When Life Give Us Lemons...

National Quilting Day 2020 — Ways to Stay Connected! Most (maybe all of us) are practicing social distancing so meeting with other quilters face to face will be limited for the next few weeks.  But, that doesn’t have to mean that we need to completely isolate ourselves.  We can still connect and show each other [ ...Continue Reading ]

The post National Quilting Day Ideas! appeared first on Carole Lyles Shaw.

I am proud to be one of the Aurifil 2020 Designers of the Month for March 2020.  Each month, a DOM designer will publish a block pattern inspired by the colors of Italy!     This post describes how I designed the block.  It also includes a link to a video tutorial showing how I actually pieced [ ...Continue Reading ]

The post Aurifil DOM March 2020 Block appeared first on Carole Lyles Shaw.

Now you can be IN THE LOOP! I've learned a new trick for burying threads while quilting that is so slick, it needs to be shared. Remember in my last post that I commented about quilting without stopping unless my bobbin ran out? Ah,yes; well, it happens! This photo, left, shows where the bobbin thread ran out and the teeny, tiny needle tracks where yours truly kept stitching before I realized

Now you can be IN THE LOOP! I've learned a new trick for burying threads while quilting that is so slick, it needs to be shared. Remember in my last post that I commented about quilting without stopping unless my bobbin ran out? Ah,yes; well, it happens! This photo, left, shows where the bobbin thread ran out and the teeny, tiny needle tracks where yours truly kept stitching before I realized

You’ve finished that wonderful block-of-the-month from last year, and now you have a lovely set of quilt blocks. Now what do you do with them?

One way to “set” your quilt is “on point”. This is when you set your blocks on the diagonal, as you can see with my quilt, September.

September quilt from Quilt Batik! ©2012 Cheryl Brown/That Patchwork Place

The confusing part of “on point” quilts is the setting triangles and and corner triangles. This post should help with that! When constructing an “on point” quilt, you lay your blocks out on the diagonal. Then ...

Calamity Strikes! I recently broke my arm. And of course it’s my right arm and I’m right handed. LOL

Since I can’t quilt one of the next best things I can do is to search the Internet for quilting topics. I came across an article from All People Quilt on organizing your stash. Of course with any thing like this, everything will not appeal to everybody. But it did have a couple of ideas that I certainly think will work for me.

Ruler Storage

The first it’s really pretty simple.

Item 21. Fill a 3-ring binder ...

Note: This post was originally published in February 2019 and updated in January 2020. Hello! I’m getting ready to design my new sewing room and thought a review on Sewing Room Organization Tips might be in order for me and for some of you. I refer to some of these ideas within other post topics […]

The post Sewing Room Organization Tips appeared first on A Quilting Life.

Note: this post was originally published in December of 2016 and updated in January 2019. Hello! I’m trying to stay in organization mode right now…I have an entire week without too many commitments, and I’ve been careful to set aside this week for organizing and for some “just for me” sewing! I hope you’ll enjoy […]

The post 5 Tips for Setting Quilting Goals appeared first on A Quilting Life.

Hello! Today I’m sharing 10 Quilt Piecing Tips & Tricks to Improve Piecing Accuracy. These are some of my tried and true methods for making sure my blocks turn out just the way I want them to. Many of these ideas are really simple steps that make a big difference in the end. 10 Quilt […]

The post 10 Quilt Piecing Tips & Tricks to Improve Piecing Accuracy appeared first on A Quilting Life.

Hello and happy Wednesday! We have just one more week until the Block Heads 3 quilt along officially begins. I’ve started sewing blocks, and I know several other designers are busy sewing away right now as well. It’s going to be an incredible quilt that you won’t want to miss out on! So, I thought […]

The post Block Heads 3 | 10 Tips for Block of the Month Projects appeared first on A Quilting Life.

  In 2019,  I had a great team of testers work on my Fractured Triangles Pattern.  I felt so honored that they chose to work with me. Their feedback helped me improve several parts of the pattern. Some (but not all) pattern designers offer the opportunity to test their upcoming patterns. We value the feedback [ ...Continue Reading ]

The post Become An Awesome Quilt Tester appeared first on Carole Lyles Shaw.

Hello and happy Friday! First, thanks so much for all of the positive support on this year’s Scraps-Along here at A Quilting Life. I’m super excited about it myself and believe we will all be able to learn from each other and stay motivated throughout the year (if you missed hearing about the scraps-along challenges […]

The post 10 Tips for a Great Year of Quilting appeared first on A Quilting Life.

Penny Lane shows me how to chill out. l should have written this on the first Monday of December, instead of now, but it’s here to remind us to forgive ourselves for all the things we wanted to get done and didn’t......I’m calling it “Finding Calm” Finding calm in December: (1)   Work on a project I know.  This season is not the time to learn a complicated new project.  I pull out a

What to do when your quilt rows don’t line up? When you’re working on a long-term project like Sunset Isle, where there’s an array of techniques and a variety of how many blocks per row is included, it’s not unusual to get to the end and find that your rows don’t quite all match up in length.

Perhaps it’s that seam allowances have changed over the year as you’ve grown more confident in your abilities and your accuracy has improved. Perhaps the printer settings were wrong when it came time to print templates ...

Several months ago, I had an idea. Why can’t we magnify right on our quilting rulers? I don’t know about you, but my eyesight certainly hasn’t gotten any better the older I’ve gotten, and my eye doctor say I should expect it to continue to get worse. Since more accurate cuts lead to more precise […]

Using the right quilt tools makes all the difference when you are quilting.  Good tools help you cut and sew more accurately and generally make the entire process more enjoyable.

And, you don’t have to spend a lot of money–just focus on a few high quality items and they will last forever.

Here are some of my favorite tools.  No affiliate links–opinions based on personal use only.

Shop Local

As always, please check with your favorite local quilt shop or local shops with online shops before going to ‘big’ retailers. Note:  there are NO buying links in ...