Sneak Peek

This is one of the pages from the new tutorial I am working on, "Making Your Fabric Work For You." Regular readers know I use my fabric to do the "heavy lifting" in my quilts, bringing more interest and vitality to them. The tutorial has over 59 pages of examples of how I do this.

There aren't any patterns for anything, no exercises, just things to help you look at your fabric differently so you can be more creative. Imagine you're visiting me in my studio, and I'm talking to you. That's what this tute is like. Except now you'll have all that information so you can review it whenever you want.

It's currently in the final editing stages. I have a beginner quilter and an advanced quilter reviewing it for clarity and flow, in addition to the usual spelling and punctuation errors. It'll be available for sale as a digital download from my Etsy shop within a couple of weeks.

And then I'm getting back into the studio. Talking about making quilts isn't half as much fun as actually making them!

Life Is Tweet Sneak Peek

Chris sent me this photo of my Life is Tweet quilt, which she just finished quilting. I didn't want the usual, and I don't like quilting that looks like a machine did it. I told her to let herself go and just have some fun with it. You can see that she did, and I am thrilled.

It's funny. Folks around here (New Hampshire) can't understand why I send my quilts 1,200 miles away to Tennessee to have Chris quilt them. When I was showing off some of my quilts at my class in July, one of my students exclaimed, "Well all they have to do is LOOK at your quilts to get the answer.

Well, yes!

WOW

Including the binding, there are eight different WOW (white on white) fabrics in Julie's quilt. In this photo, you can see five. Julie said she likes the way I use multiple WOW in the background instead of sticking with the same one.

(These pins are spaced about 3/4" apart, and yes, I sew my binding down to the front of the quilt. I think it looks better.)

I've rounded the third corner handsewing the binding on the quilt, which is to say I am halfway through. Then I have to add the hanging sleeve, and it will be finished.

It has occurred to me that Julie knows more about the quilt than you might think. She knows what it is (it's a quilt with "X" and she knows what "X" is), and she knows what colors I've used (she was very specific) and she asked for asterisks and butterflies.

Julie and I will be mailing these out to each other on September 14th. (She's got a secret quilt she's holding for me. It's name is "Obsolescence", and has a nickname of "O.") That way we'll receive them at the same time. Why the 14th? Because Julie will be traveling the week of Sept 5. So if the planets align perfectly, in two weeks, our quilts will be revealed to each other.

Trust me, you'll hear about it!

So hear you go... another sneak peek!

Back to Devon Town

Devon's christening is next month, and I have to finish his quilt. Last November when I sewed the top together, one block got more crooked than wonky. The more I looked at it, the less I liked it, so last night I took out the offending block and straightened it out.

Unfortunately I can't show you all the whole quilt until I present it to him and his family next month, so this is just a sneak peek.