Baby Boom

Lately it seems that everyone I know is having babies. I went through this phase 5-10 years ago, but in the way that life is cyclical, I guess these phases come back around. In the past few weeks I completed two baby quilts-one for my cousin and one for the teacher of one of my…

Americana – Binding it Up and Giving it Away

After the hours of quilting, I was eager to get the binding on and put this baby to bed. In fact, blame it on my lack of sleep, or eyes that were still crossed from the hours hunched over my machine (let’s admit it, sometimes our quilting posture isn’t so great), but I was actually…

Americana – Quilting…and Quilting…and Quilting Some More

I’m not sure where the summer went, but suffice to say, it’s almost over. And, in the throws of 6 consecutive weeks of work travel and oppressive heat and humidity, I definitely let my blogging lapse. The good news is that I didn’t let my quilting lapse, so I have a lot to catch you…

A Couple of Fun Side Projects

Since I finished the quilt sandwich yesterday I decided to knock off a couple of small sewing projects that were on my list today. (I’m sure this boondoggle didn’t have anything to do with the procrastinating on digging into the Americana quilting). At any rate, they’re both projects I’ve been meaning to get to for…

Americana – Making the Quilt Sandwich

Isn’t this supposed to be the easy part? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the fun part, but it’s not usually difficult, with the exception of how my knees feel after crawling around on a wood floor basting the layers together. Note to self, be sure to include a gigantic table in my imaginary/dream quilting…

Americana – Putting the Pieces Together

Once the piecing was complete, I set about laying out the blocks. My goal here was to try and keep similar fabrics separated. Because each block had so many different fabrics, this proved to be a pretty tough task in itself. I enlisted the help of my husband, who has a better eye for detail…

Americana – In Pieces

I’ve found through my last few projects that I like to complete quilts in an assembly type process, in other words, I complete a step with all of the fabrics or blocks and then move to the next step. This seems to help me stay organized and find stopping places that don’t make it as…

Americana – An Origin Story

So, as you may have read on my inspiration page, I love Angela Walters. And she has a really cool story about how her family gives away a quilt (or several) at their annual family reunions – at least in part to help entice families to find the time to attend. Family reunions were a…

Threaded

Ugh…the terrible curse of the thread goblins. While working on the baby quilt and a couple of quilted tote bags I ran into a slew of thread issues. Things were fine during piecing, but when I switched to free motion quilting, I could only get a few inches completed before my thread would snap. Now…

Practice Makes…Better

In November 2018, I decided that a great way to face my fear of free motion quilting and get used to my new machine was to practice. But, like most working moms, my time for quilting is limited and I couldn’t stand the idea of making a ton of samplers that would never get used….

A (Big) Baby Step

After completing several quilted tote bags, I set out to try my hand at another baby blanket. This time for my husband’s cousin, who was expecting her first child. I thought it would be a great way to finally quilt a larger project and give a one-of-a-kind gift to one of our dear family members….

The Real Beginning

In the past year our family has undergone a series of changes. Don’t get me wrong, some of these changes were tough challenges, but as happens with life they came together in a way that had a lot of upside. A little over a year ago, my husband and I were both working full-time, with…

My First Baby Steps

A little more than 7 years ago, I made my first quilt. Well at the time I thought it was a quilt, considering it included everything I thought of as imperative to quilts – namely piecing. As you can see, it was a pretty simple quilt. This was before you could look up thousands of…