fabric

Stargazer Quilt Along

I’m quilting along with Rebecca Bryan from Bryan House Quilts for the Stargazer quilt. I really struggle with paper piecing, so I try to do a major project using this technique each year.

Rebecca has a genius method for doing it, and spoiler alert: I didn’t study it until after my first three blocks were done the traditional way. I felt like I was so far behind on my sewing and quilting after I moved that I didn’t think I had time to learn something new. I watched her video tutorial for the first time this week, and my mind is blown! To say I can’t wait to try it when the fourth block comes out later this month is an understatement. It definitely would have saved me the time I thought I didn’t have!

But for now, let me catch you up on my progress for the first three months.

stargazer quilt blocks 1 through 3

A bright sunny day meant a photo shoot out on my deck! Here are the first three months put together.

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Conversation Sampler: Choosing Fabrics

For the past couple years, I’ve been in love with solids. If you want your pattern to appeal to me, make the cover quilt in solids. So when I saw the Conversation Sampler, I knew I was going to have a blast choosing fabric for it.

Conversation Quilt

Photo from AnneMarie Chany.

A few years ago, I subscribed to a Kona solids club with Stash Fabrics. Each month I got a beautiful bundle of fabric, and at the end of the year I had every color in the collection. When I first found this quilt along, I knew I’d want to use my Kona solids and had to convert from the colors in the pattern to Kona if I wanted a similar look. Which I totally did! Read More…

7 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started Quilting

It’s been over 20 years since I first purchased some ugly fabric and inadequate supplies in a quest to make my first quilt. While that first quilt was a technical and aesthetic disaster, I was hooked and started learning everything I could about quilting. While I was soaking up as much information as I could, there were obviously some things I didn’t quite learn as early as I would have liked.

If you’re new on your quilting journey, or if you’ve been at it for a while, please learn from my mistakes!

Buy the Good Fabric & Thread

When I first started quilting my daughter was nearly four, and four year olds are not cheap! While I wanted to make quilting my hobby, I also knew that I couldn’t spend a lot of money on it. So… I went to JoAnn’s and bought the 70 cent fat quarters and $1.99 cotton fabric. And polyester thread. With coupons. Don’t get me wrong, JoAnn’s has really upped its quality game in the fabric department lately, but that was definitely not the case 20 years ago.

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