It began random, but I ended up with a color palette. I put the yellow, orange and brown scraps away and pulled more cool-tone scraps from my crumb fabric baskets in blues, greens and purples, plus pinks and red. It’s still wild and free, with the colors landing mostly by chance, but it has a sort of cool vibe overall.
Read MoreBut the thing about rainy days is that they’re Perfect for sewing. I love to be inside all cozy and warm when the rain is falling. My fabrics never fail to offer a daily does of pick-me-up color. These days string scraps are overflowing the windowsill and crowding around my ironing board.
Read MoreSo, you’ve finished that special quilt. Hurrah! Now photograph it, while your enthusiasm is fresh. You don’t need a special camera or a professional set up to take good quilt photographs. I hope that these tips will inspire you to document your creativity in all its original glory. Your quilt is totally worth the trouble!
Read MoreThere are some quilts which you have to fight for. These are the ones that you know could be good, soooo good, but they only come together with a struggle. It may be because you are stretching yourself with color or design or it may be because this moment in your life enfolds you in stress that blocks or complicates your creative life.
Read MoreIn today’s post one of my sponsor shops introduces you to a unique garment-sewing program with a year-long subscription gift for one of you lucky ducks! Please welcome, Kate from The Confident Stitch - - -
Read MoreMy first coins are really hitting the spot! I barely have to think when I match up two fabrics for a strip of coins, especially since my sewing recipe is quite relaxed. Here’s my recipe for a quick, scrappy coin quilt sewn from string scraps.
Read MoreWeaving together my life as a maker and other spheres of life: Best of October, experimenting with EQ8 quilt design software, sharing a modern scrap quilt tutorial, celebrating Ingrid’s Starbright quilt and feeling chock full of sewjo.
Read MoreI need an easy scrap quilt. You know the kind: fun to sew, no brainer, happy-scrappy palette. I want to be able to just sew and not think about a thing besides how the colors and shapes make me feel. Not even color order this time! I have gathered a few options for my next quilt. Will you help me choose?
Read MoreIs it the end of October already? Boy does time fly when you’re having fun! I hope that you have been enjoying these cozy, fall quilt-making days if you also find yourself in the northern hemisphere. I have had the pleasure of helping my European clients finish off a fresh batch of their beautiful quilts. Here are several that I am lucky to share with you this month.
Read MoreIt was the birds that did it! Once I started cutting up that bird print and putting it up on the design wall, I knew I had arrived in my happy patchwork place. Before long I had a delightful rainbow quilt top: happy scrappy rainbow kaleidoscope blocks and pastel rainbow cornerstones, nestled in a bed of black and gray. Very urban-cool, yes?
Read MoreToday I took a break from my Kaleidoscope project to sew some fast and fun log cabin blocks. These are the bee block for October in my circle of do. Good Stitches, an online charity quilting bee. Our group has been asked to make quarter log cabin blocks, using lots of bright colors and in a wonky style.
Read MorePolitics?!?! Yikes. Let us all first take a deep breath. I won’t be writing a treatise on Dutch politics, only sharing a few stark differences that I notice from my American perspective. Political Parties, Elections, Collaboration and How the Government Steps Down.
Read MoreHonestly, I love my Kaleidoscope Groove quilt design, but bringing the concept to life in cloth has proved trickier than I thought. In this post, I’ve captured my evolving design process. I know that half of you are going to disagree with the choices I made, haha, so that’s also a lesson for us all. There really are no wrong choices!
Read MoreEnglish paper pieced quilts are so WOW. All those tiny pieces, irregular shapes and fussy cuts can be quite impressive. So, how do you go from novice to EPP-maker extraordinaire? Here is how to gradually build up your EPP skills.
Read MoreConfession: lately I have been feeling stumped with my kaleidoscope blocks. I know that I want to set them in an irregular grid, but I also want to make a rainbow blend. One concept requires order while the other suggests freedom. Sometimes it is hard to know what to do next in order to move in the right direction.
Read MoreIt’s finished! The quilt I made during the Starbright Stars Sew-Along has had her day in the sun at the beautiful Hoge Veluwe park, a nature preserve in The Netherlands. It’s a place that feels wild. The skies are wide and the forests are peaceful, the silence interrupted only by the calling of birds or the whirring of bicycles along the paths.
Read MoreSo! You guys have been really keeping me busy with the longarm quilting service! Customers keep bringing me three or four quilts at a time, which is such a great compliment and very efficient of course. Today I share a new batch of digital quilting designs and info about my new batting brand of choice.
Read MoreIt’s not everyday that I get to sew. I know, isn’t that funny since this is my job? Ironically, my workday doesn’t always include patchwork, and I can honestly go weeks without sitting down behind my machine if I am busy with producing patterns and/or longarm quilting.
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