Carli The Quilter

I have just decided that the time has come for me to start really altering some favorite shirts purchased recently that when laundered they shrunk up and became too short for me to comfortably wear. You know? And I have become inspired again! My time these days are less frequently allowed for working on finishing quilts is coming along too. I have made progress on two wedding gifts from one of the weddings from last summer. Love birds requested two table runners. This blue and red zig zag is coming along. I think its just about ready for machine or hand quilting and I haven't decided on which for those yet. And I've finally begun playing around with the Japanese 'Boro" form of quilting and big stitches that I new I'd to love to do. And my son's childhood sewing project that I have begun to crazy quilt around is on the table again with more improvements that is going well.  Photos on how that progresses is coming alon...

My little wee project of 365 Circles is becoming like a tiny dynamo sumo wrestler! Its pushing me farther into more hand stitching and its singing me songs of inspiration. When I first heard about 365 Circles. I was  more  curious than excited about appliqueing on that many circles! But then, I started playing and soon, I was sewing and appliqueing away with the best of them. I discovered I really like circles. I discovered that circles are more inspiring because of simplicity of the shape. I really love the spin off tiny circles. This is only about one third of the circles I have ready to go into my new quilt. Truth be told, I was more than I need for a king size quilt so I can pick and choose. I have decided that a plan is required for this group of beauties. I found these bundles above for $25 from a seller on Usedvic. And a thrift shop had yardage for around 3.99 a bundle. Each bundle is at least 2 ...

Hello and welcome to this very popular series! This week, I have a Canadian fiber artist who hales from Saskatchewan. I've been following her blog and enjoying her growth and success with admiration.  Let me introduce Monika Kinner-Whalen! I started hand embroidery at the age of 40.  That's not very long ago.  My mom was a landscape artist who did not sew or hand stitch.  I just never grew up with fibre art!  Sometimes I resent that.  For the most part,  it still feels new and terribly exciting!  I bask in it. 2.  teaching I don't even remember how I learned my first French Knot.  I guess it was either a youtube video or an embroidery instruction book.  For the most part, I am self taught.  I began with free machine threadpainting, and added my own 'freestyle' hand stitches for the parts that needed to be hand stitched.  I quickly discovered how handwork - even just a l...

Hello quilty friends! I've found another awesome embroiderer and this one is a crazy quilter too! I introduce Pam Kellogg. What age were you when you began hand embroidery stitching? According to my mom, I started stitching at about 7 years old.  Mom would give me a piece of netting and yarn in a big plastic needle.  That would keep me busy if she was on the phone.  By the time I was 8 years old, my maternal grandmother was teaching me how to embroider on a pre-stamped kitchen towel.  Grandma spent hours showing me over and over how to make French Knots.  She had the patience of a saint! What teaching did you have when you started?   Once I got the hang of basic embroidery stitches from my mom and my grandma, I pretty much taught myself how to do needlepoint, hooked rugs and counted cross stitch.  I loved counted cross stitch and after doing that for awhile, I decided to try my hand at charting my own designs.  I ...

This new hand embroidery series is all about profiling skilled talent of embroidery artists all over the world. This first post is profiling the hand embroidery, using cross stitch of Wendy Welch's hand made art of New Zealand. Wendy started this project in January and has now finished this awesome Haunted House all by hand.  Isn't this collection dreamy?? Hello I'm Wendy Welch and I love hand embroidery!         I think I started before I was 10 years old with wool on plastic canvas.    My mum taught me embroidery, knitting, crotchet and cross stitch. She is very talented and studied embroidery at high school.       I take classes at Nancy's Stitch Studio in Wellington, New Zealand. They run a full programme of needlework classes each year and I've had the pleasure of learning from some very experienced teachers there.   I follow Kathy Andrew's blog -  http://www...

I'm really glad that this quilt along came along. This little wall quilt has been so much fun and was fairly easy to make.  I fell in love with Jen Kingwell's pattern "Midnight Over the Oasis" purchased the pattern and started my first quilt along.  I've finished my first Quilt Along! The Elven Garden was an awesome host for this quilt along. I chose fabrics from my stash, many of these were found on the online shelves of Mad About Patchwork. I really enjoyed the process of hand sewing the triangles together. I posted about my hand sewing of the triangles in the corner blocks . I could have machine sewed them, but really wanted to give my hand sewing fingers a good work over. If you are like me, and do a tonne of hand work, then keeping the fingers nimble is essential. You see the plaid  blue print in the center, this was a beloved plaid blue from an older shirt I found at the local transfer station Free Shed. But I didn't re...

Yes, I keep on with this, that each of you will find your own path in crazy quilting. I don't like it when others simply copy my work as is, so play with your own block using this as a guide to making your block for you! These are what four blocks of foundation fabric and your chosen scraps will look like when you've pieced your block together. Now, lets move to how to get started with Caroline's Crazy Quilting. I always start in the middle. Yes, you can start other places. I just don't like to have to do a ton of pinning and this is what starts to happen if you start in other places, but I'm not one to tell people it HAS to a certain way, remember I'm all about empowering new crazy quilters to do your own thing. Then you find another piece to add and sew it down on one side of the starter fabric. This is kind of complicated but not if you just play around and find a side to do this step. Press over one side of another piece and se...