I think everyone is probably familiar with what batting is: nonwoven fibers that are loosely collected together to form a layer of insulation between the top and backing of a quilt. When my Grampa Townzen was a kid during the Depression, he’d card to cotton into little pads he’d hand up to the women folk […]
Books for the Quilting Geek: History edition
With the holidays coming up, I thought I’d share some of the books I have in the current rotation that I find to be beautiful, inspirational, and educational. They make good gifts, that’s true, but they’re also a good excuse to set some quiet time aside for yourself. I confess I have a slight addiction […]
Educating Your Quilty Self
I am back from a wild and crazy few months! Quilt Market marked the end of last-minute stress-inducing projects and now that I am back home I realized that I missed writing my blog posts. I don’t always have great pictures but I do think I have moderately interesting thoughts to share, and I really miss […]
Back to School: Guaranteed accurate 1/4″ seams between machines!
I’ve had quite a few opportunities to sew on a variety of machines this summer, whether teaching or traveling, and I got to thinking about quilting accuracy. The usual rule of thumb* is that once you start sewing a project on one machine–especially a project you really *really* care about–then you need to stick with that […]
How to quilt a Hunter Star quilt, tutorial
This is a quilt I finished almost two months ago! it was pretty big, and she hoped for a custom look without paying full custom prices, as well as one large feather over the borders. Once I found a path for a single start and stop, I was able to work back and forth, making […]
Introducing my new longarm, the BERNINA Q24
Back when I first started longarming, I had expected and planned to do certain kinds of quilting: I’d quilt for others, probably pantographs, and save the custom work for my own quilts. What actually has happened is that I have ended up doing custom for nearly everyone, with only 2 pantographs requested in the last 3 years! In […]
And now for something completely different
I know, I know. It’s been a while since QuiltCon, and where have I been? Truth be told, I haven’t felt much like writing recently. This last week, though, I worked on a top that was way out of my comfort zone, and one which really made me crazily happy. And while it wasn’t “modern”, […]
Modern Quilts, Traditional Shows: My Interview with Scott Murkin part 1
Over the last few years, modern quilts have been seen in categories at MQX, AQS, Road to California, and have a dedicated show, QuiltCon. With its second show kicking off in a week, and an announcement that it will become a yearly event at different locations, it seemed to me as though modern quilts were finding their place. […]
My quilting is on a cover quilt for American Quilter!
You guys. YOU GUYS. I almost passed out over my coffee this morning when I was scrolling through facebook and saw someone post the cover of this magazine, and then my copy arrived today! This quilt top is designed by Stacey Day of Stacey in Stitches. Go check out her blog! She’s got lots of […]
My stop on the Blog Tour for Fast Piece Applique
Welcome, friends, to my stop on the Fast Piece Applique blog tour! If you love fun applique projects with curves and layering, yet don’t want to have to fiddle endlessly but still get great results, do I have a book for you: Rose Hughes has a new book out called Fast Piece Applique. You can see the piece […]
