What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

March’s Island Batik Ambassador Challenge is called "It’s All Up to You," meaning the Ambassadors have a month to create any project of any size, theme, and technique using Island Batik fabrics. This gives us a chance to have a little fun this month.

Yes, I know — I have two block-of-the-month projects going, but I needed something to work on at our guild’s (sort of) monthly sewing days. One of the BOM projects is too quick for an all-day session, and the other requires my embroidery module; there’s not enough room for that at the sewing days, and […]

I am excited to share a ...

A couple of years ago, when I traded in my lovely Bernina 790Plus in favor of the Bernina 790Pro , the only thing I was a bit sad about was losing the beautiful “skin” I’d purchased for it. Unfortunately, the lady who had been making a wide variety of skins had shut down her business. […]

Several days ago I saw an email that piqued my interest. Telene Jeffrey, from South Africa, designs absolutely gorgeous wholecloth quilts. I love wholecloth quilts, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve made one. Since she has so many exquisite designs, I decided to start out small by doing her free design before […]

I saw this adorable design for a trivet on Embroidery Library — and it was on sale! Win-win, right? I’ve been doing some baking for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so it was nice to do something in my sewing room and to let my machine know that I wasn’t ignoring it.

This quilt, like the previous one, is literally in the bag. I’m storing them both in bags until time to gift them to the intended recipients. This one is from a pattern called Strip to Be Square, by G.E. Designs. I know the colors may suggest “baby quilt,” but it’s not; I simply made it […]

I signed up for a class at the Houston Quilt Festival that begins later this month. In looking at the supply list, I noticed that I’m going to need to bring scissors — something more than merely thread snips. What’s a girl to do but quickly make a scissor case to transport the scissors? Luckily […]

About a year ago, I traded in my Bernina 790Plus (which I *loved*) for the Bernina 790Pro. I thought long and hard about it, but I couldn’t really see a down side; the Pro has all of the fabulous features of the Plus and some amazing additions. One of those additions, and the one that […]

I’ve had this design for a couple of months and finally got around to making it today. It’s just a little mug rug (from San Francisco Stitch Company), but I wanted it as a sort of souvenir, even though we weren’t in Paris for this year’s Olympics. It only takes a couple of hours to […]

Oh gosh—I'm a hypocrite!!!! I went to the event and brought something home! No, it was not a brand-new, top-of-the-line sewing and embroidery machine, although it was very tempting. No - it was a charm pack. 

A charm pack

I got caught up in the moment! When they went around with a bag of prizes, I reached my hand in, and this is what I got. Wait—I cheated and peeked into the bag to get something I might use rather than some swag that I would not! I can easily sew those squares together and make a child ...

There are times when a sewist uses a machine needle for a very short time and then has to change types. What to do with the partially-used (but not used up) needle? I’ve always simply put them back into their little plastic boxes, making sure they were as far to the left of the box […]

My husband and I give our grandchildren a Christmas ornament each year. To give a bit of background, we had no Christmas ornaments when we married, so I made a point of giving each of our daughters an ornament each year so they’d have a little supply when they began their own homes. That naturally morphed into […]

If you’ve read this blog in the past, you’ll know that I like many of the various bag patterns from https://byannie.com. A few days ago, one of our grandsons stopped by with his iPad Mini, and I was horrified to see that it was “naked”! What if he dropped it? It could be scratched or […]

In a huge bit of progress for this particular quilt, I’ve finished both the free motion and the ruler work quilting! That means that I’ve been able to collapse my sewing cabinet so that I can actually walk into my room, rather than climbing over things to get in. LOL! I did my favorite free-motion […]

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about this quilt that I’m making as a gift. I did most of the piecing  during sewing days with my group, and then I got sidetracked. First of all, of course, there was the major problem with my Bernina 790PRO, which sort of exploded and was eventually replaced […]

This is from a ByAnnie pattern called Travel Essentials, and it’s little extra bag (Hot Tools Holder) to hold a curling iron, with a separate pocket for the cord. It makes it possible to pack a curling iron while it isn’t yet completely cool. The last seam was stitched through four layers of fabric, two […]

Almost a year ago, I posted the fourth in a set of bags (photo on the right) I’d made for when I take my smaller Kaffe Fassett Bernina 475 to a sewing group. The bags were to hold all of the various tools I might need — reducing the likelihood that I’d forget to take […]

In about a week a new issue of The Book Report will release on YouTube with Lee Monroe of May Chappell Designs. It’s about COLOR and I ask her the very important question, “what’s the difference between the CMYK and standard RBG color wheels. I loved her answer! Summer Sale on E-books! C&T Publishing is… Continue reading The Book Report, A Summer Sale, & me

The project I was working on the other day is now at the next stage. I’ve finished the in-the-hoop (ITH) quilting and will look to see what I have available for binding it. It was a fun project, and my replacement Bernina 790Pro handled it beautifully. The trickiest part is lining up the different blocks […]