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NOTE: I will be traveling next week and won’t have a blog post. I may be back Aug 4th…or maybe not. I will be teaching at the Long Beach Quilt Festival then. Please stay tuned. I’m running as fast as I can! It was the first California State Fair in 2 years and I was having withdrawal! I’ve attended state fairs in Illinois, California and Texas, as well as smaller fairs, and I’ve loved them all. They’re fun, cheesy and interesting. You can count on lots of aggressive vendors selling mostly useless but interesting items, agricultural exhibits, artery clogging food,…
This was fun! I took a class last Sunday at Cali Quilt Co to learn how to create Clam Up bags by Annie. Tayva, the shop’s owner, walked us through the process and I got two done in a 4 hr class! I forgot to take photos during class. There were two fellow Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild members in the class, which made it even more fun! I don’t take many classes, and if I do, they are either something fairly easy that I just want to jump right in and complete, or, an in-depth, serious class. When it comes…
This will be short. Here is this week’s finish: I could have made a quilt in the time it took me to land this car. It’s a 2022 MDX, new. I have spent at least 60 hrs on this search. At this specific time in the market, MDX’s are super hard to find, at least the one I wanted. I filled all 90 cu ft of cargo space often in my old MDX. I looked at all kinds of other cars, models, and brands, both new and used, and this is what fit me best. It has all kinds of…
NOTE: I may take next week off from my newsletter and blog; I will play it by ear. I am in the hunt for a car and it is consuming my time. I have accumulated a great stash of pressing tools and products. Whether you quilt, sew garments, or both, you need a good selection of pressing tools. It took a while to accumulate my tools, and as I took photos for this post, I realized that I had hundreds of dollars invested in pressing tools! I garment sew as well as make quilts, so I have a wide variety…
A finish happened this week and it’s got kind of a cute story: BTW, is this upside down? I keep going back and forth on it. My local guild, the Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild, has a give away table. For our last meeting we had a Sit ‘n Sew, which was delightful. I walked past the give away table and picked up this interesting piece: Wish I’d taken a photo of the whole thing, but this is the piece as I began to work on it. When I spied it, it reminded me of another piece that I took…
I get a lot of questions about stitch length. What is the ideal stitch length? It depends on your thread. How do you know you have the right stitch length? You’ll see it! I have a short, informative post on stitch length. I am talking about free motion quilting here, although the principle would be the same if my feed dogs were up. Because I am free motion quilting, my feed dogs are down and the combination of machine speed and how fast I move the fabric determines my stitch length. So when free motion quilting, it does not…
Did you know the Carson Valley Quilt Show was a National Show? I didn’t! I was blown away with the quality and variety of the show. There are judged quilts, many of which are top prize winning quilts, and also non-judged quilts. I loved that mix! I appreciate a variety of quilts in a show. I get fatigue if every single quilt looks like it took 3 years to make. I enjoy seeing lovely quilts that are to be used as…quilts, as well as quilts that will grace the wall of the maker’s home. I hope I can go to…
Teaching is always waiting to give you a surprise, one of the things I love about it. I taught an international group this week, the Israeli Quilter’s Association, a group that draws from the entire country. I had no idea what I was in for. This was a group of highly talented, experienced quilters with a wide variety of skills. I taught “Blooming Sheers” in 2 3-hour zoom sessions. This is a class I have taught several times before and it has been a rousing success each time. I love that class! There were 11 enthusiastic women in the class…
I got a lot of responses back from my last week’s post about my thoughts on judging. Some responses were private and held surprisingly strong opinions. It is just my opinion; I want quilters to do what gives them joy – whether that be to compete, or just enjoy their own quilts and share them with friends and family. Just like last week, I’m going to post photos of my landscape, just for grins. This week it is photos from previous years and seasons, and some plants and trees that are no longer with us. Based on the responses from…
After another competition quilter revealed her judging comments last week, it got me thinking. I have a well-reasoned opinion on judging, for me. These are my thoughts about my quilts being judged. I think they might be useful, or at least entertaining for you. I don’t have a lot of interesting photos about judging, so I am going to include photos of my yard this spring😊 Let me set the stage: – I like to have a quilt hanging in the show if I am teaching there. – I actually don’t care that much about ribbons. Really. I don’t even…