Today I am taking another run at that block I messed up in a previous blog post, and since it’s Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to feature a square of fabric that a quilting buddy gave me just because I liked it. It features a perfect quote for the season: I fussy-cut the feature square, used my AccuQuilt die cutter to cut the other pieces pieces for this block. For one 10-inch finished block, you need: Feature: one 6.5″ square Gold: four 2″ (finished) half-square triangles Light Green: Four 2″ quarter-square triangles Dark Green: eight 2″ half-square triangles and eight 2″ quarter-square tr ..read more

My quilting buddy, Annette, has been preparing to do a presentation for our quilt guild on Dimensional Curved Piecing, a technique popularized by Annette Ornelas of Southwinds Designs. (Follow that link to visit her website and see the amazing patterns she has created.) But I digress. Since I am on “staycation” this week, and I talked my friend Annette into doing the demonstration, I felt obliged to come up with a few samples for her. I’ve been toying with ways to use the DCP technique to “dress up” traditional quilt blocks. Here’s what I have for you today. To make this block, you will need ..read more

My go-to high school graduation gift is a pillowcase. It’s easy to make, and you can customize it for the recipient. (I like to point out that it also makes a good laundry bag.) When a co-worker’s daughter graduated last spring, she had already decided she was going to decorate her dorm room in llamas and turquoise. I was tickled when I found the perfect llama print. I had enough left from the pillowcase to add a few 6.5″ squares to my Thrifty Quilter bin. At a recent retreat weekend, I played with an idea for a 10″ quilt block. That explains the first part of this post’s title. The rest will ..read more

For the Island Batik Ambassadors “Try It” Challenge, I’m pleased to share a technique for making half-square triangles (HSTs).  I wish I had thought of it, but all of the credit goes to Beth Helfter of EvaPaige Quilt Designs. I honestly cannot recall how our quilting paths first crossed, but we are both former members of the Quiltmaker Magazine “Scrap Squad” and both of us have more or less built our design careers around scrap quilts. The blue star block is in the book. The gold block is not. The most common way of making HST units is to begin with two squares, draw a diagonal line on one ..read more

Back in February, a big box arrived on my front porch. Inside was a wonderful collection of Island Batik fabrics, Hobbs Batting, and Aurifil threads. There were two wrapped packages of fabric I had to promise to keep under wraps until now. It’s been killing me, because the fancy package contained half-yard cuts of each of the fabrics in one of Island Batik’s Spring/Summer 2019 collections. The plain brown wrapper held two two-yard lengths of a light and dark fabric from the collection. That’s right, 14 yards of fabric! It’s okay to be jealous. Behold, the Graphic Gems collection, designed by K ..read more

Call this what you will, I have to admit it’s one of my favorite designs yet. It’s a modern-style quilt, inspired by folk lore.  Here in northern Montana, on our coldest winter days, ice crystals will form in the air, and the sunlight playing off of these crystals sometimes makes it appear that there are two smaller suns flanking the real sun. These reflections are called “Sun Dogs.” I won’t be telling you how to make this quilt in this post, because the pattern is included in the latest issue of Fons & Porter’s Easy Quilts magazine. The editors chose to call it “Stars Over Santa Fe”.  In ..read more

This week the United States celebrate Independence Day, our neighbors celebrate Canada Day, and the Island Batik Ambassadors celebrate the release of the Freedom collection with a Quilts of Valor Blog Hop. I’ve designed this 56″ x 72″ lap quilt using the AccuQuilt 8″ Qube die set. AccuQuilt is a sponsor of the Island Batik Ambassadors program for 2019. Fabric for the “Service Star” quilt was provided by Island Batik, batting by Hobbs, and thread by Aurifil. Thank you to my BQB (Best Quilting Buddy) Annette Freeland for sewing the top for me while I was off teaching a class at Chatcolab in Idah ..read more

The AccuQuilt Ready Set GO! die cutting system includes an 8-die “Qube”. The shapes can be mixed to create dozens of blocks. The kit also included a 2.5″ strip-cutting die. To say Island Batik and its partners, Hobbs Batting and Aurifil Threads treat their four-dozen-plus Ambassadors well would be an understatement. This year, they have spoiled us rotten. They added AccuQuilt to the mix, and our new best friends at AccuQuilt sent us each a Ready Set GO!® die cutting system, with the 8″ die collection! Since AccuQuilt gave me such a great gift, I’ll pay it forward and give you a free pattern fo ..read more

Designing quilts is my dream job, but for 40 years now, I’ve made my living as a radio announcer. So, when I’m involved in an interview, I’m usually the one asking the questions. Last week, the table turned (little deejay pun there), and I was interviewed by Pat Sloan for the American Patchwork and Quilting podcast. Mine will be the third interview. Tune in HERE. I rarely get starstruck, but I’ll admit I was a little giddy, and I believe I may have forgotten a couple of times who was the interviewer, and who was being interviewed.  Occupational hazard.  Anyway, it was a good time, and I hope y ..read more

The March challenge for the Island Batik Ambassadors was “Vintage Reimagined.” We were asked to design a project inspired by a vintage quilt. The quilt I chose as inspiration is a top pieced decades ago by Tilda Adamson, the grandmother of my friend Art Adamson. This Depression-era quilt features the Churn Dash or Monkey Wrench block, and has several interesting elements going for it. I like the way the on-point rows are staggered, and I find those blocks with the green background that fades into the green sashing very intriguing. But what really caught my attention, and served as my design in ..read more