I got a gift card to Barnes and Noble for Mother's Day yesterday - wahoo! Since I pretty much read all of my for-fun books on the ol' iPad these days, I perused bn.com for a while today looking for new quilty/crafty books to buy for my collection. After not too much deliberation, I went for Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts. I can't wait until it arrives!
I actually received Martha's general Encyclopedia of Crafts for Christmas this year and I've spent hours and hours perusing the pages getting ideas. I haven't done anything yet (I'll blame that on the move across the country), but I have several projects marked that I really want to try. So, since I like that book so much and I love fabric and sewing, I thought I'd go for the motherlode resource and get this one as well.
Do you have this book? Have you tried any of the projects in it? What do you think? Are there any other quilting or fabric project books you'd recommend I check out?
Thanks in advance for the tips! And I hope all you mommas had a super fun and relaxing Mother's Day!
I've never really been too worried about the migrating kind of flying geese, but the quilt block version always looks really daunting to me. I'll admit I'm easily intimidated when it comes to quilting projects. In fact, I basically to this point have picked which block I wanted to use based on how easy it looks to assemble. Which explains why I've pretty much done Fundamental Nine-Patch blocks except for my crazy foray into half-square triangles with my little boy's robot quilt using the Flock Block a couple of years ago.
But, thanks to the first issue of Fat Quarterly, I see now that Flying Geese blocks aren't really as hard as they look!
Fat Quarterly has great tutorials for three different methods to create these feathered blocks ... and all three look really easy! One uses two half-square triangles to make the effect of flying geese; another uses one rectangle piece for the goose and two square pieces for the flying part; the final version is one big square and four little squares and you end up with two Flying Geese blocks. No mitering or voodoo necessary for any of the three methods!
To get the actual tutorials, head on over to Fat Quarterly and pick up the first issue. I'm not even halfway through yet and I'm completely inspired and excited to go try some stuff. it's totally worth the $8. Time to pull out the sewing machine to start my next project!
The interwebs are abuzz with the upcoming launch of Fat Quarterly! For $8 per quarterly issue or $28 per year, this new eZine promises to be chock-full of sewing patterns, designer interviews, fabric previews, giveaways and much more. They say:
Do you love modern quilts and other craft projects? Do you salivate over all the new exciting fabric lines? Are you always looking for new ideas and inspiration? If so, you've come to the right place.
Welcome to Fat Quarterly!
Fat Quarterly is a new e-magazine written by modern sewists for modern sewists.
Be sure to look at the Fat Quarterly tutorials, too - these are really good, simple definitions and instructions for some basic quilting methods and techniques. They cover basting, quilting (grid and free-motion) with links to good tutorials for hand-quilting, binding and hexagons.
The countdown to Issue One begins! Are you going to subscribe to Fat Quarterly?
Internationally-renowned author and business guru Seth Godin has a post on his blog today encouraging people to quilt instead of quitting! Of course he means it figuratively - here's what he says:
When you've had enough, can't tolerate your job any longer and are ready to quit, perhaps you could try one last thing.
Quilt instead.
You've got nothing to lose, right? I mean, you're going to quit anyway, so what's the worst that could happen to you?
So quilt. Spend hours every day integrating the people you work with into a cohesive group. Weave in your customers as well. Take every scrap, even the people you don't like, and sew them together.
This analogy of quilting and relationships sinks in with me because I appreciate the intricate work required to put together a quilt. Our relationships are just like the quilts we make - we have some new friends and some old friends; some seemingly-small and insignificant relationships and some all-consuming relationships, but all of these connections are an integral part of our lives and we should treat them with care and diligence. We, as quilters, do this literally with fabric over and over again, so this is a great reminder to me that taking such care in my relationships - whether they're coworkers, friends, family members, or seemingly-random encounters with strangers. It may come down to scrapping it all (be it an actual quilt or even some relationships) in the future, but what do you have to lose by giving it a go? As Seth says at the end of his article, "Careful ... it might change everything."
Get literal and figurative at the same time - plan your next quilt now! Make something like this ...
Thanks to @burgers79 for the tweet link to this article from The Guardian - they posted five short stories from women who made quilts for their loved ones for various occasions. Grab a box of tissues, but be sure to read through these neat stories. I bet if we were to all give our own mini-accounts, we'd hear similar things.
I do like hand-quilting for the exact reason Alison Finch mentions: "It takes about three months to hand-stitch my quilts, and all the time I'm stitching I'm consciously stitching love into them. When you make a quilt for someone, they are wrapped in your love - like a magic protection."
Once again, I'm excited to hear about how many quilters are using their skills to make gorgeous quilts for those in need. Think of how warm and cozy these quilts feel for these kiddos who are in the hospital - so much nicer than the typical scratchy hospital blankets. Find out more about A Quilt for Every Bed on their new blog.
Guys, this amazing lady is on track to make 100 twin-sized quilt tops this year! Evelyn Schweitzer from Marion, Ohio turns 85 this weekend and has conquered cancer twice but she still whips off 100 quilt tops per year and has done so for the past eight years running. All these quilts are donated to the Lutheran World Relief program and distributed all over the world. Here's how Evelyn does it:
"She works on the quilts about five at a time, sometimes spending one day cutting out the pieces then another stitching them together. It takes about three hours to make a 60-by-80 inch quilt top of alternating squares, but longer, eight or nine hours, if Schweitzer decides to take on a more intricate pattern, like her favorite, Lover's Knot."
Can you imagine having the goal of 100 quilt tops and taking the time to make some of them with this fancy Lover's Knot block?
