Mourning Dove
We didn’t notice this quiet mourning dove on our walk today until we were almost on top of it. What a delightful creature. Its colors would make a nice quilt—varied browns with shocks of bright orange and light blue.
quilting
Homemade bleach gel pens are easy to make—and a waste of time
Sometimes when I make a quilt with both brightly colored and white fabrics, I or the quilt recipient washes it without putting a Shout Color Catcher Sheet in the machine with it, and it ends up looking like this: My solution for this problem has usually been Clorox Bleach Pens, but my local supermarket no longer carries them and I … Read more
Piecing an eight-point star
I’ve been playing around with eight-pointed stars lately. The best tutorial videos I’ve found on the subject are done by Edyta Sitar and the Fat Quarter Shop. She shows some great methods for getting all the points aligned just right. I made this 32-piece one following some, but not all, of her advice. I was working with odd-shaped scraps of fabric, … Read more
Waste not, want not: Making new fabric from scraps
Quilting is a great way to use up scraps left over from other sewing projects. But no matter how efficiently I cut my fabrics, I am always left with lots of tiny pieces that are too small for piecing into another pattern. I used to save these tiny scraps to use as batting in dolls and fabric ornaments, but they … Read more
Hole in your fabric? Appliques to the rescue!
I have an old blanket from Target. It’s not the fanciest thing, but it keeps a body warm. Unfortunately, it’s made out of a fabric that snags easily. There was no easy way to mend this, so I decided to cover it up – and give the blanket a little more personality in the process. I took one of the … Read more
Birds in my window
I’ve been working on some alterations to my living room window quilt and finally finished them last week. Here’s what it looks like: Here’s how it started: The birds on the birch tree are something I silkscreened on the window quilt several years ago during a crafting party at a friend’s house. I have often thought that the quilt looked a little bare … Read more
Free-ish photo book
My work requires a lot of typing and mousing, so I’m often looking for more ergonomic ways to use the computer. Last week I bought a Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch Small Tablet to use as a mouse. A few years ago, I bought the Apple Magic Trackpad for the same reasons, and now I wish I had bought this instead. The Intuos product … Read more
Crazy quilt back
I finally found the photo of the back of the Seasons quilt I made for my niece’s adoption. It’s composed of whites, near-whites, and light browns from my scrap bins. I think I may like the back more than the front. The scraps with printing on them are leftovers from a cut-and-sew Humpty Dumpty doll fabric panel. My niece has been through … Read more
Brighton Rock quilt
I was going through my downloads today and found these photos of a quilt I made for my youngest niece this summer. The side with the 9 hexagons is the “front” and is based on the Brighton Rock pattern by Australian quilters Sarah Fielke and Kathy Doughty. The back was going to be a series of nestled hexagons (like I … Read more
My first hexagon quilt
I was cleaning up my photos folder today and found these pics of a quilt I made last year for my friends’ baby. I think it’s pretty awesome, myself. The front (top, with the nine small hexagons) was based on the Brighton Rock design by Australian quilters Kathy Doughty and Sarah Fielke. I loved it so much that I thought, “I … Read more