Sawtooth Sampler from Walk, Jog, Run: A Free Motion Quilting Workout

A few years back I met the bundle of positive energy Dara Tomasson. I think it was at a trunk show I was doing but don’t quote me on that! As we got to know each other we discovered that she had family living only blocks away, her husband and I likely crossed paths as teens, and we had a mutual love of dogs and ice cream. Now she has her first book debuting in the world! When she asked if I could help her showcase it I did not hesitate.

Walk, Jog, Run is a free motion quilt (FMQ) book designed to help you build muscle memory, and thus, expertise. It isn’t just a book full of doodles for FMQ though. Dara walks us through set up, the right tools, and trouble shooting before she even gets to quilting patterns. As a former school teacher and current coach she is adept at breaking everything down to feel both manageable and informative. One of my favourite bits is the discussion on tension troublesheeting - something that I still have to look up after 21 years of quilting.

One of the other parts of the book that makes it unique is the drawing exercises and ‘training’ she suggests to build your skills. Like the title suggests, you can’t run a marathon until you know how to walk first. You can’t FMQ the king size beauty until you can draw the lines you want to make.

Now I am pretty comfortable with my FMQ skills. But I admit that I get lazy. I want to minimize stops and starts so I choose all over designs. Or I want to finish quickly so I choose something easy. But after reading the book and making this Sawtooth sampler I am motivated to try a few new to me things. That’s because they aren’t any more difficult, it was just my perception of the difficulty.

I’ve never done the ribbon candy before, but I love the look. It is definitely something that requires the muscle memory, so I did it all over the background on this piece. And one of my new favourites is the double meander on the top there. These are only 15” stars so quilting on a piece this size was a perfect way to practice. The sandwich was easy to manipulate yet I had ample space to experiment

To quilt I used two colours of Auriful 50W - a fuschia for all the stars and a pale yellow on the backgrounds. Of course, if you really want your stitching to pop then use a contrasting thread. You can see that in effect when I used the fuschia on the blue star.

Confession: I made a mistake when I was cutting the fabric for one of the stars, but I didn’t notice it until I was sewing. Of course, I didn’t have enough fabric left. So with a quick pivot I decided to turn this into a pillow cover. With pandemic shut down though I had to go with a size of pillow form already in the house. That just meant I could do a literal pivot too. I rotated things as I trimmed the quilted pillow top, cutting off points and the oddly shaped star mess. A fun solution! Since it had to be just a few inches bigger than my largest ruler I made the pillow back first and trimmed based off that. Nothing fancy there, just an unquilted envelope back of some fabric in the stash.

Congratulations Dara on your book! It’s a great one and I hope the rest of you will check it out. Especially if FMQ is new or intimidating to you. This book is a great trainer and Dara is a wonderful coach.

As you can see, about 20 minutes after I finished the pillow was put to good use as my littles listened to a teacher reading stories.

Morning Make - March 2020

On February 29 I woke up with the flu. Just the regular flu, thankfully, but I still spent the next few weeks sicker than I can remember being in my adult life. And I thought shingles was bad this past fall! Anyway, when it came time to start March Morning Make I absolutely needed something easy, something mindless, something that was creative without being terribly challenging. In my fever addled state I remembered my Creative Bug membership and the multiple daily challenge classes.

With my kiddo’s IKEA paint set at my side I started Lisa Solomon’s Color Meditation class. I had no idea how perfect of a choice this was. More on that.

Note: I am spelling Color the American way here so people can find the class.

Once I was able to be vertical I went out and bought more watercolours, fancy ones from the art store. A week later I bought another set. That was when the kids came home. They joined me in the mornings then. We painted together, a calm start to these crazy days.

I knew zero about watercolour before starting this class. I can’t claim to know much more now - this isn’t a class on technique - but I have a comfortableness and willingness to play with the paint now. Any previous watercolour experience on my part was sitting beside the kids while they made shapes and landscapes and such.

Even when sick I found this painting to be pure escape. Then when our world got turned inside I found it to be a perfect balm. Lisa calls them Color Meditations and it is apt. I got lost in the process, much like I do when I am sewing. The end result didn’t matter, it was about the physical act of paint on paper. It was about playing without colour and water and shape. It was about the breath when we did it.

