Hand Quilted with Love

Hand-Quilted-with-Love

I recently ordered a copy of Sarah Fielke’s new book, Hand Quilted with Love. Wow, I love these quilts. She has some simple quilts for beginners as well as more challenging quilts for experienced quilters. All of the quilts reflect Sarah’s unique color sensibility and of course, they are hand quilted beautifully. If that makes you tired to think about, you can make these patterns and machine quilt them! Here are some of her amazing quilts.

hand-quilted-with-love2

In the introduction, Sarah says:

Try new things, be adventurous, and crack your own quilting code. Don’t be hung up on whether something is right or wrong, or on whether you are a “modern quilter” or a “traditional quilter”, or even an “art quilter”: just be a QUILTER, be creative and love what you do. It’s what I do every day – and I can tell you, I’m a happy girl because of it.

I couldn’t agree more! The internet gives us so much inspiration, but sometimes I think we can get too caught up in what others are doing rather than being true to our own sense of style. All modern quilters borrow from the past to one degree or another and you don’t need to fit someone else’s definition of what a quilter should be.

hand-quilted-with-love1

Sarah has a very helpful free video over on Craftsy where she shows you some of her secrets for hand quilting. She also has a class over there called Big Techniques from Small Scraps, which looks like it is full of useful ideas. And for more inspiration, be sure to take a look at Sarah’s blog, The Last Piece.

Stamped Project Round-Up

stamped-fabric-projects

Here are a few lovely projects that I’ve seen made from my Stamped fabric.

Runaround Bag from Anna of Noodlehead. You can buy her pattern here.

Oliver + S jacket from Gail of Probably Actually, which she made for her swap partner. You should check out the link to see all the other projects this group made.

Some shorts from Miss Matatabi (and a beautiful top made from Nani Iro fabric).

And a 241 Tote made by Krista of Poppyprint (another pattern by Noodlehead). Stamped is paired with Melody Miller’s typewriters here.

stamped-fabric-round-up

Don’t sew? Above are a few items that you can buy made from my fabric:

Coin Pouch from Octopurse.

Ladybug Cushion from Hunkydory Home. She also has this fabric available as a lampshade, which I just love.

And Jenny Bartoy has some fabric buckets made from Stamped fabrics.

 

Tutorial: How to Make Perfectly White Eggs

Happy-April-Fool's-Day!

Ahem, updated note: This post was written on April 1st.

Although it’s a day after Easter, today I’ll show you how to achieve perfectly white eggs. Of course, your eggs may not look as good as mine, but you can still give it a try.

First, gather eggs from your chickens, boil and cool them (not the chickens, just the eggs). Then wrap one egg in aluminum foil. Use firm pressure as you wrap, sealing any cracks with duct tape, which can be painted in a later step.

egg-in-aluminum-foil

Next, fill a measuring cup with gin, toss in the foil-covered egg and let it soak for several hours.

egg-in-vodka

Finally, remove the egg from the gin, peel off the aluminum foil, and drain the measuring cup. The egg-infused gin makes a great martini, perfect for Monday mornings! To make the egg shine, polish it with a homemade chamois cloth moistened with rabbit saliva. If you’d like to achieve various shades of white, such as parchment, snow, or cotton, add dryer lint accordingly. Paint the egg white if needed.

Keep eggs away from pets and children.