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This is not quilting related, but it stems from a post I made on Instagram that I have had a few emails and comments about so I thought I would share the information here.  I promise that I am still sewing and I will have something new to show you next week :) When I was in elementary school, my class did a unit and we were asked to bring in our family tree.  My Mom and I spent hours and hours over several days writing in the names on a pedigree chart to bring in.  Even though the teacher was really only asking us to write up a family tree with our parents and grandparents, I have very fond memories of working on this project. My daughter is starting a similar unit at school and she wanted to see her family tree.  If you are interested in generating a fan chart like this for yourself or for one of your kids, here is some info on how to do it. I am a Mormon and family history is kind of a big deal to us, so I have benefited from work done by family members and my char...

For the past few weeks I have been looking forward to a Halloween in which I would walk into a store, buy the kids' costumes, and walk out with finished costumes in hand.  This plan did not involve a trip to Joann's, it did not involve time trying to sew sequins on my sewing machine, and it did not involve a battle to try to find a plain black t-shirt with no logos on writing on it (why is that so hard?). But then I realized that this is the one and only Halloween in which I can put anything I want on August and he can't take it off.  My husband has been requesting that we dress him as a garden gnome and that seemed like a fun option so I went for it (if you want to see an adorable girl gnome project, check out this one that my friend Morgan made for her daughter). And I promise, this costume was not difficult so I thought I would share the tutorials I used in case anyone else is interested in making their own. 1.   Felt Gnome Hat - I cut my cone 19" at the widest po...

For the past few weeks I have been working on a little EPP (English Paper Piecing Project) with Melody Miller's beautiful Picnic line.  The Fat Quarter Shop has a great kit that has everything you need to get started with EPPing, as well as a kit that also includes fabric for this project. I have very limited EPP experience and found the kit very useful.  This was also my first time glue basting my shapes and it was so quick and easy. To be honest I wanted to use all of the apple prints and I ended up spending entirely too much time trying to figure out an arrangement that used all of them.  But I will have to save the other apple color ways for another project, because this was the layout that I eventually decided on. While I don't think that any EPP projects are quick, this one was a nice length.  My skills are not awesome, but they are better than they were when I started. Since I spent all of that time hand sewing the pieces together it seemed wrong to do the q...

Today is my stop on the Wonderland blog hop.  If you haven't had a chance to see Katarina Roccella's new collection yet, it is whimsical and wonderful.  She is the sweetest and I have honestly loved each of her collections.   I picked a few of my favorite prints from the collection and made flowering snowball blocks.  This was my first time making this block and I am in love with the effect.  They were only mildly annoying to make and my points matched up nicely.   (if you are interested in making these blocks there is a tutorial for the 12" block here , my blocks are 9" and you can download the template here ) For the quilting I did an organic, somewhat wonky, diagonal crosshatch.  I was going for a whimsical Alice in Wonderland look and I also just really love how this type of quilting makes the quilt feel.   I know you are going to want to see more of these fabrics, so jump in on the blog hop. 1.  ERICA TOOLE  - October 5th 2.  ...

This seems to be a bit of a baby boom year among my friends.  I had 4 friends that had baby's within a few weeks of when August was born, and there are several more due before the end of the year.  I would love to make quilts for all of them, but I need times to do things like sleep and do the laundry so it isn't really possible ;) But I have a friend who is having a baby boy and who has a son in my son's kindergarten class, and I thought would really appreciate something handmade.  So last week I started to pull out some blue and teal and black and white and brown scraps and put them together.   I wanted to do a postage stamp quilt, but I wanted to add a little structure to the scrappiness so I arranged the darker squares in plus signs with low volume squares between them.  Initially I wasn't even going to share this quilt because it is pretty basic and while it makes my heart happy, it's not really anything new.  But I did want to share the fabric that I ...

There have been several posts over the last few years about appropriately valuing the things that you make.  Let me start out by saying that I think these are very valid posts and many people probably find them helpful and validating when they price their handmade items, but they have left me feeling a little uncomfortable and belittled when I don't think that I deserve to be belittled. And today when I was washing dishes in my kitchen, I realized the reason why these posts have made me a little uncomfortable. I never work for free. That doesn't mean that I make money off of all of my quilts or that I make a decent hourly wage when I do charge money.  It means that every time I make a quilt, something valuable happens as a result. Many of my quilts go to my friends and family.  And when I am able to give them a quilt I feel love and gratitude that I am able to have that person in my life and that I am able to give them a gift that helps them feel loved. Some of my quilts ...