Quilting Butterfly Wings and a Great Deal on My Class

Bet that title got your attention! When life hands you many quilting samples and halloween is coming, you make butterfly wings out of them. Or at least you do when your daughter wants to be a butterfly fairy princess!

I'll try to get some pics of the winged princess later. I could have saved myself a bunch of time with those cheap discount store wings, but they're made for younger girls and are usually broken in a few days.

As a Christian, I've always been conflicted about halloween and this was the first year we decided to let them dress up and take them to a "Trunk or Treat". For those who don't know what that is, it's like trick or treating but in a parking lot using car trunks instead of houses. It's become more popular in rural areas where houses are far apart, and it's also seen as more of a community event and safer. Ours was at our new church and keeps the costumes in the realm of 'cute' instead of gory or oversexualized.

The kids and I had fun making some simple costumes. I'll have to get some better ones of the wings. She didn't want to stop twirling long enough for a photo. Made the skirt too. It's a hi-low number and it looks to have rotated to the side with the twirling!

I also wanted to let you know Craftsy's got a great sale going on this weekend! Fall is such a great time to snuggle up on the couch and do some handwork, work with yarn, draw, embroider, or learn new skills at Craftsy. Stay in your PJ's and learn a new skill or expand your current skills. All classes are up to 50% off when you use my discount link: sorry, the link has expired.

Now I've got to see if I can get the sparkles off of my sewing table!

Quilting with Rulers: Video of Double S Ruler

I am so happy to finally post this video! It's been sitting on Youtube, unpublished for several weeks because I had sold out of the ruler I show here and it was out of stock with my distributor. I think it's one of my best videos so far, shot in almost one take!

I love the elegant look that this double S curve ruler gives to a triangular space. It's a little fiddly to work with so I share some tips for getting better results. It is a full 1/4 inch thick ruler, so you have to be careful to avoid using it behind the foot of some low-shank machines.

I used it in the four corners of my ruler work sampler quilt, which I've shown a few peeks here and there, but I'll show all four corners in my next post. Each corner is done slightly differently, but because they're each done with the same 'frame' and then feathered the same way, the difference is fairly subtle.

The ruler is now available at the shop again, Ronda's Double S Ruler. It makes such beautiful curved crosshatching in triangles.

Quilty Ramblings

Last night I was happy to teach beginner free motion quilting to a little group of ladies. We did a lot of laughing, stitching, and more laughing. Since the danger of taking a class from a blogger is taking pictures, these two gals were nice enough to let me take a few snaps with my phone.

The shop where I work part time is very small and while I could make arrangements for a larger class elsewhere, these intimate classes fit my schedule and I'm able to give one one one attention. One gal hadn't ever used a free motion foot on her Pfaff and since I'm not familiar at all with Pfaffs, we had to figure it out together. With a bigger class I wouldn't have been able to take the time away from the group.

Another quilter was able to use one of the shop's machines as she didn't want to bring her machine from home. Since she's thinking of getting a new machine, what better way to show her the Janome 8900?

As part of my beginner free motion quilting classes, we draw the designs we're working on. I provide a laminated reference sheet for each student with tips and guidelines for FMQ and we draw on the back with a dry erase marker. Yes, I think drawing designs first is that important!

I've gotten a little bit more done on my sampler quilt too. I was going to work on it more today, but hubby was rained out at work and we took the opportunity to enjoy the time together without kids. I think the last time he and I had a meal out together without them was Valentine's Day.

It's a rainy but colorful day here in Virginia with all the leaves showing their fall glory. Above is my view as I look for the school bus from my porch. The hot pink geraniums are still doing their thing on my porch and the Japanese cherry is turning a lovely yellow-orange. You can see a neighbor's dogwood in the distance.

Wherever you are, I hope you are safe, dry, warm, well-fed, loved, and able to do something creative. We are all well blessed if so.

Quilting with Rulers: Filling Between the Lines

Yesterday I showed you my diamond filled star. Today I took a little time to add some fills to my diamonds and I really like the result. At least after I did a couple.

The center fill is a cross between the design 'ribbon candy' and figure eights. I bet there's a better name for this, but I don't know it. Anybody have an idea? I see this a lot in custom long arm work.

Then I skipped a set of lines and stitched pebbles in graduated sizes to either side. The first set (above) was entirely unmarked freehand. It wasn't too wonky, but the spacing was not good. I whipped out my trusty air-eraseable purple pen and marked the center pebble, then six to either side. That came out a heck of a lot better.

I am having so much fun with this ruler sampler as it really challenges me to do something new with each space and block.

Tomorrow I'll be teaching another beginner free motion quilting class locally and I'll be taking this in to show one of the gals who is a new friend and reads the blog.

In other news, Leah Day has taken up quilting with rulers on her new Juki sit-down long arm and given my class on Craftsy a shout out  (25% off link to Quilting with Rulers on a Home Machine right here). That's pretty cool!

I've got a shop update for you. If you've been putting off buying a ruler foot because it seemed kind of spendy, we are now offering the Westalee Ruler Foot Starter Set without the feather template which allows us to drop the price by $20! I know so many of you already have made a ruler foot purchase, but if you haven't, or if your friends are now interested in how you do these cool designs with rulers, you know where to go to get your supplies.

Thank you for all your support and wonderful comments!