A Quilter's Letter of Instructions

 Does your family know what they should do with all of your sewing, quilting and crafting items when you pass away? I know, no one wants to think about what happens when they are no longer here! But let's face it, it's gonna happen. Why not help your family out and leave them a Quilter's Letter of Instructions. 

My friend Deb over at Quiltblox.com has written a really great article about doing just that. She even has a list of questions you should think about before starting and a sample letter that you can download and just fill in the appropriate information. 

Click the link below to go directly to Deb's fabulous article on this subject. At the bottom of the article are links to the list of questions and the sample letter. I think most family members want to do the right thing, they just don't know what that is. Here's a way that you can help them when the time comes.

Click here to go read the article on Deb's website about making your own Quilter's Letter of Instructions.

Another Batik Rug

 I liked my first rug so much I decided to make a couple more. For this one I started with 9 yards of fabric cut into 1" by width of fabric strips.

Then I joined all the strips together and rolled it up into a ball. The ball is about 8" in diameter.

Now I'm crocheting it into a rug. I simply chain stitched until the chain is about 2" longer than the finished width of the rug I want and started single crocheting. I'll just continue to single crochet until I run out of fabric strips. It's about halfway done at this point. The first rug I made shrank by 2" in the width so I'm assuming this one will shrink about the same, but we'll see.

As you can see, for this one I opted to used more than one fabric. The more the merrier, right? I picked 6 batik fabrics in the blue/turquoise/teal color range (1 1/2 yards of each). I love how it is turning out. When I was joining the fabric strips together I just grabbed a handful of one color and added all of them, then picked another color and grabbed a handful of those strips and so on. No real plan to the color order or number of strips of each color added at a time.

You might also notice that I got a better crochet hook. The other one wasn't very comfortable in my hand so I looked around and found this one. It's much nicer to use!

In the Garden Shop Sample

 I received a really lovely fabric collection recently called In the Garden. The collection includes two convenience fabrics - one is a panel and the other is yardage. They are both featured in the shop sample.

Above is the front of the quilt. It features the printed block panel. These blocks are about 20" by 20" and look like I did a lot of work to make them, but I didn't. It's printed just like that! Other uses for this fabric is to use one of two of the blocks as the outside of a tote bag, use one block for a pillow, use one block as the center of a medallion style quilt, or fussy cut out a block and applique it to the back of denim jacket or a sweatshirt.

For the back I used the petal print. Other uses for this fabric would be to use it to make orange peel blocks. You can simply iron fusible web to the back side, cut out the petals, fuse them to a background and stitch around them. Or you could cut them out and hand applique them down.

I like to label all my quilts but I didn't want the label to be noticeable.

Can you see the label in the photo above? If not, look below to see it.

These fabrics have such a nice feel to them! The quilt finishes at about 41" by 41". Right now I have the entire fabric collection in stock, complete with the block panel and the petal fabric.

If you want to make one too this is what you'll need:

One In the Garden Block Panel, 1 1/4 yards of In the Garden Petal Convenience Fabric (a quantity of 3 if ordering from my website), and 1/2 yard of binding fabric (a quantity of 1 if ordering from my website) - any of the fabrics in the collection would be good for binding but I used the In the Garden Dahlia Dream Verdant one. In addition to the fabric you'll also need some batting. I used a crib size package of Quilter's Dream Fusible 80/20. 

I opted to quilt it quickly with an allover meander, but you could also quilt this really fancy and hide the fact that it's a printed panel even more. However, everyone I have showed this sample to in person have thought that I pieced it. I have to point out to them that it's a printed panel - so anybody can make one of these!

Last Day for the August Online BlowOut Event

 Today is the last day of the Online BlowOut Event.

I still have plenty of good deals available! Click here to go directly to the BlowOut Event section of my website.

Secret Garden Honor Quilt

 I pieced this quilt several weeks ago as soon as the fabric arrived but I just got it back from my longarm quilter and finished the binding.

This is such a fun and easy pattern. It's a Villa Rosa pattern called Honor and it takes one yard each of five fabrics (this includes the binding fabric). The fabric collection is called Secret Garden. I sell fabric in half yard increments on my website so if you want to make one just like this you'd need to get a quantity of 2 of each of the fabrics. 

For my blog readers, if you want to do that then leave me a note at checkout or email me directly and let me know that you placed the order and you want a FREE copy of the pattern included in your order.

Official Start of the August 2023 Online BlowOut Event

 Today is the official first day of the online BlowOut Event. There are lots of great shops participating along with me. Click this link to go to the clearance section of my website and check out the great deals.

I have lots of great fabrics, kits, patterns, books and notions in my clearance section that are up to 75% off. This month I am featuring batiks in my clearance section. All batik fabrics are $9 per yard, full yard increments only.

If you'd like to check out some of the other shops participating click the following link: FabShop BlowOut Event Participating Shops

August 2023 Online BlowOut Event

 The official start of the Online BlowOut event isn't until Monday, August 7, 2023, but I'm giving my customers a head start. Click this link to go directly to the clearance section of my website.

I have lots of great fabrics, kits, patterns, books and notions in my clearance section that are up to 75% off. This month I am featuring batiks in my clearance section. All batik fabrics are $9 per yard, full yard increments only.

Please note that this is an ONLINE ONLY sale. Most of the fabrics in the online clearance section are NOT out in the shop nicely displayed for you to shop from. I will be having an in-store event later this month for those of you who would prefer to shop in-person. That event will is called I Love Fabric Days and is August 17-19, 2023.

New Pillows

 Last week was rugs, this week it's pillows.

Both of these are 18" pillows. I'm working on writing up the pattern and then I plan to make up some kits using these exact fabrics and then probably some other fabric combinations.

The first one I made is the blue one at the back in the photo above.

This pillow is made from the Winter Solstice fabric collection. It has an envelope back and the outside edge is finished with binding just like you'd do for a quilt.

The front pillow shown in the first photo above is the second one I made.

This one was made using the Holiday Flourish fabric collection. It also has an envelope back but no binding. I used the pillowcase method to finish it instead of binding.

Both pillows are very simply quilted in the ditch around all pieces. Pillows are a fast, fun and inexpensive way to change up your decor!