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From Scraps to Fabulous
Let’s turn trash into fun!! One of my favorite things is turning scraps into something usable. I do this in many ways. My favorite way, and the one that I have been doing for the longest, is creating dog beds out of the fabrics too small to do something with and the bits of batting that are not useable. I also love turning my scraps into larger quilt sandwiches so I can practice quilting. Then there is always the quilt back. The perfect way to practice improv quilting and put a dent into the scrap ...
read moreNothing yet!
I started sowing flower seeds a few weeks ago but so far nothing is coming up! I have all the right set up but it just hasn’t been sunny much. I do hope to see some seedlings soon! Most of the flowers I am sowing are brightly colored and they always turn out way bigger that the package says. For instance the cosmos that should be about 2 to 3 feet high, turns into an 6 feet giant.
What is your favorite flower or greatest sowing succes?
read moreThe garden is slowly showing the first Spring flowers. The sun is showing her face more each day, but the mornings are still frosty. The hellebores have been in bloom for over a month, the hyacinths are popping up and the daffodils are almost ready to show their crowns. This time of year has always brought me joy, but this last week I had trouble to find the spark. My cat Toby went missing on Tuesday. He didn’t come home for his dinner, which is highly unusual. When it started to rain and he didn’t come running home ...
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Encouraging sensory play in the first year of life and beyond offers tons of benefits as babies grow and develop. Not to mention, it’s just plain fun for them! We love Around the Bobbin’s Sensory Toys for more than just cuteness, they contain all sorts of fun sensory surprises for little ones in a safe way.
You can make gift-worthy sensory baby toys, loveys and baby quilts from several Around the Bobbins patterns. Each pattern comes with detailed instructions for completing the projects with flannel or Cuddle fabrics that you select.
Ellie & George Sensory Toys
When I saw ...
read moreHi, all!
We are back this week with another Fat Quarter Frenzy quilt tutorial! We've been discovering new ways to utilize fat quarters in quilts, and if you're like me and have way too many, a way to use up some of the stash! So far, we've used 48 fat quarters (!) - 16 in Meet Me in St. Louis, 14 in Kaleidoscope, and most recently 18 in a new version of Supernova. But I'm still overflowing with fat quarters, so today we will be exploring a new tutorial, this time for a quilt I call Woven. Let ...
read moreLemon, lime, oranges or mandarin oranges.
I adore the scent of citrus! Cleaning products, candles, bath products, you name it! I love a wedge of lemon in my coke and add in all the ice cubes!
Do you have a scent or flavor that you adore?
The design Lemon Slices is based on an orange peel grid, and it creates a lovely texture which keeps your quilt nice and cuddly. The design can be stitched out with a quilting ruler if you want to. It depends on how smooth your curves turn out and what size grid you are using ...
read moreThis Orange Peel Stars design has several stitch paths to choose from. The first one is based on one of my tutorials from 2017.
Stitch path 1:
Stitch out an orange peel design first to stabilise your fabric. Best results are achieved by using a ruler, but I am known to free hand them if the shapes are small (blue lines in drawing below).
Once you have filled your block with Orange Peels, enter the space inside of the Orange Peel, starting from the left. Echo around that space in an inward spiral (green lines in the drawing below). Once ...
read moreI was minding my own business, making a whole lot of improv triangle kaleidoscopes, like this.
I'm only using solids for this quilt. The smallest scraps were filling my "toss" bin.
But then the Create Whimsy newsletter arrived in my email. Lynn Woll, its curator extraordinare, had an article titled "Scrap Happy Confetti Quilts," with Valentine's Day projects. Oooooo! It looked like so much fun...and I knew I had loads of fresh scraps.
I plucked the solids from my "discard" bin and sent them into plastic bags, organized by color.
Then I cut out a 4" square ...
read moreHi, all!
I. Am. Late. So sorry! And I will totally blame this on the state of my studio - it's a flipping mess, with about twelve quilt tops waiting to be quilted, a customer quilt just off the frame, a t-shirt quilt in progress, and now a new quilt started for a wedding shower gift. My brain feels like my studio looks, and I just completely forgot what day it was yesterday when I should have been writing this post.
