What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

The National (or Worldwide) Quilting Day was last Saturday with our local guild’s show. My co-chair, Gail, and I set up the show stands on Friday, with some help from guild members. We were excited for the exhibit to open on Saturday, and got there early to hang the quilts. Gail did a tremendous job coming up with the idea of the challenge of using Page 42, finding the challenge fabric, designing the layout, and collecting the finished quilts. We worked together on publicity, getting prizes, printing ballots, and the other aspects of an exhibit. This was the ‘front ...

Saturday the weather here was not out-doorsy type weather…high, gusty wind all day. Oh, YAY! I don’t even need to make up an excuse to spend a little more time than usual indoors quilting.

First, I finished the top of a new Second Chances quilt I call “Have a (Few) Hearts.” Yes, it was inspired by the three applique heart blocks that were gifted to me. More information coming on that one soon.

And, there were tiny pieces left that didn’t want to be trashed. They became this improv log cabin-ish pin cushion.

And, another Windspinner block ...

Tomorrow is Worldwide Quilting Day, and our local guild is having an exhibit for the day. If you are local, please stop by the Blue Ridge Mall in Hendersonville, NC on Saturday, March 16, 10 am to 3 pm to see the 34 challenge quilts and cast a vote for your top three favorites. The challenge was to take page 42 from a non-quilting magazine as the inspiration for a wall hanging size quilt. Page 42 is for our 42nd year as a guild. Viewer’s choice winners get some great prizes, and our local quilt shop, Beginnings, will be ...

A busy week is behind me, with three full days of retreat then a lunch meeting on Friday that was more fun than work. I also had displays to set up at the library Friday morning, so I had to just drop things in the sewing room and put off cleaning it up until Saturday. I’ll talk about retreat this week, after I get all those photos processed and have time to write about it. But for today, as always, we have a variety of subjects to chat about. So get your cuppa, and settle in.

As I was ...

On to the finish, the final part of the project was to add the completed flowers to the base. I wanted these to be as dimensional as the leaves. I placed the flower on the base at the end of the stem and pinned the center. Then to see how it would look, I lifted the petals and pinned only the tips down. 

Then I pinned down the other two flowers on their stems.

Folding back the petals, I stitched only around the center underside, leaving most of the petal free.

Continuing around the center in a kind of squared ...

When we left off this project, I had the vase, the stems and leaves, and the newspaper done. Next was to sew the flowers for the amaryllis. Because I have shifted to a dimensional plan, I put some red mottled fabric right sides together and drew petal shapes. Roughly cutting them out, I sewed the edges together along the drawn lines.

I trimmed the seam allowance to a minimum.

Then, the curves and points were clipped, and the petal was turned right side out.

Folding the raw edges under, the edge is pinned with a nice point.

I made five ...

Now that the base for the wall hanging was done, I turned my attention to the appliques. Initially, my thought was to make them the same way as the vase. But when I did the vase, I found that the interfacing was fusible after all, and it fused to the underside of the applique. I knew I didn’t want to use that as I wanted to be able to press the edges well prior to sewing. So, there was now a choice, use the same fabric front and back or deal with the dreaded needle turn technique. Same fabric ...

My project for National Quilting Day is a still life wall hanging. I completed the piecing of the top, and loaded it on the longarm to quilt. The idea is for the white quarter-square triangles to look like patterned wallpaper. I did the stand-and-stare for a bit, then dove in with the same quilting design I have used before.

I began with the QSTs, doing continuous curves in the blocks. I was going to stop at this point, but the seam lines puffed out with the quilting, so I decided to stitch in the ditch, too.

Using my little straight-edge ...

National Quilting Day is coming on March 16, and our local guild does a small show to celebrate every year. Each year we have a theme or a challenge. This year, the challenge is a really creative idea. We got a fat eighth of the challenge fabric and a non-quilting magazine. It is our guild’s 42nd year, so the challenge is to make a small wall hanging inspired by what is on page 42. I got a Southern Living magazine from a few years ago. Page 42 had a photo of an amaryllis in a bowl with a framed ...

It is 2024, and I am happy to turn the calendar over to a new page. I am looking forward to this new year in the hopes that the issues of the past couple of months are resolved enough to go smoothly now, at least for a while. I thought it was a good sign when more than 2 dozen robins showed up in the front yard and meadow. They are hard to pick out in the photo below, but you can see a bunch of them between the rails of the veranda.

The birds were all over the front ...

...what would it look like?  Think about that for a second. Would it be bright all over or would it contain dark areas? Would it have mistakes, inconsistent stitches, small rips and tears that may have been mended (or not), star points missing here and there or would it be perfect? Would each block be similar or would there be variety? What would your life-as-a-quilt reveal?  I recently attended

...what would it look like?  Think about that for a second. Would it be bright all over or would it contain dark areas? Would it have mistakes, inconsistent stitches, small rips and tears that may have been mended (or not), star points missing here and there or would it be perfect? Would each block be similar or would there be variety? What would your life-as-a-quilt reveal?  I recently attended

Tomorrow is the official National Quilting Day, and our guild challenge quilts will be on display at the Hendersonville NC Main Library on Washington Street. Come out to see all the fun challenge quilts, and vote for your favorite. The viewer’s choice winners get goodies, so of course I hope those of you who are local to the area will come and vote for mine.

I’m working the show tomorrow, and I’ll try to have some photos to show those who are not in the area soon.

In the meantime, I did a quick quilting for a ...

When Fave Quilts contacted me to be a part of their month long event for National Quilting Month, I was delighted! I’ve been a top designer for them in years past, but it has been a while since I did a pattern for them. This month, one of my designs is featured. It is the simple improv quilt I showed before, and promised you the pattern. You can find that now on Fave Quilts on their National Quilting Month page, and the free pattern is HERE, with a downloadable pdf.

Be sure to click on the Fave Quilts National ...