What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Good morning, my friends. We're approaching what passes for normal here. The laundry was finished yesterday, and I weeded my weedy herb garden. While I was out, I realized it's time to cut the peonies back for the season. That'll be on today's agenda. Also, I think I've managed to grab all the strays from the camper that I neglected to unpack in my first effort. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many cupboards, drawers, and cabinets I open, I still manage to leave behind a few things. 

So that left me ...

Good morning, my friends. We're approaching what passes for normal here. The laundry was finished yesterday, and I weeded my weedy herb garden. While I was out, I realized it's time to cut the peonies back for the season. That'll be on today's agenda. Also, I think I've managed to grab all the strays from the camper that I neglected to unpack in my first effort. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many cupboards, drawers, and cabinets I open, I still manage to leave behind a few things. 

So that left me ...

Good morning, my friends. The camper is unpacked. The bedding, towels, rugs, and quilts are washed. The birds have been fed, and what else is there? Oh yes...I needed to find room for five more refrigerator magnets. Standing in front of the refrigerator is discouraged at this point. Hard hats are required.

Matthew suggested we might need a new refrigerator if we are to do more traveling. 

Probably I've forgotten something I still need to do, but I spent a good part of the day sewing yesterday. My first task was to reorganize and figure out where I ...

Good morning, my friends. The camper is unpacked. The bedding, towels, rugs, and quilts are washed. The birds have been fed, and what else is there? Oh yes...I needed to find room for five more refrigerator magnets. Standing in front of the refrigerator is discouraged at this point. Hard hats are required.

Matthew suggested we might need a new refrigerator if we are to do more traveling. 

Probably I've forgotten something I still need to do, but I spent a good part of the day sewing yesterday. My first task was to reorganize and figure out where I ...

I am enjoying our beautiful Spring weather here in October. Gorgeous sunshine and the garden is very happy.

I have continued to work on projects that need finishing. Several of those have been Wendy Williams patterns.

This wall hanging is a combination of three different designs.

Here they are before they were stitched together and quilted.

These are delightful little projects called Travel Threads.

Keeping the Wendy Williams theme going, I also finished the sheep. This one went into a hoop.

They have all been appliqued with wool felt and stitched with perle cottons.

I was asked by a friend ...

This and that, and other stuff. Oh, and my mood, too!

A friend handed me two layer cakes and asked me to make two quilts.

Sure! Any excuse is a good excuse, right?!

The first step was to decide how to honor the pink but at the same time make quilts that were large enough. And maybe not JUST pink.

So, I added green. One quilt got light green (this picture doesn’t capture the color well).

VERY mini-tutorial: Cut the 10″ squares in half to create bars 5″x10″. Add 5″ squares. This idea would work with any layer cake. Uses 33 10″ squares. Finished at 59″x71″.

And one ...

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to find a cute Halloween panel with some additional pieces of fabric from the same line at a local quilt show. I knew immediately I wanted to use them for my high school classroom.

Halloween isn’t really celebrated as a family event here in the Netherlands, it is more of a teenager and adult party with lots of horror elements. I am not really a horror fan but I do like the vintage Halloween style with black cats, bats, a few ghosts and carved pumpkins.

The images on the panel are not ...

So, it’s been a while and I found myself getting inimidated on how much I needed to catch up on so I’m just gong to jump in and give you a highlights reel kind of post.

Quilting

I recently finished this top from one of the Project Quilting Challenges. The theme was, I think, about vacations? I remember that I couldn’t get the top quilted in order ot meet the deadline and ended up doing a pincushion. The signal flag blocks spell out “Let’s go” if you read them from top left to right and from ...

Good morning, my friends. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time here in Winthrop, but we’ll be moving on today. It’s another short day of driving to Bridgeport, Washington. We have three nights there and, honestly, I can’t remember why I included it in the trip. We have no real plans for the area, however, I did read about a mile-long path of chainsaw sculptures. Sounds entertaining. Possibly, I just gave us a few days to relax. In any case…that’s next on our itinerary.

Before we headed out on our little walking tour yesterday morning, I ...

Good morning, my friends. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time here in Winthrop, but we’ll be moving on today. It’s another short day of driving to Bridgeport, Washington. We have three nights there and, honestly, I can’t remember why I included it in the trip. We have no real plans for the area, however, I did read about a mile-long path of chainsaw sculptures. Sounds entertaining. Possibly, I just gave us a few days to relax. In any case…that’s next on our itinerary.

Before we headed out on our little walking tour yesterday morning, I ...

Thankfully we have no snow here, but it is possible, although very rare! My snow people are the woolly kind from a pattern by Bonnie Sullivan.

This photo is deceptive because the piece is quite large, 45 X 14 inches, but of course is very hard to show in a photo.

To show each of the snow people in detail, I have split the photo into three sections.

The wool has been a delight to work with, and I have used Sue Spargo perle threads for the stitching.

I had a starry fabric that I used for the backing, and ...

Do you need a vacation?

Is your idea of the perfect vacation one where all you have to do is get there? No planning, no figuring out where to go next, no worrying about what to eat or what to do. Just show up, relax, and enjoy yourself. Well, I’m doing it again — and you can join me on the Perfect Day Quilting Cruise!

Stitchin’ Heaven asked me to teach on another quilting cruise, and it is going to be amazing. Entertainment, food, exploring all within walking distance.

This time, I’ll be cruising out of Miami, which will ...

There’s a whole lotta cutting going on.

My, oh my. I sat down at my new table a few days ago and sewed for the first time at home in about six weeks. And then I did it again for six hours for two days in a row! And I slept! Ah, quilting, you are so good for me.

But back to Mod Owls—When I cut the pieces for the quilt a few weeks ago, I cut out more than necessary. I don’t want to make the quilt bigger; I wanted to make sure I had plenty ...

Time to say good bye to September. And time to get moving with sewing plans. I seem to have a lot of projects on the go so I need a bit of an effort to finish some. First up is my flamingo embroidery.

This is another of Wendy Williams Travel Threads patterns. Wool felt circles are used in the body, then stitched with perle cotton. The rest is filled with embroidery stitching.

I first saw flamingos at Sea World in Florida and have love their stunning colour ever since.

The hoop used for one this one is the new 3D ...

Nothing like a quick project to lift the spirits.

I really like making potholders…

The design Cupid is a fun grid-based design. Within the triangles (or diamond) we place hearts in a continuous manner. The design can be stitched out as a single row or applied in repeat or even as an edge to edge.

There is thread buildup with this design, so consider the thickness and colour of your thread carefully!

The design can be quilted completely freehand after marking the diagonal lines. You could also choose to quilt the diagonal lines first with a walking foot or ruler and then add the hearts afterwards.

Take a look at this quick drawing video ...