Here’s the best place to find all the best resources in one spot. I’ll add events, updates and the latest news here. Check back often so you don’t miss anything!
Best Resources...
What's Going On...
2019
Friday Oct 25th
May 20 – Sept
May 13th-19th
Speaking, Introduction to From Blank Pages patterns and The Creative Power of Quilting, MQA Fall Gathering (Hattiesburg, MS)
Home Lovin QAL
Birthday Celebration – Β Read more HERE!
2018
Thursday Sept 27th
April 30th – May 6th
Locked in Spots Paper Piecing, class, Quilters Eden Quilt Shop (East Grand Forks, ND), 6-9 pm
Birthday Celebration, Grab Sales HERE!
2017
Saturday Oct 21st
Saturday Nov 4th
Lecture, Quilting on the Red Quilt Show (Grand Forks, ND), 11:00 am
Paper Piecing Demo, North Star Quilt Guild (Grand Forks, ND) 1:15 pm
On the Blog...
River Pond QAL: Cut Fabric
This post is part of the River Pond Quilt Along. You can find more info and the schedule HERE. While this content is directed toward the River Pond QAL, the same concepts can be applied to any quilt that you are making.You can purchase the River Pond pattern HERE. Are You Ready?! Today is cutting day! Wahoo! I’m excited to starting putting our quilts together and see how our plans come to life! I always get a bit of nerves at this stage. “Is this even going to look good?!?!?!” Ahhh! Do you get that too? Maybe it’s just me. But then I take a deep breathe and think of the finished quilt and how awesome it’ll be – no matter how it turns out, and I’m back to having fun and feeling all the excitement and am ready to sew. So here we go… Cutting Fabric If your plan is exactly like the pattern (as in fabric placement, though maybe with different fabrics): simply follow the cutting instructions in the pattern. If you are going scrappy: ignore the cutting instructions and follow the instructions under each block instruction. Though you will need to cut more pieces that are not in any of the block assembly. If you need help figuring which ones those are, send me a message and I’ll help you out. If you have small variations: check out this post from last week. I show you how I figured out where my changes were and how to
Word of the Year 2020
Do you pick a word for the year??? It’s kind of like a resolution, except instead of goals you pick a word. This is my 7th year of picking a word and I love it! I pick a word that is relevant for me at that time and something I want to improve on incorporate into my life during the year. A word is easy to keep in the back of my mind and helps influence the decisions I make and the direction I’m going. In past years I’ve picked beautify (as in finding the beauty in things as they are and where they are, no expectations, no required standards to qualify. Simply beautifying in that I find the beauty in all things grounded. grounding myself in life and in what matters. own it! – no more excuses. just own it. acceptance. owning it, whatever it is, is so empowering to do something about it and make a change if it’s something I want changed, or to truly enjoy it if it’s something good. Uplift I can’t remember what any of the other ones were… lol. My word for 2020 is… Β Consistency is something I’ve struggled with for, well, forever. I’m really good at hyper focusing and spending a big block of time doing something until it’s done and then moving onto the next thing. I am not good at doing something a little bit, consistently every day, for a long time, and eventually reaching the end goal. Like
River Pond QAL: Deviating From the Pattern – Adjusting Fabric Requirements
This post is part of the River Pond Quilt Along. You can find more info and the schedule HERE. While this content is directed toward the River Pond QAL, the same concepts can be applied to any quilt that you are making. You can purchase the River Pond pattern HERE. Do you have a plan??? So far in the quilt along we have: Figured out what your style is (by creating a collection of quilts you love – either on Pinterest or Instagram) and Dove deep into what it is about those quilts that you like – figuring out which elements actually draw you into the quilt, so you know what elements to incorporate into your quilt. Then we talked about color and design and Got out our colored pencils (or tool of choice) to come up with a number of different designs And finally, we decided (or are currently deciding) what we are going to make. I am LOVING the coloring pages and fabric pulls that everyone is sharing in the Facebook group! Ya’ll are going to make some beautiful quilts! Hope over and check them out. And if you’re on Instagram, be sure to tag your photos with #fbpRiverPond so we can find them and give you all the love! Today… I want to walk you through how to figure out how to cut your fabricΒ if you are deviating from the pattern in regards to fabric placement. For my quilt, I am replacing the centers of Blocks
