Who has finished their 2022 Positivity Quilt for Mercy Hospital in Sacramento? Visualize me with my hand up in the air and a huge smile on my face! Whether you are finished, or still working on it, know that Mercyful Quilts is so grateful to you for your time, creativity and generosity. These quilts give comfort to families as they say goodbye to a person very special to them. Anyone who has lost someone dear to them knows how difficult this is. For us to be able to provide some support to these people is a gift.
My 2022 Positivity Quilt
I am really happy with the quilt I made for this QAL. Before I left California, my friend Stephanie (who has donated 3 quilts to Mercy Hospital already) gave me a stack of fabric. In her honor, I used the bundle of Dreamcatcher fabric for this quilt. It wasn’t the absolute perfect choice because so much of the fabric was directional and made some of the blocks look a bit chopped up. But – the overall effect is good, so I am pleased. I mentioned before that this western themed fabric isn’t something I would typically choose. But this quilt isn’t for me, is it? The region that Mercy Hospital in Sacramento serves has plenty of people with horses and ranches so I am hoping this quilt calls to a family with this sort of vibe.
Pieced backing for the win.
I had some large pieces in the stack and was able to piece a backing with them. At least this way I could feature the directional prints in the right manner.
Loops and more loops
I quilted the body of the quilt with loops of all sizes. I wanted to practice one shape while I was quilting so I selected circles – quilting just circles over and over was great to develop that muscle memory. As usual, I quilted with Glide thread. It is super silky and works well for me.
Time for the binding
I like this little nook in front of my machine – it is just the right place to tuck the roll of binding while I am attaching it. I machine stitched to the front and hand stitched the back.
Now that this is finished, I have two Mercyful quilts ready to go. So – do you have yours ready too? If so, please link up and show us your finish!
If you can’t link up, please send me a picture so I can enter you in the prize drawing. Here is Lisa T’s quilt finish. Lisa’s quilt is a lovely rainbow of color!
Pieced and quilted by Lisa T. Lisa’s pieced backing made with a few extra blocks.
Such pretty colors in this one – pieced and quilted by Wendy F.
The two quilts shown above were made by Danielle (@justanaveragequilter). The different background colors make such a difference in the overall look of the quilt!
Maybe I should share a prize or two donated by Art Gallery Fabric. They are always very generous sponsors and I am grateful. Surely you are already aware of the quality of AGF fabrics but if you haven’t given them a try, please do.
A fat quarter bundle of Jessica Swift fabrics1/2 yard bundle of tone on tone pieces
Each of these Art Gallery Fabric prizes give you three yards of fabric to work with! There are also bundles of fabric provided by Island Batik as well as
OK – Here is the link up! Show us what you made. (Or email me a picture! You can use the contact me button on this page.)
Making a quilt is not a quick endeavor. At least for me it isn’t. Back in 2016 I read a tutorial by Bonjour Quilts and left a comment about how much I loved the quilt. Then in 2020, in a newsletter by Bonjour Quilts (side note – if you don’t receive her newsletter, check it out. Kirsty writes a great newsletter and I very much enjoy reading it) I was reminded of the quilt. At that time, I started cutting pieces for the background. I believe this was at the beginning of the pandemic. Fast forward to 2021, I decided to finish the quilt so I could give it to my nephew and his bride when they married in July 2021. Well, then we decided to list the house and move so all sewing came to an abrupt halt.
With my sewing room (almost) set up and my time freed up, I am sewing and quilting again! I had the Meadow quilt top finished and basted before we moved, so I started to quilt it. Before basting it, I did some FMQ over the flowers in the center. I knew I wanted to secure them tightly, even though they are fused to the base. However I didn’t want all of that to show on the back. I did a preliminary set of stitches before basting and then finished securing the flowers after it was basted.
