Pressing Perfect Edges with Aluminum Foil

Did you ever find something so simple 
you were almost silly about it?

How to Make Weekly Studio Goals Within Reason

It's Monday early, and both my personal and studio To-Do-Lists are crippling! I had a relaxing, long weekend away, but arrived home to find I'm swamped even when I was very organized. It feels awful.

How Do You Cope?

First, I am a list maker. I wrote everything down for each list--even though it was overwhelming. Then I prioritized half of it, and picked 4 of those things to start on. Still too much, perhaps, but well within reason. I made reachable goals.

Sewing a Zipper Bag from Socks

Upcycled Footie Socks to Zipper Bag

It goes without saying that we are examples to family and friends when they see us making. Never underestimate the impact you have inspiring someone else, and I will add, even if they never show the smallest interest. 

A Short Story to This Interesting Project

My youngest daughter, the llama keeper, mentioned something off handed to me one morning about making a zipper bag from old socks. I snickered, and said I didn't think that was possible. I likely replied, "Umm...it won't work." And she tossed back, "Well, I did it." Now she had my full attention.

Oh, to Be In a Bee Hive! A Quilty One!

Wanta Fanta Block requested by the March Queen

For nearly a year, I listened to friends and bloggers drone on about their Bees and Bee Blocks. Some were part of local quilt bees where the whole group made one block in a selected palette, brought them in to a meeting, and they would draw lots for the blocks. 

Others, like my friend, Beth, from Cooking Up Quilts, were part of online virtual bees. Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts hosts Bee Hive Swarms on her site by organizing those quilters who sign up, and she also hosts the tutorials for 25 blocks ideal for any bee.

For those who are unfamiliar, let me give you a quick lay of the land. The Hive I'm in consists of 12 people with one of them acting as the overall organizer. Each person has the chance to be Queen one month, and choose a block from those posted on Blossom Heart's site. She or he may request certain colors or style of prints for various parts of the block, and each of the members of the hive do their best to please the reigning Queen. By the end of the month, all blocks are expected to be in the mail. 

Often the blocks are mailed with other goodies or such, but it's not a requirement. I have to honestly admit I'm lucky to have gotten the past two blocks out on time so there were no extras. I'm trying very hard to do better and prioritize.

The Quatrefoil Block done for last month's Queen.

My friend, Irene, asked me what drew me to do this. There were two reasons. One, I wanted to meet other quilters, and spend some time getting to know them. Not all Hive members are bloggers, and I wouldn't have met them otherwise. Two, I wanted to stretch myself with trying new blocks. Don't let the simplicity of some of these fool you! The top block, Wanta Fanta, has paper pieced X's, and you should have heard me groaning. But guess what? They came out beautifully, even though that's not my first love. The instructions were spot on, and I experienced success. I grew as a quilter today.

Bee Hive sign ups usually happen the last few months of the year so if you're interested be on the watch. You could also organize your own hive with local quilting friends, or with online friends. Nothing says you have to start in January. You could do a summer block swap with just a handful of friends and each wind up with a throw for fall. Just an idea I might be throwing around myself.

Come on, Doxie girls.
Let's run this to the mailbox.

 

Linking up with~
Midweek Makers
Building Block Tuesday
Fiber Tuesday
Stitch All the Things
Quilt Story
Freemotion by the River
Blossom Heart Quilts

Warm-Fuzzy Quilted Gifts and Stash Acquistions

How lucky we are to have talented friends.
That says, "mmm! quilts 'hearts' Pink Doxies."
Awwww...

Adding Complicated Borders and Link Party #BraveQuilter is OPEN

New Link Party Open Below

Monday Afternoon Wrap Up

This week has been busy, and sewing sessions were short. The important thing was to squeeze in spare minutes whenever I could. My only goal Monday was to add the piano key borders, and it took a lot longer than anticipated.

This design is dependent on everything squaring up. If you've ever made any quilt block, you realize every piece within that block relates to the parts. Your cutting, seam allowances, and even pressing contribute to the block coming out the correct size. Increase that scale to a 65" square, and things can go haywire instantly!

Celebrate International Craft Month with Giveaways and a Quilted Cross Body Bag Tutorial

Pink Doxies Quilted Cross Body Bag

What's the big buzz about?

March is International Craft Month,

and that means it's time to Bee Creative!

Mrs. Bannister's Star Finish and a Y-Seam Link Party

More Design On the Fly

Winter light makes it tough to get the shot just right.

