Susan There’s a moment every new quilter reaches — that quiet pause between choosing fabrics and actually sewing them together — where excitement meets hesitation. Piecing feels like the place where things can go wrong. On the other hand, this is also where the magic begins. This is the stage where flat fabric becomes shape, where …
New Year – New Checklist! Here we are…near the middle of January. A new year with the promise of new beginnings. And those darn resolutions! You open a notebook at take a look at your wish list of things to do this year. There it is! Learning to quilt is in the top 5! So, …
A Quilter’s Reflection It’s been almost five months since I last published here however, don’t let the silence fool you. Time spent away from my computer has allowed me to spend more time in my sewing room. It has also given me time and space to think and reflect. Before retirement, I was firmly caught …
Why Do We Quilt? The image above is book gifted from my husband a few years ago when it became apparent my love for quilting was more than just a passing phase. The title of Thomas Knauer’s book, gives those that have carried the question “why”, the hope that somewhere between the book’s cover and …
When was the last time you saw something that made you stop in your tracks, push everything aside and begin the mental gymnastics to find the time and fabric to make that item? That was my response when I saw Ali Phillips of Arabesque Scissors, Smart Sofa Station. The image above was one of many …
The Language of Fabric and Patterns We are all aware of the power of words and images to tell a story. Intuitively, whenever we feel the need to convey an idea or make a statement, the quickest and most efficient way to share what is on our mind, the first tools we choose are the …
Being an independent, walk-to-the-beat-of-my-own-drum kind of person who shies away from anything that resembles a group, a scrolling adventure on Facebook lead me to signing up and joining a sewing club. You don’t need to do a very exhaustive search to discover the many clubs, guilds, and sew-alongs available on any given day however, if …
Quilting Outside the Lines When I began seriously quilting, about seven or eight years ago, my focus was primarily on piecing a large top then quilting it, to create just that, a quilt. As my skill set and confidence grew so did my knowledge of the versatility of this technique. Little did I realize that …
The short answer is yes however, it is not a simple yes. Unlocking It’s Potential I’ve had my Janome 9450QCP for almost 5 years and the more I use it the more I learn about what it can do. The road many of us take when we first get a machine like this is to …
Time management. Anyone who calls themselves a “maker” – painter, sculptor, knitter, paper crafter knows there is value in managing our time. Given the amount of time required to make a quilt (pattern selection, fabric selection, fabric cutting, piecing, making the quilt sandwich to reaching the final step, the actual “quilting” of the quilt), time …
