Quilting Inspiration and Education
After Christmas and Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day is the biggest card-giving day of the year. If you’re anything like me, you’re pressed for time to search for the right card. Furthermore, you’re 
annoyed at the expense of buying cards that don’t send the right message.
I have a solution for saying what I want, spending time where I want (my sewing room, not the card shops,) and saving a bit of money. That is, I use my fabric scraps to make paper-pieced greeting cards….
It may not seem like it, but there is still plenty of time to make this quilted basket for Easter giving. You can find the free pattern by logging in to the app, and going to the Library in Community/Gallery.
When I get down to business, I’m quick at getting my sewing and quilting done, but even a distracted quilter should finish this in under two hours.
My sister thought I was crazy when I forced her to make multiples at the same time. But, she agreed later that it doesn’t take twice as long to make multiples.
With a little encouragement from me, she completed three in three and one-half hours. It did require her to check her “everything has to be perfect to the milli stitch” attitude at the door. I was certain her grandchildren wouldn’t notice anything but the cute fabric and the gifts inside. It’s nice to be right once in a while.
Happy Spring.
Live well. Quilt Well.
In the next few blogs, she’ll tell us what it was like. We hope experienced quilters will be inspired by her excitement and newbies will have their fears allayed.
I chose the pattern for her, and, most will see that it is a modified 1600’s quilt. The technique satisfies my criteria for first quilt:
1.) The quilt top needs to be constructed in one sitting.
2.) The pattern can’t rely on matching corners.
3.) The technique has to give the new quilter plenty of opportunity to practice a quarter inch seam.
The technique is described in the gallery library in a pattern called, “JoyAnn’s First Quilt.” The modified instructions for “Ellen’s First Quilt” will also be posted.
– Lisa
Live Well, Quilt Well.
I like to be successful, and my resolutions were typically too general and too unrealistic to achieve, so, for many years, I didn’t make resolutions.
Then, one year, I got totally fed up with my dirty refrigerator and decided to give up leftovers as a New Year’s resolution. Succeeding at a year without cleaning a gross science experiment out of the frig, I easily made this a lifelong commitment.
This year, I may be going back to the days of unrealistic resolutions. Though, if I am successful with my resolution, it will be worth it. My resolution is to finish one UFO for every new project I start. I’ve hedged my bet pretty well- I have 11 quilted quilts that just need binding.
Beyond that, it gets tougher. It will be a challenge to rediscover interest in the blocks for quilts that I long ago long interest in. The bigger challenge will be to see how my current skills are suited to deal with the quilts that, because of materials or design, got just too hard to finish. And, then, there’s my oldest UFO, from the days I wasn’t even really a quilter.
I first tried quilting in 1984 when I was a brand new mother having just moved to Philadelphia where quilt-making was experiencing post-bicentennial USA resurgence. I remember the first real quilt shop I wandered into, and the older ladies who insisted that, to honor the art, quilting should be done with a certain kind of fabric, certain designs, certain needles, certain thread and (certainly) by hand. I embarked on a wedding quilt as a present, and made great progress- for hand work. Then the baby got sick, then we moved, then, etc. etc. It didn’t take too long for me to learn that the quilt police weren’t coming if I used a sewing machine, and the wedding quilt has been carefully packed away since. I’d hate to see what the Vegas odds are that I will complete that quilt this year. My friend’s marriage is still going strong, so I’ve got time, right?
Quilt Happy.