Category — Inspiration

Well, the cat is out of the bag! I will be a guest on Pat Sloan’s American and Patchwork Quilting Radio this Monday, February 13th. The show starts at 4pm Eastern Time and you can listen live online on your computer (or later if you happen to miss the show). There are directions on their website for getting all set up. I hope you all will tune in as we talk about the wonderful online quilting community!

This year, I decided I need to make more of an effort to step outside the use of complete fabric collections in my projects. It’s so easy for me to just make something with a set of fabric from a certain designer’s line. The fabrics generally look so great together, it’s easy to envision the finished product and fall in love.

But when I see a quilt on Flickr or someone’s blog that I love, nine times out of ten, it is something made from fabric they hand selected from their stash. So, over the last couple weeks, I’ve been creating fabric piles.

Some of these might become quilts, some might not become anything. If only I had 48 hours in a day. But I had a lot of fun pulling fabrics…weighing options…and getting creative.

I hope to post more stacks as the year goes on, to inspire not only myself but hopefully you as well.

Charlotte over at Lawson and Lotti asked me if she could peek into my sewing space for her Sunday Sewing Spaces series. I had to say yes, I love when other crafty people post pictures of their spaces! Head on over to her blog for lots of photos and a little interview with me about where I work relax!

One of the best parts about the online sewing community is how generous everyone is with posting free tutorials on their blogs. After finding a few new ones (to me) this week, I thought it’d be fun to share some links.

1. Crossed Quilt Block by Ellen at The Long Thread
2. Scrap Jar Stars by Amber at A Little Bit Biased
3. Japanese X and + Scrappy by Amy at Badskirt
4. Ribbon Star by Lee at Freshly Pieced
5. Texas Star by Jolene at Blue Elephant Stitches
6. Spiderweb Block by Heather at House of Ala Mode
7. Square Square Paper Piecing Template by Tamiko of Patchwork Notes (For those of you that have never paper pieced and want to make Tamiko’s block, you can find beginner paper piecing directions here or here.)
8. Herringbone Block by Holly at Bijou Lovely

Those stars above would be great additions to the stars we are making for the Solstice Stars Series. Aren’t we lucky to have such a talented group of friends online? Makes me very happy!

Have you written a great quilt block tutorial or have you found one that has inspired you? I’d love to hear about more in the comments!