What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I belong to the most wonderful Modern Quilting Guild, BrisbaneMQG and on sew days I get to marvel at all the talented quilters projects. Justine, a new member, had a pile of colourful 25 patch blocks with 1″ finished black and white sashing. I was immediately taken by their beauty and started making my own for my modern Bee quilt. Digging through my extensive and embarrassing fabric stash I started to gather 2.5″ squares and make blocks. I have caught the bug and it’s great sewing therapy in between other projects. Fussy cutting the black on white fabrics ...

Out with the snowmen, it's February; love and hearts have replaced them on the tabletops and kitchen windowsill! And yet, while all of that is true, here is the greater question:Thank you so much, blogger friends and those in real life who've reached out to inquire about my whereabouts and well-being. I'm fine, just as busy as I've ever been. I had taken on quite a few outside longarm

Out with the snowmen, it's February; love and hearts have replaced them on the tabletops and kitchen windowsill! And yet, while all of that is true, here is the greater question:Thank you so much, blogger friends and those in real life who've reached out to inquire about my whereabouts and well-being. I'm fine, just as busy as I've ever been. I had taken on quite a few outside longarm

While my kids were still at school, Life was pretty busy, getting them to where they needed to be, running a business and entering quilt competitions but at least there was a schedule. These days, I don’t have many time commitments so I can please myself how much work I do. The trouble is that I make myself try to get too much done, all at once, so I hardly ever allow myself any down-time. I felt so harassed that I dug out a planner that I used to have in 2019 up until Life came to a grinding ...

I was 56 on Monday which means it is almost 16 years since I started blogging! I have been thinking… do I have a good work / life balance? Am I creating enough? Am I having fun? Does any of it even matter?! I certainly don’t seem to travel as much, mostly due to Nessie, costs and probably the state of the world. I am trying to be more focussed as I am easily distracted and that can be overwhelming.  

I “allowed” myself some time off for my birthday and had a lovely lunch out with a friend but I ...

It was a snowy week – not that much snow to be honest, although the roads were bad but it was COLD in my workshop. I have just got a digital thermometer out there and yesterday when it was beginning to warm back up it was only 5 Celsius! I was not out there very much unless dressed like an Arctic explorer. I managed to quilt a second sofa cover from fluffy fleece and anti-slip-rug-stuff. I had a bit of a panic when I got an error message that the Q-matic system was not recognising its motors but I discovered that ...

I drove back from Norfolk listening to an audiobook which passed the time easily – Kate Atkinson’s “Normal Rules Don’t Apply”. Even though I had taken some craft projects with me I did not even look at them. I made a slightly rash purchase of the Tula Pink butterfly quilt kit and companion digital designs. I think it was due to a combination of not having a planned project and feeling that working with the digital patterns would be a good learning curve. 

Freya was home when I got back to get her broken front teeth fixed (again). I ...

Nessie and I travelled back to Scotland by train which is a long way with a dog on your lap, sometimes the floor. She was very good, especially at Edinburgh Waverley where we had 10 minutes to change platforms. Thistle (Fizz) was delighted to see me and was especially pleased that she could get access to my bed. Meanwhile my room had been turned into a recording studio and Nella’s room seemed to have been filled with the junk that everyone else had decided they no longer wanted in their rooms. It seems that I will have some serious ...

I know, I know; I've been AWOL with no clue as to when I'd return or why I had disappeared. The last you knew I had my cast taken off and I was footloose and fancy-free again. Well, let's just say that was a very short lived state! Sigh. After a few days of catching up with all the tasks that required two free hands I contracted some sort of virus that presented with almost every symptom you

I know, I know; I've been AWOL with no clue as to when I'd return or why I had disappeared. The last you knew I had my cast taken off and I was footloose and fancy-free again. Well, let's just say that was a very short lived state! Sigh. After a few days of catching up with all the tasks that required two free hands I contracted some sort of virus that presented with almost every symptom you

Recently, my sister-in-law showed me a tin full of blocks that her grandmother had sewn many years ago. The pieces were all cut with scissors and either pieced by hand or by machine. The pattern pieces were from a newspaper. My sister-in-law had no clue what to do with them all and for years had been holding on to them. And then – you probably guessed it – I offered to do something with them. Little did I know what I was getting myself into! None of the blocks laid flat.

The sizes of the pieces varied. I knew there was no ...

Since the nights are light and none of my kids are home just now I have been working long hours on my Circles quilt. The deadline for the FoQ competition entry is midnight on Monday and the quilt has to be finished and sent to the show by about July 24th. 

Suddenly I needed to get it going and order the backing fabric and decide on further embellishments. I had to decide on a name, write an artist statement, list materials and techniques, declare the size, and upload a photo – all on an unfinished quilt. 

I used my industrial heat ...

Almost my whole week was spent stitching around a seemingly never ending supply of circles. Some of the circle-squares had 8 processes – reverse appliqué circles, stick silver lame to reverse (some with ricrac), blanket stitch around the silver circles, sew in thread tails, cut and heat press coloured and metallic rings, zig-zag or triple stitch around the coloured rings, sew in thread tails, stitch around the big zig-zag rings twice with silver thread, kantha-style stitching around many circles. Finally they can be carefully pressed and trimmed, then pieced together. 

The next dilemma is whether to add blue sashing as “punctuation ...

My wonderful blue fridge conked out after 26 years and I got fed up with traipsing across to the garage every time I wanted milk so I ordered a new, orange one. It is NOT the same. I guess I will get used to it eventually but it has reminded me that the last time I painted the kitchen was 23 years ago. I really ought to freshen it up but that will highlight the disgusting ceiling, covered in stains and cobwebs, and that is a job I do not wish to tackle until it collapses.

I had also considered ...

I made the long solo trip back from Norfolk on Monday, helped along by a packet of M&S giant chocolate buttons. I unloaded the car but still have not unpacked. Before I left I had prepared a customer quilt with a tight deadline so I had to get straight on with it the next day. It was a hexagon quilt that 2 sisters had completed for their 92 year old Mother. The layout was unusual because instead of a simple flower-garden layout, it had random patches of colour as it was actually a herbaceous border, which I thought was ...

The trouble with having a phobia about Maths is that I can waste a lot off time trying to work out a simple problem. I wanted to cut out a lot of concentric circles in t-shirt vinyl that were either ¼” or ½” wide but I had to convert them to decimals and factor in gaps. Long story short – I tried to come up with a new set of circles, even though I already had a perfectly good set of circles because as usual, I was over complicating matters. I eventually spent a whole day cutting out a life-time supply ...

As well as dealing with admin and having the girls home for part of this week, I got a customer quilt done, joined the Caravan Club, and worked on sample blocks for the quilt that I might make next. 

I am still not set on exactly what it will entail. I think it will probably feature silver only centre circles. I have not yet decided whether to stick to one size or whether to make smaller 4-patches. I don’t know whether to keep complementary colours for each block or allow a rainbow of coloured rings. I could also stack ...