Okay, who’s ready for some learning?? After I got the shirts and name for this t-shirt quilt, I googled “surface interval.” It’s the time that a diver must remain on the surface in between dives. It’s longer for deeper dives, shorter for shallow dives. And one could consider the time spent on the actual surface of the Earth, wearing these shirts, as an extended surface interval for a diver. Seems fitting that these shirts belong to a scuba diver trainer, since she inadvertently trained me. Fun fact: the oldest minion also has scuba training, but only enough for Space Camp. He does want to get ..read more

This month, we’re adding one of the two BIG BLOCKS to the Woods! (The bear, in October for Fat Bear Week, is the second.) Photo by Lori Barbely Photography The deer is walking into the woods on the bottom left of the quilt. I originally had the deer exiting as the bear entered on the top right, but Lori said I should go for a balanced look rather than predator-prey behavior. Plus, there’s plenty of smaller animals for the bear to, um, visit, on his way to the deer. My deer is a male, but if you want to skip out on the antlers, you can leave off the entire top three rows and use the floral fil ..read more

And now, the fourth t-shirt quilt for my very first “real” client! You saw the color t-shirt quilt two weeks ago (because of course you’re subscribed to my blog, right?) Now it’s time to see the black and white version! If you didn’t read the last post, she sent me a box with about 70 shirts. After talking it over, she decided she would rather have two lap size quilts than a king size quilt. We split the pile into “colors” and “B&W” and then I went to the design board! Even though it’s technically B&W (and gray), there’s a lot of color in the graphics to keep it from being a boring q ..read more

Oh, look, another finished Block of the Month in April! I am rocking this BOMs Away life these days. What? You think it’s all because of the Quilt Fest deadlines? Mmm, okay…you’re probably right. Of course, it’s big and heavy enough that getting a good picture of it is near impossible. There’s not enough stability to pin it to my backdrop, especially since the borders are also pieced. So you’ll have to make do with this sneak peek! It will be custom quilted, but I already have the backing! Just need the customer quilts to slow down so I have a week free to contemplate all the blocks and how b ..read more

Yay, it’s the first “real” month of the Quilty Fun Row Along - we’re actually piecing! Itty bitty four patches, a delightful start when you’ve done a lot of the pre-cutting and you have a little stack of scraps to choose from. Of course, I realized it was going to be hard to take a picture of an entire long-and-skinny row of four patches…but then, it’s hard to take a picture of a couple dozen four patches. So…yeah, pictures. Otherwise known as my nemesis. Piecing the four patches was easy and fun, though! I didn’t follow the book instructions because I was using scraps, but it’s a clever way ..read more

Another LAST BLOCK! What am I going to do this summer after all these finishes? Although I already have another Rainbow Scrap Challenge in progress so replacing this one won’t be hard… (Yes, I am extremely good at starting RSCs and abandoning them for a while.) It was actually harder than I thought to come up with teals. I use plenty of aqua, but not much on the dark side. There’s some bits that lean way more to the blue and green than the actual middle ground. But when you mix them all together, usually it doesn’t matter! There’s a border-sashing of gray around the outside, so I’ll be workin ..read more

Oh hey, we’re back to t-shirt quilts again! And not only that - we’re back to my very first “real” customer from 2014! This will be her third quilt by me (and #4 is up next!) Marathon Maniacs are the best at creating shirt piles. So because she was my first non-friend or family quilt, she got one done in Washington, one in Oklahoma, and now one in Alabama. Also, one was done on the rental longarm at Heartbeat Quilting, one on Patricia in freehand, and one on Patricia with the computer. So she basically sampled my entire business as I grew! She sent me a huge box filled with nearly 70 shirts ..read more

It’s here, the last “full clue” of the Carnival Mystery by Cotton Cuts! Clue ten will be the full quilt reveal and some minor piecing. So this is the last real section to piece before it all comes together! The big sections are are mirrors to what we made previously, so I’m sure that works into opposing sides of the quilt. I decided a while ago not to puzzle this thing together, so it’ll be a surprise to me as well! I’m pretty eagerly awaiting the final clue now that we’ve reached the end. Pattern: Cotton Cuts Carnival Mystery In case you’re counting, that’s the third set of “last blocks” sin ..read more

Welcome to TGIFF! But make sure you’re reading this on your Friday. I posted way early on Thursday to welcome our Australian friends on their Friday morning, so if you’re just an East Coaster, just wait till your Friday. It’s totally worth it. Oh, right, I can’t actually make you wait. So welcome! It’s Friday (maybe) and I’m finished! Which is also a total lie, but bear with me on this one. I finished this quilt in January, but couldn’t share photos until it was back in my possession, because it’s a sample quilt for Fat Quarter Shop. I’ve been an affiliate of FQS for a while, which means I ge ..read more

There’s five Mondays in April, so…instead of a bonus week, I’m just dragging out the random stuff into several posts. To be fair, I’m finishing a lot of the BOMs this month. So things are coming together in the bonus time! We start with Little Miss Sawtooth by Southern Charm Quilts! This is my guild’s BOM for the year, and these are the last two blocks. And then I sewed it together so that it was prepared for its Quilt Fest entry. But you’ll have to wait until it’s quilted to see it in all it’s glory! (What? I have to drag this out at least another month. Lots of finishes means I need to pick ..read more