Monthly Archives: February 2013

Make Mine a Double Stashbuster

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I get a lot of fabric.  Much more than absolutely necessary though I will never say it’s too much!  There’s always an elusive color that I need for a quilt and then I occasionally go overboard when needing that color.  In my case, it’s purple.  I’m not much of a purple person.  Love red, love blue – but the combination of those two is purple and I just have a hard time keeping purple in my stash. 

This past few months, I knew I needed to make a purple quilt – but, kept having quilter’s block (much like writer’s block) because I just do not care for purple.  I received a lovely stash of purples from AbbiMays.com, used what I needed of it for the blocks for this quilt I had to make…then needed more for the borders and binding.  You know what that means, right?  I now have a small stash of purple fabrics in my scrap pile.  Here’s one of the blocks I made for the purple quilt:

I’m also big on giving away my scraps – which is more than likely the reason I do not have purples in my stash because once I use them for a quilt, I give the remainder away.  I spend a lot of time making quilts for shop samples, my websites and special quilts for loved ones so do not have a lot of spare time to make scrappy quilts.  There’s one lady I give all of my string scraps to and another I give my non-string scraps to. 

But, I have found a great stashbuster solution to my quilting! 

I may receive a full fat quarter bundle from AbbiMays.com and Linda asks me to use a certain number of the fabrics in my quilt design, which means I have leftover fat quarters that are not going to go in a quilt.  Instead of tossing them in my stash, I use them to make two of the blocks for whatever design I’m working on.  So, I have designed a six-month block of the month quilt – and have more than double the fabric to make it.  Hence, I make two quilts!  That means I have twice as much quilted love to give away!  It’s the perfect solution for me!

How do you tame your stash?

Breathing New Life into an Old Quilt Block Design Part Two

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Now that you have five different blocks to work with, you can put a quilt together with them!  Below are five basic quilts made with the original Bear’s Paw block as well as the four redesigned blocks. 

Original Bear’s Paw Block

Bear’s Paw Redesigned Block #2

Bear’s Paw Redesigned Block #3

Bear’s Paw Redesigned Block #4

Bear’s Paw Redesigned Block #5

See what I mean?  Days and days of quilting fun can be had with just a single traditional quilt block and a few design elemental changes!  Go ahead, try it with YOUR favorite quilt block and see what you come up with!

Breathing New Life into an Old Quilt Block Design

Quilt Therapy Posted on by

I am a traditional quilt gal.  I love the old, traditional quilt block designs.  LOVE.  THEM.  I also enjoy taking those old blocks and breathing new life into them by changing some of the design elements of the blocks.  Sometimes, the block is still recognizable as its original name, other times you cannot even tell it’s redesigned from the original quilt block.

So, let’s play around with one!  This is a traditional Bear’s Paw quilt block:

And here are four different variations of this Bear’s Paw block:

See what I mean?  There are SO MANY design variations you can make with a single traditional quilt block – enough to keep you busy with just a single block!  Stay tuned tomorrow for quilts designed with these blocks!

Hand-Quilting Means Quilted Heart Love

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With my foster mother here, she has been tackling my to-do list with vim and vigor.  She already finished whip-stitching the binding on three quilts (two baby quilts and one lap quilt) and is working on a special baby quilt for the Quilts for Kids project sponsored by Downy fabric softener.  She wants to attempt to machine quilt this charity quilt as it’s something she hasn’t done before. 

But, her favorite thing is hand-quilting!  She has nearly finished a prayer/comfort shawl that I am way late in finishing and has another matching one waiting in the wings.  I enjoy her finished project of hand-quilting a quilted project as much as she does doing it!

All of her hard work has definitely inspired me to work on my own quilts, too.  I finished one this evening and have the “Chocolate Cake and Roses” quilt all ready except for the sashing and the borders.  Both of these will be long-arm quilted but I have a few quilt kits waiting in the wings if my FM wants to hand-quilt them.

Hand-quilting gives a very special meaning to some special quilts.  For instance, the comfort/prayer shawls she is hand-quilting were made when I was at her house this summer – and she met the lady who the shawls go to.  At that point, a quilted project becomes very personal – and with each quilted stitch the love from a quilted heart pours into the quilted project.  Nothing beats hand-quilting for a personal approach to quilting.  Unfortunately, I am hampered by too many distractions (kids, dogs, etc.) to get to spend much time hand-quilting anymore.  I gave it up when our kids were little – between them climbing all over my projects and my doggie laying on my quilt to get attention, I had to give it up.  I’m sure, as the years go by and the kids leave the nest, I’ll pick it back up and allow myself to regain the pleasure of hand-quilting my quilts.

I truly enjoy the fabric effects of both long-arm quilting and hand-quilting in my finished quilt projects.  How I determine which way to quilt one of my quilts depends on the special person the project is intended for.  And nothing beats sharing my quilted heart with others!

Choosing a Quilt Design for a Special Reason

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I am one of those quilt designers who needs to make a somewhat spiritual connection between the quilt I am designing and the fabric line or person I am designing the quilt for.  I look at a lot of quilts and think they’re gorgeous, of course, but when it comes to my own designing, I need to have that connection that the fabric or person “fits” with the quilt design I’ve come up with.

For instance, my “Pendleton Inspired” 2013 BOM quilt design was completed in 2006, but until the Moda Marblehead fabrics came out, I didn’t find a fabric line that ‘fit’ with the design.

My “Chocolate Cake and Roses” 2013 six-month BOM was inspired by the fabric – Moda’s Double Chocolate.  The center block in this design is called “Chocolate Cake” and each block in the design is some variation of that center block; and the ‘roses’ part of the name is because the flowers in the fabric are roses:

When making a quilt for a person, again, I have to find a connection between the quilt I design and the person the quilt is designed for.  Here are a couple of examples:


This high school graduation quilt was for a second-cousin (by marriage) of a young man who loves music and played not only in his high school band but also plays a bass guitar.  I had his sister trace his guitar and I made a template of the tracing and made a raw-edge applique of his guitar right in the center of the quilt – then surrounded it with the purple (one of his high school colors) and made it pop with the bright green fabric.

This quilt was also specifically made for another high school graduate:

This young man not only graduated from high school, he also earned his Boy Scout Eagle award while he was a senior in high school.  Hence the letters in the center of the fabric are made from official B.S.A. quilt fabrics and the whole quilt is highlighted with fabrics that make up the quilt but don’t detract from the important center of his quilt.

Not all quilt designers design the same way – especially those who have their own fabric lines and/or those who compete in quilt competitions.  Many design a pattern that is for beginners, others design based on the type of quilting they love doing. 

Me?  I design for the love of a quilted heart connection using the fabrics, blocks and special people and/or special occasions as my inspiration to make a beautiful, lasting quilted memory!