Yesterday I started a new quilt and I truly have not been so excited about quilt project in a long, long, long time. While I make lots of quilts and enjoy the process each time, this is next level excitement. It'll be all log cabin blocks, each one finishing at 18". The dark blue plus print and the white/blue geometric print will be consistent in all the blocks. The Liberty of London fabrics will vary, but each block will have one dark and one light. I pulled all the fabrics, started cutting and sewed up the first block.

I needed this.

Yesterday felt kind of normal. I am so grateful for that.I spend the day in the studio, batch sewing. Our family business is considered essential and I am making 200 masks for our employees. I'm using the Made Everyday pattern with knit ties. I tried a few different ones and picked the one I thought would fit the most people and would be easiest to sew in bulk. I also didn't have elastic and these will likely be worn for hours on end, so ties are essential. So far, so good. I cut and prepped 140 masks on Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday, I finished 70. I sewed them in batches of 10, each batch taking about an hour. Today I will continue - hoping to get another 50 or so finished with the rest completed by Monday.This is not my favorite kind of sewing. Once I got into a grove, though, it felt really good. I was reminded of when I used to make camera straps. I'd batch sew those, completing one step on all of them before moving on to the next step. There is a certain rhythm to this kind of sewing and after my muscle memory kicked in, it was second nature. I haven't really been able to sew much during this time of isolation so it was nice to find my groove in an unexpected way. It felt good to be able to use my skills and talent. It's such a small thing that could possible have much larger benefits.I was also incredibly tired at the end of the day and finally had a good night's sleep. So there's that.(It should go without saying, but I will say it anyhow: These are not a replacement for PPE or masks needed in a medical situation. They will be used in public settings where they may help slow the transmission of COVID-19.)

Last time I popped by, I had a pile of quilts to bind, a dorm quilt to finish and the end of summer to savor. I am happy to report success on all fronts! (Still working on those bee blocks, though. Sigh.) Three of the quilts in the aforementioned pile were donated to the girls' elementary school for their annual summer carnival. At the two-day event, there is a quilt booth where you buy chances on a wheel. Once all the chances are sold, the wheel is spun and the winning number gets to choose which quilt they would like to take home! This process repeats until all the quilts are spoken for or the carnival comes to an end. I donate to this event every year and just love hearing afterwards who took my quilts home.

This is the Libby Quilt which I had the pleasure of testing for Erica of Kitchen Table Quilting. It is a very fun quilt to make. The cutting and the piecing take very little time and I love that it works well with large and small scale prints. For my version, I chose to use Heather Ross's Sugar Plum line - it definitely has a Christmas vibe to it! I quilted it with different motifs on the stripes and a swirly thing in the background pieces. I had a hard time parting with it, but you can only have so many Christmas quilts and we are at our max here. It makes me happy knowing it ended up in a great place, with a sweet little girl who will love it for her own.

And speaking of Erica, I used one of her big block patterns (February!) to make this next quilt. I bought a fat quarter bundle of this Robert Kaufman lawn, Woodland Clearing by Liesl Gibson (out of print), last summer while traveling in Michigan. Paired with Kona cotton in Grass (one of my favorites!), these 36" blocks really shine! I free motioned a double orange peel design for the quilting and I really like how it turned out. The backing is a lawn floral print from the same line with all the front colors in it. You'll just have to trust me that it is beautiful because I forgot to take photos of the back!

The final quilt in the donated trio was also made from the same fat quarter stack as the one above. This quilt is entirely made of lawn, including the backing fabric (it's a solid aqua). I cut the fat quarters into 18" squares and then made half square triangles. It's a good reminder that simple shapes on a large scale pack a punch and really give you the opportunity to show off the fabric, play with value and scale. I quilted this with my very favorite loops on the long arm at Quilted Joy (where I quilted the other two as well!). I don't think I will ever tire of this pattern. It just works well with so many different quilt tops and is easy to achieve.Back soon with the dorm quilt! Pinky swear.

