Look what the post man delivered today to my mailbox! My Top Ten Habits article is on the cover of the Feb/Mar Quilter’s Newsletter magazine above the masthead. Woo-hoo. I’m thrilled, proud, and humbled all at the same time. My husband and I are going out to dinner tonight to celebrate. In the [...]
Posts under ‘Machine Quilting’
Winners and a Call for Blocks
First, the winners:
Thank you to everyone who visited yesterday during Day 3 of the Quiltmaker 100 Blocks Blog Tour. I was so moved by your comments I selected not just one winner but two! Congratulations to:
Diane Muska
Maeve315
Send me your mailing addresses to maria@colormastery.com and your issue and Old Glory will be on their way to [...]
Do I Need an Excuse to Visit a Quilt Shop?
More photos from my trip to Athens and Dragonfly Quilt Shop. As you walk in the shop you’re surrounded by gorgeous fabrics and samples that you can’t wait to make! Love the beautiful white armoire filled with goodies. The shop had a Kaffe Fassett table to get quilters excited about his workshop at Dragonfly. Deb [...]
Georgia Quilt Council’s Fall Convention
Last weekend I attended the fall convention of the Georgia Quilt Council in Carrollton, GA. After all the years I’ve been quilting, this was my first time attending the council’s meeting, and I was impressed. These ladies know quilting and know Georgia. I met many wonderful quilters, appraisers, shop owners, historians, guild officers, and teachers. [...]
Quilt Camp at Willow Ridge Press Studios
This week I hosted six children in my quilt studio to make Quillows. They were practically giddy they were so excited! We planted the seeds of lifelong sewers and quilters, and they were beaming with pride and tightly hugging their Quillows when they left.
On Monday we started by making a mini-Quillow. This turned out to [...]
Anatomy of an Art Quilt
My lecture at Ann Litrel’s gallery last Friday was delightful – thank you to so many of my friends, readers, and students who came out and supported me. I talked to gallery visitors as they stopped in and then my lecture was at 7p.m. I talked for only a short time about each art quilt, [...]
New Season, New Look
What is it about spring that makes me want to throw open the windows and swap out the winter pillows and fabrics for brighter, more light colors? Same goes for the blog. I’ve photographed a new header image and am trying a new Wordpress theme that’s easier on the eyes. Larger fonts, wider sidebars. I [...]
2008 Best Craft/Hobby Books
I adore books. Really. I would buy books before food and clothes, and when I go into a quilt shop I always look at what the new books are. So I was excited to see USABookNews.com’s picks for best Craft/Hobbies books. Take a peek and see how many quilting and sewing-related titles are here.
Looking for [...]
Holiday Goodies in My November Newsletter
The November issue is out, and I included some incredible articles:
how to keep a color journal
how to orchestrate the colors in a “blended-type” quilt
a fabulous source for free machine quilting patterns
my favorite cranberry sauce recipe
details on my Twelve Days of Christmas giveaway
You are on the email list, right? Well, if not, you can sign up [...]
Quilt Project Runway: Color Mastery’s Photo Man
Multimedia message, originally uploaded by Colorful Quilter.
Ok, so he’s The Photo Man for The Quilt Show too. Gregory took all the gorgeous photos of the quilts in Color Mastery, and he is a large part of why the book turned out so beautifully. After all, the colors in the quilts had to be not just [...]
A Quilt with a View
All quilted and ready for facing. Sometimes I love the backs of my quilts even more than the front, because I can see the quilting so much better. I don’t want the quilting to overwhelm the design and colors on the front, but I sure do love the machine quilting detail you can [...]
Avoiding “The Wave” in Machine Quilting
If you ever get wavy quilts after machine quilting them, you’ve probably got some really dense quilting designs that aren’t balanced throughout the quilt. My latest quilt is almost done: I’ve densely quilted the interior, but not the frame, thus the rolls and waves you see here. Once I quilt the frame portion the entire [...]
The Ultimate Stitch Sampler
This is the ultimate stitch sampler. First, let me make clear this is not my quilt. I took this photograph over 10 years ago at a local quilt show when photography was not nearly as far along as it is now. This isn’t a great photo, but it will serve the purpose [...]
Practice Specialty Stitches on Your Project Fabric
Once you’ve created your general mini-stitch samplers, you should be well-prepared for any type of quilting you want to do with your machine. I still, however, create a small sampler before I quilt on a project. I need to see how those stitches will look on the fabric I’m using.
My generic mini-stitch samplers [...]
Experiment with Threads and Stitch Settings
If you’ve created your first set of mini-stitch samplers, then I recommend you create a sampler experimenting with specialty threads and changing your stitch settings. I like using the thicker machine quilting threads from YLI and Superior, so I experimented with regular straight and zig-zag stitches to see the difference the threads would make.
Then [...]
Create Mini-Stitch Samplers
Being an instructor, I dutifully took the free classes offered when I bought my sewing machine years ago. Those classes didn’t even scratch the surface of what my machine could do. It came with a manual, but it didn’t really go in-depth either. I was determined to make the most of my [...]
How Many Specialty Stitches Does Your Machine Offer?
Quilters have fabulous sewing machines that offer more stitches than we’ll ever really use. Let’s face it: most quilters use the straight stitch, zig-zag, feather stitch, buttonhole stitch, and maybe one or two others. But the remaining stitches are lonely, waiting to be remembered and at least acknowledged.
So do it. You [...]
Getting to Know You
What if I told you I could instantly make you a better machine quilter with just one simple technique? And you wouldn’t have to invest in any expensive tools, DVDs, or books. Just use what you have.
Interested?
Here it is:
Get to know your machine better. Spend some time with it. I can always tell the quilters [...]
Star Student in My Piecemakers Class
Meet Maizy. She was so well-behaved in class. Her owner, Dolle, brought her to join us after lunch, and she was such a dear. Not even one bark.
We had so much fun at the Piecemakers’ Machine Quilting class in Cumming, Ga. We had hand-quilters, brand new quilters, and machine quilters who [...]
Home Sweet Home
My kids missed me while I was gone, and one of their favorite ways to spend time together is drawing. I was exhausted and dragged myself into this, but as always with anything creative, I had a blast doing it.
This is a teapot pincushion in the Mary Engrelbreit Home magazine, spring issue. How [...]
A Sea of Fabric
Wow. I feel dwarfed by this quilt when I’m at my machine. It takes me, my sewing table, and a chair to hold it all. But we’re plugging along, block-by-block, and it’s almost done.
I’m spending 80% of my time wrestling, ahem, nudging, the quilt through my machine, and the other 20% actually [...]
Letting Go . . . Not!
I couldn’t do it. I had the best of intentions, but when it came time to part with Emily’s UGA quilt top, I just knew it belonged to my hands to quilt. Not literally hand-quilting, but the quilting design and the machine quilting I wanted to do. So here it is, being [...]
Machine Quilters’ Top Dilemma
The number one question I’m asked in my machine quilting classes is this:
How do I decide what quilting design to use in my quilt?
My answer?
Decide on what your quilt needs.
Let’s really look at my answer. First, this is your quilt. No one else’s, so it should look like your quilt. Don’t copy [...]
Longarm Quilting: Best of Show?
The East Cobb Quilt Guild show was last weekend and I attended with my friend Karen. Lots of beautiful quilts, both traditional and contemporary. I was astonished at the number of quilts that had been quilted by a paid longarm quilter, and was even more taken aback to find the Best of [...]
