Like most other weeks, today’s story starts with a quilt. A quilt I started making maybe 10 years ago. Hand pieced blocks. A joyful journey. Lovely colors. Almost finished. A good part of the machine quilting complete! Then life got busy and the quilt was stored away to finish later. Sound familiar?   Fast forward […]

Taking a little detour from the projects on my sewing table this week for a little walk along the Erie Canal. An ordinary walk on an average summer day. Or so I thought! The Erie Canal connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie, in other words Albany to Buffalo, east to west in the 1800s. […]

Quilting continues on the purple pin wheel project that emerged from my storage area as a stack of blocks a few months ago. With plenty of stops and starts, the quilt is slowly making its way to completion. In my mind, I named the quilt after Barney, the purple dinosaur.   After finishing the blanket […]

Monday was a holiday, and as a small business person, I don’t always get to step away completely from my desk on holidays. But I did, this week. If you’ve been hanging around here and reading the Good Migrations newsletter for even a short spell, then you know I’m a bird freak. This year, for […]

For weeks and weeks, months and months, and years and years – basically what seems like forEVER – the purple pinwheel quilt has been on my radar – most recently to finish it up and get it off to my friend Beth for a refugee family. At this point, I’m working on the quilting. Specifically, […]

Since I’ve been back from vacation, I have had the ‘spinnies.’ I can’t seem to get my brain back in production mode. I’ve certainly started a lot of things, and then put them down. And started other things, only to be distracted by something else. Sometimes it helps to calm my mind down to go […]

We arrived in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, without our luggage. At the time, that felt like a pretty big deal, but we were reconnected with our bags the next morning in time to freshen up before beginning our first tour of Zagreb. Minor hiccup. Croatia is shaped a little like a boomerang with the […]

Last Wednesday, I hadn’t heard from my friend Joan Hawley in a couple of days. And, while that wasn’t that unusual, something didn’t feel right. I sent a quick text, asking if everything was okay, then went about my business. Several hours later, I received a reply from Joan’s husband, Michael, telling me the terrible […]

  Last week, I hinted that I wanted to add some sort of embellishment to the binding for the Tropical Birds Crossover project I’ve been working on forEVER! Well, I’m happy to say the project is DONE, and I want to show you what I chose to do to spark up the binding instead of […]

I’m now on a tear to finish the Tropical Birds stitchy/quilty project that had been progressing nicely to completion as per last week’s article. At that time, the inner borders were quilted with the outer border and center to come. The outer border gained a squiggly-ripply free motion fill pattern that you can see below […]

This week, I’m back to the Tropical Bird stitchy-quilty project I mentioned a couple weeks ago . I removed the overly bold (in my opinion) border fabric (shown in the linked post) and replaced it with an equally bold, but solid pair of fabrics that compliment the colors in the stitching a little better. Still […]

Ukraine. As I’ve said before, it’s hard to know the best course of action to take to help with the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. The needs are great, however, the potential to waste resources or choke already stressed infrastructure is real. To find some answers, this week, I turned to a fellow […]

This is what’s left of a quilt I started ages ago. I shared this photo last week, hinting that it is one of the projects that is moving forward bit by bit in my sewing studio. Originally, it was going to be a queen sized quilt. Lots of piecing involved, but the colors are just […]

Everything we do in the quilting space seems to move forward in tiny increments. Piecing a traditional quilt often involves lots of repetition, however, every seam completed is one seam closer to the finish. Quilting by hand or machine happens one stitch at a time. Such is the case with the pinwheel quilt that keeps […]

With ‘secret’ projects temporarily on the side burner, I’m switching gears back to the purple pinwheel quilt project that was resurrected from my stash weeks ago. This has been my in-between project. I work on it in between the stuff that has to get done to keep my business moving forward. This week, I’m adding […]

  With a bit of blustery weather last weekend, I got out the cookie ingredients and made some “Crunchy Nut Cookies” This recipe goes WAY back – like 50 years ago – and was originally printed on the side of a Gold Medal Flour package. My mom was relentless at clipping recipes from the newspaper […]

  Quilters are a generous lot. And we need to keep busy, especially when the rest of the world is in chaos. Our creativity is our retreat and our comfort. Sewing is our therapy. We want to help. We want to fix what is broken. To that end I have a special gift for you! […]

