I was feeling uneasy and stifled on January first when I sat down to sketch a new quilt. Art is a safe and peaceful way to free yourself; so, I could have sketched something wildly expressive. What actually came out on my paper was the very picture of inhibition - pretty, symmetrical, contained.
Read MoreYou know what I love? A sweet patchwork assignment to kick off a new year of charity sewing. Since 2010 I have been organizing an international quilting charity bee called do. Good Stitches. The idea is simple: use your creative patchwork energy to bless others.
Read MoreThe finished block is just half a sun. You might be tempted to make more and a whole sun too, which you can. That’s the thing about a sampler quilt such as Positivities: all of the block directions are there for you should you want to make a whole quilt full!
Read MoreWhat fun, what fun, to start the year off with a happy, patchwork pattern club! The January edition went out to club members yesterday. Yay! A few friends have test sewn Positivities blocks and helped me spread the news about the club. Check out what they came up with!
Read MoreWelcome to a fresh new year and to a fresh new Stitched in Color pattern club! It is such an honor that so many of you are sewing along. Exciting! After you registered for the club, you downloaded the Positivities Prelude document and probably started dreaming up ideas for your quilt. But are still feeling hesitant about how to approach this project?
Read MoreStitch by stitch, color on color, shape by shape by shape, a patchwork quilt comes into being slowly. This one, entirely sewn by hand, offered seemingly endless quiet moments for contemplation and rest. But four and a half years later, an end did come. A period was set. Now it is finished, my version of the famous Ice Cream Soda quilt in blues, aqua, teal and purple, cream and black and gray.
Read MoreIt’s time, friends! Welcome to the kick-off of our Positivities BOM! You can register today and immediately receive the Positivities Prelude - a welcome pack with introductory info and resources for planning your color and fabric choices. Yippee!
Read MoreHello and Happy New Year! I am away for a few days, welcoming the new year in a small Belgian city. Of course, I brought along a quilt (or two) to photograph, and today I am excited to share the first with you. Crossroads was a relaxing sew and at the same time a visually stimulating project. My favorite feature to the finished quilt are the smattering of white crosses.
Read MoreThe shape of our life is never set in stone. The things that you take for granted, good and bad, can evaporate like a mist. What I surely have observed in my years on this earth is that life can always, always surprise you. That doesn’t feel like a threat to me, rather more of a curiosity and a promise. Like a book that you want to keep reading, or better, like a story that you are making up as you go.
Read MoreAre you itching to start your Positivities quilt? If you’re like me, the color ideas are swirling around in your head in an exciting, if distracting cloud. Well, friends, get out those colored pencils and let’s pin those ideas to paper.
Read MoreWhat will you sew in 2024? A fresh new year is almost upon us, and with it comes a sense of renewal and so many possibilities. My wish for you? Let 2024 be a year in which you create joyfully with your hands, whatever form that takes for you.
Read MoreFloris says that my latest quilt top has a retro vibe, but I think of it as pure Anna Maria Horner. It’s about abundance - all the colors, all the patterns, all the energy and life. What could be better on a drizzly December day?
Read MoreThere’s good reason that this format is so popular with quilters and with designers like myself. My upcoming Positivities project is a BOM program. Let’s pull back the curtain and unpack this Block of the Month concept.
Read MoreThis is where it begins. I can hole away for hours putting pencil to paper in my graph paper quilt journal. Some parts come easily and others are erased and re-drawn over and over and yet over again. Today you’ll see what I have created! My fingers and toes are crossed that you like it!!
Read MoreYou might wonder why there is a sort of cut-out missing at the upper left corner of the block? That’s so because Expansion nestles beside another Positivities patchwork group, creating an overlap effect. That’s the style of my modern samplers - scattered and overlapping design elements, this time floating on a consistent background fabric.
Read MoreSubscriptions to Make Modern make a fantastic, no waste eco-friendly gift! It’s a beautiful magazine written by quilters for quilters and delivered digitally to creatives across the world. Patterns, interviews + ideas for the modern quilter. Aaaand, right now there’s a special Christmas offer perfect for gift-giving!
Read MoreFour years of Ice Cream Soda. Really, four and a half (but who’s counting)? A look back at all the places this quilt has taken me from South Carolina, to the train and plane to The Netherlands, all over Europe and now to Floris. Each time I joined another row together, he would marvel. I would have relished seeing the blocks come together anyway, but there’s nothing like love to give your needle wings.
Read MoreThese Crossroads blocks are brightening up my space! It’s such a smorgasbord of color and pattern, courtesy of the amazing Anna Maria Horner. I’m using mainly her new Our Fair Home collection, but also string scraps from collections past.
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