Tokyo Train Ride Out to the Borders: Design On the Fly

You might call this busy.
I say it's happy.
I like happy!


Design On the Fly

I like not knowing exactly where a  quilt will wind up. Also, I'm honest to a fault about my work, and believe wholeheartedly in showing you the process. It makes me feel very human when someone else shows their me their struggle to design, and I assume I'm not alone. Unless you're following a well tested pattern, there are lots of little roadblocks to work through. Rarely it works like you planned it, but the whole creative process with changes and all is very liberating. It's not really improvisational quilting, or improv. It's more 'design on the fly'. 

Craftsy Sweetens Up My Quilting Life! Winners

Pardon our one day delay, but we're 

here with the official list.

Drum roll, please...

Woohoo!

Kaleidoscope Blocks with Tokyo Train Ride by Sarah Watts

Kaleidoscope Blocks

Last week I gave you my impression of the Craftsy class, "Color Play" with Joen Wolfrom. (Today is the last day to sign up for the Craftsy Giveaway, and winners will be announced here and on mmm! quilts tomorrow.) I showed you how it had changed my perspective of color, and in turn how I now picked out fabrics for a quilt. I really felt it would be incomplete if I stopped there, so I've started the actual quilt. Pop back to the "Color Play" post for fabric details, etc.

Hand Quilting Mrs. Bannister's Stars

Mrs. Bannister's Stars secondary pattern

Lessons in Quilting with Perle Cotton & Advice from Jen Kingwell About It

All quilters make mistakes.

I make mistakes.

Therefore, I am a quilter.

Don't you love syllogisms? Or not. It's funny the things you think about when your hands are busy, and your mind is free to wander. 

I started out hand quilting in the 1980's, and looked forward to the evenings sitting with a quilt in my lap while we watched a tv together. My lap was soon overtaken by one baby after the next, and I didn't get back to hand quilting until a few years ago. But the draw of FMQ with a domestic led me to try that, and as most of you know, ultimately longarming, which I love. Knowing I can finish a quilt that afternoon is delightful, but there is a seductive pull toward having something available to slow stitch if you crave it.

Color Play for Quilters-Final Day of Hop

Color Play for Quilters

Welcome back to the final day of "Craftsy Sweetens Up My Quilting Life!" blog hop. I hope you've gained useful knowledge about classes and products, entered Craftsy's big Giveaway, and the other giveaways sponsored by our own bloggers. Check below for more information.

Sandra from mmm! quilts and I are wrapping up today, but the Giveaways will remain open for another week. All class discounts remain in effect one week from posting so take advantage of them soon! The entire blog schedule can be found here.

My first encounter with Color Play by Joen Wolfrom was while searching for books on color theory. The book reviews were outstanding, and it stayed on my radar.

Imagine my delight finding the book offered as a class taught by the author herself at Craftsy! Plus, the book I was after was a free download with the class--a win/win!

 Personal Insights

• Comfortable speaker with extensive knowledge
• Lecture intensive with strong visual aids
• Heavy use of hand dyed fabrics lending itself well to both traditional and art quilters
• Materials list supports the class well
• Over 4 hours of instruction
• Excellent question and answer portion relevant to the class
• Most comprehensive course in color theory I have seen to date

"Do what you see. Not what you know."

Many of us struggle with picking out colors for a project, and to a large degree she teaches us why. She stresses the value of experimenting with colors in the form of acrylic paints creating your own samples. Blending colors and working with a color wheel was not new to me, yet she took me beyond what I'd ever done before. I had to learn how to see colors all over again, and by doing so I could use them to my advantage.

Luminosity

By far, the most interesting thing I learned was creating luminosity within a quilt. Luminosity refers to an area of light or glowing, and Wolfrom explains how she found it by mistake. Even so, she stopped to figure out why it happened so she would be able to recreate it. 

 Practical Application

Let's face it. Classes don't do any good unless you can use what you've learned. That might be the one downfall with taking a live class. One, it's hard to get your questions answered, and two, we forget things once we've gotten home. That doesn't happen when you can go back and repeat the segment for a brush up. 

I want to briefly share how the class has changed the way I look at fabric. This is a FQ bundle of Tokyo Train Ride by Sarah Watts. I've been saving it for something special, but nothing jumped out at me. I wanted to figure out why.

