October 12th, 2015
My new Craftsy class, called “Ultimate Free Motion Feathers” is now live and ready for viewing! This is a really fun class that is packed full of all kinds of neat feather work! It doesn’t matter where you are as far as your feather skill level because there is literally good info for beginners, intermediate, and advanced feather quilters.
The class begins by teaching 4 different methods for stitching a basic, unadorned feather and even if you have all of my feather DVDs and feather book, there’s new info right in that very first chapter that you’ve not seen from me in any other platform! We then move into all kinds of ways to manipulate feathers, decorate feathers, flow feathers, arrange feathers, etc, etc.
There are also 2 lessons about featherettes and you’ll learn how to use these in ways you never thought you could before! (And if you’ve been reading my blog, you KNOW how valuable featherettes can be when used alongside ruler work, so if you haven’t already taken Amy Johnson’s Craftsy class called “Quilting with Rulers on a Home Sewing Machine,” or seen my DVD called “Ruler Work for the Sit-Down Quilter,” these are must-see tutorials as well!
My feather class ends by covering some very useful and beautiful plume-based background fill designs that are very close cousins to feathers.
What are you waiting for?! This class is fun, informative, innovative, and full of inspiration! Click here to get a $20 discount on this fabulous new class! And the winner of the Ultimate feathers Class give away is Cecelia Young…congratulations, Cecelia!
Filed under
Craftsy!, Free Motion Quilting.
October 2nd, 2015
A few weeks ago, we had a DVD give-away if people could guess what my next big announcement would be. Many of you guessed that the pending announcement would be that I had a new Craftsy class about to debut. THAT announcement back then was about our new DVD release of “Ruler Work for the Sit-Down Quilter Vol 1.” Today, I’m happy to say that today’s announcement is for my new Craftsy class called “Ultimate Free Motion Feathers!”
This class isn’t quite ready to debut yet, but it’s coming really soon, like in about 1 1/2 weeks. I am happy to say that if you’ve already seen all 4 of our DVDs on feathers, or read our book called Feather Adventures, there will be some new info here so it will be worth your time and money. I’m excited about this class because I think you will really, really, like it! So, beginning right now, we’re having a give-away of this class and to enter you need to post a comment to this blog posting telling me what kinds of things, in the world of quilting and machine embroidery, you are interested in learning going forward. I am hoping to use your comments to get an idea of what topics/skills you are hoping to learn/develop, so share, share and share your ideas! Please spread the word to all your friends as well and be sure to post your comment/entry to this blog post by 11:50 PM EDST on Sunday, Oct 11th, 2015.
This has been probably the craziest/busiest last 2 months of my life in a long time and I haven’t had a whole lot of time to quilt myself. Sometimes we have to get vicarious thrills by looking at stunning quilting by others and I am a total sucker for this kind of “eye candy.” In case you haven’t had the good fortune to check out this blog, I’m going to give you 2 links that will get your heart beating fast. This first link will take you to a specific blog post of Kelly Cline’s where she quilts a top composed of 20 hankies and the result is stunning! Here’s the link to that post. Next up is a link to Kelly Cline’s blog because you’re going to want to follow this talented quilter going forward because her work is lovely! Here’s the link to her blog home page.
I am SOOOO looking forward to getting some quilting done this weekend so I’m going to get going. Happy quilting to all of you as well!
ADDENDUM: 10/12/15: THIS GIVE AWAY IS NOW CLOSED!
Filed under
Craftsy!, Free Motion Quilting.
September 19th, 2015
If you haven’t yet had the chance to watch Amy Johnson’s new Craftsy class about machine quilting with rulers, this class is great! That really shouldn’t come as a surprise, since Amy has been teaching us free motion quilting skills and techniques on her blog for some time now. Her new class is the first chance to really submerge yourself in Amy’s easy-going style for an extended series of lessons, and I found it to be a guilty indulgence for binge-watching! Her voice is calm and reassuring and puts you at ease from the start. I don’t know about you, but when the teacher seems “human” and down-to-earth, it’s much easier to “connect” and really “hear” what is being said and taught.
As a loyal follower of Amy’s blog (click here to be directed to her blog), I wondered if there would be enough new info in her Craftsy class to make it worthwhile. Rest assured that you will definitely get your money’s worth in signing up for this class! Amy does all the demos on a home sewing machine so no matter what machine you are working on, this is all free motion quilting that is within your grasp! This is what I would call a soup-to-nuts class in the sense that if you’ve never tried ruler work before, you’ll have all you need to start from the very beginning, but if you’ve already played with rulers, there’s a lot of great information for the experienced ruler quilter as well. She shows how to create many different designs, from basic to difficult, including designs like curved crosshatching:
I feel personally indebted to Amy because I was really struggling to do ruler work as a sit-down quilter using “improvised” ruler feet that really didn’t work well and honestly weren’t even safe to use. Through Amy’s generous information on her blog, I felt reassured and inspired that this technique could really be done, and done well, on a home sewing machine. She also spear-headed getting valuable info out to the masses about different options for ruler feet. I am happy to say that learning to do ruler work as a sit-down quilter has breathed new life into this free motion quilter and I owe much of that to Amy. Amy is a friend of mine but I am heartily endorsing this class because it really is good! Click here to sign up for this skill-building class!
Remember…ruler work rules!
Filed under
Craftsy!, ruler work on a HDSM.
July 5th, 2015
I finally got a little time to quilt this weekend and I had a wonderful time working on this wall hanging:
Only the center panel has been quilted but what is exciting me about this is that I used unconventional textiles for the applique shapes and it creates an incredible 3-D texture once it’s been quilted. I’m really struggling to get a photo that shows this:
All of the appliques are either woven wool fabrics, wool felts, rayon felts, bamboo felts, cotton velvets, or cotton suedes. Once you quilt around the applique shapes w/invisible thread, they really pop out:
I couldn’t resist messing around with a little ruler work as well…I’m blown away by how much punch just a little bit of ruler work can add to the design! I’ll get some other pictures up later, but it’s pretty cool to see this in real life! Also, in case you didn’t know, Craftsy is having a big sale this weekend with classes at $19.99! Click here to get the discount!
Filed under
Craftsy!, Free Motion Quilting, ruler work on a HDSM.