The way I work in the summer is extremely different than during the school year. Nine months of the year, you can find me in my studio for a block of time while Fatty is at work and the girls at school during the week. The exact hours may vary, but they generally happen most days. During summer, though, there is no predictable pattern as to when I can work or how much I can get accomplished. It's important to me that I am available for the girls when they need me or want to do something. I used to get extremely frustrated if I wasn't able to get a sizable amount of work accomplished. A few years ago, I realized that I was setting myself up for failure and decided that I would take the summers off. It's worked really well for me. Anything that gets finished is a bonus and the time away from deadlines allows me to recharge creatively. Blair wrote some interesting thoughts about her experience with stepping back a bit this summer that I enjoyed reading. It seems like maybe we all need a break now and again.That said, I am still getting stuff done this summer. Funny how lowering my expectations allows me to make more! In my last post I mentioned that I had 6 quilt tops and backings ready to go. I rented time on a long arm over a few different days and quilted all six quilts. This past weekend, I squared them all up and made the bindings. My goal is to have them all bound by this weekend. Don't freak out - I'm definitely machine binding them all! While I love to hand bind, most of these are slated for donation and my deadline for those is next week. Most of my sewing these days is accomplished in 10- to 60-minute windows between other tasks and even while dinner is cooking. Those small blocks of time really add up quickly!

I'm also working on the Jane's dorm quilt. I cut strips, threw them all in a bag and pulled them out in pairs to sew together. Once the pairs were sewn, I made groups of four and then groups of eight. Next up is figuring out a layout. That's my favorite part, really. I love to see all the pieces come together. Backing has been purchased and I will be scheduling long arm time soon. Time is really flying by and I know mid-August will be here before I know it. I am so, so happy that I got a good start on this early enough in the summer to enjoy the process instead of panic sewing at the last minute.

Since I cleared the decks of many of my works in progress, I'm jumping in and quilting-along with Pattern Drop. I just love the bee version of this month's quilt. The firefly option is super cute, too. If you are interested, it's not too late to join. All the details are on the Pattern Drop blog.That's what is currently happening in my studio. How about you? What are you working on this summer?

Hello there! Hope your summer is off to a good start. I've got loads of sewing projects lined up - mostly quilts, but maybe some clothing, too. I've had a lot of these roaming around in my head for awhile and now that Jane's graduation has come and gone (sniff), I finally feel as if I have some time to devote to them. One of these quilts is one that I have made twice before, but I wasn't really pleased with some parts of it. I knew that there had to be a better way. I woke up on Monday morning and my sleeping brain had figured it out. I love it when that happens! I quickly pulled the stack of fabrics above so they would be ready for cutting as soon as I had a chance. And yesterday was the day. I took my rotary cutter, ruler and the fabrics down to the family room for a cutting session in front of the TV. I pulled my extra cutting mat out from under the couch (I keep one there for moments like this!) and set up a little ironing and cutting station. I had forgotten that working somewhere other than the studio can be super energizing. It worked - I got an entire twin quilt cut out, the math bits figured out for the pattern and the pattern written up. I haven't been that productive work-wise since I don't know when.Can we talk about these fabrics for a quick second? I am just smitten with this palette - purples, pinks, oranges, golds. It's not my normal go-to (no green! no blue!), but they are calling to me so I am running with it. These are all Anna Maria Horner prints, from her latest line, Sweet Dreams. That lady does color like no other! Like the shift in my work space for yesterday, the shift in the colors I am working with is energizing me. I am excited to start sewing this afternoon!Finally, as a bit of an aside, if you follow me on Bloglovin', you have missed a number of my latest posts. So sorry! Apparently, when the blog was moved to the new platform, the feed changed ever-so-slightly and it took a little time for the situation to get corrected. Anyhow, if you did miss something, it was mostly about my new PDF pattern, Rinse and Repeat, that I launched last week. You can read those posts here, here and here. The pattern in available in my shop. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

Hi there! Long time no blog....Many things have been going on behind the scenes around here: sewing, knitting, living life. Also I have new blog design and a new blog platform. Switching everything over has been a little bit of a challenge and I know that there are some hiccups, especially with the tutorials. Please hang tight. I am making my way through the list of things that need attention all while helping the girls get through year-end exams and gearing up for Jane's high school graduation. If you have specific questions or need help with something, please email me. There is a contact form in the top navigation bar of the new website and I will email you back within a day. Pinky swear. Now on to some fun sewing!

I was lucky to be one of the testers for Erica Jackman's new pattern, Even Steven. As soon as I saw her version, I knew I wanted to make this quilt. And I am thrilled with how it came together.