There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 to 11 million quilters in the U.S. My guess is that every single one of them would give me the very shirt off their back if I said I needed it. I bet they would give me that same shirt even if I said I didn’t need […]

For the last several weeks, the design work on the remaining new blocks to be introduced to members of The FLOCK through the end of the year has stollen my attention from other things. Because the birds’ identities for each upcoming block isn’t revealed until it lands in mailboxes, I’ve had to keep mum. As […]

  These Ukrainian eggs were made 40-50 years ago, when I was in high school, long before quilting patterns grabbed my attention. They are spotty and quite delicate, but the colors, applied with alternating layers of bees’ wax and dyes, are still strong. Can you see the quilt patterns in the traditional designs? Perhaps because […]

It’s hard to believe that Your Nest Thread Nest Floss Bobbins have only been around a year. Feels like I’ve been using them forever! I use them to store stitchery flosses and threads. Besides being very fun, what makes them unique is that they have 7 different built-in slots to secure thread ends. This is […]

This week’s article feels a little discombobulated! A lot of trial and error going on with a project in support of my local EGA (Embroidery Guilds of America) group. Earlier this year, as a group, we decided to embrace a project to provide hand-made hearts for the local hospice. At the hospice, a heart is […]

This week, I’m back to work on that purple pinwheel quilt that was only recently a box of blocks and parts. I added three borders–two small ones to break things up and one big fat purple border that will create ample space to add applique vines and leaves using Sue Pelland’s Leaves Galore cutting template. […]

  This week, I managed to sew all the blocks and setting triangles together to make the quilt center for the ‘found’ purple pinwheel blocks I’ve been talking about for the last couple weeks. With deadline-oriented project on the sewing table, this one needs to take a back seat for a week or two.   […]

  Back at it this week with that box of purple pinwheel blocks I mentioned last time . . . This week, I’ve been sewing the blocks and squares into on-point rows, making progress one row at a time.   I know there are lots of schools of thought on this, but personally, I’m a […]

A couple weeks back, I shared a quick placemat finish. I found the scrappy pinwheel blocks tucked (more like shoved) into the back of a shelf at my sewing table. It did not surprise me to find pin wheel blocks, forgotten in the back of that shelf. There was a time when I was kinda […]

I always feel a sense of relief when with the new year. Don’t you? The holidays are nice, and it’s definitely a festive time of year, but it does feel like my focus is all over the place during the last couple weeks of December. With a new calendar and month, it’s time to settle […]

A couple weeks ago, I shared this photo and a little bit about a small stack of scrappy pinwheel blocks and some cream-gray strips. The strips and blocks were stuffed in the back of a shelf in my sewing table. I’m not sure how long they’ve been there or what their original purpose was, but […]

Back in March, after yet another fabulous vacation tour was cancelled, to keep our sanity, Dave and I booked a trip to Europe to travel along the Rhine and visit Christmas Markets 2021, with a fair amount of history mixed in. We left on Thanksgiving Day and landed in Zurich, Switzerland, then transferred to Interlaken […]

  I don’t know what inspired me to reach into the back of a top shelf on the left side of my sewing table earlier this week. When I did, I found this set of scrappy pinwheel blocks completely by surprise. I don’t remember making them! But it looks like I had it in mind […]

I started stitching (cross stitching, that is) about a million years ago. Maybe that’s a tiny exaggeration, but only a tiny one. The stitchy obsession has been an on-again, off-again thing for me, and these days, I’m really thrilled to be combining stitching and quilting in new and exciting ways. However. . . Organizing and […]

Perhaps you’ve seen the video of the wild turquoise-fronted Amazon parrot in Brazil taking a peak and video-bombing a traffic camera this week? The bird seems to want to know what’s going on behind that camera lens!   Not surprisingly, I have a really strange feeling that I’m being watched all the time with a […]

My BIG NEWS for today is something I’ve been working on for quite some time. About a year ago, I introduced a new technique called Stitchery Crossover. Along with the new technique to combine counted stitchery and quilting in a totally unique way, I introduced a brand new online course called Mia Rosa. Mia Rosa […]

