Win a new Baby Lock Imagine Serger!

Nuttall's Sewing Centers is giving away a brand new Baby Lock Imagine Serger!  Have you seen the amazing Jet-Air Threading system??  Can you imagine how easy serging would be if you didn't have to thread the machine?  The Baby Lock Imagine is an advanced home serger and includes Jet-Air Threading which threads the lower loopers with the touch of a lever!  It also features Automatic Thread Delivery which threads in any order. 

  

Here's how to enter:

Take a selfie with any Baby Lock sewing, quilting, or embroidery machine, post on Facebook or Instagram with #babylockatnuttalls and you'll be entered to win!

* You must be following their Facebook / Instagram to win.
* No limit to number of entries - one entry per post tagged with #babylockatnuttalls.  Each entry must be unique.
*Contest open to United States only.
* Winner will be announced via Facebook Live on November 17 at their Baby Lock Serger Event.

GOOD LUCK!!!!

BIG GIVEAWAY from Fat Quarter Shop!!

As a countdown to Fall Quilt Market, Fat Quarter Shop is having a MEGA GIVEAWAY!!!  

Two prizes valued at $500 each!

And super simple to enter!

Just click HERE to read their fun blog post and fill our their survey.

Winners announced on October31!

Good luck!

One Monthly Goal

My sewing, like my sewing room, tends to be “all over the place”! I work a little bit on one project, then sew on another, maybe put together a quilt back – in other words, things slowly move to completion, but in a scattershot sort of way. I finished four quilts last year, which was better than I have done in probably 8 or 9 years, so I was happy with that. But – and there’s always a but – I could have been more organized about the whole thing and aimed to get more quilts done.

So I was pretty happy to see this on the Elm Street Quilts blog...

The “rules” are pretty simple; here they are in Patty’s words:

The basics for One Monthly Goal are as follows - 

Select ONE of your quilt-related goals for the month.  This could be to make a few blocks. cutting fabric for a project, sewing on a binding, or finish a quilt top.  Any goal that involves a step in the process of making with thread, fabric or yarn is a valid goal.

Describe your goal in a:

·         blog post complete with a photo(s) of your project and a link back to One Monthly Goal.

                                                  or

·         via Instagram your photo and description of your goal along with the social tag #onemonthlygoal and @elmstreetquilts 

                                                  or

·         via Flickr complete with a photo(s) of your project and a link back to One Monthly Goal. (link to this main event page or to the actual linkup page)

Add your project to the link-up at the goal setting link-up.  (Each month, the goal-setting link-up will be open from the 1st through the 7th, closing at 11:55 pm ET.)

Then come post again at the end of the month to share your accomplishment in the One Monthly Goal Finish Party.  The finish party will run for 7 days at the end of the month.

Each time you join the linkup you earn an entry into the Grand Finale prize drawing!  Link up in the goal setting and the finish linkup each month of the year earns 24 entries into the Grand Finale prize drawing. Link up goals one month but never quite got to the finish?  You still earn an entry for participating in the goal link up!

There are prizes donated by the Fat Quarter Shop, Make Modern and others – doesn’t this sound like fun? I already signed up!

May all of you have a happy, healthy, quilty New Year!

Good Couple of Days!

I've been going back and forth this weekend, quilting on the Q-20 and piecing on my Dream Machine, working two projects at once. 

Grabbed this out of the Partially Quilted stack. The pattern was published in the April 2011 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting from Better Homes & Gardens; it's called Posey Patch. I did the piecing, my friend Tiffany Hayes of Needle in a Hayes Stack (great pattern line and she is a fellow Craftsy instructor) did the applique.

Yesterday I finished the curvy lines in the background; still deciding on what fills I want in them. Today I quilted feathers in the floral area around the inner star and did a freehand design in the pink squares that I found in one of Angela Walters' Shape by Shape books. Those books are a gold mine of ideas!

This is another design from one of the books; I did this with a ruler foot and a straight edge quilting ruler from Westalee Designs.

I started by marking two lines. The top one is 3/4" from the tip of the triangle, the second is 1-1/4", so they are spaced 1/2" apart.

I was able to do two adjacent triangles before cutting the thread and moving to the next pair.

Started in the corner where the two triangles joined, then used the spacing gauge tool to make sure I would hit that first mark. I'm using the 1/4" leg; since the outside of the ruler foot is exactly 1/4" from the needle, one side of the spacing gauge tool (let's call it a SGT, OK?) touches the ruler and the free edge shows the path the needle will take as you stitch along the ruler with the ruler foot.

Stitched to that top mark, then moved the SGT to the corner to align the ruler properly for that section.

Moved the SGT to the lower of the two marks and aligned the ruler to stitch to it.

