Back in May I did a blog post about this awesome collection by Windham Fabrics: Grand Illusion. The motifs were SO perfect for a 2" EPP hexagon. Do you remember these? I give them the name "Marie" because that's what Katja Marek calls them in her "The New Hexagon" book. This is a traditional block, so you can call it Sally or Martha or even Debby! Two Marie blocks using 3 hexagons and 3 diamonds Do you remember how I fussy cut the motifs? Fussy cutting the medallion motifs using a freezer paper "window" And the finished motifs (wrapped around the 2" card stock hexagon). Grand Illusion has two color ways: blue and red. Hexagons for my Marie blocks This is what the border print looks like before I started chopping. Grand Illusion border print And the rest of the fabrics: Grand Illusion fabrics And one more Marie block with the red and black print diamonds: Auditioning my diamonds I cut the fabric for th

Two of my three daughters took years of music lessons. One played the flute (and competed all the way to the state level). The oldest played piano from the time she was in the first grade until college. You can bet I spent a lot of time waiting in my car while they had their 45 minute lessons each week! Music has always been freely played in my home. We love it! I designed Opus One for Windham Fabrics in 2018. You may have seen this already. I did a blog post in February 2017 about another quilt like this. But it's worth it to share again, right? Opus One for Windham Fabrics I also made a REAL Opus One quilt. I plan on adding borders using fat quarters. Pieced, of course! And I have the perfect young man to gift it to. He is a talented musician who leads the youth music at my church. Shhhh! Don't tell him. Musical Stars using Type Band fabrics If you click on that Type Band link, you'll not only see the fabrics but can download another FREE pattern by C

This is a repost from a year ago. I am making MORE of these rectangular string pieced blocks. And I still can't use up my scraps! I taught a series of classes in Atlanta that used Kaffe Fassett fabrics. As you can imagine, we had leftovers! After about 5 workshops I developed an easy way to use them up. (Who am I kidding? You will NEVER make a dent in your scrap bag!) This is called "string piecing" and has been a technique in the quilt world for well over 150 years. It was used by frugal quilters who saved every single scrap piece of fabric and then made her own "fabric" by stitching on a foundation. I string pieced a few dozen 45 degree diamonds, too! My Lone Star quilt (top) is finished. More on that later. But I thought I would tease you with these. Paper pieced (string pieced) 60 degree diamonds Here is the first quilt I made. Notice that the blocks are rectangles. And they are foundation pieced using newsprint! You can buy what I call "Doo

I teach Beginning Free Motion Quilting classes for the Sewing Expo. I have for 11 years. Probably at least 5-6 dozen times! I like to introduce a variety of tools and helps. For a few years I offered some printed panels developed by Holis Turnbow for Benartex Fabrics. The panels are no longer in print, so I began looking for other inspiration. As you can see in the next photo, a lot of free motion quilting was generated to transform this hand embroidered crib sheet into a sweet little blanket for my granddaughter! I just wanted to fill in all that white space. Hand embroidered, machine quilted crib sheet Here is one 15" square of that pre-printed panel by Holis. You just follow the lines. The lines will wash off after you're finished. But you have to ignore the folds - no ironing or you will make those blue lines permanent! I had a few of those fabrics leftover from my classes and I joined them with some blue strips and quilted them this way:       Printed panel

Just to let you know: I am NOT a cat person, but this collection called Cat-i-tude is so gorgeous, I just may have to make an exception. What do you think of the main panel? As you can see, each of the six frisky cats is a good size to become the center of an awesome block. And, from what I know about cats, they ALWAYS like to be center stage, right? Main Cat-i-tude panel Now let's look at the fabrics, blocks and final project! Cat-i-tude Fabrics (minus the panel) And a small piece of a border print: Catitude fabrics with border print I was very drawn to the 6 panels of those frisky cats. I cut them out (they will finish pretty close to 10" square. My plan was to use an ATTIC WINDOW treatment using my Magical Mitering technique. I pulled two fat quarters for each of the six panels that I thought would work best. Blue kitty lighting up his life!  Frisky green kitty batting at an ornament. Another frisky kitty wanting to taste those ribbons. Yum