The background is free motion quilted with whatever came to mind. There are swirls, basic stippling, some flowers, hearts, sunshines and a few words here and there. On the top I used an off-white Glide thread and the bottom is a pale green Glide thread. (I am a big fan of Glide for free motion quilting).
Every meadow has a few butterflies fluttering about, right? I fussy cut these and fused them to the top. Using Perle cotton, I did some basic stitching around the edges to help them stand out a bit.
I forgot to take a shot with the backing showing but in this one you can see a bit of the corner. It is a 60″ wide voile by Frou Frou. Grassy green with tiny white stars on it, the fabric is so soft. I think it gives a cuddly feel to the quilt. (I have had this on the shelf for a long time so don’t know that it would be available anymore?)
The pictures were all taken in our yard. Right now everything is so green. Foxglove are standing tall in the backyard, giving a meadow like feel to it.
I am so happy with this finish. It is unusual but not difficult. I actually think this is the case with many of Kirsty’s (Bonjour Quilts) patterns and tutorials. It is on the way to the bride and groom, just in time for their first anniversary!! I hope they love it.
Sharing at my favorite link ups – see the list at the top of the page for the details!
REMINDER: The first link up for 2022 Positivity QAL opens this Sunday, June 26th. Please come back (here) then to link up and show us your progress with your blocks. I am looking forward to seeing the different color combos!!
First of all, thank you for all the well wishes you left on my last post. What a nice bunch of friends! So…after posting about my plan to retire, the orders for my shop went nuts! Truly, it was an incredible response. In the first four or five days, I cut over 400 yards of fabric. This was a lot. Honestly, a lot! Many customers like to order a stack of 1/2 yard cuts so who knows how many cuts that 400 yards really was. Just believe me, so many! Check out all of the empty bolts. Shelves are thinning out quickly.
As the shelves empty out, I keep moving bolts and condensing them. This is freeing up space for me to move my personal stash downstairs. I am moving all of my sewing supplies and machine downstairs so we can have a ‘real’ guest room. I continue to organize and purge through my fabrics which has been really helpful. As I was working on this last week, I found a free motion quilting project I had made a few years ago. It was a quilt along hosted by Lori Kenedy back in 2016. I had a lot of fun stitching along with her but when I finished it, I put it in the closet and forgot about it. Upon finding it, I decided to bind it and hang it. It is so summery with the boats, fish and sunshine.
The quilting is far from perfect but the overall look is cute and worth enjoying during these summer months. I love the bias stripe binding. It is from the shop, just in case you are wondering. (Haha.)
Just a tiny peek!
Moving on, I have also been working on a quilt to be shared during a blog hop in July. The flimsy is done and I am trying to decide on a backing. This will be shared soon!!
I have also been cutting a stack of strips in gray and blue. I am making my largest quilt yet. It is a king size for our bed. This is going to be a great project. Assembling the top shouldn’t take terribly long as it is a simple design. Now basting this monster and quilting it is a whole other story!!
This sums up my week! I think the weekend will be focused on the king size quilt. I am so anxious to see it come together. Hopefully I will have some progress photos for you soon. I also need to pull purple scraps for my RSC diamond blocks. So many projects and never enough time!
Don’t forget – all fabric, quilt patterns and notions are on sale, 20% off! I hope you will come by and check it out!
Linking to my favorites – including Brag About Your Beauties. The rest are located at the top of the page, under Link Ups.
With the onset of the pandemic and especially when everything shut down, my shop went nuts. It took me by surprise, never having owned an on-line business during a pandemic before. (Who knew??). Anyway, I was happy to provide fabric to the many, many people making masks as well as quilters who were not able to physically go into their LQS. As a result of this increase though, I was really busy and had almost no time to sew.
Things have changed and many people are venturing into brick and mortar shops (which is good for the shop owners, as long as people are being careful and masking up.) I think the frenetic mask making has slowed down a tiny bit as well. Thus my shop has gone back to a more realistic level of sales for one person to handle. What does this mean? More time to sew!! Hurray.