Normally I would lay my fabric out so I could stand back and take a good look at it. If I thought it needed something more, I'd throw some more colors down with it like in the first picture on the left. This fabric collection was leaving me stumped, so following Wolfrom's instruction I brought in a color wheel to see where most of the fabric were. I believe it was a double-complementary scheme. (middle picture above)

Building on Wolfrom's examples of adding a variety of values, I continued to add and subtract more fabrics. Another 'problem' I found with this bundle, and is often the case when we buy a single line of fabric, nearly all the the fabrics were the same scale. I tossed in dots in a variety of scales, and some micro prints. The last photo bottom right shows you what I wound up with. There's a balance between the lights, mediums, darks, and in scale finally. It's still a double-complementary color scheme, but a bit more balanced too. We shall see how this one works.

Who Needs Color Play for Quilters?

Someone who has made a quilt, and couldn't figure out what was wrong with the colors

Someone who wants to know how a color wheel works, and how it can make her much more successful at choosing fabrics

Someone who is ready to go beyond constructing from a kit

Someone who wants to delve deeply into color theory

How about YOU?

Buy Color Play for Quilters this week for 50% off its regular price. While visiting Craftsy, sign up for the chance to win one of two free classes, or the grand prize of a quilt kit, and fabric bundles. 

The Giveaway entry to Craftsy can be found both here and on each post throughout the hop. One entry per person. Enter until Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 11:59 MST. Winners will be announced February 22.

Hope you had as much fun hopping as we have!


Come on, Doxie girls.
Let's go sew.

Linking up with~
Patchwork Times
Cooking Up Quilts
Show and Tell with Bambi

Craftsy Sweetens Up My Quilting Life! Blog Hop Day 5

Uppsala Stars

A "Sew You Learn" Teaching 
Pattern on Craftsy

Happy Valentine's Day from someone with a little crush on hearts! Quilters seem to embrace the heart motif in their work, and I'm no different. I have some heart projects to share along with new bloggers posting about their own crushes with Craftsy. 

Yes, I'm still down with the flu, and the good man has been doing everything he can to help out. A true Valentine is someone who shows their love even when you haven't gotten out of your pajamas in a few days. 

Did You Know This About Craftsy Classes?

You control the video speed.

I've been spending some of my couch time watching Craftsy classes. I shared with Sandra that I really liked the ability of speeding the class up if I needed to. What? Where? At the bottom of the video screen is the play button, to the right it says '30 sec repeat', and to the right of that 'normal speed'. You have the option of going 0.25x, 0.5x, normal, 1.5x, and 2.5x. This is a huge benefit for me if I just want to speed back through, and hear it all one more time. 

Classes are closed captioned.

Lara at Buzzinbumble had this to offer, too:

"I love Craftsy classes too! I especially love how perfectly they are closed captioned. Lots of websites have videos that say they are closed captioned, but turn out to be terribly done and you just can't follow along. But Craftsy is excellent! You can even click right on the sentence you want to go back to and the video will sync right to that point. It never blocks any of the video either... like I said, it's perfect! “

Featured classses are 50% off for one week after each blog review.

Today's bloggers: Preeti at Sew Preeti Quilts will tell you how to enhance your stash at Craftsy without breaking the bank by buying a Kaffe Fassett 6" strip! And, she's got a terrific quilt she designed with that strip.

Beth at Cooking Up Quilts learned that appliqué can be done in many ways.  Read her review of Amanda Murphy's "20 Fresh Appliqué Techniques."  Save major bucks with a 50% discount on this class through Beth's website!

Please don't miss visiting Sandra either at mmm! quilts, as today's post is about S.E.X. and Education, and a Sunday Stretch. (Stash Enhancing eXperience--seriously a real term at Quiltbug.)

Over $500 of free Craftsy products up for grabs!

• Two free classes
• A Boundless Solids 6" Strip Set
• A Boundless Solids 10" squares
• A beautiful Boundless Solids Crown Jewels Quilt Kit by Amy Gibson!

The Giveaway entry to Craftsy can be found both here and on each post throughout the hop. One entry per person. Enter until Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 11:59 pm MST, and all winners will be announced Feb. 22 .

Surprises!

Check back daily at mmm! quilts or here at Pink Doxies for the updated daily link to each day's featured posts, and take advantage of surprise giveaways by the daily bloggers, too! 

Check out these posts for some fun mini projects adapted from a Jen Kingwell pattern, and see you all tomorrow.

Memorial Day 2015




Modern Heart Zip Bag

Come on, Doxie girls.
Let's go sew.