Last week, I continued to share nearly insane plans for the hand-made ornaments for this year’s annual holiday card handmade ornament insertion. I showed you how I made the twisted cord. Now, I have to stitch the cord to each ornament. The first step in the final (I promise) installment of 2021 ornament-making involves a […]

Last week, I shared my rather aggressive plans for the hand-made ornaments that will go in my holiday cards this upcoming holiday season. I mentioned the twisted cord finish, and that I’d share the how-to in a future email. Well, this is the email.   I’m playing with two options to finish the ornaments as […]

Dave did all of the driving to and from our trip to Rhodes Island a couple weeks ago. Except for the part on the ferry, that is. With about 5-6 hours of free time (for me) each way, I took advantage of the time to continue making the parts for my annual holiday ornaments to […]

Like most everyone else on the planet, these past 18-20 months or so have been filled with disappointments, cancelled plans, or worse. Back in the Spring, Dave and I knew that we needed to plan some fun time at the end of the summer – we usually like to take a vacation in September, around […]

Last week, I showed a sneaky peek of the next project on deck in the sewing room. For this project, I need an 8×10″ block, but the Monk Parakeet, the featured August bird block from the FLOCK, is only 8″ square. Just a bit too small. Therefore, I need to find another block or find […]

Summer always seems to pass much too quickly for my taste. One of the great benefits of living where I do in central New York, is that we experience all four seasons, and my favorite time of year is summer time. This week, with Labor Day Weekend upon us, I’m trying to squeeze in every […]

This past weekend, I attended a retreat. 30-40 like-minded crafters from central New York and northern Pennsylvania gathered for a weekend of good food, good gab, and focused stitching time. I was fortunate to have been included in such a diverse group of quilters, stitchers, and crafters. It was great fun! For the bulk of […]

I’m headed out to a stitching retreat later today through the weekend. I haven’t packed yet, but I have a mental list of things to take, including a bunch of projects to work on, and maybe a change or two of clothes. That’ll be the ‘calm’ from my headline. Seems like this week has been […]

I’ve had a WEEK! Last week wrapped up with an unexpected trip to the office supply store in search of a label printer. Something all-of-the-sudden stopped working between my current label printer and my shipping software. Bleh. With a bunch of FLOCK kits gearing up for migration via the US Postal Service this week, there […]

What will you be doing 18 months from now? I can hear you shouting at the computer or mobile device screen: 18 months?!? You kiddin’? I don’t even know what I’m having for dinner! I know, I know, it seems like a long way off . . . but it will be here before we […]

Block 25 from the Nearly Insane book (mentioned in last week’s message) is all done. I can’t say that it’s my favorite block from the 25 that I’ve made so far, but I’m good with it. However, the ‘split’ flying geese unit in the center of each side (squiggly red outline toward the top of […]

Aside from some of the secret stuff going on at my desk right now, from time to time I pull out the Nearly Insane book by Liz Lois and make a block or two. I mentioned last week, that the book is back on the sewing table, front and center. I’m sewing the blocks in […]

Taking a week off from writing this article last week allowed me some time to finally put the wraps on the stitched notions case I’ve been working on for an eternity! Or at least, it feels like that long! If you have been following along, then you know this project started as a stitched sampler […]

As a kid, salt potatoes were just part of the menu during the summer around here. I didn’t think much of it. For a very brief history lesson, Syracuse, New York (my hometown) used to be known (and still is, in many circles) as the Salt City. Through much of the 19th century, Syracuse was […]

This week, I have been clipping along on the stitched notions pouch I started over a year ago. Last week I finished the lining pockets.   This week, I worked on the zippered, windowed interior pockets. Remember, I’m not working from a pattern, so I’m winging it as I go, and this is where I […]

Starting about 18 months ago, I’ve been working on a stitch sampler/soon-to-be notions case. To recap, I upsized the design area a bit on the sampler, started stitching, then things stalled. In January of this year, my embroidery guild challenged folks to stitch something–even one stitch–every day for 100 days to move stalled projects forward. […]

The Finish Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been keeping myself occupied with a variety of projects. Some I can’t share . . . yet, but some I can. . . For example. This pineapple quilt that I’ve been working on for quite some time – years, in fact – is done! This quilt started […]