Then stitched to that mark and back to the beginning to finish that boomerang shape. Repeated it on the other triangle, then cut the thread and did the rest of them. There are only 5 pieced blocks, so it didn't take that long.

Dan decided that this would be a good day to hang all of my stencils up on the wall next to the new machine, so I moved over to the other machine and stitched a few triangles.

Now they're easy to get to!

Back to the Q to stitch that same boomerang shape in the border triangles. Then I cut, sewed and pressed the binding. I'm having foot surgery in a couple of days and thought that maybe I could do the hand sewing on the binding while I can't use the machines.

Yep, it's my right foot, so no driving for two weeks! Maybe I can teach myself to sew with my left foot?

Quilty Surprises!

I love subscription boxes! I've done Stitch Fix for clothes and a couple of sample beauty boxes -- those were great for snagging travel size cosmetics to take with me on my teaching trips. So of course I can't resist the allure of fabric from the latest collections, inspiring patterns and notions! I'll share with you the ones that came in recently:

Someone asked me the other day what my favorite subscription box was and my answer was the Sew Sampler from Fat Quarter Shop. It's a good mix of fabric/pattern/notions at a good price and I usually like almost everything. I think I gave away a ruler from one box and a needle keeper from another, but mostly I keep and use everything in the box.

As usual there is a card explaining what's in the box and the pattern for the basket block of the month. But a 15% coupon on Moda? Oh, yeah!!!

Here's the pattern and fabric this time. First time I've received a box where I wouldn't have purchased the fabric if I had seen it in a store. Guess I'm just not a muted blue person. This is a junior jelly roll and I'd be happy to trade for an equivalent value in fabric that is brighter in color? I know this Snowberry line is really popular so maybe one of you would love to have it and are willing to trade? I'll throw in the table runner pattern as a bonus.

Like all of the notions -- no one can ever have too many Wonder Clips or seam rippers. The little scissors are cute, too -- polka dots!!

The next box I opened was from Culcita, which means "quilt" in a language I don't speak. The Weekend Candy quilt top that I just finished was also from Culcita and used a Cotton & Steel line called "Sleep Tight".

This one features "Chroma" by Alison Glass -- "hand stamped, hand dyed, one piece at a time, so each bit of fabric is unique and different from the next, adding to the beauty of it. No two bolts are alike and cuts from one bolt will likely look different from cuts from another. Like natural leather or stone, these variations make each piece perfectly imperfect." Quote from the card accompanying the fabrics. Each Culcita shipment has 12 fat quarters of the featured fabric line.

Love the range of colors! I am definitely a "brights" person!

Found this pattern in one of the magazines that also came in recently and think that it would look great in the Chroma fabrics. It's in the October 2017 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting from Better Homes & Gardens. I like the pattern that came in the Culcita box, too; I'm a big Quilt Theory fan.

With every Culcita box there is a fortune cookie with a sewing/quilting related fortune. Dan ate the cookie, but left the fortune on the kitchen table for me.

The last box I opened was from Cotton Cuts. This used to be called Stash Builder and I think I originally found them through an article in Generation Q Magazine that was reviewing subscription fabric boxes. This is the first one I have received since the company changeover.

Three one yard cuts from the Meriweather line by Amy Gibson for Windham Fabrics were in the box plus the Super Nova Stars pattern by Krystal Jakelwicz. The card included with the shipment showed some of the other fabrics in the collection. There are a couple of text fabrics that I'd like to buy and maybe a background....

Have you purchased subscription boxes? Which ones and what are your thoughts? I love them, even knowing it's kind of a shot in the dark thing in that you don't know what you're getting! 

My Third Sew Sampler Box

The June Sew Sampler Box from The Fat Quarter Shop came yesterday with lots of quilty goodness:

The folder that describes everything and the basket block recipe card that I put aside for my friend Dawna, the basket block queen;

A threaded needle holder, some very cute decorative ribbon that is ruled like a tape measure and a 4-1/2" Cute Cuts Trim-It ruler that you could use to trim the square in a square block to its finished size.

Here's a better pic of the ruler; it shows up better on the white paper than my (very worn and really should be replaced) green cutting mat. You can also see the cute sticker that was in the box.

And now on to the project, always my favorite part:

I wish the charm pack had been a full 42 squares because I really like the fabrics. There are 30 and they were used in the pattern pic so you can see them all there. The cutting directions call for each block to be cut from a charm square, but you can actually get 2 blocks from each charm for a total of 60. The resulting quilt would still be tiny, 28-1/2" by 32-1/2 set 7x8. There is a generous yard and a half of white with grey tiny plus sign print for background and a half yard of turquoise for binding.

