What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 I have been in the mood to finish some quilts and so I have another finished quilt to show this week.  My yellow and green potato chip quilt is done. I'm calling it "Sunny Day". The striped binding was in my stash.  This quilt will be donated to my MIL's nursing home to be raffled off as a fundraiser. (Another quilt is quilted and will be bound shortly--it is a gift so no pictures yet)

I spent quite a bit of time rug hooking this week and made great progress on my project.  Lots of blue still  and ...

Shirley, hooked by Kyoko Okamura, 40" by 37"

 So, I'm onto my 2nd big project- Autumn Fruit designed by Pearl McGown & Jane McGown Flynn.  I'm still pretty shocked that I got this lovely pattern on linen with all the wool kitted out and class instructions all for $20 on eBay.  The more I looked at the project, the more I realized what an amazing deal it was.  Not to mention, it's a perfect 2nd project.  First it will teach me to follow a pattern and also shows me how to gradate the pattern to give it depth ...

 RUG DONE! And yes, my first real rug hook in the books.  Now when I say "done", I mean done hooking.  Hopefully, I'll get the edges finished up soon enough.  But to tell you the truth, there are so many ways to finish them, I haven't figured out which one I'm going to do yet.

That all said, I thought I would continue on with my habit of doing a self critique when I finish project.

Rug #1, Nina-Marie Sayre, July 2025 22" by 12", Hand dyed Wool on Linen, #6, #3 strips

This week's progress

To all my US readers, Happy 4th - I feel so blessed to be an American. Hope you get some time with ones you love.  

WoW everyone, thank you for the warm welcome back.  It's always nice to see the internet being used for actually bringing people together.  It's funny, the minute I finally got myself writing and creating, all the normal ideas would pop in my head.  My workflow the last 15 years have been that during my week, I'll get ideas on blog posts and then jot them down quick before they ...

 My friend, Christine, and I had a few days away at the cottage last weekend. We brought our sewing machines, projects, and handwork with us, as well as some books to read and good food to eat.  It was a pretty relaxing weekend.  A storm blew through and the power was off for 12 hours, but we found lots to do.  We even toasted bagels and boiled water for tea on the BBQ!  

I started a Tiny House quilt (online class by Jo Avery).  My houses still need roofs and chimneys but I did didn't have the right colour ...

The design so far

 So for the last month, I've said I'm going to write my blog on Sunday afternoons.  For 15 years, I always managed to have Thursdays off for quilting and posting my blog.  Then in the last year with a new job change, I'm working Monday - Friday.  Go figure that now that I'm looking at 60, I'm so tired Thursday nights after work that it's become more of a chore to post rather than the pleasure it's always been.  Plus somewhere along the line, I lost my creative mo-jo.  

Frame ...

Last weekend, my husband and I went to the Camp Kintail Crafter's Retreat--Christine, my usual accomplice at retreats, had other plans for the weekend so my husband agreed to go with me.  He did some reading and worked on weathering some model train cars.  We also went for several walks--it was a gorgeous sunny weekend. I finished off the last three blocks for this quilt.  I have not decided what to name it yet... The blocks are not put together yet as they have to be all trimmed to the exact same size first.   They are bigger than standard ...

1. Taking a 3 hour starter class to get a taste of a new hobby was one of my better ideas.  It was a relatively small investment ($65 and that included everything you needed including a beginner hook) and you really get a feel for if you're going to like it enough to invest more time and money.  
2. I like rug hooking ...

 Something that I was reminded of this week is that I have a tendency to create in one of two categories.  Either my pieces are all about technique or all about design.  I know lots of quilters who are all about technique.  They buy a pattern and then spend their energy on learning how to create it perfectly.  The closer they get to perfection, the more of a rush they get.

Oh What Lovely Smoke, Elizabeth Barton

Then there's the quilters where it's all about the design.  They work on designing a piece and then figure out how ...

The Fiber Art Studio, John C. Campbell's Folk School

 I want to thank everyone for the grace you've shown me as I took the summer off from blogging.  One thing I have learned after having a blog for 15 years is that blogging seems to go in cycles and it's not a bad thing to just go with the flow.  I actually thought of stopping.  Most of my favorite bloggers have.  I get why though.  After so many posts there isn't a ton to say.  My husband talked me out of it.  He reminded me that ...