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 Ta-da! Primrose Path is a finished top! Black was the only color that made sense for the outside border, so easy-peasy. The original inspiration was a tapestry or rug {not sure} in black and white. Just couldn't quite bring myself to make a pure black and white quilt. Much too modern for me!

Primrose Path is a completed quilt top now

I've been hand quilting every evening possible, trying to finish up this improv. strings quilt. It's going to be gifted to a nephew for a wedding gift and time is running out. Not that it has to be given by the wedding date. Oh no. I'm much more relaxed than that. It's just that I don't want to pay postage or risk having it get lost in the mail! So hopefully it will be all wrapped up by next week. Fingers crossed!

Only three more rows to stitch across the quilt!

All the applique is finished up and now the borders are attached onto the first Improv. Strips quilt. I needed this one to be a completed top so that I could use it in the demonstration for sandwiching and pinning a quilt. Not that I'm really in the mood to start stitching on this quite yet, but it makes sense to show them the hand quilting stuff on a similar design.

Improv. Strip Quilt #1 top is done!

Just trying to finish up the quilt top for the improv. quilt meetings. My colors are a little more blendy than most of the others in the class, but you know me, always trying to play with color. Sometimes it turns out wonderfully and others, not so much. This feels like a bit of both. Still on the fence about adding an applique centerpiece though. Some days I fiercely want to. Other days I just want to move on.

Starting to sew the rows together!

“We are what we repeatedly do, therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle I always think about repetition when I’m stitching.  Stitching a few french knots?  How about a few hundred?  And what about some bullion circles?  A whole cluster of them is even better! In nature repetition is a constant and […]

It dawned on me as we published our last post that we hadn’t talked about April UFO things. My apologies! I know there are only a couple of weeks left in the month, so lets make this an easy thing.

Make 2 practice blocks. Wait what? I don’t know about you, but I am not terribly good about making a practice block when embarking on a new pattern or technique. Char and I have been designing some of our patterns and making a practice block has really been helpful and I’m not quite sure why I haven ...

 Good morning, lovelies!  After my little R.B.G. block detour, I returned to the cheater cloth panel that I'd loaded on my long arm frame for IntelliQuilter practice.  Feeling comfortable with resizing and distorting block designs to fit less-than-perfectly-square quilt blocks, I decided to practice laying out and sequencing some E2E (Edge-to-Edge) designs.  Oh my gosh, you guys -- I LOVE how my APQS machine stitches these designs out with R2D2 (yes, that's what I've named my IQ) doing the driving instead of me!  Smooth feather curves, crisp points, and perfect circle bubbles with beautiful stitches on ...

Look what I finished yesterday!  My Spirit Song flimsy is finished!  (For those non-quilters or new quilters reading this, a "flimsy" is another name for a quilt top -- the pieced or appliqued top layer of a quilt, prior to being sandwiched with fluffy batting and a backing fabric that are all held together by quilting stitches that go through all three layers of the quilt).

My Spirit Song Quilt Top, 59 x 75, Ready for Quilting

Only 10 minutes to more creativity? That sounds doable, right? It is, and it’s as simple as sitting quietly and focusing on your breath.

For the past several years I have been recommending meditation to my private clients. It has been significant to most. 

At our Creative Arts Business Summit, I would lead a guided meditation. For some of my clients, this was a powerful exercise.

Today in our times of stress with the coronavirus, meditation can have a profound effect on us.

I also have my own meditation practice that is part of my morning ritual. I was ...

I've been piecing quilt tops for just over ten years now.  I haven't made very many quilts, I tend to quilt in spurts.  I'll finish three or four and then go a year without touching my sewing machine.  Some of that had to do with apartment living and space.  Now that I own my house and have a sewing room I've been a little more consistent in my progress from project to project.

Now that there's the new addition of my quilting machine, I'm having to learn a new skill and it's been ...