Quilting Adventures ~ The Friendly Store for Everyone Who Creates With Fabric!

This week’s demo is on using the Curvemaster presser foot to sew curves without pinning, and how to cut drunkard’s patch blocks using the Marti Michell template sets.  Products being demo’ed are on sale at 10% off until Sunday and include:

Curvemaster presser foot

Drunkard’s path templates

28mm rotary cutter

Olfa spinning mats (12″ or 17″)

Bent tweezers

When I do the demo, I’ll show you how to cut these pieces from Charm Squares.  Marti’s instructions for working with strips are very good, but I wanted to do charms to get a scrappy effect:

So, here I am at the machine, using the Curvemaster foot – does this not look insane?  The idea is that you move your pieces as you sew to align them with the 1/4″ guide.  And I’m here to tell you – from someone who cannot walk down the street and chew gum at the same time – it really works!

This is at the end of the block, holding the edges in place with tweezers (while taking a photo with the other hand):

And here are my final blocks with all their imperfections.  They could probably use some squaring up, but considering that I hadn’t used the foot for over a year, and these *are* my practice pieces, I think they’re pretty good!  This foot makes curves very doable.  With a little bit of practice, your blocks will come out perfectly, all with no pins!

Come see a live, in person demo – Tuesday at 6, Wednesday at 2, Saturday at 11 and 2, and Sunday at 2.  Hope to see you then!

Saturday night was the American Cancer Society’s Cure by Design fundraising event, for which we made the quilt that was used as part of the runway backdrop. You can read more about the event and quilt here. There was a fashion show in which all of the models were cancer survivors.  It was really very moving to see all of these people who beat cancer modeling clothes provide by several local sponsors.  Several of the models were very young – the sweet young boy, probably 8 years old, was one of my favorites.  After the fashion show, our quilt was auctioned off for <drum roll please> $10, 000!Yes, ten THOUSAND dollars raised for cancer research!  It was very exciting to be there in person, and when the final bid was announced, much of the audience (not just the QA contingent) was on its feet, screaming.   Here’s a picture of Deb Jacobs (of Cottage Garden Quilting – she quilted this masterpiece) and yours truly, flying high on cloud nine, in front of “our” quilt:

This past weekend’s Shoes and Socks for the Shelter was a success, thanks to all of you. We collected 33 pairs of kids shoes, 39 pairs of women’s shoes, and way too many socks to count (okay, so really it was 45 single pairs and 34 packages of multiple pairs). The folks at the YWCA Shelter thank you!

Here’s a quilt made from the new group of Tonga Batiks that arrived this week.  The quilt is Syncopated Rhythm by Karen Montgomery, sewn by Betty Sanderson and machine quilted by Valerie Schlake – come see it in person.  We are cutting kits as I write this!

We have this shirt pattern in the shop, the Perfect Pullover from Indygo Junction, and, well, I don’t want to be nasty, but the pictures on the cover of the pattern aren’t terribly inspiring.  But Phoebe saw past the picture and knew how cool it could be made up, so she used the Spotsville fabric (one of her favorite lines) to make this shirt:

Also, yesterday afternoon, our friend from the YWCA Women and Children’s shelter came by to pick up the lastest Quilts for Richmond donation – 22 quilts!  She was so thrilled to get them and told me again how much these quilts mean to their residents who have so little:

Please remember that August 17-19, we will be accepting donations of new or gently used tennis shoes (women’s and childrens sizes) and packages of new socks for the shelter.  For each pair of shoes or package of socks you donate, you get one free cotton fat quarter of your choice and one chance to win our gift basket!  Please help us help the shelter.