Creative Homemaker

As a professional longarm quilter, in my opinion, it is my duty to make you look good.  I've discussed this with several longarmers.  They complain incessantly about how this client brought a quilt that has loose ends, threads, or a bit of animal fuzz.  I look at it this way; your bit of lint, or thread isn't any worse than my studio. We have a dog.  He's not a dirty dog by any means, but he does shed.  I use my lint roller constantly to remove fuzz from any quilt that get's quilted at Mary's Custom Quilting.  Loading your quilt on my Tin Lizzie is my job.  Getting the edges straight is my job.  Rolling the lint roller over your quilt to remove loose threads and lint is my job! And I'm darn good at it.  Most of my customers are extremely tidy, and seams are pressed the correct way.  One quilter even presses them all open so there is no bulk at the seams.  Her quilts are a joy to finish! But honestly, if pressin...

The first eight rows are finished for my brother's quilt. I'm still waiting for some stragglers to get here. I will be making an additional row to get them all in. Can't wait to start quilting it!

Many of my family members have asked for a tutorial for the quilt block for my brother's quilt.  He was recently diagnosed with leukemia.  I decided to make a quilt for signatures.  This is what I came up with. For this block you will need the following pieces: beige center: cut one 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" rectangle Orange outer "bricks" cut two 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" rectangles and two 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" rectangles. Lay them out as pictured below:  Using a scant 1/4" sew one rectangle to the beige center and press toward the colored piece, away from the center beige rectangle.  Then sew the next rectangle to the opposite side and press away from the center piece.  Take one of the longer rectangles and place it face up on your table and allign the center section face down on top of the strip so you can make sure the seams stay where you have pressed them and sew one side of the rectangle on.  Flip this piece out and press again toward the orange strip.  ...