Quilting with Rulers

I hosted and taught "Quilting with Rulers" here in my own shop last weekend. It was the first time I hosted my own class in my own shop and it was wonderful.

These four wonderful ladies traveled to my shop from Roanoke, Virginia which is a little over an hour away. As always, quilters are a great group of people to work with. There's always a lot of laughter.

First I talked about the need for a ruler foot when guiding your free motion quilting with rulers. Then we took a break and fitted the machines with ruler feet. Three machines were fitted with the Janome ruler foot combination and one took a Westalee foot.

Then we worked on using basic rulers for straight crosshatching, followed by working with curves. Then I supplied the rulers for an "open-bar" of sorts, giving the quilters a chance to try unique shapes, sizes and specialty rulers without obligation to purchase them.

I love the reach I have through my classes at Craftsy, but there's something extra special about being able to teach students in person, and I'd like to think that quilters enjoy classes in person as much as I do.

Speaking of my Craftsy classes, my students have been posting their own projects using ruler work and I've got to say it's pretty amazing. Below is a selection of several recent projects posted by students.

Photo courtesy of Craftsy and the student who posted it. 

First is a sampler of ruler work practice by Craftsy username DittsMon. I love that she made a practice piece and shared it. Not only did she do the first couple of designs, but also some variations. I feel like I've accomplished my goal when students take what they've learned, tweak it, and make it their own.

Photo courtesy of Craftsy and the student who posted it. 

Barb Lounsbury posted this beauty and the combination of ruler work designs and free hand fills sets this colorful quilt off fabulously. She used a double batting, with wool on top for greater texture with nearly a trapunto effect. It makes that quilting really pop.

Photo courtesy of Craftsy and the student who posted it. 

Craftsy username Schaeferhund posted this striking modern piece. Her quilting is gorgeous and I love how she's integrated ruler work throughout it as well as worked the curved lines and circles from the main part of the quilt into the centers of the borders.

I'm getting ready for our "new owner open house" event this weekend. Most of the 80's wallpaper has been covered by white batting, making for a big design wall. I painted the shelving unit white. It's so much brighter without the country blue.

If you're near the Lynchburg, Virginia area, I'd love to meet you. Maybe you'd like to sign up for a class? Should you like to see my class offerings, visit Sew Simple of Lynchburg's class page. Now, I better get back to work! The to-do list is very, very long.

Second biggest Craftsy Sale of the Year

There's a big Labor Day sale over at Craftsy this weekend. They've come out with some fabulous new classes recently, so take advantage of it.

Sometimes I have a hard time watching all the classes I've gotten. Did you know that you can download the classes if you're using an iPad, iPhone, or appleTV (whatever that is...)?  I've been watching some on my iPad mini while spending a little time in the doctor's office. (Nothing major...I think.) Downloading the classes lets me watch them even when the wifi is iffy or unavailable.

It's birthday season in the Johnson household with a kid's birthday each month and then we dive into Thanksgiving and Christmas. I might try to up my game this year by taking The Perfect Birthday Cake. It looks like it's my speed. I am so cake challenged! Unless it's cheesecake---I make a great one and it's my favorite!

My friend Sarah Snuggerud has a great class out on making T-shirt quilts. It just came out and is a hit. I've also got to mention Kim Brunner's class on quilting with templates as it's a great follow up to my classes on rulerwork.

All the links here are my special instructor affiliate links. They'll give you the sale prices and help support the work I do here. To get the sale price on any classes during the sale, click here.

Quilting with Rulers: Feather Template

I've had several requests from students in my Craftsy classes asking about using templates to make feathers. I kept meaning to do a post and a video on the subject and finally got it done.

It's hard to give a good unbiased review of using this template or others like it as I prefer to make my feathers free hand. I definitely think that a quilter should continue to work on learning to stitch feathers without a template, but the template could be a good tool to help make them in the meantime.

I only have one size of feather template though Westalee makes them in at least 4 sizes. Having multiple sizes could help give the needed range of sizes and shapes needed for quilting feathers with templates, though spendy. A single size can be manipulated to create some variation in the size and shape.

Using a straight spine can make it much easier to place the template evenly. I used a curved spine and that made it much more difficult to place the template and make the plumes meet the spine in an elegant way.

I think I'm on the fence about this template. As I stated in the video, if I couldn't make feathers free hand, I might love it. I do like the Feather Wreath template I sell from TopAnchor as it makes a perfectly spaced and shaped round feather wreath and has an anchoring system that I prefer over that of similar rotating templates from the maker of this feather template, but it's only suitable for high shank machines and long arms of all types.

I used the Janome foot with this template and based on some comments I've gotten recently on a few of my videos, some may give me flak for this. The Janome foot works just fine with these templates. I think there are some 'marketing' factors playing into some of those comments....to put it kindly without mentioning details. (To put it bluntly....don't come into "my house" to bash my efforts in order to promote your own classes, products, or those of someone else even if you're a very happy customer....use your own platform, blog, site.)

(In case it sounds odd that I put this little disclaimer above, I did get exactly the type of comment I was warning against, but they left it on a previous post.)

I don't have this template listed in my shop, though I do have maybe 2 of them in the 4.5mm thickness that I can sell as a custom order if somebody wants these and can order more. This is definitely a shape that those using low shank machines need to get in the 3mm thickness.

I hope this video helps those who have been wondering about this template. Let me know in the comments if you've tried it or want to try it. Got quilting friends that would like this? Feel free to share, pin, etc. giving credit where credit is due.

Keep on quilting.

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was a pretty big milestone for me. It was the one year anniversary of the release of my first Craftsy class; Quilting with Rulers on a Home Machine.

Image courtesy of Craftsy.com

My world has changed so much in this past year, that I can hardly believe it's only been a year. The week before the class came out, I was in San Antonio, Texas at Janome Institute. I was there as Mr. Heckman's representative, who had been the owner of Sew Simple until I bought it just this past June. I set myself a goal to be an actual Janome dealer before returning to the next Institute to be held in August of 2017. Goal achieved.

Shortly after the class came out, I opened my online shop to serve as a one-stop shop for all the different rulers I liked to use plus other tools I found helpful for my quilting. My goal was to provide the kind of expert knowledge of ruler work and customer service that would be nearly impossible for others to provide. Goal achieved.

Another goal was to create a follow-up class with Craftsy. Creative Quilting with Rulers; More Techniques and Motifs was released in April this year. Goal achieved.

So three big goals accomplished, but there's so much on my to-do list that it's hard to remember that I am doing pretty cool work. So I'm celebrating by writing these items down and sharing them with you.

You all have been very instrumental to my success. I just checked my first class and it has a staggering 12,209 students enrolled! That's an average of 33.4 people each day and that is absolutely amazing.

If you've enjoyed my class(es) and have other quilting friends who you think would enjoy them, don't forget to share this instructor affiliate link that will allow them to see the trailers for the classes but to also get them at half price anytime: Amy's classes.

One of the things I get asked in my class is questions about using feather templates to make feathers. I worked on a video for this yesterday and hope to have it edited and posted soon.

I know I haven't been posting as regularly and I do want to get back to it because not only do I love sharing here, but also not blogging is a good indicator that I haven't been doing much quilting.

So back to achieving goals: What goals have you achieved that you tend to forget in the hustle and bustle of everyday life? Feel free to share them here if you'd like.