What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Designing quilts and projects is one thing I really enjoy. Every quilter is a designer to a certain degree, when you take a pattern and add your own spin in terms of fabric selection, add or subtract sashing or borders, and finish it the way you like. At a recent quilt show, I was amazed at the number of medallion quilts. One was the Best of Show. I think of these kinds of quilts as round robin styles, starting with the center and just adding borders. Remember my Kaleidoscope Quilt? This would make a great center of a medallion quilt ...

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 ...

Hi everyone! I am so excited to share with you something I have been working on for the past FIVE MONTHS! I would like to introduce you to Transparendo - The Transparency Sampler Quilt, 12 Modern Blocks to Create a Masterpiece. This is my first official book with IBSNs. I can't believe it. I finally wrote a book and published it myself. I learned so much in the process too such as creating my own publishing company, being receptive to feedback, learning how to design cover artwork, and marketing my book. Are you curious? 

Would you like to see the ...

Hi there! Thanks for joining me today! Yes, I see that there wasn't but one post written in 2022 and this is the first post in 2023! We are going to have to change that!

I have been very busy the last few months exploring transparency in quilt blocks. When I was doing my research, I couldn't find any quilt samplers just a few blocks. Then I started to explore transparency in several different quilt blocks and decided we needed to change that too.

I don't want to give too much away, but I wanted to share ...

This quilt has been patiently waiting to get its moment in the spotlight, and since it was finally gifted on the weekend, it now can. A good friend of mine had a zero birthday at the end of last year, so the seeds of this started way back in lockdown in 2020 – sketching out ideas and playing with design options.

And then sepsis happened – and geez I hope this is the last time that experience has to come into a quilt story! My original design had been quite complicated, stretching my skills and forcing me to learn some new ones ...

When my oldest niece, Olivia, turned 13 my sister decided to commission a more grown-up quilt for her. There'd been some bedroom shuffling during lockdowns, and with plans for renovations it seemed a good time to celebrate a milestone birthday with a new quilt.

My brief was this colour palette along with a picture of a doona cover Olivia liked, that featured an animal print. I set up a Pinterest board to share appropriate fabrics with her and got to work on some design ideas.

The shapes in the doona cover were large, so I started off with big ...

Have you hear the news? The Electric Quilt Company is celebrating 30 years of business! It is hard to believe that another five years have gone by. It seems like just yesterday the new EQ8 version came out. What is EQ8 and the Electric Quilt Company? The EQ Company produces the leading quilt design software (EQ8) which I use just about daily in my own designs. It doesn't write the patterns for you, but it takes out all of the math guess work, cutting and dimensions are easily adapted from line drawings in the program. It even prints out ...

 Earth day seems like the perfect day to finish up this quilt and share it with you. Even though it is a small quilt (36"x38") it has been in the works for many months. It all began last September, on National Jelly Roll day. My guild,  McKinney Modern Quilt Guild, was holding a zoom mystery jelly roll sew along day and because I love to "do all the things" I was eager to be a part of it. Mind you, I am not a jelly roll person (not a precut person at all, truth be told) and being on ...

One of my favorite quilt makers is Melinda Bula. Last year Melinda was so generous and recorded a series of classes on how to make her quilts. Her dogwood design is a beauty and one of the simpler ones*. It was fun and a challenge for me because I did not buy a fabric pack from her. The most difficult part was finding so many different whites, but I’m pretty pleased with the result.

The next issue was the machine quilting. Melinda does it in a painterly sort of way, layering many threads on top of each other. I ...

Over the festive season I participated in Ruth Singer's 'Gentle Goal Setting' for 2021. Truth be told, I'm still doing it. I was looking for a way to reflect on the momentous year just gone and plan for the year ahead – a process that would focus on my practice and what I want to learn and experience rather than numbers of social media followers, my marketing strategy or giving myself sales targets. 

Wanting to be present with family over Christmas (or as best as I could, after months of isolation) and then having a rather large work contract ...

All of the fabrics are Moda Grunge and the finished quilt measures 18" x 20".  I used a bunch of different techniques in this one tiny quilt.... foundation paper piecing for the letters, my own funky dresden technique for the end of the wand, needle turn appliqué recently learned from my friend Martha for the stick, big ...

I’ve decided to take part in the 31 Day Blog Post Writing Challenge for December 2020.  So, each day, I will use the prompts list…or my variation on that prompt–to write a blog post.  I want to keep this blog series fun and interesting for both you and me.  So, here are my commitments to …

An Introduction to Me Read More »

The post An Introduction to Me appeared first on Carole Lyles Shaw.

Hi everyone! Thanks for stopping by to check out the new GeoOptics quilt pattern. I am really excited about sharing this quilt with you too. It has been an idea floating around in my head since the beginning of spring this year. I wanted to create a pattern using a simple and traditional block and flip it into something different and unexpected. And if you love mini quilts, there is a mini version just for you. I hope you will enjoy the pattern.

Today I’m happy to have a guest post from my friend Heather Black of Quiltachusetts. Heather is a talented designer of modern quilts and when you visit her blog, you’ll recognize some of the designs on her published page.

Her most recent adventure is fabric design, and I know you’ll enjoy hearing about that. Take it away, Heather!

I’m so honored that Christa asked me to be a guest on her blog. Christa was one of the first quilters I met online and she’s been a mentor as well as a friend through ...

I always have multiple projects going in all the fiber crafts that I like to do. In the quilting arena, I do machine sewing or quilting during the day. At night, I sew on my latest hexie project (trying to finish the Halloween themed quilt) or I do English Paper Piecing. During the last few months, I must admit to buying a lot of paper pieces for a variety of EPP designs. And none of them have been easy patterns to do…

I’ve been gluing and sewing double wedding ring arcs for weeks and fiddling with layouts. Here is ...

 When my friend Jayne, over at Twiggy and Opal started sharing her Geo Pop pattern in different variations, I decided to see how small I could make one! I pulled out some of my solid scraps and made this citrussy version...

Each block is 1 1/2" finished so the mini finished at 9"x12". pretty small but, of course, Jayne made a smaller one hahaha, which you can check out on her instagram.

Our Improv small group is doing a placemat swap. In August I needed to make a placemat for my friend Anne who had chosen pink and ...

For as long as I can remember I've loved combining colours. As a consequence I tend to work very intuitively when selecting colours for quilt designs. If that's not you though, never fear! Choosing colours and combining them is a skill you can learn and there are so many tools out there to help you now.

Today we're going to choose colours for my Handloomed quilt pattern and I'm going to walk you through the steps to create your own perfect colour combination. Of course you can use this approach to combine colours for any quilt ...

I love  the look of machine quilting on modern quilts.   I wanted to use my walking foot but still go beyond simple or even complex lines to create unique quilting lines and shapes in my modern quilts.  I wanted to break away from repeating the same shapes over and over.  I did not want to …

My Approach to Quilting A Modern Quilt Read More »

The post My Approach to Quilting A Modern Quilt appeared first on Carole Lyles Shaw.