What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

The past few nights we have been doing a little binge watching on Netflix. Who doesn’t do a little binge watching these days? The show we have been watching is one that I didn’t think I would really enjoy. Thanks to the preview they play, I was curious to see what it was about and ended up watching the entire first episode. I had originally thought that I would view enough to satisfy my curiosity and move on to the things I normally like to watch. I was wrong.

I know you’re totally dying right now to ...

Eeek! Where has the time gone! I want to say that I’m over here killing it and knocking out all kinds of UFOs and there are a lot of pictures so get ready.

That would be a lie. I haven’t done anything on those UFO’s.

Why not? That’s a great question. The shop has been a bit on the busy side. We have had more folks express interest in our beginning longarm class (yay!) as well as quilters bringing in quilts that need quilting or repairing. Combine all of that with kids going back to school ...

I know, it’s only the beginning of June and it’s not technically summer, but my kiddos finished their last week of school (eek!) and soon it will be all me and them for the summer. Negotiations have begun for what we are going to do. I’m not a mom who is “extra” but things go better if we have activities to do. In the past I have set up my own summer camps with a theme and activities and sometimes they worked great and sometimes they were a bust, but there have been a couple of summers ...

It’s time for our monthly UFO check in! How are you coming with yours? I am still plugging along and will be really happy to get this one off my list of things to do! You may remember me talking about this one in previous posts….it is a flower of the month series with fabric designed by Ro Gregg and patterns by Nancy Mahoney. I might have that backwards, but that is where I am going to stay. These came in kits with instructions and are from 2008….yes, 2008. I thought it would be easy to do ...

It’s time for our monthly UFO check in! How are you coming with yours? I am still plugging along and will be really happy to get this one off my list of things to do! You may remember me talking about this one in previous posts….it is a flower of the month series with fabric designed by Ro Gregg and patterns by Nancy Mahoney. I might have that backwards, but that is where I am going to stay. These came in kits with instructions and are from 2008….yes, 2008. I thought it would be easy to do ...

It is time!

If you haven’t changed your needle on your machine since before Chirstmas, it is time to put in a new one.

If you haven’t recently changed out your rotary cutting blade, it is time to use a new one.

If you haven’t cleaned out your sewing machine since Thanksgiving, it is time to pull out the bobbin and dig out some lint or schedule service so that your local professional can make sure that you are running in tip top shape.

If you haven’t cleaned your iron, now is the time to take ...

Since it’s the first of the month, let’s talk about those UFO’s shall we? In case you were wondering, I did complete the latch hook complete with rug binding. Just don’t look too closely at the binding. That part is not really done well and I am thinking that at some point I will need to redo that binding.

Ta-Da! It has also been given to my son where it graced his floor immediately. One done only about a million to go (or so it feels). It is time to move on to February! One of ...

So, how do you organize your fabric? If you aren’t a quilter, how do you organize your crafting supplies?

I’m sure that there are some of us who are super organized and while I would love to be one of those people, I’m afraid that it just is not in me to be one. That being said, I do have my fabric somewhat organized. My method is fairly simple. I have some drawers and anything that is a fat quarter to a 1 yd cut is uniformly folded and sorted by color. Anything smaller than a fat ...

How are you doing with your Ufo’s this week? We will just keep our updates/pictures to the first week of the month so that we aren’t going on and on and on about them, but I will say we are still making progress!

We thought we would take a little time and talk about the shop today. Some of you may be new to us or maybe you have a shop like ours in your area! We are not your typical quilt shop. We do not carry fabric or notions or batting. What we do have are ...

How has your week been? Hopefully you are staying warm and healthy. Have you been working on any projects or maybe made any progress on your crafting area?

I have! Slowly but steadily I am making progress in my room. My cutting table is just about usable and I have most of my sewing table cleared. Next up is the ironing board. Why is it that flat spaces seem to have some sort of magnetic power that attracts all the things to be placed on them? Do you find that to be true in your area? (Or maybe even the ...

