Does this situation look familiar? "Oh points wherefore art thou?!" Cutting the points off your quilt blocks is one of the most frustrating experiences, even for seasoned quilters. I thought I would reverse-engineer this problem so you could see how to avoid it. All blocks with points involve at least three seams. I labeled the seams in order of assembly here. When the points get cut off, it is easy to assume that seam 3 is the culprit… but that is seldom the case! It all sta

Spring is in the air! And that usually means I get the itch to change my decor (typically flower-related), but not this time :) Have you seen the big bow trend lately? I've seen this cute idea popping up here and there and thought it would be fun to give it a try! For the pillow, I sewed enough scrap strips of varying widths together until it was at least 17” square (enough to cover a 16” square pillow when complete). You know me and my commitment to using up every last bit o

Have you ever experimented with your ¼” foot? Or, maybe you have more than one, and they each give you a different seam allowance. This week, I thought I would show the remarkable difference produced by sewing machine feet and what to do about it. I started with a couple of these crumb packs of 2½” squares. I assigned a different foot to be used when piecing each stack and set out to see what would happen. Here you have one seam sewn with both feet: one stitched with the “nar

Your background will make or break a quilt. Boy, did I learn that lesson this week! I was teaching a class recently, and while discussing her flower color choices, I asked one of the students what her background was. She paused briefly, then replied, "Nursing". We both howled with laughter as she realized I was asking for her background fabric color! Haha! I guess I should have been more specific as to what background I was asking about. This week, I was tinkering with a new