning behind the fabrics I’ve designed. With my Good Vibes collection, I wanted to create a group of fabrics with an equal number of lights and darks so that they’d work well in lots of precut friendly patterns.

Click here to view all Good Vibes fabrics.

Speaking of precut friendly patterns made from light and dark, have you downloaded my FREE Puzzle Box quilt pattern? It’s made from 2 sets of 2 1/2″ wide strip rolls – half light and half dark! The picture below was taken at our ...

Update: the giveaway is now over. Congrats to Cheryl C. from New York who won and picked the Duchess Blue chair. I’m sure it will look great in her sewing space!!

I’ve been thrilled that so many of you love my Christa Cabinet from Arrow Sewing. Once I started using the cabinet, I needed a chair to go along with it! So I picked out their hydraulic sewing chair in grey. I’m telling you, this is hands down the most comfortable chair for sewing I’ve ever tried!

Actual view of my sewing table with hydraulic chair ...

I’m just got back from teaching in Paducah, Kentucky and had an amazing time. One thing that the pandemic made me realize is how much I love teaching live and in person. When I wasn’t able to do that, it truly felt like something was missing. If you missed seeing me last week, your next opportunity to do so will be at Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara, California, July 24-27, 2024.

I’m excited to be teaching a full slate of workshops, including two of my signature full-day classes: Walking Foot Bootcamp & Free Motion Bootcamp. Taken ...

While I’m away teaching at the AQS show Paducah, KY this week, I thought it would be fun to reminisce about one of my early “modern” quilts I made several years ago. It’s called Facets, and it’s extra special because it got a 2nd place ribbon at the show back in 2016.

This was shortly after they first introduced the modern category to the show, AND this was the first quilt I designed and made for the first book I ever wrote called Machine Quilting with Style. (The Facets pattern begins on page 90).

Although this book ...

One of my favorite things about being a designer is getting to be a spokesperson or ambassador for many different companies in the quilting industry. I love telling folks about things that I use in my sewing room every day. Probably one of the most important supplies I use in *all* of my quilts is my collection of Aurifil threads.

Click here to see all of the colors included in each box of my Aurifil threads.

I curated my favorite grouping of colors, neutrals, and variegated threads I use for both piecing AND quilting. They are all size 50 weight ...

Later this month I’m stoked to be heading out to teach at AQS quilt week in Paducah Kentucky. As of this writing, 2 of my workshops have sold out, but there are still a few spots left in my 3 workshops below along with my lecture. If you haven’t yet registered, it’s not too late.

Click here for AQS workshop descriptions, supply lists and registration info.

This has been a bucket list event for me, ever since I won a ribbon at the show for my quilt Facets way back in 2016!

This was the first quilt ...