What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

So, we walk into a store in late August and are bombarded by all things Halloween. At first I feel a little rushed and frustrated. Why so early? We all know that Halloween candy purchased in August is not going to make it to trick or treat time!

But lately I’ve been thinking. How early is too early? When July hits, we start to think about “Christmas in July”. Some of us gift items crafted by us and that takes time. We might be crafting year round to not feel so rushed when those holiday deadlines come around. We ...

Hopefully we can now get back to our regularly scheduled posting habits!

We will certainly pick up where we left off with our Jacob’s Ladder blocks, but that will have to wait until next time. They are all sitting patiently waiting until it is their turn.

We also fell down a bit on UFO stuff. That’s okay too. I’m sure that we have all realized over the last year or so that sometimes life happens and we have to shift our priorities to take care of those things that are necessary. Hopefully you are all making UFO ...

I know, we kind of checked out there for a bit. We had a good reason though…we were quilting a show quilt.

I’m sure that many of you have been to quilt shows in your area with amazing quilts and vendors. Many of you have even travelled to larger shows with even more amazing quilts and vendors. You may even be brave enough to hang your quilts in your local shows. Some of you may even be brave enough to have your quilt judged.

I have had one of my personal quilts judged and the comments were pretty ...

We can’t believe that the school year is almost over. On one hand we weren’t sure how school was going to look and now we are almost ready to close the books for this school year.

To that end, we have been on the busier side of getting t-shirt quilts completed in time for graduations as well as handling end of the school year things. So to say our schedules are a little convoluted right now would be an understatement! Thankfully there are just a few days left and we can settle into the normal summer schedule.

Finally ...

It dawned on me as we published our last post that we hadn’t talked about April UFO things. My apologies! I know there are only a couple of weeks left in the month, so lets make this an easy thing.

Make 2 practice blocks. Wait what? I don’t know about you, but I am not terribly good about making a practice block when embarking on a new pattern or technique. Char and I have been designing some of our patterns and making a practice block has really been helpful and I’m not quite sure why I haven ...

I know, not a terribly descriptive title for today’s entry. As we all know, creativity ebbs and flows. I would love to tell you that I am rocking those Jacob’s Ladder blocks, but truthfully, they are in a holding pattern. We have a bit of a temporary scheduling issue. I won’t bore you with the details. Sometimes that’s the way it is with a small business and we have families. So, while that is going on we are just trying to work through our customer queue as best as we can which hasn’t left room ...

I know, we were supposed to get back to those Jacob’s Ladder blocks. I had a little trouble getting back to them this week so I am not any further along with regard to choosing sashing fabric and getting them sashed. Don’t worry, I am still working on it and we should be able to post about them next Monday!

In the meantime, I thought we could talk about some self care. No, not the mental kind. The physical kind. It’s very easy to get into a groove and spend a lot of time sitting at our ...

We are going to step away from the Jacob’s Ladder blocks this week to get back to talking about UFO’s since it is the beginning of the month.

How are things coming? Do you feel like you are making some progress toward getting anything finished? Maybe when you took some time to clean your crafting area it somehow turned into a bigger project. That is an easy thing to have happen. I’ll be honest, I really only cleaned up what I needed to in order to be able to do some sewing. I am optimistically thinking that ...

So here we are for week 3 of this project and I thought it might be a good idea to talk a little more about the tricky blocks. It turns out that there are 3.

Of course the first one is the jellybean block. I opted to take it apart and give it another chance.

Please know, I am not judging the person who sewed this block. I am simply doing what I can to turn these blocks into a quilt. Block trades are tricky. You may get back blocks that ...

Here are the blocks in a layout!

They are arranged a little differently than last week. I tried to mix them up a little bit making the brights a little more interspersed with the reproduction fabrics. It feels a little more balanced than it did before. I also opted to have them all facing the same direction. Since there will be some sashing separating the blocks, they won’t be able to form any kind of secondary design so it felt like it would be distracting if they were turned different ...

Sure it’s not stocks like we may have been watching in the news, but have you ever been a part of a block trade? Once upon a time when we were still working our office jobs, we found that there were others who enjoyed or wanted to learn about our quilting hobby. Perhaps you have similar where you work or live? Pandemic conditions have certainly added a layer of difficulty to this kind of thing.

At any rate, we decided to get together once a month for lunch. Bring your own meal, met in a conference room or other ...

Have you ever shopped the tool aisle at your local hardware store? I know many of us aren’t getting out to many places right now, but have you ever? Have you noticed that there are some neat items in the tool aisle that would work great for our crafting? We have. We have also noticed that you can find similar items in the craft store at a higher price point. I suppose that those in the business believe that crafters have a lot of disposable income or that those that are crafting are selling and therefore making money. I ...

How are your resolutions going? Are you finding it easier or harder to get into the swing of things this year?

I would like to say that I have dug right in to clean up my sewing room, but that hasn’t happened yet. The kids are getting ready to go back into school full time and my non shop days will no longer be spent supervising their education. That should give me some time to get back into my room, although I think first I would like to drink my morning coffee while it is still hot…..

Either way ...

Happy 2021! May it bring all of us some joy!

How did your Christmas sewing turn out? I did start some placemats, but I did not get them trimmed and bound. Which is okay. I’m just that much further along for next Christmas! I’ve included a photo of what I did accomplish just for a little show and share. After all, who doesn’t like a little show and share?

It’s that time of year when we all start to feel a little bit renewed. A new year feels like a new beginning full of promise and ...

We are currently in the throes of our holiday rush, but there is light at the end of our tunnel! With the pandemic this year, it seems like many of us are having quality time sewing which means we need to get the quilting part done! It’s been nice to see so many different quilts come through the door.

Hopefully your holiday season is going well so far. I know that at this time of year we typically think about charitable donations or charitable acts since it is the season of giving. This year it feels like donations are ...

If you have been in the shop you have surely heard one of us say there’s more than one way to do that. It’s one of the things that I love best about quilting. If you try a method and it doesn’t work, there is another method (or more!) that may be a better fit for you.

It goes for more than just piecing methods. Quilting as a whole is set up that way.

There are so many fabric options available it makes my head spin. And just because something is trending that you may not like ...

It feels a little anti-climactic. I’m sure you are missing your usual family traditions this year as well. Although In recent years I have been spending more time online shopping rather than standing in Black Friday lines.

How are you supplementing your family traditions this year? We are encouraging the kids to be more involved in the planning part. They are working up plans for the outside Christmas lights this year so that should be interesting.

I think what I will miss most this year is Homemade Christmas. It’s not an every year thing but it happens regularly ...

It is the week of Thanksgiving. Many families have a tradition of going around the table to say why they are thankful. Since this year is so different we may have a harder time finding reasons to be thankful.

Sometimes it seems hard to find good reasons and we say the same things we said years prior; family, job, this table full of food. This year you might be thankful that your family is able to gather over zoom or for our health care workers or even just thankful that you have your health.

This year I would like to ...

Whether we are ready or not. What could I be talking about? The Holidays. It almost seems like they were yesterday or that they are always tomorrow. It has been difficult to keep track of time and days during this pandemic. I’m betting a lot of you are feeling that way as well. But, like it or not those big holidays are rapidly approaching.

I’m sure many of you are struggling with how to make this holiday special and bring a little of that good old holiday cheer into your home. I admit, we struggled with that this ...

I do. I will admit I do a lot of crocheting (or yarning as my boys call it – are you having fun with your yarning mom?). However, it is not the only other craft I dabble in.

I also enjoy photography. This summer I took advantage of our time together to take my children on some photography journeys so we could all learn how to take better pictures. This resulted in them each having a wonderful collage poster that is now framed in their rooms.

Recently I stumbled upon some YouTube videos pertaining to the first craft I enjoyed – cross-stitch ...