I am really pleased that I have been invited to become a "Guest Blogger". I have been interested in creating different types of art work ever since I was a child. I taught watercolour and oils here in Calgary for 20 years and then branched out into fabric painting.

I have also done a number of other ‘artsy’ things over the years – to name a few: stained glass, copper tooling, clay hand building, designing my own jewelry from copper, silver and brass – and many more crafts over the years. In 2000 I became interested in fabric painting and painted many full-sized or queen-sized quilts.

Continue reading »

Hi, my name is Holly Elam. I live in north west Alabama. I am a stay at home mom of three rambunctious boys. Who definitely keep me on my toes. A lot of people wonder where I find the time for making quilts. I wonder sometimes too. Thankfully the baby takes naps and my husband is wonderful about giving me time to sew.

When I was in the 8th grade I took a home economics class. That is where I got my first taste of sewing. We had to make a pillow in the shape of a stingray (our school mascot). In the 10th grade I made an American flag pillow for a history project. However the sewing bug didn’t bite me until I was in my late twenties.

My mother in-law Judy Elam is always sewing or making something. Whenever we would visit she would show me what she was working on. Her sewing range is very vast. She has won awards at several county fairs. She passed on to me an old green White Brand sewing machine. It is the kind in a cabinet that folds out from with in. It doesn’t have a foot peddle. You have to use your knee. The first thing I made was curtains for my oldest sons room.

Continue reading »

My name is Debbie MacLeod and I live in Island Lake, Alberta, Canada. My blog shares my quilting projects and my website showcases my quilting business. I am excited to be a guest blogger – thanks, Michele, for the opportunity!

I have been piecing quilts since 1990, have been machine quilting my own quilts since 2000, and quilting for others since 2001. My desire to machine quilt came out of not being able to hand-quilt (a skill I deeply admire), so I took a class and discovered that machine quilting was for me. I started quilting for others soon after on my Husqvarna Lily. That machine is a workhorse and has quilted close to 200 projects on it! Of course, the dynamics of quilting on a domestic sewing machine takes its toll on your back, neck and shoulders and I wanted to try a larger machine.

My chance came in 2002 when I started working at a local quilt store on their longarm, a Gamill with Statler Stitcher. I enjoyed the work but found that my creativity was just not being used with a computerized machine. I wanted to quilt my own patterns!! The answer came for me in 2005 when I purchased my HQ16. I could now be as creative as I wanted too!! I love my machine and have been quilting madly ever since.

At first, I only quilted freehand patterns – I just wanted to be free –LOL; however, it soon became apparent to me that if I was quilting for others I would need to offer pantographs – which I now do. For me, quilting is my creative expression and I often piece tops just to quilt them! Many, many times I am figuring out what I am going to quilt before I have chosen the fabrics for my next quilt!

Over the years many people have said to me, "How do you know what to quilt", "What made you chose that design – it looks great", so I thought I would write about choosing quilting designs – either for yourself as a machine quilter, or choosing designs with your longarm quilter.

Continue reading »

Hi! I am so grateful for the opportunity to share a few memories with you!

I grew up in a family full of talented women. My mother is a brilliant florist- she takes a simple flower and turns it into a memory. Flowers are an important part of our lives. They were sent to our mothers when we were born; they are with us, clutched tight in sweaty palms, on our wedding day; our husbands send them to us as a token of their love and appreciation. Colorful, beautiful flowers…

My aunt, my mother’s sister, teaches high school Home Economics. She is a brilliant seamstress. She used to sew teeny tiny Barbie Doll clothes for me. She would use fantastic fabrics and add the most intricate detail to those tiny outfits. It was my aunt that taught me how to sew. I would visit her for several weeks each summer and one summer, when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, she and I made a patchwork teddy bear. She sat at the machine with me, for hours and days, piecing little scraps of fabric together until they took the form of a bear that would be loved to literal shreds!

My Grandma Peggy gave her love of flowers to my mother and her love of sewing to my aunt. Grandma used to sew all of my dresses – fantastic frocks with ruffles and lace. She even sewed a sling for my little broken arm to match my Easter dress…

Continue reading »

Timing (or ‘life’) often plays in our decisions. When I received this guest post invitation (Thank You Michele!), I happened to be converting my storage system for my fabric stash & offering Stash-busting pattern ideas as my free Block of the Month on my site Victoriana Quilt Designs.

Collecting fabric for a stash and interest in how to store it are two things I know we have in common, so that made it a good topic for me to write about.

Converting my collection of fabric involves moving them into clear stackable plastic containers from many cardboard boxes.

Though I’ve always stored my fabrics by general colours (green, blue, etc.) and upcoming designs I’m collecting for, I also took this opportunity to sort the colours further into common like ‘families’ of fabrics (moss green, dark green, light greens, green-blue, etc.), which makes it even easier to find the fabrics I need.

Continue reading »

My journey, from quiltmaking to writing novels about quilters, started at the library. I’ve always been a voracious reader, so it was a natural place for me to learn about quilting.

Twenty-five years ago, I checked out a book on quilt making. There were few quilting books being printed back then, and only one or two in my library. The big innovation in this book was the idea of chain piecing, just pushing one set of blocks under the presser foot without cutting the thread. What a timesaver!

The instructions were for a rail fence quilt that was cut out by hand, using a pen to mark off rectangles and scissors to cut them out. My bloodstains can still be seen where I nicked myself as I worked. A twin size quilt took me three nights to cut out. Is it any wonder I didn’t quilt again for five years?

Continue reading »