Sometimes the daily painting was only 15-20 minutes. Sometimes I sat there over an hour. Many, many times one or more of us would come to the table throughout the day with a cup of water and play.

You don’t have to start a daily practice like this on the 1st of the month. Try it tomorrow morning, I promise you won’t regret it.

Any daily creative practice is so important right now. People are baking bread, learning how to knit, picking up the guitar. Why? Because we need both the physical action of making/doing and the mental break from the rest of the world. When we do this our brain and body release from what is going on and allows us to be fully present. This is what meditation does for us and there is no one who can argue that meditation is bad. If sitting on a pillow and taking deep breaths while on a big journey isn’t your thing, then a creative challenge may suit you. Whatever that may be.

For April I am back to sewing. It’s been a few months since I did that for Morning Make. Each day I am making a 12.5” square X Plus blocks.

Modern Mills and Stars from Perfectly Pretty Patchwork

Back when we could hang out with other people I had a lovely breakfast with Kristyne Czepuryk. We are lucky enough to live in the same city and get to hang out when our schedules allow. She shared a copy of her latest book with me. It is pretty and perfect and so bang on for her style, I love it. And right now, a lovely distraction from the real world. She asked me to make something from the book and share it as part of her book tour.

I chose the Mills and Stars pattern, one that has always appealed to me yet I’ve never made a single block. Because it is me, I changed up the colours quite a bit from Kristyne’s typical pastel palette. It works with the patterns in the book because they are classic, traditional patterns that be played with.

Mills and Stars can also be known by Hummingbird as well as Periwinkle. In fact, I remember Kristyne telling me the story of the block at that breakfast but it has slipped away from my brain.

I won’t lie, this quilt was a lot of work, especially for me. I am decidedly not a template person. Yet there I was cutting out hundreds of pieces for 73 blocks, each with 12 pieces of fabric in them. (I watched/listened to Fleabag, Dr. Thorne, and Austenland while I worked on it. Whatever it takes!) In the end, however, it was welcome work. A respite from the world to just get lost in someone else’s decision making. Once all the cutting is done it just becomes assembly line production. I always forget how fast the sewing goes when you’ve cut everything in advance. I did eventually finish.

The final quilt is a slight adaptation from the original pattern. I made it one row of stars all the way around smaller. My intention is to gift this as a baby quilt so I didn’t need it to be 60” square. I also used a single piece of the background around the center section, rather than what the pattern called for. Just to show off that cool Carolyn Friedlander fabric.

So often we think things aren’t ‘for us’. I won’t lie, the book is delightful and pretty, but it isn’t something I am instinctively drawn to. More often than not, however, it is about seeing shapes or projects beyond the fabric. Kind of like viewing a house you want to buy and ignoring the colour on the walls. I’m not a basic beige person in my house, but someone else may love it. I’d rather have lime green and that can turn off a whole new crowd of people. I think we all need to look at shapes and patterns more than fabric and colour when we see a book or a new quilt. That’s why I was drawn to this pattern myself. It was the mix of block sizes and the graphic nature of the block itself that grabbed me. I just had to add my own spin on it.

The books is full of classic designs and some really cool projects. For each block design there is a quilt pattern as well as a small project. And who is to say you can’t mix and match one block with another project? The instructions are attentive to detail, templates are included in a tear out sheet, and the photography is well, pretty. Kristyne has made a lovely book.

5 Minute Improv - Exclamation Point from Quilters' Playcation

Take a Quilters' Playcation. No demands, no requirements, just sewing. Improv quilting at its most fun! part of a series of 5 minute improv - make one block ...

Well, what can I say? These are strange, surreal times. Has anyone really processed it all yet? Can we even?

At least we can make! I’m sure we’ve all seen a meme or a joke about how quilters have always been prepared for self isolation and staying home. Of course, for those of us with kids at home or having to figure out work in all of this that presents a challenge for sure. Thinking about all the words we want to say, all the emotions we are feeling, and knowing that making helps our mental health SO MUCH I designed a simple improv block. And I filmed a tutorial to share.

Exclamation Point is the first in a series of videos I am calling 5 Minute Improv. Grab some scraps and you can make a block in 5 minutes. Sneak in the sewing when you can or make a mountain of blocks to help you process all the feelings. They are part of a bigger venture called Quilters’ Playcation. More on that soon! For now, enjoy your making. At least we still have that.