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After a much-needed, two-year rest, my vintage tree blocks were pulled out of hibernation so I could start putting the top together.

Before officially starting, I made three ugly-fabric mock ups to work through the cutting and sewing details, determine sashing width, piecing order, and setting triangle size. After a couple weeks of fiddling around and fine-tuning, I was finally ready to cut the good fabric.

The first step was to make a template, which would be used to help cut the setting squares from this homespun plaid:

I aligned the straight edges of the template with the lines in ...

I’m talking about the picture here.

What a huge relief that this 84″ x 84″ top is finally done and out of my sewing room.

When a friend showed me 20 applique blocks she found in her mom’s house after she died, I jumped at the chance to figure out how to put them together. My blind enthusiasm and eagerness to help quickly disappeared once I took a closer look and discovered that the blocks were not all the same size and were not square. Uh-oh.

This project languished in my sewing room from late 2022 to early February this year in a one-step-forward-four-steps-back fashion ...

Mikayla’s Grace is a wonderful charity in my area of Wisconsin that supports families with a baby in the NICU (neonatal ICU) and those who experience the death of a child or pregnancy loss at hospitals in the Dane County area.

Crafters from all over make beautiful handmade baby items that they sew, knit or crochet and send to Mikayla’s Grace — from gowns, hats, and booties, to baby blankets and quilts. Several times a year volunteers meet to assemble these donations into care packages and deliver them to local hospitals to distribute.

Melissa recently sent out an email ...

Okay, I exaggerated, but it certainly does seem at times as though it’s that many! I’m making a new quilt, and one of the steps is to make 140 little 9-patch blocks that measure 3.5″ unfinished — and that’s for the throw sized version of this pattern. As you may be able to tell, I’m […]

Got the Point? That’s what I’ve named my latest quilt. It was a fun one to make, and it’s now hanging in my sewing room, replacing a quilt that had hung there for over 20 years! It was time for a change, wouldn’t you agree? As you may be able to tell, the quilt is […]

Today is the day...

Some time ago, I saw an adorable pattern  by Whole Circle Studio and have admired it ever since. However, a couple of weeks ago I was planning to attend an upcoming sewing day at “my” LQS, the day sponsored by our local guild, and I didn’t really have anything in mind to do. Coincidentally, the […]

To ease back into a sewing groove for the new year, I made a pillowcase for our son, Ross.

A couple years ago, he brought out the guitar pillowcase I made for him when he was a high school junior to show that it was cratering fast, hinting that a replacement would be nice.

This was the novelty fabric used for the pillowcase, and there was only a half yard of it.

I decided on a six-inch width for the cuff and no trim piece because I didn’t have any coordinating fabric for one. I cut a window in ...

I put the finishing touches on a quilt I’d been working on — or on and off! — for a couple of months. Of course, the holidays were in there, so I’ll blame the slow progress on that.

When I was at our local guild’s retreat last summer a cute little pattern, Mini Moons, caught my eye. It reminded me of a class I’d taken years ago from Sharon Schamber, who is the most amazing quilter and who came up with a technique called Pieceliqué — kind of a cross between piecing and […]

First, hi everyone and welcome to new readers!  I’ve actually been piecing…set-in circles no less!   Above is the 74″ square top.  Each block will finish at 12 1/2 inches.  I used Latifah Safari’s 12″ Clammy to cut the circles, half circles and the corner quarter squares.  Her instructions have you cut the outside from a single piece of cloth, but in addition to wanting to mix up the colors I felt that used too much yardage.  I do have a nice stack of the background fabric “pumpkin seeds” from the leftovers to use in something, though ...

piecing, layering and pinning ribbon

I’ve been working on a Dresden Plate design for the past few months, and it’s now finished!

There were two cuts of the A-B-C blocks fabric left in my nursery collection stash, and I was determined to use them to make one more crib sheet.

Unfortunately, the larger of the two was only 1½ yards (54 inches), so panels would have to be added to each end to get to a working size of 68 inches. Fortunately, the other cut was 36 inches, which meant that there was plenty of extra fabric.

The challenge was to make sure that the corner square cutouts used to create the pockets would not interfere with or be located too close ...

Here’s the quilt for the newest member of the family and part two of my previous post titled Legacy and Heirlooms.

It felt incomplete to hand down bumper pads and a crib skirt with no quilt, so I dug out the leftover nursery fabrics and scanned everything into Electric Quilt in preparation for creating a layout.

There was enough of the main print in the collection to feature prominently in the layout, although I was bothered about having to build out each fabric image to get to a 9-inch block size.

Several years ago, I made a Dresden Plate quilt, and I’ve always intended to make another one — they’re fun! I especially like Susan Cleveland’s method of making them without the center appliquéd circle.

Get ready for pure summertime fun! Piecing Palooza is a live, virtual event on June 29th for learning quilt piecing techniques and skills taught by expert instructors. Save your spot today for a day of playful piecing, exciting giveaways, and inspiration to fuel all your future projects. This. This is going to be a whole… Continue reading Piecing Palooza

I saw an adorable little quilt at my LQS a few weeks ago and — of course — bought the pattern.