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Precision piecing has never been my strong suit, but I am — like Michaelangelo at age 80 — still learning. One of the things I’ve learned is that ...

Greetings!  We’re happy to present the next block for our Rustic Christmas PAPER PIECING SEW ALONG.

Sandy created this super easy Christmas star block.  I decided to play around with Christmas colors and am loving this polka dot background. NEXT I used the polka dot fabric for the star center.  This is nice and bright!  If you are new to paper piecing, this is an easy pattern to test your skills  The weekend is fast approaching, we hope you have plenty of summer sewing time to try something new!

Click on the link below for the Rustic Christmas paper ...

I’ve mentioned before that I’m doing a series of classes — given by one of my favorite teachers, Philippa Naylor — online. Class #8 was a couple of methods of doing trapunto. I used some boring beige fabric I happened to have in the right size for this, thinking I’d jazz it up with a […]

I am so excited that I can barely contain my excitement! The past few months have been challenging to say the least. We are all in a similar boat… our quilt shows have been cancelled which means that all of those classes that we all signed up for just went POOF! So what’s a quilter to do… we turn to our online options. Sometimes these are good and other times not so good. I have the perfect solution!

Private quilt coaching… you are in your studio, I am in mine and we come up with a game plan specific ...

I completed all the part 7 blocks, and stitched them into border pieces.  When I was pinning them on the quilt top, I discovered that I had turned the top and bottom set of blocks 1/4 turn the wrong way!  Frog stitching to the rescue!

That’s right, Summer Sampler 2020 launches TODAY! Are you ready for a summer of low-stress, easy piecing? Something tells us you are!

Would you believe that this is the 5th annual Summer Sampler Series?! Katie and Faith and I have so much fun putting this together every year, and it’s grown so much—more than 1,500 of you participated in last year’s “Piecing Bootcamp” skill-builder-themed sampler. It was beyond our wildest expectations!

This year, for our 5th annual Summer Sampler, we’re bringing you a laid-back summer of low-stress piecing. We know quilting is one of ...

Sometimes it is the little things, that turn out to be not-so-little, that make the difference in life. In my life, watching the bubbles form and the water boil gives me joy…what can I say, I live a rural life LOL! Another one is tools that make my sewing life easier like the Janome M7’s HP Presser Foot and throat plate, which are available on select other Janome models. It also turns out, you can teach someone who has been sewing for about 57 years new tricks!

I visited with a dear high school friend a couple of weeks ago and we both agreed that now is not a good time to be without a hobby – thank goodness for quilting, right? To that end, I managed to finish four more vintage tree blocks.

Construction of additional blocks has been suspended, pending recovery from the piecing torture inherent in a block with 32 one-inch half square triangles.

Thanks for stopping by!

I’m taking a wonderful series of classes online from Philippa Naylor, and the most recent one was to learn a great technique for curved piecing. The finished design is called Happy Heart, and it’s truly wonky and fun. Each individual curved block finished at 3″, and the outer border was done crooked to emphasize the […]

Another trying week over. I’m ready to chill and enjoy some quiet time at home.
I pressed all the sewn pieces for A Walk In The Woods and stacked them up, ready to sew.
I decided not to arrange them ahead of time, but just sew them how they are stacked. I’ll switch out pieces that look very similar so they are not next to each other, but I don’t plan to fuss with it any more than that. In the end the pieces will all blend together anyway.
Rain is forecast for the weekend, which means ...

Inside: Virtual Trunk Show

I sat there with sweaty palms, my heart beating quickly and I wondered if they would like me. Would they like my work? Would I have enough to show? It was my first trunk show, and it was circa 2008 after my first book was published. I was presenting to a local long-arm group, and I was nervous!

We, as quilters, love our quilt shows! And now they’ve all been cancelled. So sad! I thought maybe you would enjoy a virtual trunk show of my quilts. I’ll be calling it the Great Covid Trunk ...

It’s quite something, this Covid-19 quarantine.

As the media quibbles over quantities

and we all avoid quorums greater than 10;

instead, remaining close to quarters

in a quest to quash its spread,

there is no reason for querulousness

if you are a quilter.

If you’re like me, you have a stash to outlast multiple quarantines, so now is a perfect opportunity to enjoy the peace and quiet and sew. In the last week, I’ve managed to piece two more vintage tree blocks. They’re still a ...

Today’s projects are floor cushions and toss pillows from Michael Miller’s adorable new fabric line, SuperFred and Space Pals. As soon as I saw them I knew I’d love to make some floor cushions for my daughter-in-law’s Kindergarten classroom! You can find part 2 here as of March 12, 2020.

A couple of weeks ago I showed you the beginnings of a new quilt, called Interwoven, that I’m making. I’m very relieved to have finished making all of my strip sets (should I admit how tired I am of making strip sets?) and also all of the blocks necessary for the quilt top. Yay! There are […]

I am determined to make a dent in my scrap accumulation. It's just ridiculous how much I have got stuffed away all over the place.

So, I am working on these houses. It's a free Bonnie Hunter pattern called "Happy Scrappy Houses". Certainly not a super quick way to use up scraps, however it is effective once you get going. This is how far I got in the last few days.