Looking for some inspiration? Here are a couple of fabulous videos from Patsy Thompson. You’ll learn some great techniques specifically how to:

• burn fabric edges
• add colour highlights with Prismacolor pencils
• free motion machine embroidery

I am the very lucky owner of Patsy’s free motion DVDs. I highly recommend them as they’ve been a tremendous help to me in my own free motion quilting journey. They are filled with design ideas, how-tos, and fabulous information. Just being able to watch how to stitch, where to put my hands, how to control the fabric has been of great value.

Back in August, I told you about Canada’s new quilting magazine: Quilter’s Connection Magazine and that I had written my first-ever article for publication in it.

The magazine arrived a couple of weeks ago and I have to say, it’s fabulous. The paper quality is the best of any magazine I’ve seen, the layout is superb, great images, plenty of white space to read comfortably, gorgeous colour on every page.

Heather, the editor, asked me for feedback, and I couldn’t think of one thing negative to say or offer any suggestions for improvements. Anyone who knows me well enough will know how rare that is. haha!

There are three gorgeous patterns, one featured on the cover Partridge in a Pear Tree, a gorgeous, very detailed stitchery, Tree Trimming Party, and a beautiful table runner, Art Deco Delight. All the pattern pieces are included in the magazine, you just need to enlarge them as indicated to use full size.

You’ll also find feature write-ups for Caring Hearts and Many Hands, Quilts of Valour, Confessions of an Incurable Quilter by Pippa Moore, Trisha Sherman’s A Shop Near You, CQA/AAC Corner, listing of quilt shows across Canada, reviews, show & tell, recipes and more. Everything a quilter would want in a magazine.

I highly recommend it. I’ll be purchasing my subscription this weekend. Visit their web site for more information, a list of Canadian shops carrying the magazine and an up-to-date list of events across Canada: Quilter’s Connection Magazine.

My Article

It was very exciting for me to see my first-ever article published. In it I discuss blogging, Facebook, Twitter and other ways quilters are connecting with one another. You’ll find a list of some Canadian blog designers, blogging software recommendations and some tips on successful blogging as well as tips for using both Facebook and Twitter.

I hope you’ll enjoy it. It’s a small PDF file and shouldn’t take too long to open.

• The Virtual Quilting Bee: How quilters connect online

I’d love to hear your feedback on both the magazine, if you’ve seen it, and on my article.

Is Social Media a Fad? You Decide…

I found this video recently entitled the Social Media Revolution. It contains some incredible statistics. Blew my mind, and I work on this crazy thing called the Internet every single day.

Running the Quilting Gallery site, it’s no surprise that dozens of quilting-related blogs come across my screen each day. I can’t remember another blog that captured my attention so thoroughly like Leah Day’s 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting Filler Designs.

I’ve been watching the progress daily on this blog for a few weeks, and I must say, I’m totally impressed. Doing 365 days of anything, is a huge accomplishment. Coming up with 365 different designs, stitching them and capturing them on video is mind boggling.

Day 47 features Cubing, pictured and the video is featured below.

Each daily post includes:

• photo of the completed design
• stitching video
• inspiration for the design
• filler design type – stacking
• difficulty level
• directional texture
• suggestions for use
• photo of the back

Blogs are notorious for being difficult to quickly and easily find what you are looking for. Leah’s solved this by creating design pages that show 20 designs at a time, and you can click the corresponding link to view the blog post related to that design. Fabulous idea!

You can also search by difficulty level: beginner, intermediate, beginner/intermediate and advanced designs. Just click a link on the side of the blog for the level you are interested in. You can sign up to receive a weekly summary email too.

Leah will also be releasing digital books and DVDs. There’s more information in this blog post. I’ll have to see about featuring Leah in an upcoming Friday Give-Away.

My goal is to try the beginner designs to start and hopefully progress to beginner/intermediate in time. I’ve been working on some scrappy blocks for a queen size bed quilt (for me!!). It’ll have 99 – 9″ finished blocks. The perfect size to sample stitch. I’ll stitch it on my domestic machine in pieces so that it’s manageable. I doubt I’ll get to any of the quilting until the new year, but it’s nice to have an idea in mind.

Leah also sells quilting supplies on her site, Day Style Designs Online. Lots of free articles and videos there too.

Thanks Leah for creating this fabulous resource. I can’t wait to see all 365 of the designs. They are a huge inspiration. Thanks too for the permission to use your photo and video in this blog post.

Nadine’s put together this great video tutorial on how to edge stitch the Inchies for the Inchie Ornaments Christmas Swap.

Join the Inchie fun!

Serena Smith from Embroidery Treasures has put together two fabulous videos on how to cover a pizza box with fabric. She makes it look so easy. The addition of a little piece of ribbon to make the boxes easier to open is brilliant.

I’m going to head over to the local pizza place and see if I can’t convince them to part with a few boxes. These will really help in the cleaning up of the mess in my sewing area.

I have several projects on the go that will benefit from being kept flat instead of in a bag where they end up all wrinkled. :( I’m also going to use one (or two) for strips cut from leftover projects.

Serena has several other great videos she’s posted on YouTube. I especially like her roman shade idea for protecting your fabric stored on book shelves.

If you look around 40 seconds in, you’ll see me and Phyllis Dobbs, followed by a short wave by from Judy Laquidara.

Video taken by Alex Veronelli of Aurifil.

(Click into the blog post to see the video, they don’t show up on the home page of this site.)