The Even Steven pattern is designed for beginners and is fat quarter-friendly! It is simple to construct and sews up quickly. If you can sew a 1/4" seam, you can make this quilt! I tested the block construction as written (it's perfect!) and then decided to strip-piece the parts of the blocks that I could which made the construction even faster.

I chose a very bright, cheerful group of fabrics that I had purchased on impulse back in March. While I love sewing with ALL THE COLORS, I wasn't sure how I was going to use these Tula Pink dots and stripes until I saw this pattern. If bright and crazy isn't your thing, don't be deterred - this pattern looks just as amazing in a more subtle palette. It's definitely one I will revisit in the future.

You can buy a PDF or paper pattern of the Even Steven Quilt from Erica's shop. She has many other great patterns worth checking out, too, as well as an inspiring blog, Kitchen Table Quilting, chock-full of gorgeous projects.

Hey there! For those of you going to QuiltCon, I will have a book signing for Make Your Own Medallion at the Lucky Spool booth TOMORROW (Thursday, February 22nd) at 1:30 pm. Come by and say hello! I will be walking the floor on Thursday and Friday with Fatty (yes, he's coming, too!) so if you see me, please introduce yourself. I am excited to go - this will be my third QuiltCon. I am not taking any classes. The main reason I am going is to see my quilt, Centerpiece, hang in the show.photograph by Page and PixelCenterpiece was one of the first quilts I designed for Make Your Own Medallion. I wanted to show that while medallion quilts are mostly traditional, they can also be modern. To do that, I made sure to include a lot of negative space and solid fabrics. The flying geese and half square triangles nod to tradition, but make a strong graphic statement. Don't let all those pieces intimidate you! Most of the piecing is done in the center and one border and can be easily chain-pieced, making it come together faster than you'd think. That kind of sewing is meditative to me - I just put on a podcast or music and get in a groove. If that is not your thing, you can swap different blocks in and really make this your own.I'm super excited to see Centerpiece hanging at QuiltCon. I'll be sure to post photos over on Instagram while we are there. But now, I need to finish packing for my flight that leaves in about 3 hours! If you will be at QuiltCon and are still waiting to get your own copy of Make Your Own Medallion, they will be for sale at the Lucky Spool booth. For those of you staying home, you can grab one in my shop or at Amazon (affiliate link).  If you make Centerpiece or any other project from the book, please use the hashtag #makeyourownmedallion and tag me so I can see YOUR medallions!

As I was thinking about what order to showcase the quilts from my new book, Make Your Own Medallion, it seemed fitting to start at the beginning. Studio Window started as a 12'' block that I drew with a pencil and ruler on a piece of copy paper. After I had finished it, I had the idea of making it into a center medallion and started searching for a book that would help me figure out the math needed to make a medallion. When I couldn't find a book that fit the bill, I decided to write that book.It's hard to pick favorites when it comes to my own quilts, but this one will always be towards the top of the list. The color palette was inspired directly from the view I have out the window of my third floor sewing space. I don't think that it is a color combination that I would have chosen if I sat in front of my fabrics contemplating a new quilt. But one fall day when I looked up from what I was sewing, I saw our Japanese maple framed by the stained glass and aqua walls and immediately pulled every fabric in this quilt from my stash. That said, I can imagine this quilt sewn up with all different kinds of fabrics - solids, scraps, in rainbow order. It's a very versatile design!

Studio Window is a great quilt on its own or to use as a template of sorts to make your own medallion. I designed it on the fly, border by border, and you could do the same with blocks of your own choosing. The size of the medallion block is 12'' finished, which allows you to swap in any other 12'' block for it if you want. The borders are a combination of pieced blocks and single fabrics, all with cornerstones. There are myriad opportunities to switch out the blocks in each border, change up the cornerstones, replace the single fabric borders with pieced blocks and vice versa. And at 66" finished, it's large enough for a throw quilt, but not too large to be overwhelming to make. Want to make it bigger? Keep building it out, border by border! Smaller? Stop when it is the size you like.I love seeing how you all are using the book to make your own medallions. Please tag your Instagram posts with the #makeyourownmedallion hashtag. If you still need a copy, you can find autographed copies of Make Your Own Medallion in my shop or buy one without my signature from Amazon (affiliate link). They will also be for sale at QuiltCon at next weekend (February 22 - 25) in Pasadena. I'll be doing a signing at the Lucky Spool booth on Thursday, the 22nd at 1:30 pm - please come say hello!