This week I had the opportunity to learn to use my friend Sophia’s Baby Lock Tiara sit down quilter. It is a dream. The wide throat is incredible and it sews with a nice even stitch. So much easier than using my Janome (which while it has a bigger throat, is getting old and tired) for FMQ.
When I wanted to first try it, I decided to just bring a piece of cloth over – I wasn’t sure how successful I would be and didn’t want to bring anything I had pieced. I have had a yard of this cute fabric sitting on the shelf for a good 4 or 5 years. I am sure it was a border print made for a panel but I think it is adorable. I used to sing this song to my kids when putting them to bed and now I love hearing my son sing it to his girls.
I decided to use it as a whole cloth baby quilt for donation. To practice with Sophia’s machine, I just stippled this. It was so fun and so incredibly quick. It took (almost) as long to pin baste it as to quilt it.
The bold blue polka dots on the back are really cute. You can see the stippling a bit better on the back side. I used an off-white thread which doesn’t really show on the front.
Now there is a cute baby quilt ready for donation and I have a little practice under my belt with the Tiara machine. It is rather tiny in size (30 x 36″) so I will need to see which organizations can utilize a quilt of this size.
So that is a (small finish for me! Used a little bit of fabric off the shelf, learned to use a cool machine and have a donation ready for someone! My next project with the machine will be the jelly roll quilt I recently pieced. I am looking forward to getting some tops finished up! 🙂
I am in a quilting and reading phase. Quilt a little, read a lot, quilt some more. There are always so many projects to make and books to be read, am I right?
But – the sewing! I have been getting lots done. Today I will share this cute picnic quilt I made for my grand daughters. I carried this line of fabric (it is all gone – sold so fast!) and before I sold out, I stashed away some of the red and yellow yardage as well as a panel of the animals.
I love seeing red and yellow together. It makes for a really cheerful combination. I need did use the green fabric with this project. I decided to save it for another day.
I started to make nine patch blocks last January and split them up, sewing them back together for a disappearing nine patch design.
Some had red centers.
Some had yellow centers. But once made, the blocks were always set aside for some other project.
Well my son and his wife recently bought a house outside of Seattle and we have been calling it “the Farm House”. It isn’t really a farm but it is on 1.5 acres and has a lot of raised beds, greenhouses, and a chicken coop. So, farm enough in our opinion.
I decided I needed to finish the quilt so the girls could sit on it outside and eat a snack or bring their lunch outside. The three year old is always filled with energy and I know she will love their big yard. This property is perfect for them.
I had some fun quilting this. In the center, I stitched in the ditch around the white animal squares. Then I used vertical and horizontal straight lines at various intervals. In the yellow border I just did a wavy line through each one.
I played with the red border. I did swirls, hearts, flowers and whatever else came to mind. On two corners I put the girl’s names which was fun. On the bottom border I stitched “Grammys Girls” but wasn’t thinking of the orientation so it is upside down. Sigh. Not a huge deal but I do wish I had thought to flip it before I stitched the words. Not enough to spend the time unpicking the stitching though. Haha.
The backing is a super wide stripe from Michael Miller. My sister was clearing her sewing area a couple of years ago and gifted me this piece and a few others. I knew it would come in handy at some point. The binding is a repro feed sack print I have in the shop. I like the little flowers framing the quilt, though this picture doesn’t really show the binding off very well.
