What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

What do you do when you are buried under a mountain of sewing projects? Why, you start another one, of course. My friend, Carrie at Lifting Limits Quilting, recently published a new pattern and she’s hosting the Origins Quilt Along. It is a super simple quilt that requires just 12 fat quarters so I quickly pulled together a stack and joined the fun. 

I haven’t been keeping strict track, but we’ve maybe had a total of 4 hours of sunshine since Christmas here in northeast Wisconsin. It has been GRAY! These fabrics are out of my comfort ...

Long ago I stopped keeping track of UFOs and WIPs. Seldom do I make a quilt with a specific purpose in mind, so there is rarely a deadline. Most days I spend some time in the sewing room so I figure things will be finished…or they won’t. It would be nice to finish all my old UFOs, but it is not a priority. The things that ignited my passion for quilting are still the things that keep me going: new fabric, new patterns, and new techniques. Did I mention new fabric? As long they keep making new fabric ...

Early in the summer of 2021, I saw an Instagram post where someone explained her carefree summer. That phrase captured my imagination. YES! I also wanted a carefree summer. I didn’t want any pressure to start new projects or get things finished. A summer with fun and no obligations? Sign me up.

That’s pretty much what happened. Only the carefree summer turned into carefree fall and has continued into carefree winter. As a result, I had my least productive year quilting-wise since I started quilting 33 years ago. I maybe finished 10 quilts all year. MAYBE. I’m ...

I really, really want to finish the Wanderer’s Wife top. It is a monster though and summer is turning out to be a bad time to make this commitment. I decided to work toward progress though, not perfection.

My small quilt group is meeting this week and I wanted to have the top ready for show and tell. It is not going to happen. We have good weather for such a very short period of time in Wisconsin and for my mental health, I have to take advantage of every minute of it. We try to pack many fun ...

Jen Kingwell’s Wanderer’s Wife (formerly Gypsy Wife) quilt has been on my bucket list for quite some time. I purchased the pattern years ago and considered starting several times but never followed through. In March, my friend Jacqi got a group of seven together for a sew-along. The idea was to sew blocks, report in via Zoom every month, then have a completed top by the end of June. It was time to dive in.

This project is a little overwhelming and more than a little confusing to piece. The internet is full “helpful” hints and charts. I ...

Recently I read this Wesley Snipes quote and something clicked–don’t quit. Not that I’m a quitter, but I tend to get bogged down in a million projects.

Since I’ve got so many things going, it seems like I never get anything done. I noticed that my husband, Jim and I go about our daily tasks a little differently. Typically I work on a project for a set time, for example, 15 minutes or an hour, but Jim works until the job is done. Even though we spend about the same amount of time, it seems that ...

My quest for having a tidy sewing room is never-ending. However, in Sewing Room Cleaning Part 2, I have a little progress to report.

My ironing board is clear! This makes me so happy. If I had a quilt top to press, there would be room to do it! I have a wool pressing mat on top of the big board. I like the wool mat, but I still use a white bath towel on top of it. The towel has a little bit of nap that holds the fabric in place and has a little bit of give so ...

If you are anything like me, your sewing room could use a little spring cleaning. I spent many hours in this room over the long Wisconsin winter and the clutter is a little out of hand. I will be gone much of April and won’t have a lot of time to sew which makes it the perfect time to tidy up a bit. Today is spring cleaning part 1.

My sewing room is a decent size, but I have way too much stuff in here. This is my ironing center. My big board sits on top of two cube ...

Last Monday I wrote about the positive aspect of donating boxes of quilting supplies, primarily the relief I felt by getting rid of lots of stuff that I no longer had an interest in finishing. The negative part of that is that I was left with a mess. In going through these bins I also found things that I am excited to work on again. However, having all of this out was overwhelming. I needed to create calm in the chaos.

All of this is scraps, UFOs, kits to be disassembled, orphan blocks and it needs to be organized and ...

Last week my priorities suddenly shifted. The quilt that is on the frame just needs a little more quilting and another one is ready to load. My plan was to get these two quilted and machine sew the bindings. None of that happened.

A friend texted and said a group of women is collecting quilting supplies to distribute to quilting groups that do charity sewing. She said they will take almost anything; fabric, UFOs, tops, whatever.  They had room for five boxes if I had items to contribute. My text back was, “This sounds like a dream come true.”

Initially ...

The bad news is time flies.
The good news is you’re the pilot.
                         Michael Altshuler

This quote popped into my head a lot this week. One year ago today, Jim and I were in Lexington, Kentucky on a tour of Buffalo Trace Distillery. It was a glorious day and after the tour, we had lunch at a little brewery overlooking the Kentucky River in Frankfort. At that time, Dr. Fauci was still telling us we should be cautious, but this new coronavirus should not create much concern in the United States.

So, we continued our trip, spent some time ...

Do your quilting projects sometimes feel overwhelming? Maybe you have too many UFOs or too much stash fabric or your current project requires thousands of half-square triangles. No matter what project you’ve been putting off, today is the day to start. You might be saying to yourself, “One of these days I will get around to sorting that scrap bin,” while every day you walk into your sewing room and see that overflowing bin.

Every time you see that bin, you have guilt that you haven’t done anything about it. After a while, that scrap bin starts robbing ...

“The work you do today is a gift you give yourself tomorrow.”
Jon Acuff

I like this quote so much I have it written on the whiteboard in my sewing room. Jon Acuff’s books are so good. Have you read any of them? He has written several including Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work That Matters, Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done. Both of these are very funny but have great information on elevating your life above average.

Whenever I read Jon’s quote, it motivates me to keep moving toward a goal ...