Tips for Better Quilt Borders

Hello! Today's post is all about borders. I hope you'll be able to get a few ideas to help with this part of the quilting process. I've got to admit that adding borders is not my favorite part of making quilts...but I've come to accept the time and care it takes, and it doesn't seem nearly as tedious a task as it once did.

While a lot of quilt patterns don't call for adding a separate border after the

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More Splendid Sampler Quilt Blocks

Hello and happy Monday! It seems like the new year was just beginning, and here we are on the last Monday of the month already! This month sure has been a busy one for my family--my husband's younger sister passed away recently, and while it was unexpected and difficult to wrap our minds around, we are feeling a lot of peace as she has battled serious physical and mental disabilities since being in a car accident when she was four; we know she is free from all of the struggles she had over the past 45 years. We received a lot of comfort from friends and family and are finally settling back down to our normal busy!

With my County Fair quilt off to the quilter, I figured it was time to get going on 

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Favorites | Fabric & Notions

Hello and happy Friday! Today's favorites post is all about some favorite fabrics...and some favorite notions!

Fat quarters of our Desert Bloom fabric always make me smile...it was fun to get

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Best Rulers for Quilters

Hello! I've been wanting to talk about rulers for a little while now...I'm frequently asked about my favorites...and I definitely have some favorites for every day use...and for specialty uses...so here we go!

I never used to understand the need for specialty tools...and then I became a 

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Gifts to Make for Friends

Hello and happy Wednesday!  Today is the 25th of the month, and that means it's time for a "Gifts to Make for Friends" post. I'll be posting gift ideas all year on this date each month. Hopefully you can use some of the ideas throughout the year for birthdays and other special occasion gifts...and if you make something each month to save for holiday gift-giving, you'll be that much more ready for the season!

I thought I'd concentrate on more non-seasonal gifts during the first part of the

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Quilted Pillows | Quilts and More

Hello! I'm excited to share a little about a couple of projects I made last fall for the Scrap Lab feature in Quilts and More magazine! Scrap Lab is a fun section in each issue detailing three different projects made by three different designers using the same fabrics. Designers are shown a photo of the fabrics and have to decide pretty quickly what to create...then each designer sets to work individually on the projects.

Used with permission from Quilts and More magazine. ©2017 Meredith Corporation. All rights reserved.

This was my first experience with Scrap Lab...I loved it and am really looking 

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County Fair Quilt

Hello and happy Monday! I'm happy to say I made quite a bit of progress on my Fig Tree County Fair quilt at the end of last week...in fact, I was able to finish all of the blocks, make the sashing and 9-patch posts, and set the middle section of the quilt together.

I am so glad I decided to keep working on this! It really is a fun pattern, and I

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Happy Flower Quilts

Happy Friday! Today I'm excited to talk a little bit about a couple of my favorite things...one is an amazing quilt book that you might have seen recently.  But the cover might look just a bit different because it's now available in an English translation!

 A few years ago I searched and searched until I found this lovely book. I knew

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Heart Quilt Blocks

Hello! The other day I mentioned I was thinking of making a heart themed quilt. So I took a little time to play around with a few different designs to see if any of them really caught my interest...

The first three blocks (pictured above) all finish at 6" x 6". I really love the

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Work in Progress Wednesday

Happy Wednesday! I'm really making an effort this year to get some of my unfinished projects finished up. Of course I have several projects that are meant to be long-term projects, but I also have several I thought I would have finished up a long time ago!

I'll be starting market sewing for our next fabric collection in February, so I'm 

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Valentine's Quilted Pillow

Hello! So...with the holidays behind us what are you sewing now? Do you do a lot of Valentine's Day sewing? I typically don't do a lot of sewing for Valentine's...but last year I started a pillow based on this Christmas pillow...and then didn't quite get it finished in time...so off it went into the WIP drawer.

So when heart quilts recently started showing up on blogs and in my Instagram 

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Patchwork Quilt Along

Hello! Today is the first day of the Fat Quarter Shop Patchwork Quilt Along! This quilt along is the Fat Quarter Shop's annual charity fundraiser and will benefit the Make a Wish foundation this year (Fat Quarter Shop and Moda fabrics will match up to $20,000 of donations raised). Patterns are available for free download and will be available each month on the fifteenth; in addition to the free patterns, you can watch the video tutorials for step by step instructions for piecing each block.

 The Fat Quarter Shop version of the quilt is pieced with the Bonnie & Camille

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Bella Skill Builder Quilt Along

Hello and happy Friday!  I hope your week has been a good one! We've been receiving some much needed moisture here in the desert southwest, and I've been enjoying the last little bit of my vacation from teaching by getting little things done here and there. I've also been finalizing eight new patterns for our next fabric collection (too much time on the computer)!  And...I'm happy to be able to tell you a little bit about the Bella Skill Builder quilt along today.

The Bella Skill Builder quilt is a project that is near and dear to my heart...I

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Flowers in a Row | Mini Quilt

Hello and happy Wednesday!  Today I'm excited to share my newest mini quilt, Flowers in a Row. Now this is something I've been wanting to make for quite a little while, so with the start of the new year it seemed like the perfect time to have some fun flowers to brighten up my sewing room!

I designed this to be a wall hanging, but as I was finishing up the binding I

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10 Tips for Sewing with Layer Cakes

Happy Tuesday! With all of my layer cake sewing over the weekend I started thinking about all of the wonderful things you can do with a Layer Cake!  So today's post is all about Layer Cakes!

 Layer Cakes are pre-cut squares that measure 10" x 10".  Moda Layer Cakes 

{This post appeared first on A Quilting Life.}

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Square in a Square Block Tutorial

Happy Monday! I hope your first full week of the new year was wonderful!  This weekend I had a chance to play around with a block design I've been wanting to work with for quite a bit: the square in a square!

Not only did I want to make square in a square blocks, but I also wanted see if 

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Best Books for Scrap Quilts

Happy Friday! As part of my regular "Friday Favorites" series I thought today I'd share some of my favorite quilting books. And then...I couldn't narrow it down to a manageable list. So...I decided to  focus on books that help one to use up scraps/stash since it seems so many of us are focusing on doing that this year!

Some of the books I've chosen are relatively new, while others are "oldies but 

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Splendid Sampler Blocks

Hello and happy Thursday! It's new block release day on the Splendid Sampler blog, and I have today's block and a catch-up block to share.  I'm getting pretty close to having the 50 blocks I need for my quilt, so it's been really fun here at the final stretch--a new quilt top will be coming soon!

First I made Vanessa Christenson's fun block. I really had fun with this one. By

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Quilting Life Block of the Month | January

Happy Wednesday! I'm releasing this month's free block of the month pattern a day early because...well, I just can't wait another day!

I hope you'll join in with me as we piece a fun sampler quilt this year; patterns will be released on or around the 5th of each month. I'll also be providing setting information for two different quilt settings a little later in the year.  The blocks will each finish at 12"...and 6"! Thanks to a comment from a reader the other day I've decided to provide the patterns in both sizes!

I decided to use something from my stash since I'm trying hard this year to 

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Bee Blocks

Hello and happy Tuesday! Today I'm sharing some Bee Blocks I caught up on over the weekend--with my fall being so hectic I fell behind and was determined to finish up the final quarter blocks by the end of the year.

In 2016 I participated in two different Bee groups; in 2017 I'm going to stick

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2017 Quilt Alongs

Hello and happy 2017! I'm so looking forward to 2017...how about you?!  I'm hopeful that I'll be able to finish a lot of works in progress this year as well as start (and finish) some fun things I've had on my list for awhile. Of course there will also be new fabrics with Moda and new patterns coming with those fabrics...I can't wait!

I thought I'd take today to let you know about three different quilt alongs I'll be

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