I’m getting my girl time on Friday mornings in my studio, when five young ladies arrive to cut, stitch, and play their way to adorable, funky projects.  Here Olivia and Abby show off their handbags made from a shower curtain, caribiners, and bungee cording.  Who would have thought all those unlikely players could be so cute together?  So far we’ve made pillowcases, a green shopping bag (complete with pink monogram, of course), and the handbag above.  Projects to come include a beach backpack, American Girl doll clothes, and a zippered case.  I’m not sure who’s having more fun:  the girls or me.

Are you sharing your love of sewing and quilting with the young people in your life?   I shared my Top Ten Tips for teaching the next generation of Project Runway designers how to sew in the Teaching Your Kids/Grandkids Wise Money Choices chapter of The Frugal Fabriholic, and here are the top three:

1. Small isn’t necessarily better.  Large projects use large pieces, easier for small fingers to manipulate
2. Let them pick the fabric.  Period.  Get over it if it doesn’t match.
3. Realize that not every sewing session needs to result in a finished product.  It took me a long time to understand that when my son said, “Mom I want to sew,” he didn’t want to make a project, he just wanted to sit on my lap at the sewing machine and use it.

June’s featured color is blue, a perennial favorite with quilters of all styles.  Stars & Stripes shows you how to coordinate different blues while avoiding an over-matched appearance.  Discover how to coordinate varying color intensities, from dark and deep to bright and light, and make them sing together in a beautiful harmony.  You’ll also learn the secrets of why the traditional red, white, and blue color palette works, and what you can do to make it your own.  Subscribers to the enhanced e-pattern series get exclusive access to a video tutorial on how to apply the rick-rack that you can follow along with as you apply your own, especially around those tricky corners.

Stars & Stripes Pattern Update:  $9.95 (free to pattern series subscribers – keep reading!) Add to Cart

If you can’t get to the quilt shop to select your own fabrics, no worries.  I’m offering a Stars & Stripes kit as well.  It’s best to choose your own fabrics for your color palettes, but we all have those times when life gets too busy and we just can’t get to it.  I’d rather you be able to do the lesson with a kit than not at all.

Stars & Stripes Kit: $21.95 Add to Cart

Learn by Doing

In addition to learning the latest color techniques, you learn how to create harmony among the three blocks which are different and unique:  the Mock Eight-Pointed Star block gives you the set-in look without the set-in seams, while the original Rick-Rack Old Glory block provides unity, harmony, and contrast.

Learn New Techniques

Jumbo red rick-rack provides a whimsical finish to Stars & Stripes, and I show you how to apply the rick-rack so that the corners turn with ease and the start/finish point is invisible.

Forget quilt as desired!  I’ve included quilting designs, the very ones I used in my own project, that make Stars & Stripes really shine. The quilting is the finishing touch that unifies all the design elements in the runner, and it’s super easy.  No free-motion needed!

To order the Color Mastery Table Runners enhanced e-pattern. click here: I Want to Master Color

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 stands next to her quilt made with Kaffe fabrics.  I loved the Dresden Plate quilt – it looked totally vintage.

After I gave Annette her color consultation and we recorded the video, the Cotton Patch Quilters and I went to dinner at Loco’s, which started in Athens.  The moose tells their story.  Later I gave my Creative Quilter’s Guide to Color lecture, but no photos:  it was a whirlwind to end by 9p.m.!

Last, but not least, my Machine Quilting students at Sew Memorable Quilt Shop in Dawsonville.  We had a full house and ladies came with all-metal Singer sewing machines to the latest new Viking, and you know what?  They were all successful!  Can’t wait to see those quilts, girls!

After I shot this video at Dragonfly Quilt Shop in Watkinsville, GA, I gave a lecture to the Cotton Patch Quilt Guild in Athens, and drove home for a late-night arrival.  The same day, my elder son attended a workshop at the local Apple store on how to use iMovie.

I’ve been the computer expert in our home for a long time, and I taught my son how to use Word, how to navigate the internet (with supervision), and even how to create a blog for a math project.  So he was excited to help me with my video.

I planned on creating a black screen with a white title for the Title screen and ending credits, which I can do with the Flip software that came with my camera.  But after he saw my results, he offered to help me do much better.

He showed me how to create the fancy title screen with my book’s cover and the white title superimposed over it, and the ending black frames with the credits on them.  Actually, he wanted to do it all himself, but I’m trying to teach him how to educate others:  never do for them what you can help them to do themselves.

That’s my same motto for my classes.  I never do the work for my students, or else they won’t be able to replicate their experience when they get home.  I gently guide students as to how to achieve results, and everyone’s path there is different.

So thanks, son.  My video looks oh-so-much better.  Who knows what you’ll be teaching me next?