The pattern calls for the square-in-a-square method to assemble the blocks and rows. I tend not to do that because of the waste and because that method breaks up the background print too much for my liking. I would construct the plus sign blocks, cut background squares the same size and assemble it in the same manner as an "on point" quilt.

Another way this could be played with is to only cut one block per charm, but cut the pieces bigger, to yield a 6" finished block rather than 3".

See? I've just opened the box and have already spent about 1/2 hour pondering the possibilities!

The only thing I am pretty sure I won't use is the threaded needle storage case. Maybe one of you who likes to carry sewing around would like to have it? Leave a comment below, share what kind of projects you like to do using a hand sewing needle, and I'll pick a winner mid-month! Perhaps one of you will inspire me to take up hand sewing, ya think?

It's All About the Gadgets!

Seems like I'm always buying new tools to make things a little easier around the quilting rooms, especially this time of year when I know I'm going to be home more than usual during the summer. My teaching seasons are definitely spring and fall, but I often start working in early January and work until the second weekend of December, so don't get a long winter break. No spring break, but I'm generally done around Memorial Day and then have sporadic work until after Labor Day. So I guess you could say I have a similar schedule to public/private elementary/middle/high school teachers!

While I have all that great sewing time, I keep my eyes open for gadgets and I also get them in my subscription boxes, such as Sew Sampler, Quilty Box and Stash Builder Box, although SBB is more about the fabric than the things that go with it. I'll have to remember to do a post about my latest Stash Builder Box; I was delighted when I opened it!

This was my latest gadget acquisition; I had a bright green one right next to the sewing machine and wanted one for the other room. Bordeaux is a new color - I like wine - my house is decorated in a wine grape theme in bordeaux, gold and green - seemed like this would work in the "big" room. My big room has two 30 inch wide by 8 foot long tables, the Mettler thread fixtures, batting fixtures, some bookcases and my ironing board with a 6 foot long rectangular top.

Have to show off my Mettler fixtures again!

I know a lot of quilters like to have everything within reach so they can pin, sew and press without getting out of their chair. I like to get up a lot and walk from room to room; gets my steps in and I don't get achy all over from staying in one position for a long time. So I'll do a bunch of chain piecing, then take them to the big room to iron.

Once I get the blocks made, I do most of the row pinning on the tables and then take them into the smaller room where the sewing machine is to do the sewing. Then back to the big room to unpin and press. Same with the borders, so I thought it would be helpful to have a pin caddy both by the machine for the quick pin/unpin thing and on the tables for the more major efforts.

It's pretty and useful -- all good! I bought this at my local quilt store, but since it is made by Clover, it should be readily available in the bordeaux color, a bright green and at least two other colors that I've seen.

Now back to sewing!

Playing Around with a New Gadget

One of the new (to me, at least) items in the Sew Sampler box is the Press Perfect by Joan Hawley for Clover. I've been keeping a tool next to my machine called the Wooden Iron, a wooden cylinder with a slanted bottom for coaxing seams open and getting them flat. I usually used it for the diagonal seam when joining a binding -- I'm way too lazy to drag the whole quilt to an iron or bring the iron to it!

However, my little wooden iron tool seems to have disappeared, so looks like the Press Perfect arrived at the perfect time!

So of course I had to try it out on a 4 patch I just pieced:

Looks pretty good from the back...

And here's the front! I think this tool just earned its place in my quilting toolbox!

Have you ever used this? What is your favorite quick press item?

When I'm piecing a quilt, I normally press seams to one side, not open like my binding seams. So let's give Press Perfect a try:

What do you think?

My Second Sew Sampler Box

The May Sew Sampler box was waiting for me when I got home from my Springfield/St. Louis/Tulsa trip last Wednesday. Opened it Friday and today I'm looking at everything and deciding how to use it. 

What I like the very best about the Sew Sampler box is that it always contains a project -- this one is this cute flying geese quilt. The pattern, print fabrics and ruler are in the kit; all I have to shop for is the background fabric to make this 48"x60" quilt. I know, shopping for fabric is such a chore....

And there are always a few notions -- since I do my straight stitch quilting with a ruler, I most likely will not use the Tiger Tape for its intended purpose. But I can see keeping it on hand to mark places on fabric or rulers and I really like that it's reusable.

My little "wooden iron" that I used to press seams right at the machine seems to have vanished into thin air (or the great abyss that my sewing rooms have become!) so this Roll & Press tool should come in handy.

And I really liked the pink carry case. It's not big enough for my 60mm rotary cutter, but it's the perfect size for all the markers I cart around to use and explain in my quilting classes.

There was also a card with the instructions for the second block in a basket block series. I'll give that to my friend Dawna because she loves basket quilts and I'm pretty indifferent to them.

I love this box even more than the first one!!