Sunday, January 24, 2016

Craftsy & Colorado -- What a Beautiful Combination!

My assistant, Monica, and I are here in beautiful Denver -- the weather is absolutely gorgeous! We are learning a LOT about social media and how to promote my teaching and Craftsy class. We did this for the photo booth last night, so it's fun as well as educational. The presenters are extremely professional, definitely know their stuff and, as I suspected, Monica is thriving on all this information and I am lost in space....

 

This is the view from our hotel window -- what an inspiration!

Leaving this snowy beauty this afternoon to fly home. Actually, we really lucked out -- the storm's coming in after we leave!

 

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Craftsy Instructor Summit Like A BOSS!

We've had a great weekend in Denver at the Craftsy Instructor Summit!  Delicious food, creative people, and lots of new things that I'm excited to share with you!!

Here's the best pic of the evening.... My assistant Monica and I taking it like a BOSS!



Hope you're having a great weekend too!!


Friday, January 22, 2016

A Great Day of Sewing at Home

It seems like usually when I'm at home I get stuck in an e-mail/phone/running to Fed Ex/running to USPS loop where I never get to the machine. But I made a commitment that I would continue working on the things I started at the retreat and Thursday was a sewing day.


I loved this quilt; loved the fabrics, loved the colors -- so I purchased a jelly roll of the Paper fabric from Moda and turquoise/teal (sort of) grunge fabric to make my own version.


The patten was in this magazine...


When I was teaching at Spool in Chattanooga in October, I found this great comic fabric and decided it would make a perfect border. So I made the quilt with fewer blocks (80 instead of 140) and will do a narrow turquoise border and then a wider border of the comics.


I got all of the blocks made Thursday --yay! And then laid out the blocks from the other project I worked on at the Pieceful Hearts retreat.



The quilt is actually bigger, but without standing on a ladder, I couldn't get a picture of the whole thing. Hoping to put it together next week!

Right now I'm in Denver at the Craftsy Instructor Summit hoping to learn many things about marketing, social media and better ways about promoting Batts in the Attic -- and me!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Palmdale CA

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Pieceful Hearts Retreat

I just spent a really fun weekend with the Pieceful Hearts Quilt Guild at their annual retreat in Hickory Knob State Park, South Carolina.

To retrace this, Susie Donnelly lives near Augusta and was the first person in our group of six to join the guild. One of my best friends, Carol Tarras, lives in Chicago and is Susie's sister. Shelley is Carol's daughter and also lives in Chicago, Nancy is Shelly's sister in law and lives in Pennsylvania, Jill lives in Atlanta and is Susie's daughter and then there was the California girl, me.

Not only did we get to work on our projects, Carol and Shelley brought patterns and supplies to make some fun things:


One afternoon we made the little bags and I learned to put in a zipper. Don't know that I'll do that again -- it's a little futzy for me. Too many things to remember!


Another day we made these bags and I learned how to use an edge stitch foot. This was WAY fun and I can definitely see making more of these for gifts and to hold stuff around the sewing room that doesn't seem to have another home. This was a free pattern called the One Hour Basket and it truly does take about an hour!


Here are Susie and Carol with all of our zippered cases and one hour baskets. Shelley's husband David had pre quilted all of the fabric that we used using a machine on a frame and his QBot, which he invented. There is a lot of information about this on myqbot.com -- definitely good for a browse and remember not to drool on your keyboard!

I took pictures of some of the projects around the room...


Of course, I zeroed in on the bat fabric!


And the finished quilt! Good bat ratio, so I loved it!


I had seen this pattern in a recent issue of Better Homes & Gardens quilting magazine and liked it a lot. The three snowflakes are the only piecing in the quilt and then there are solid red strips with some chain piecing in the darker color to form the border. So the quilt is mostly background leading to some great quilting opportunities.




For the first two days I worked on a beach themed quilt in shades of blue, coral and a white on white background fabric featuring lighthouses. I bought the pattern and kit at Bolts in the Bathtub, my local quilt shop located in Lancaster CA.



I made twelve of these books from the jelly roll strip and then made about a billion flying geese and four patches that go on the sides of these blocks. I didn't have space to lay them out before piecing them so I piled them all up and put them in a big Ziploc.

I had brought a jelly roll of the newspaper print fabric assortment from Moda called Paper and some turquoise grunge fabric to make a quilt that I saw in one of my magazines. I got a lot done on that, too, and will post some pictures when I get a chance to get back to the project.

Unfortunately, time ran out on the sewing front and I had to put it all away. No matter how long a retreat is, I always need just One More Day!

Right now I'm in an Embassy Suites room in Atlanta waiting to leave for a 1:50 flight home. Will only be home for a couple of days before I go to Denver for the Craftsy instructor event. I am so excited about this!! But that means no sewing this week.....maybe next?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:McCormick SC

Saturday, January 16, 2016

New Year = New Class SALE!!

There's no better way to start off the NEW YEAR than a NEW CLASS SALE!!

All new Craftsy Classes are 50% off... now through Monday. 

Learn something new and have fun doing it!!

Click HERE for the sale!


Thursday, January 7, 2016

Beautiful Table Runner by Kathy from Dubuque

Back in November, Kathy E. from Dubuque, Iowa won a Drunkard's Path ruler in one of our giveaways.  She made the most BEAUTIFUL Table Runner with it!!

She sent us a sweet message along with these stunning photos...

"I want to show you the table runner I made with the Drunkard’s Path template I won in your blog contest. I had never sewn a curved block before, so this was a bit tedious at first. I loved how it turned out! Thanks again!"



Absolutely gorgeous Kathy!!  We're happy you love it!!


Watch out for the next giveaway... coming next week!

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