I ran into a snag when I washed the quilt last night tho. The red bled onto the white animal squares. (I was too annoyed to take any pictures.) Ugh. I haven’t experienced this and was a little freaked out. Both Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts and Jan of Colorful Fabriholic recommended this method by Vicki Welsh to removed the red. By the time I asked these lovely women, I had already cold water washed it twice and rinsed it two more times. After reading Vicki’s method, I chose to alter it a bit. My washer is large and the quilt is about 50 x 50″ so not terribly big. I put it in the wash on the “deep water wash” cycle with hot water. The hot water was the part that scared me but Vicki says that is what needs to be done. Before I put the quilt back in I decided to spray each of the white squares liberally with OxyClean stain remover. I didn’t rub it in aggressively but I did sort of massage it into the stained areas. Then I used a fragrance free “free and clear” type of laundry detergent and put in more than I normally do. Once the machine was filled with hot water I stopped the cycle and let it soak, making sure it was all under water. Finally I let the machine finish its cycle and ran it through a couple of extra rinse cycles since there was a lot of soap in there. It worked! The animals are back in their little white squares as opposed to the pale pink squares that I saw last night. Phew! Thank you Wendy, Jan and Vicki!!
Now that this is finished, I have moved on to another quilt top. I basted it yesterday and plan to quilt it this weekend. It is miserably hot and smokey outside – I did get a little yard work done early this morning but will be inside all afternoon. We don’t have any plans for the long weekend. Hope you are all well. Enjoy your long weekend and make sure to spend a little (or a lot) of time sewing!
You know how you set something aside for so long and then somehow your mind decides it is going to take forever to finish it and you don’t want to so you just leave it there? Yeah, me too. Last fall I pieced a cute strip quilt using a focus print from Pandalicious. I had yardage in the shop and thought it would be fun to make one and then make up some kits for others to make it.
Last September…….
So I made up the quilt top and got it basted. I started to free motion quilt each of the strips and all was going well. When I got to the large section of pandas in the middle, my tension got screwed up. Of course I didn’t know this and just kept going because the top side looked fine. Ugh. When I saw the back, I knew it all had to be unpicked.
Onward I went and got all the messy stitching ripped out. By then I developed some serious dislike of the project and set it aside? Why do this? It wasn’t the quilt’s fault. But I did anyway. Folded it up and put it on top of a pile of fabric.
Easy Peasy Finish!
This week I thought it was time to finish it. Of course, by now, the fabric is gone and I can’t make any kits. Sigh. Quilting the remaining sections (the pandas in the middle and both of the black and white sections on top and bottom) took no time at all. Like an afternoon of playing at the machine and it was done. So after sitting there for 9 months or so, it is done!
I attached the binding with machine stitching on front and back. It is adorable! I quilted the top and bottom sections with a meandering motif of interlocking squares. I am not sure what was going on, but there are some little tension issues on the back side. Not enough that I am going to fix it though. I suspect after being washed, it will all work out.
Sweetest pandas!
I did a very loose meander over the middle section going around the pandas. They are such happy little guys!
Shady evening sun.
I took the photos in the early evening so the sun was creating lots of shadows. But no matter, just look at how happy this little quilt is. What should I do with this one? I will likely donate it. It will be fun for some child to snuggle under.
Why does the color look so strange in this one?
Happy to cross this off the UFO list and wish I had done it long ago. Makes me happy to get it finished up.
Anyone have anything fun planned for the weekend? Hahaha…. sorry to be so ridiculous! I feel like each day (weekend or not) is so much the same due to the quarantine. Our town is loosening up just a bit but we are still very careful. So it will be the usual. Taking walks, a little bit of gardening, shipping orders and sewing, sewing, sewing!
Silly silly girl
Want to leave you with a smile. Isn’t this just a classic fun-in-the-bathtub picture?? This girl makes me laugh all the time. She is such a joyous kiddo. Enjoy the day everyone!!
While I don’t have any work of my own to share this week, I do want to pop in and show you something pretty! As program coordinator for our guild, I have scheduled Cindy Needham to come teach a workshop in February for us. I scheduled this a long while back and felt fortunate even then to be worked into her full teaching/speaking schedule. Luckily for us, Cindy lives only two hours from here which made her very affordable for our guild.
Mini quilt pieced and quilted by Cindy Needham.