Are you ready for the new year? It’s so symbolic – the ultimate chance for a new beginning and we are fortunate to have that chance. Let’s face it, after the last year or so, we could all use a new beginning.

How are you going to use yours? Do you make resolutions? Do you consider it just another day? Do you consider it an opportunity to try new things or break old habits?

I prefer to use it as an opportunity. For the last few years I took the time to create a UFO list (or rather lists ...

I know, we still need to make a decision about the sashing. What could be taking us so long? Well, holiday season. Don’t get us wrong, we love the holidays! Right now things just get a little crazy with everyone trying to get gifts completed on time. With the pandemic, people have been sewing and getting tops done and trying to get those caught up as well. This just makes things a little busier at the shop and we don’t always get back to our own projects.

That being said, New Year’s is one of my favorites ...

I bet you thought that we forgot about our ever-so-patiently-waiting Jacob’s Ladder blocks. It is time to do something with them!

When last we left them we had our 3 trouble maker blocks flagged so we knew what we were dealing with. Now is the time to make the decisions for what to do with these blocks. The end goal for this quilt is to have a bit of a sampler at the shop to showcase some different quilting ideas to show customers when talking about how to quilt their quilt (either by us or by them). With 15 ...

We made it, we survived, and we even sold some things! We weren’t sure what to expect over the weekend except for one thing – we would be tired at the end of it. And we certainly were, and thus why we are a little late (and short) with our posting this week.

Usually at these types of events we meet some interesting people and hopefully make some connections for people to come to the shop. While there are a couple of guilds in our area, many of our customers are not part of guilds and this becomes a great ...

We talk about the tip of the iceberg at home a lot. How icebergs are tricky things…that you can only see a portion above the water while the greater mass lies below the surface. We talk about how the tip of the iceberg represents our final product; the result of our work. The mass below represents the work that it takes to get the result, or the part of the iceberg you can’t see. The boys wanted to start a podcast – so they are learning a lot about the work that lies beneath the surface.

A couple of ...

It doesn’t really seem possible that it has been a year since we were last at a craft show. We know that the last year (well, year plus) has been a difficult time. Many of us weren’t able to do many of the things that we normally would. We missed out on school, work, vacations, and memories. It seems to be a slow slog to get back to our normal. Each step we take toward normal feels exciting and sometimes scary at the same time for many of us. Some of us are more than ready to completely ...

It doesn’t really seem possible that it has been a year since we were last at a craft show. We know that the last year (well, year plus) has been a difficult time. Many of us weren’t able to do many of the things that we normally would. We missed out on school, work, vacations, and memories. It seems to be a slow slog to get back to our normal. Each step we take toward normal feels exciting and sometimes scary at the same time for many of us. Some of us are more than ready to completely ...

You lose your quilt.

Well, I am certain that I don’t have all of the answers for this, but a quilt show just wrapped up in our area and we were talking about how quilt pick up can be a bit chaotic and it would be easy to lose track of one.

Before I get too far, if you are a victim of quilt theft there is a bit of an online network out there. There’s a group on facebook and some websites where you can post pictures of your quilt and hopefully someone will see it and ...

I suppose it’s is starting to be on our minds more these days. The holidays are rapidly approaching and we are starting to gear up for holiday shopping. Some of us may be thinking about it a little earlier this year as shipping and finding items in stock has been an issue these days. Well okay, I am…or at least I’m trying to get everything organized.

However, there are quite a few of us who do homemade gifts. Afghans, quilts, scarves, or whatever our minds can conceive. Some take a lot of care and research favorite colors ...

Sometimes when I am overthinking things, the world just seems strange. Who would have envisioned that we would be wandering around with miniature computers that make phone calls and are small enough to fit in our pockets? Who can now envision their life without one? They certainly do make things easier or at least a little more instant.

I will confess that I do not know much about quilting apps. In fact, there is only one that I have sporadically used and that is QuiltingCalc. However, since phones also have calculators I found that I wasn’t really using it ...