So many people's lives have been touched by her quilts - what a way to make a difference and do something fun. Yay, Evelyn!
I keep seeing pictures of these gorgeous quilts around the interwebs that are hand-quilted with colorful, chunky stitches ... and I think I might cave and try it myself on my next project. I have been a hand-quilter from the get-go, so, in other words, I've made ten total quilts in my illustrious seven-year hobby/career history (four of which were crib-sized). I love the hand-quilting process and the final result of those teeny tiny stitches, but it would be fun to do the hand-quilting and turn out more than one quilt per year. Plus, the effect is eye-catching and really modern - I love it!
Check out Crystal's Sonnet of the Moon Blog for more inspiration (the quilt above is her gorgeous creation), and Anna Maria Horner has a very thorough (and breathtakingly beautiful) tutorial for doing chunky hand-quilting on her blog:
Joe the Quilter (AKA Joe Cunningham) is another quilter I've admired from a distance for some time now because of his refreshing approach to hand-quilting, which is very similar to the two examples above. Here's Joe's chunky stitching:
He actually does a workshop to share his technique - here's the description:
"Tired of the fussiness of hand quilting? Looking for a fun way to make your quilts stand out? This class will introduce you to the needles, quilts and threads for big stitch quilting."
He gives his workshops all over the country, but he's based in my new hometown of San Francisco - hopefully I'll get to attend a workshop someday and see Joe's creative works in-person. Here's a list of Joe's workshopsand the calendar for when he's teaching what.
How about you? Do you like the tiny stitches like our talented Amish friends or the chunky brand of hand-quilting?
Does this look familiar? This is how all of my quilts used to begin. I'll admit it was kinda fun the first time, seeing a quilt come together on paper. But the novelty of it started to wear off two hours later when I was on my fourth draft and I realized I'd just drawn a complex block upside-down ... for an entire row. And I hadn't even started in with the coloring yet:
Not to mention the mind-boggling math involved in determining how much fabric is needed to make your painstakingly-designed custom quilt:
In short, designing a quilt in the traditional way using graph paper, colored pencils and 8th grade geometry is frustrating and tedious. I know it's supposed to take elbow grease to make a quilt, but does it have to require so much WORK just to plan your quilt?
That's where Quiltivate comes in. I don't think it should be such a chore to plan your quilt. Wouldn't it be amazing if you could pick the quilt block you want to use, design your entire quilt online, then get fabric calculations and pictures of the quilt you're getting ready to make? It's like a kit you'd buy in a fabric shop or from your favorite designer on Etsy, but the difference is that it's YOUR design and your unique quilt. The only "work" involved in making a Quiltivate-designed quilt is actually doing the sewing.
Check this out - we're doing a charity quilt in the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild and a couple of the ladies have already made their blocks using the Dutchman's Puzzle block, so if I want to design my blocks using the same block and need to know how much fabric I'll need, it's easy to do that on Quiltivate.
You see your block here with the color wheel on the right?
You can choose any colors to fill in your block - and that's just the beginning! The Quilt Builder lets you completely design your quilt, including block, borders, backing and binding. When you're finished you can get a print-out of the quilt and quilt block you designed as well as detailed fabric calculations for your entire quilt. The whole process takes less than five minutes. Check out this quick video for an overview of the whole Quilt Builder:
This has been an exciting past few months for me and my family with our recent big move to San Francisco, California! Not only is this a great place for my cutting-edge techie husband, it's also a great place for me as a quilter.
Two days after we arrived in the city, I got to attend the very first ever meeting of the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild. And, WOW, was I blown away with the creativity and talent of my fellow attendees. I also got to meet in-person a few of the bloggers I've been following online for a long time. Check out a few of the projects shared at the first couple of meetings:
Amy shared the above bright and perky mini-quilt. She goes into more details on this cute little quilt on her blog, Amy a la Mode.
Angela is working on this warm and cozy quilt using strips arranged into pinwheels.
Tina is making this cheery quilt for her daughter and is finishing it off with straight-line machine quilting ... 1/4" stitches over the entire top of the quilt! The effect is gorgeous but I can't imagine how long that's taking (and I'm a hand-quilter - ha!) Go, Tina, go - I can't wait to see it all finished. Check out Tina's Little Blue Cottage blog for more details on this quilt. Be sure to join in on her Denyse Schmidt-inspired Hope Valley Quilt-Along as well.
Would you believe this is Megan's very first quilt? Well, believe it - it is! We all have to start somewhere ... I just wish I'd started in the neighborhood of Megan instead of in Aunt Bea's neighborhood, but I'm coming around. :) Megan is a super-inspiring serial sewer who always seems to be creating useful and lovely things - follow her Little Bit of My Life blog to see her latest endeavors.
Leslie made this quilt using a jelly roll of batiks - don't you love the movement in it?
We're also starting a charity quilt as a guild. Each participant is going to create a couple of 10-to-12-inch quilt blocks made with bright, saturated colors in the style of Red Pepper Quilts. Julie is going to assemble our blocks into a quilt which we'll sell and all the proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders. Check out one of the super cute blocks Julie already created for our charity quilt:
Are you inspired yet? I sure am and looking back through the pictures just now makes me really want to create. I am super excited for the future of this group!
We've been a pretty small crew so far. If you live in the area, I really hope you'll join us! We're still finalizing the details on our next meeting, but it looks like it's going to be at the Redwood City Library probably on the evening of April 26. Don't forget to check out the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild website - please help us spread the word to all the quilters you know in this area, too. Thanks!
