How to Do a Partial Seam
Learning to make a partial seam is easy!
Partial seams strike fear in the hearts of quilters but it needn’t be. Let me help you understand the idea with a Valentine quilt I finished this week.
Thoughts on Purple and Some Big Magic
I’ve been working on a new quilt design to add to the Windy Wonders trunk show. That program is booked for Omaha Quilters’ Guild next week and I want to give them lots of eye candy. I thought a few more quilts would be nice, and since my sketchbook is overflowing, it wasn’t hard to do.
I grew up near a little town called Battle Creek here in Nebraska. Our colors were purple and gold so I spent many days in those colors.
My Quilt Dilemma
I’m making a quilt of my own design that will become part of two guild programs,* but it’s not going well. I’m undecided about what to do. I know what I should do but I’m unwilling to do it.
This is it. It’s actually prettier than it looks here even if it is giving me fits. The biggest problem is this:
Add Movement with Diagonal Lines
My lifetime adventures with Baby Windmills have led to quite a few quilt designs. Some of them have been sewn and some are still only on paper.
Christmas Dance by Diane Harris. Photo: Kristen Laing Photography.
The first designs were just sewing blocks together using a particular color recipe. Nice little scrap quilts like Christmas Dance, above, but pretty simplistic.
Christmas Figs Done Scrappy, Part 2
During the early fall and again after Thanksgiving, I’ve been piecing a scrappy version of Christmas Figs by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts, published by the Fat Quarter Shop.
Their quilt features the Christmas Figs fabric line by Fig Tree for Moda Fabrics. I had a fat quarter bundle of those fabrics that I’d purchased, and that’s what I used for the first few blocks. But I began to wonder if the blocks would be interesting enough with just those fabrics.
Christmas Figs Done Scrappy, Part 1
I’ve been working on a new holiday quilt called Christmas Figs. It’s been so much fun!
The folks at Fat Quarter Shop sent me a review copy of the Christmas Figs book, and I could not wait to dive in.
What’s a Tomte? Do You Know-m? Giveaway!
I’m not the least bit Scandinavian, so when cute little creatures called “tomten” started appearing in my Instagram feed last year, I had to Google.
It turns out they’re a little bit like gnomes. From Wikipedia:
A…tomte…is a mythological creature from Nordic folklore…typically associated with the winter solstice and the Christmas season.
Winter Sewing, Slow and Easy
Every year it seems like I have time to sew during November, December and January. Other people are busy shopping, cooking and decorating. But my life is the opposite, and that’s kind of a good thing.
Thanksgiving was quiet with just five guests (two bigs and three littles). The meal was easy and the company departed around 3:30. I sewed for four or five hours after that. We ate leftovers and quickie meals the rest of the weekend, so there were many more hours in the studio.
Holiday Designs by Stash Bandit, Part 2
My exceptional longarm quilter said to me recently, “I think everything you do is modern.” I’d commented that I didn’t think of myself as a “modern” quilter, and her response gave me pause. I’ve been (very happily) fielding inquiries from modern quilt guilds, and the truth is that some things I design and make lean toward the modern aesthetic, some are traditional, and some are hard to put into a category.
Oh, Christmas Wreath by Diane Harris; quilted by Julie Lechner @beenquiltin
Today I’m introducing Oh, Christmas Wreath! This design is decidedly modern: solid fabrics, negative space, clean and fresh. Oh, Christmas Wreath appears in the Nov/Dec issue of Quilty, on newsstands now. I hope you’ll grab it when you see it or order it online in paper or digital format.
Holiday Designs by Stash Bandit, Part 1
The Nov/Dec issue of Quilty magazine is on newsstands now, and I’m very excited to have two new quilt designs inside.
Ever since I started building the Jingle Bells Trunk Show to share with quilt guilds, I’ve been obsessed with making Christmas quilts. I’m constantly working on new ideas, and these two were a fit for Quilty. You may know that magazines work months in advance, so I actually pieced these in April and May for an early June deadline.