What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Do you have a group of quilty friends? Here are 5 suggestions of things you can do together, just for fun.

1. Join a guild

This is one you can do solo, if you want to make some new quilty friends! Quilt guilds offer many opportunities to learn new things and to share your quilting skills with others. It’s a place where you can say you just made 128  two-inch flying geese and they will know you are not talking about migrating birds. And they will appreciate just how much work you did! You’ll be inspired by the ...

Do you have a group of quilty friends? Here are 5 suggestions of things you can do together, just for fun.

1. Join a guild

This is one you can do solo, if you want to make some new quilty friends! Quilt guilds offer many opportunities to learn new things and to share your quilting skills with others. It’s a place where you can say you just made 128  two-inch flying geese and they will know you are not talking about migrating birds. And they will appreciate just how much work you did! You’ll be inspired by the ...

At the start of December 2022 our friend, Helen Godden, started her annual Christmas Countdown Quilt-a-long. Helen is our Handi Quilter Ambassador who lives in Australia. She’s an accomplished artist and a superb stationary machine quilter. I decided to join in the quilt-a-long and take you all along with me. So today I will share my journey, some things I learned along the way, and the finish.

In the last post about this topic I showed you how I prepared my fabric with Helen’s design by tracing her pattern. I made a few changes (thanks Helen for understanding ...

At the start of December 2022 our friend, Helen Godden, started her annual Christmas Countdown Quilt-a-long. Helen is our Handi Quilter Ambassador who lives in Australia. She’s an accomplished artist and a superb stationary machine quilter. I decided to join in the quilt-a-long and take you all along with me. So today I will share my journey, some things I learned along the way, and the finish.

In the last post about this topic I showed you how I prepared my fabric with Helen’s design by tracing her pattern. I made a few changes (thanks Helen for understanding ...

I have one more piece left to quilt, and it’s a doozy quilting-wise. I am enamored of circles and can get carried away when I put them on quilts, not remembering that I will have to quilt them. Of course, that’s not a problem if I take the easy path of straight line quilting.

For “Happy Accidents” I decided to feature circles in the quilting, so easy isn’t likely. It measures 29 by 45 inches,which sounds quite doable until you shove the quilt around 360 degrees a few times. And I plan to emphasize some curves ...

Last week we decided that ribbon candy and wishbone are pretty popular designs. And according to the votes, they are about equally popular!  So lets have some fun with ribbon candy this week and explore some ribbon candy variations.

Handi Quilter Ambassador, Jane Hauprich, has an excellent video on her YouTube channel with 10 ways to change up your ribbon candy. Jane shows the quilting path by drawing on a white board and then she actually stitches the designs.

I’ll show you some screen shots of the designs here, so you’ll know what’s in store when you ...

Last week we decided that ribbon candy and wishbone are pretty popular designs. And according to the votes, they are about equally popular!  So lets have some fun with ribbon candy this week and explore some ribbon candy variations.

Handi Quilter Ambassador, Jane Hauprich, has an excellent video on her YouTube channel with 10 ways to change up your ribbon candy. Jane shows the quilting path by drawing on a white board and then she actually stitches the designs.

I’ll show you some screen shots of the designs here, so you’ll know what’s in store when you ...

It’s a great debate. Which is a better quilting design? Ribbon Candy vs Wishbone? I personally think both designs have merit. They are both versatile and both are classic. But when it comes to fun of quilting, I think the wishbone wins.

I’ll describe how to quilt each one and then you can try them on for size and decide for yourself. Let us know in the comments which one you vote for.

Ribbon Candy

Ribbon Candy is the signature design for a certain Handi Quilter educator from New York, whose name rhymes with chocolate cake. (haha)

If ...

It’s a great debate. Which is a better quilting design? Ribbon Candy vs Wishbone? I personally think both designs have merit. They are both versatile and both are classic. But when it comes to fun of quilting, I think the wishbone wins.

I’ll describe how to quilt each one and then you can try them on for size and decide for yourself. Let us know in the comments which one you vote for.

Ribbon Candy

Ribbon Candy is the signature design for a certain Handi Quilter educator from New York, whose name rhymes with chocolate cake. (haha)

If ...

Last week I shared a bunch of photos of intricate quilts seen at the AQS Quiltweek in Des Moines, IA. If you missed it, you can see it here. As an educator, the question I get the most is: How do you decide how to quilt something? Checking out the fabulous quilting on these intricate quilts got me to thinking about some intricate quilts that I have done in the past. Quilting intricate quilts, just like any other quilt top, has to be decided on a case by case basis. There is no hard-and-fast rule on how to choose designs ...

Last week I shared a bunch of photos of intricate quilts seen at the AQS Quiltweek in Des Moines, IA. If you missed it, you can see it here. As an educator, the question I get the most is: How do you decide how to quilt something? Checking out the fabulous quilting on these intricate quilts got me to thinking about some intricate quilts that I have done in the past. Quilting intricate quilts, just like any other quilt top, has to be decided on a case by case basis. There is no hard-and-fast rule on how to choose designs ...

Last week we used a diagonal path for filling a grid. Let’s take off on a tangent and try a few new things with using diagonal quilting combined with grids.

I like to try to find a way to quilt a design that makes it easy to stitch AND gives me great looking results. Win-win! In the design I’m going to show you this week we use a square grid to create a diagonal style fill design. The square grid’s function is to keep our stitching nice and even and symmetrical. The path we use makes it ...

Last week we used a diagonal path for filling a grid. Let’s take off on a tangent and try a few new things with using diagonal quilting combined with grids.

I like to try to find a way to quilt a design that makes it easy to stitch AND gives me great looking results. Win-win! In the design I’m going to show you this week we use a square grid to create a diagonal style fill design. The square grid’s function is to keep our stitching nice and even and symmetrical. The path we use makes it ...

We filled half-square triangles with loops to create some fun texture. Now let’s get a a little crazy and create some more fun with loops.

Work on the diagonal

It’s time to branch out and try a little something different. Rather than travel horizontally or even vertically, we can choose a diagonal stitch path. We’ll start simple with an easy loop design.

Start by choosing your grid. Go back to the beginning of our grid discussion to remind yourself how to do that.  You can use the piecing or mark a grid on your fabric using your ...

We filled half-square triangles with loops to create some fun texture. Now let’s get a a little crazy and create some more fun with loops.

Work on the diagonal

It’s time to branch out and try a little something different. Rather than travel horizontally or even vertically, we can choose a diagonal stitch path. We’ll start simple with an easy loop design.

Start by choosing your grid. Go back to the beginning of our grid discussion to remind yourself how to do that.  You can use the piecing or mark a grid on your fabric using your ...

Did you happen to catch the July 5, 2022 HQ Watch and Learn on Facebook? More grid work! You can watch it here.  Kristina used loops in one of her examples. And I promised to do some grid designs with loops this week!  Let’s start by talking through Kristina’s design.

Break Up Your Grid

Instead of filling the grid boxes as is, let’s break up the boxes with a diagonal line.

You might want to mark these lines on the grid (as shown). Or you can just add a little mark, that will remind you which way ...