Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Getting Craftsy


I'm trying something new! I've decided to try and sell some quilt tutorials I've written on Craftsy. A lot goes in to writing up a nice tutorial, and I think I do a decent job. So we'll see if anyone bites! The first two I posted are the Carpenter's Star quilt I made for Mike, and the Hidden Hexagons quilt all made out of triangles.

To see the quilt tutorials I have for sale I have added a Craftsy bar across the top of the blog. Right now I only have two, but I hope to add more over the year!

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Double Sided Quilt

A Kaleidoscope quilt had been on my Pinterest board for quite some time. In fact, I pinned two different versions without even realizing it! I made this quilt some time last year but never got it blogged. It hung in the craft store above the fabric line it's made from until a few weeks ago, and then I finally quilted it last week. 

I used fabric from the line Blythe from Robert Kaufman. I also made a shirt out of this fabric. 

I didn't paper piece this quilt. I didn't use a special ruler. I, like a psychopath, cut this quilt from a template and used 10" squares. And linen. I made a quilt with a gazillion points out of linen. It almost didn't work, but it was close enough that I was able to manage. If you want to make a Kaleidoscope quilt do yourself a favor and don't be like me! We will be stocking the Kaleido Ruler in the shop, so if you want to make one I would go with the ruler. 

For the backing I had some 6" hexagons cut out from the line so I decided to use them to piece the backing. There weren't enough for the whole quilt back, so I decided to "float" them in the gray fabric. I LOVE the back! I think I like it more than the front!

I used Moda's tutorial for sewing rows of hexagons together by machine. Gray hexagons and half hexagons filled in the holes to make it square, and then I added fabric around all four sides to make it big enough. 
I started quilting this quilt during a video interview with AFN at the shop. I loaded the quilt and did a little meandering to show them how the long-arm quilt machine works. Then I left it alone for a few days while we counted inventory. (Blech.) Then one morning I woke up and thought "BEES!" My quilt needs bees! People call the hexagons honeycombs because of looking like, duh, honeycomb. So between the flowers and the honeycomb, I really needed bees. So I picked out all the stitches I had done for AFN and started again with this pantograph from Digitech Designs.
So now I have a double sided quilt! And I love it!

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Show and Tell (for real)

(note: I accidently posted this before it was finished. Oops!)

February was a really busy month for me as an instructor. I really enjoy teaching adult sewing classes. The only hard part is having enough different projects for the people who take multiple classes! 

I taught the Heart Twister wall hanging
I also taught the same lady as above (plus one other) Machine Quilting, but I forgot to take a picture! 

At Sunday Sewing one of the gals had some help from her hubby!

At today's Sunday Sewing I felt like a short order cook of sewing! All the ladies were working on something different and almost everyone needed help. So I had to keep track of several different projects and what their next steps would be. I kind of like that because it's never boring!

Andrea learned how to make PJ pants. 

We had some pillow case making, a tote bag, and a skirt that was started in a kids class.

 Lucy was all business trying to turn her UFO into a finished quilt top. A few more rows to go. That's it on the wall in the back of the photo. Beautiful, right? 

And Kim, who SWORE she would hate quilting, finished her first lap quilt and the backing fabric. She's already bought the fabric for her next project!

I love seeing how happy it makes people to be able to look at something cool and say "I made that." And I love seeing the students grow over the years that they are here!