That being said, welcome back to Fat Quarter Frenzy, where we are exploring simple quilt designs made from fat ...
read moreThe weather has been different from hour to hour! Rain, grey clouds, sunshine, strong winds. Nothing dramatic, just a typical Dutch February. I have been able to do some cleaning up in the garden, that felt so good! I even managed to sow some Sweet Pea seeds.
This week’s free motion design is harder than it looks! Grab some paper and try it out.
The edge to edge design Splash creates Paint splashes or splatters by adding blobs in different sizes. When each set of blobs is completed, you travel to a new spot to add a new sequence ...
read moreBehind the scenes I have been working on something epic! I have created an online free motion quilting course about the designs Ribbon Candy and Wishbone. The course is called Basic to Epic because it explains the classic sashing designs and then lifts them up to something even more decorative and complex.
Even though these two design may be considered basic, they are anything but. Learning the core structure of these designs will help you identify the cause of your wonky lines. You will learn how to tweak the structures to create any other variation.
Even experienced quilters see their ...
read moreMost of the grid-based designs I have shared with you are stitched out horizontally. I have a vertical one for you today, which makes it more suitable for domestic machine quilters compared to longarm quilters. If you want to use this on a large project on a longarm, you would have to advance the quilt after stitching just a few hearts. That would take up way too much time. So, if you would like to use this design on a longarm, maybe consider turning your project 90 degrees and stitch it out on its side???
The Row of Hearts design ...
read moreHi, all!
Time snuck up on me this week, and I almost forgot to write this week's Fat Quarter Frenzy post, but here I am! If this is your first time stopping by, we've just started a series of tutorials for simple, quick quilts that can be made with fat quarters. Last week we made a St. Louis 16-patch that used up eight fat quarters from my rather voluminous stash of them. This week, we're moving from square to triangles as we create a beautiful top that reminds me of a kaleidoscope image. Let's go!
*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*
Kaleidoscope ...
read moreWhat is the weather like where you live? We are having a windy week with a few drops of rain forcasted. Spring is slowly bringing forth flowers; the purple crocuses where the first to show up, with the white hellebores being a close second. It is still wise to bring an umbrella when going outside.
The free motion umbrella design is based on a clamshell grid. You can mark out a square grid or a series of semicircles. You could use a quilting ruler for the big semicircles if you want.
Before you go of and watch the YouTube video ...
read moreHi, all!
Welcome to this year's tutorial series, Fat Quarter Frenzy! Born from the inspiration of my oldest granddaughter, who so kindly pointed out that I had a "butt-load of fat quarters", I'll be sharing six simple quilt tutorials, all using fat quarters as their source of fabric. Of course, you can use yardage or scraps if you choose, but the tutorials are written using fat quarters.
If you're like me, you love to buy fat quarter bundles because they are such a fun way to get your hands on a full fabric line. All those beautiful ...
read moreHow many hearts would you like on your quilt?
Double up on your hearts-quota with this weeks design which would work really well on any Valentine’s Day quilt.
If your border or sashing in your quilt is a bit higher, you have enough space to add an extra heart inside of your Ribbon Candy Hearts. Your design will spread out bit more because the design needs to be wider for the extra hearts to have enough room. The lines might not touch each other anymore. Try to keep an equal distance to your previous line by looking at the ...
read moreThe face binding method hides the quilt's raw edges while freeing the quilt design from the visual binding's frame. It is very useful for the wall hanging quilts, but it can be used for any type of modern quilt. It also reduces bulk in the corners, and provides nice clean turned edges.There are several ways of doing it. I will show you how I did it.
The last email to the students of the Ribbon Candy workshop has just been sent out. The workshop has now closed. The online class was a huge success with more than 500 students participating. We had 4 days of short lessons on the free motion design Ribbon Candy. Lots of people left comments and shared photos of their practice pieces, especially on the lesson with the design variations.
This weeks free motion quilting design Ribbon Candy Hearts was part of the online lesson on variations. If you were in the class, you may recognize the video.
Ribbon Candy Hearts is ...
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