River Pond QAL: Pick Your Fabrics
This post is part of the River Pond Quilt Along. You can find more info and the schedule HERE. While this content is directed toward the River Pond QAL, the same concepts can be applied to any quilt that you are making.You can purchase the River Pond pattern HERE. Homework Check-in How did coloring go? Were you able to come up with some designs that you like? The more you colored, were you surprised by the different variations you found? How did you feel about the process? I’d love to hear your thoughts about the process! Leave your thoughts in the comments below and let me know. Picking Fabrics Now that you’ve decided on a color scheme and have figured out the color placement, let’s take our coloring page to our fabric stash and pick some fabrics. Quick Story Time… When I first started using the coloring pages it was SCARY! It’s so hard to convert colored pencil to fabric. I remember it taking me a long time, and having lots of “I don’t think this is going to look good” moments during the entire quilting process. If you have those moments – DON’T STRESS! It’s normal! My husband asked me the other day as I was coloring a quilt idea, “how do you know if that will look good in fabric?” I thought about it for a moment and replied, “because I’ve done this so many times, I just know.” It’s like when you can speak two languages –
River Pond QAL: Plan & Color, Part 2
This post is part of the River Pond Quilt Along. You can find more info and the schedule HERE. Read Plan & Color Part 1 HERE. While this content is directed toward the River Pond QAL, the same concepts can be applied to any quilt that you are making.You can purchase the River Pond pattern HERE Overview To sum up, the purpose of Plan & Color Part 1 was to help you to start noticing different elements of design in a quilt and to begin to see how they play together to make different styles/designs. Why is this important?? Because the more you practice this, the better you’ll be at mixing the different elements when you are planning every quilt you make starting now, to create quilts that you LOVE! Today we are going to put that into practice! Are you ready?! Want to learn more? If you would like to learn a little more about design elements and color, check out these two posts from my Celestial Star QAL that I hosted in 2014: Color & Design: https://fromblankpages.com/tutorial-color-design/ Fabric & Color: https://fromblankpages.com/tutorial-color-fabric/ Let’s Play! You MIGHT already have your quilt planned out, and your fabrics picked, but even if you do, play along with us anyway, K?! I don’t really have anything else to say except that now it’s time to implement some of the things you’ve picked out from studying your inspirational quilts. I’m not going to repeat myself and talk more about color and color in regards
River Pond QAL: Plan & Color, Part 1
This post is part of the River Pond Quilt Along. You can find more info and the schedule HERE. While this content is directed toward the River Pond QAL, the same concepts can be applied to any quilt that you are making.You can purchase the River Pond pattern HERE. Homework Check-in Yep, that’s right. I’m following up on your homework assignment. I’m not one of those teachers who gives an assignment only to have it forever be forgotten. I don’t believe in busy work, so if I invite you to do something, it’s for a good reason. π So let’s check-in! Did you do it? (Did you miss it? You can find the assignment at the end of THIS POST.) What did you come up with? Did you learn anything new about your likes? Did you simply throw a bunch of quilts into a board and call it good? If so, that’s fine. But I’m going to ask you to dig a little deeper. Thinking about your River Pond quilt, find a quilt, or even just an inspirational photo – it doesn’t have to be of a quilt, that is a good representation of what you envision for your River Pond quilt – the colors, the overall feel, etc . Then be specific about what colors are in the photo, pull 2 or 3 bold main colors, a few more supportive colors, and a neutral (this doesn’t have to be white, grey or black. It could be yellow or pink!