Anyway, on to the good stuff! When I schedule someone to teach, I always request a sample of the project they are going to teach. Guild members love to see the samples, as opposed to a picture, when deciding if they want to take the class. I believe most guilds provide samples for this reason. Cindy will be teaching a workshop on planning quilt motifs and quilting feathers. The sample above is pieced with silk. The mini measures approximately 20″ x 28″ or so (I didn’t actually measure it.) This particular piece is labeled as a Gaudynski sample as it looks to be stitched in the style developed and taught by Diane Gaudynski.
Up close, quilting by Cindy Needham
This sample is just incredible. I knew Cindy was an extremely talented quilter. But seeing it up close is such a treat. She free motion quilts and for the life of me, I cannot imagine ever quilting like this. I thought it would be a fun thing to share this beautiful stitching with you.
Quilting by Cindy Needham.
The motifs are so tiny and so detailed. It is hard to imagine having this sort of control. I tried to watch her lines, where she traveled to and from. Jaw dropping work!
Check out these feathers! Quilting by Cindy Needham
The feathers are beautiful but to me the most impressive are the petals to the right of the feathers. Those tiny spaces between each petal are stitched down with minute stitches causing the petals to pop. Same for the flat space between the feathers. Such teeny tiny stitches!
Quilting by Cindy Needham.
These look like tulips to me. I love them because they show off the silk beautifully. The whole effect overall is elegant. Pale colors of pink, rose and a really light gold all worked together. Cindy collects vintage linens and textiles and works them into much of her art. I am so looking forward to her trunk show and listening to her lecture. I will post an update in a couple of months after our February guild meeting.
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday. Thanks to so many of you who shopped my Small Business Saturday/Cyber Monday sales! The last of those shipped out yesterday.
I am still cutting kits for the Push Pull QAL. My customers have been really patient as I ran out of the darker fabrics for both kits and had to re-order. An interesting thing of note – I offered four kits. Two teal blue kits where the quilter could choose a light or dark background and two orange kits with the light or dark background.
Every single kit sold so far has had the dark background. Not sure why this catches my attention but it does.
I am curious what your thoughts are? Maybe the transparency effect is shown better with the dark background? I like them both but clearly that is not the opinion of most! I still have a few kits left if you are interested. Click here to check them out.
It is going to be a rainy weekend so tomorrow I should be able to find some time in the sewing room. I have several holiday gifts I am working on and I need to make some progress with those! Sunday we are driving over to my son and his wife’s house for lunch. We haven’t seen them in a long while so I am excited about that! How about you?
Last November (a full six months ago) my sister asked if I would make two small runners to put in the window boxes in her flat in London. She shares her time between Colorado and London due to her husband’s career. Once their kids were up and out, it became possible for her to travel back and forth so she could actually spend some time with her husband. It is an exciting time for her as she makes new friends and learns to live the city life.
When they rented a little flat, she started to fix it up and make it feel like home. She has plants in the windows and wanted a runner to put under them. The window sill is about 14″ x 36″ and the runners measure 12″ x 35″. They (hopefully!) will fit just fine.
It was fun to pick colors for these. My sister asked for teal and some red. I sent a few ideas and we ended up with this combination of Sashiko Florette (teal), Corsage Charm, Terra Firma Sunlit, and Kohkhloma Burgundia for the pop or red. All of these are Art Gallery fabrics from my shop and as always, even though they are from three different lines, they look great together.
This simple pattern was inspired by Anorina’s tutorial over at her blog, Samelia’s Mom. I made it a bit smaller and only made three blocks for each runner. It came together quickly.
While I did use the same fabric for each, I reversed the red fabric with the light blue floral on each runner, just to mix things up a bit. I looked at this project as a great opportunity to practice some free motion quilting.
For the four inch square blocks on both pieces, I quilted a large flower. The other sections were filled in with loops, squiggles and leafy vines.
When I put these side by side, I could picture it as a larger quilt and it would look great.
