Carli The Quilter

I am having such fun with setting my own personal goals to get on with finishing the numerous tops I have. I have decided that if I take a top out of the "Finishing Drawer" then I must not start anything new until its finished and gone from my sewing womb.  I love to call my sewing room, a sewing womb. It reminds me of a good friend who lives miles away. We write real letters between each other. I started this modest foray into modern quilting by taking my obsession in crazy quilting to more solid colors as that's what I thought the early modern quilting I saw meant by the early days of modern quilting. That was I confess, in 2005.   Then I did my usual quilt as you go in crazy stitching so all that was required on this modern quilting experiment was machine embroidery stitches from my good old trusty Janome. Then it went into the drawer and another 12 years went by and for one reason or another it sat, I passed it over many times, as I was...

Do you ever think about why you are writing a blog? I ask myself this question frequently. I have much to share on quilting, stitching, and free form embroidery. I'd dreamed of being able to work from home like many others have done too, right? We all love to hang in our PJ's, being productive and efficient if we could right? Its amazing how many of us wish to make some money from the hobbie/addiction crafting activity we all love. If you share this idea, have a blog and want to expand your intermediate quilting by some of the ideas I've shared with you in this blog, let me know?  I began writing my blog with a spirited awareness of the enormous size, complexity and complicated nature of the Internet. I understood that our very large world could read my blog or not.... if you don't pay attention  and forget about your blog, your ideas can sink to the bottom of the lake! I am a person who loves to read. I have wide interests and with garde...

Do you remember this wild bunch of Scrappy Dresden Blocks? Recently, I was ready Mary Huey's post on finishing up half done projects.  She inspired me and this project is on again. These are all blocks that were quickly picked without any plan what so ever!  In my mind, I was thinking about getting onto a full sized quilt.  I dreamed of seeing these Scrappy Dresden blocks in a quilt laying across our kind size bed. Like this king sized Canadian Birds quilt. If you have yet to play around with Dresden Plate blocks or 1/4 corner fan blocks, then check out this tutorial I did on the method I use to make up all my Dresden plate blocks.  I do normally hand applique the Dresden plates to their background block. But sometimes, I just want to get it done and move on machine applique which is way faster for me. This is where I believe that something really mellow colored fabric for sashing between these Dresden blocks is in order. ...

Many of you out there online are just discovering crazy quilting . Some of you though are just as experienced as I am with this form of art. So do add your own spin in a comment at the end. I've been asked at workshops what makes my crazy quilted pieces look old fashioned. This was not an intentional act on my part, simply a happy accident. But from all the comments at workshops and this blog, its made me rethink what it is that I do. The following are my own thoughts on what makes a crazy quilt look 'old fashioned.' I rarely use only 100% cotton. I love slippery fabric with some stretch to it. I often include bits and pieces of used clothing into my work. I mix and sort through shades and I do use a color chart occasionally. I often don't really "THINK" about it. I believe that this thinking about is what turns people off. I also don't believe in calling a quilt "crazy quilting" just because you may have done some embroidery on th...

I'm so tickled to finally be nearing the half-way point of My 365 Circles quilt. A few years ago I made my husband a quilt of his own. This is a really special quilt because I used my favorite method of the Slice and Dice Dresden Plates from the fabric using all Canadian Birds that are going extinct. My husband is a bit of  birder, not a complete addict or anything, but he fell in love with the fabric and the project began there. I took a class with my good friend Louisa Robertson from the Okanagan. Anyway, this  Canadian Birds  quilt is really warm for those cold winter nights when a wool lined quilt is the best comfort going. But it's a little warm for other parts of the year. We needed a new king size quilt. I have fallen in love with circles. I love crazy quilting, but this simple circle, yet complex set of circle shapes make things happen. You know? Take the following "circles" google search and you'll likely stumble o...

A few years ago purchased a book by Suzuko Koseki entitled delightfully "Playful Patchwork" and I've decided to work methodically through this book. I rarely do that. Often I skim the pages looking for something that really caught my eye. I am self taught in most of my quilting skills. Mother taught me to embroider at an early age and the embroidery skills moved to hand  piecing. My skills were average when beginning in hand piecing the Roses Block in Lesson 1. I am quite happy with the end of this block. I am learning to slow down and enjoy the slow stitching .

This new quilt is so much fun, I'm using up thrift store purchase of vintage hexie blocks, appliqued onto 10 in. square blocks. Happy Quilting!

I've had the beginnings of this modern art project sitting around for eons. I decided it would be perfect for a Halloween quilt. I love free form quilting, I really do. It leaves me open to other possibilities that don't become apparent until you sit down and focus. Now, you might think that this looks kinda crazy right? I've not decided if the Modern crazy patch making of fabric is the same as real Crazy Quilting. What do you think about making of fabric from scraps and do you think its a kinda crazy? I'm finishing this one today. Check back tomorrow for this gorgeous and creepy finish. \ Happy Quilting everyone!

I first found Amanda Hocking when I was researching authors writing and publishing online. I was struck by the simplicity of writing your own way and saying what you want to say without editors steering your work towards something different. After reading about her journey from working in a group home until 2010, she went on to self publish her paranormal books online and by March of 2011, she had sold over a million copies of her book and earned herself a whopping 2 million dollars! This caught my attention. Does it catch your attention? I hope so because otherwise these blog posts about my own journey into self publishing online would be worthless. I got my information on her sales from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Hocking   and she has several web pages of information on her books. http://www.hockingbooks.com/ If you are blogging, you are already a publisher, you can decide to click on "Reply or Delete" to any comment, you ca...