The fabulous ladies from the Fat Quarter Shop are organizing a silent auction to raise funds for charities helping the victims of the Haiti disaster.

They have 25 fabulous items that have been donated. Head over to the Jolly Jabber blog to see the items and place your bid. The auction ends Jan. 29th at noon (CST).

Here are a few photos of the gorgeous quilts available. You can click on each photo to go to the auction page.

Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler Quilt

Ice Cubes Baby Quilt

The Bunny Run Quilt

Dora S'mores Baby Quilt

My name is Darla and I am one of the new bloggers out there. I am a beginner quilter with a lot of quilting and blogging ambitions, and a unique perspective.

Rather than spending a lot of time talking about my blog Scientific Quilter, I wanted to share a (long) story of my experiences of the past year that lead me to be a quilting blogger.

I started quilting when I received a free sewing machine from work in February of 2009 and somehow in my head I had thought you had to have a sewing machine to be a quilter. I’ve wanted to be a quilter for several years, but kept putting off that idea because I kept putting off the idea of buying all the supplies.

A year earlier I had purchased a book on quilting – Your First Quilt Book by Carol Doak and it sat in my car for most of that year while the quilting idea kept bubbling up. Once I got the sewing machine, the book was opened and read cover to cover.

I used the book and some tutorials I found on the internet to get through the blocks of my first quilt, trying out different colors at the store. I also checked out several books from the library and started reading them cover to cover, starting to figure out what it was about the quilts that I liked. I found the local quilt store and started looking in wonder at all the beautiful designs. I created a second quilt made only of squares, but like many projects set it aside for a while and signed up for a machine quilting class at the quilt shop.

In April or May, I started thinking about using my iPod for more than music from my own CDs and I opened up iTunes, typed in the word quilting into the music store and here were all these quilting podcasts. I had a lot of questions about what I was seeing at first. What was a quilting podcast? How did I download it? Were they free?

I clicked on Alex Anderson’s Quilt Connection and hit the play button on the first episode. Someone was going to talk about their love of quilting for a period of time. Amazing. I was hooked immediately. I hit subscribe on the podcast and found the podcast section on my iTunes (on the left side) and started downloading episodes. And they were free! I loaded them onto my iPod the same way I did for my music and went out and cleaned my car listening to the podcast with headphones. While I was doing other things, I was learning about quilting!

Continue reading »

Please note: I copied this announcement from the International Quilt Festival’s Facebook fan page. I don’t know any additional information than what I’ve posted here. You can find the “official” info on their web site.

International Quilt Festival/Chicago plans to showcase Canadian quilts and their makers in a special exhibit, O Canada 2010. This exhibit will be one of the highlights of Festival, April 16-18, 2010, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. This exhibit is open to residents currently residing in Canada. You must reside in a Canadian province to be eligible for this exhibit.

We would like to invite you to participate in this exciting exhibit focusing on the Canadian quilter. You may submit a total of five quilts for our consideration. Quilts need not be made specifically for this exhibit. Traditional or art, all quilts made by residents of Canada will be considered. Please do not submit a quilt that was included in a previous edition of O Canada.

Click here for submission form.

Each quilt must have its own form completed and sent to us with visuals to be considered for the exhibit. You may complete the form online and return it to us by e-mail or regular mail. We will accept 35 mm slides or hi-resolution JPEG or TIFF digital images. PLEASE SEND YOUR DIGITAL IMAGES TO spexentries@quilts.com

Click here for visual instructions.

Completed submissions with visuals must be received in our office by January 20, 2010. You will be notified no later than Wednesday, February 12, 2010, regarding the quilts to be included in this exhibit, along with shipping instructions. If selected, the quilts will need to arrive in Houston no later than Friday, March 12, 2010, and will be returned to you no later than May 30, 2010, if they are not a part of the traveling exhibit. If you choose to permit your quilt to travel and it is accepted for exhibition, your quilt will be returned no later than November 30, 2010.

Again, I know nothing else about this and the information may change without my knowledge. Please visit the IQF site for more info.

Gudrun Erla of G.E. Designs has invited eleven very cool ladies to have some fun blog-hopping around the country starting today.

Each will post every day sharing favourite Christmas recipes, traditions and stories.

And each day, one of them will share a Christmas/Holiday project with you. Twelve days… twelve free projects. WOW!

There will be prizes!!!

Start your hopping here:

• Nov. 9th. Gudrun from GE Designs
• Nov. 10th. Sandy from Pieces from my Heart
• Nov. 11th. Terry from Atkinson Designs
• Nov. 12th. Pat from Pat Sloan & Co.
• Nov. 13th. Heather from Anka’s Treasures
• Nov. 14th. Pam from Pam Kitty Morning
• Nov. 15th. Kari from New Leaf Stitches
• Nov. 16th. Terri from Whimsicals
• Nov. 17th. Sherri from This ‘N’ That
• Nov. 18th. Carrie from Miss Rosie’s Quilt Co.
• Nov. 19th. Roseann from Rosebud’s Cottage
• Nov. 20th. Linda from Linda Lum DeBono

Fun, fun, fun … for everyone!!

For day 1, Gudrun has posted this adorable quilt-as-you-go Sweet Trimmings Christmas tree wall hanging. It’s super cute and very quick to complete as you quilt it at the same as you put the top together. I definitely need to make one of these for myself. Maybe add a few buttons to serve as ornaments too.

Julie Pieri from Quilted Pleasures writes a great monthly newsletter, The Sewing Gazette filled with news and information from the quilting and sewing world.

I’ll be a guest for the November issue. Sign up to receive the newsletter and read my interview.

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.