When I was just about done quilting these, I remembered I wanted to quilt a word or something more personal on the runner. But seriously, I was at the very end! I managed to squish in the word sister. Not terribly creative but i didn’t think of it in time.
Anyway, it took far too long to make these little guys but they are done and ready for the mail. My sister is heading back to England soon so frugal side motivated me to get them done and in the mail so I will be mailing them to Colorado and not to England. Saves a couple of dollars….
Now that I can check this project off the list, I am ready to move on to something else. Much as I am itching to start something new, I will be disciplined and pick up one of my unfinished projects and get going!
However, sewing will have to wait until next week. This weekend is going to be busy with my husband continuing to pull out that lower deck. This afternoon I had a dumpster delivered for the huge piles of scrap wood that are piling up on the property. Hope you have an equally fun weekend planned!! Whatever is on the agenda, enjoy your weekend.
I don’t know about you but I am really lazy about getting my sewing machines serviced. I procrastinate, put it off longer and longer with my usual excuse being ‘I clean out the bobbin housing all the time so it must be fine’. But oh my gosh, think about how often I use these machines of mine. The poor things need to be taken care of!
When my smaller Janome refused to stitch more than two inches without giving me grief, I realized it was time. I took it to a woman in town who is a whiz with machine repair and maintenance. She kept it for a few days and worked her magic. Some $80 later, my machine is purring along. What a huge difference!! When I picked the machine up, Debbie had a sandwich size Zip Lok bag filled with lint and gunk. I can’t imagine how she got it all out of there but she did. The machine is like new!
I decided to take advantage of this amazing transformation and practice some free motion quilting. I have not been doing too much quilting at home because the machines were not cooperating (now I know why!) To have a nice big canvas to play with, I chose to do a simple whole cloth quilt. Have you seen Art Gallery’s line of fabric called Pandalicious? Of course it features adorable panda bears. Designed by the very talented Katarina Roccella, these prints are really sweet and just filled with the personality of spunky pandas. I have a few pieces of the line in my shop and decided to play with the feature fabric.
Panda Garden Recess is a large scale print which tells the story of panda families frolicking in a garden of pastel blues and greens. I cut a 40″ piece of this fabric and a 44″ piece of Hidden Panda for the backing. After trimming the top to a 40″ square and quickly pin basting the layers together, I started quilting loops. My machine was entirely cooperative and the tension was perfect. It is much more fun to quilt when my equipment is properly taken care of. 🙂
The quilting took no time at all. After squaring it up, I decided it needed something more than just the binding. I had a large scrap of a jade green solid in my stash and cut some 1 1/2″ strips to make a flange. I am always, always a fan of a flanged binding!
As I mentioned earlier, the adorable backing is called Hidden Panda. It is another of my favorite prints. The loopy quilting I did (which doesn’t really show up in the pictures) works well with the curve of the print. Looking back, it would also have worked to quilt the piece from the back, by quilting along or tracing the curves. Another project for another day!
There you have it. My machine is back to its amazing self and I have a sweet quilt as a result. Next weekend is the quilt show for the Pioneer Quilter’s Guild where I will be a vendor. It is going to be held in Roseville so if you are a local, come out, say hi, and enjoy the show! I will use the quilt to show off this fun fabric in the booth. After that, maybe it is destined for Project Linus or a spot in my Etsy shop. I haven’t yet decided.
We are supposed to have a wet, rainy weekend and I am prepared!! I have two projects currently vying for my time so I am very much looking forward to a quiet weekend in the sewing room. There is also a tiny quilt show scheduled for the weekend and I may hop over there to take a look at the quilts. We shall see! Hope you have something fun planned as well! Enjoy the weekend.
Linking to my usual favorites as well as one new to me; Finished or Not Friday over at Busy Hands Quilts. Check them out at the top of the page, under Link Ups.
About two weeks ago, I was contacted by C&T Publishing asking if I would provide a review of one of their newest quilting books. Always up for learning something new or reading pretty much anything about quilting, I was happy to help.
The author, Dorie Hruska, is a long arm quilter, mom, and blogger. She has her website, Forever Quilting, set up as both her blog and her professional site for her long arm business. I really enjoyed looking at her gallery to see the work she has done for others. Her quilting style is lovely with many intricate patterns.
The book, Making Connections, is all about free motion and long arm quilting. The goalof the book is to help the quilter choose a motif or pattern for the quilt and then to set a travel path up for moving around the quilt in the most efficient manner, with the least amount of starts and stops possible. This is really appealing to me. Like many of you, I struggle with how to quilt something once that quilt top is done.
Reading this book through, I noticed two things that I really liked. It is written as a workbook with very clear illustrations and directions. The practice builds in complexity as the reader learns the steps. Also, there are lots of grids printed in the book to draw on. The grids are bigger than graph paper but not quite big enough. When I practiced, I copied the page and enlarged it on our printer. Finally, the book is printed in landscape orientation, not portrait. This makes it much easier to use as you don’t have the binding on the left side making it awkward to draw.
I took away a few really helpful ideas from Dorie’s book:
Doodle the design before quilting. I know this, we all know this, but it helps so much! There is such muscle memory in free motion quilting and by drawing it several times over, that routine settles into our brain before we begin quilting.
While doodling the design and then while quilting, think, or say, the pattern you are moving in to keep you on track. For example, Up, Down, Over, Up, Down, Over – or whatever works. When Dorie maps out a path in the book, she sets this up for the quilter. As a beginner quilter at best, this was pretty helpful. Seems so simple, but that little mantra was kinda cool. 🙂
Don’t try to quilt the whole design in one pass. Dorie layers the design so you might do one pass, the come back and add a layer to add another detail. I get this and think, eventually, it will be helpful to me. I am not quite there yet. Some of the designs she illustrates for the reader are quite complex. She does use different colors so you know which pass you are working on each time. Also, she numbers the path so you can see what direction she is taking you in. This is quite helpful.
Note the complexity of the design, stitched in several passes.
The method used in this book is based on grids. The perfect example is basic patchwork, or nine patch blocks, where there is an obvious grid. The more experienced quilter would be able to apply it to more complicated blocks.
I didn’t have a quilt top on hand that would work for this so I didn’t actually quilt anything. I did do some drawing to get that path ingrained into my brain though. After drawing a bit, I made a quilt sandwich with some scraps of fabric and batting. I drew a 3″ grid on it to practice. Once I got going, my sewing machine gave me fits. So, I had to quit and I took the machine in for service. I have been putting it off and now it was sending me very clear messages that it wasn’t going to perform well! But ugly as the stitching was, the idea worked – I knew how to move along the design without getting stuck in a corner somewhere. This methodology requires planning though. It isn’t one where you move freely around on the quilt top, filling in sections as you go along.
If I were asked, I would tell the readers this is probably a book for an intermediate quilter. I think I could follow it for the basic design and travel flow but I don’t think, as a beginner, I could layer the designs and achieve a nice result.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and think it is a valuable resource for my library. As I continue to practice, this will be very helpful. Dorie and C& T Publishing have generously provided a book for me to giveaway to a lucky reader. If the winner lives in the US, a hard copy will be sent. For winners outside of the US, an Ebook will be provided. For those of you that want to go ahead and purchase the book, it is available through C&T Pubs or directly from Dorie’s website (she will send an autographed copy!)
To enter to win, please leave a comment on this post. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you are welcome to leave a 2nd comment for another entry. Sign up for my newsletter (which is sent out every month) for another entry. (Sign up form is at the top of the page on the right side.) That is three possible chances to win!!
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.
For even more chances, please visit the other bloggers involved in this hop. Lots of gorgeous quilting has been done to display all this book offers. Go check it out! Here is the schedule:
