Bloomin’ Steps has been one of my most popular patterns since it was first published in 2008. It was originally released as a pamphlet pattern in response to requests from those who cut and organized their messy scraps into 2″, 3-1/2″, and 5″ squares as they followed my ScrapTherapy process. The smallest size, the […]

Before I left for vacation, I discovered a construction issue with a few of the Diamond blocks I’ve been making from a UFO box pulled off the shelf a few months back. You can read more about my trimming/construction ‘concerns’ in this post to get a refresher on the details. To summarize, in total, 50 […]

Our tour of France started in the south of France. Our flight into Toulouse, the fourth largest city in France, was uneventful. Aside from being filled with history, Toulouse is known for modern-day aviation and aeronautics manufacturing. This visit, we were focused on history. The nearby walled medieval city of Carcassonne was our first tour […]

The diamond quilt project is still managing to grab nearly all of my morning sewing attention this week. I’m about 15 blocks shy of having all the blocks needed to assemble the quilt project that was shelved many years ago. To my knowledge, the pattern I bought years ago along with a pretty set of […]

  This week, I’m popping in real quick so I can get back to work on a few things that I really, REALLY want to wrap up before a bit of travel coming up in just a couple weeks. Time away is coming up fast, but time is going slowly on daily progress on the […]

As a kid, Easter weekend was always crazy, loaded with everyone heading in different directions at light speed until things finally calmed down when Easter breakfast was served. It started, essentially, on Friday afternoon. Sometime after noon, while my father headed out to pick up the ham for Easter breakfast, the pots full of water […]

Diamonds. I’ve been talking about this project for a couple weeks now. Progress is slow, but steady.   This is going to take more time than I thought. I have about 17 diamond blocks made – not even halfway there to the 50-block goal! Just for fun, I grabbed my stack of blocks and laid […]

For the past few weeks, I’ve been targeting an unfinished project for completion. To carry on, these partly-assembled diamond blocks lurking in my stash needed better accuracy, some new tools, and a revised setting plan. I am almost on the path to mindless, morning sewing . . . except for one small detail . . . […]

  A couple weeks ago, I pulled this flat cardboard box off the shelf. In it, the pieces of a 2-1/2″ strip project I put away years ago. I wasn’t happy with how things were coming together back then and didn’t have the time nor patience to slow down and correct my sloppy technique. This […]

Last week, inspired to finish up projects laying dormant on my shelves to ready them for their next adventure, I shared my piecing challenges with diamond shapes cut from 2-1/2″ strips. Happily, I think I have the floral print piecing mastered with more careful cutting and sewing.   As I left off last time, I […]

Last week, I was a guest on Sue Pelland’s weekly facebook chat called Sewing in Slippers with Sue. I recapped the conversation with all the pertinent links HERE. For the first couple months of the year, I’ve been rather preoccupied, and my usual sewing routine – about an hour each day, first thing in the […]

Earlier this week, I was a guest on Sue Pelland’s weekly facebook live, Sewing in Slippers with Sue. Thanks to my broken ankle, I abandoned the idea of wearing slippers – I don’t have any slippers large enough to fit over my orthopedic boot. No matter, Sue and I got down to the business of […]

I passed a significant milestone last week – my 20th Quilt Birthday! On February 8, 2003, I took my very first quilting class in Syracuse, NY. Before that, I barely knew where the on/off switch was on my new sewing machine – a basic model that cost about $200. It landed under the Christmas tree […]

Today’s article is a very quick recap of the highlights from the Hawaii Quilt Cruise that was originally scheduled for April 2020, was postponed several times, finally launched in mid-January, and returned last week. Because travel can be unpredictable in the winter months, I arrived in San Diego one day early and took advantage of […]

    In between preparations for a long-delayed quilt cruise that departs this weekend, I managed to get in a tiny bit of sewing this week. The outer borders are sewn to my 12-block version of The Big Day Quilt. The Big Day pattern, featuring blocks from The FLOCK collection will be available from the […]

  Things have been really quiet in the creative spaces of my world these last couple weeks, while the administrative side of Hummingbird Highway has been a-buzz. Regardless, just this week, I began the process of adding the last border on the Big Day quilt.       I’m using the same mini-print for hte […]

It has been a crazy week around here! On Monday, morning things got off to a great start with a trip to the doctors office to remove the stitches on my steadily improving bone-spur-no-more foot. I am back on my feet, a mite slower than usual, with a positive report from my doctor. Many thanks […]

Flat out on my butt after elective surgery on my foot, I had orders to keep my foot iced and elevated this weekend. As I sat and stared at the four walls, I thought I was going nuts for planning to be immobile even for a few days this close to the holiday. Fortunately, I […]

For once, I’m not talking about my own studio! This past weekend, locally, The Delevan Studios opened their doors to the public. This century-old, former plow factory near the city’s center has had a long history as a factory, then as abandoned space, and currently as repurposed high-ceilinged studio spaces occupied by a huge variety […]

I have a secret! Well, it’s really not that much of a secret. Maybe we should call it a new-to-me secret since I only recently learned this slick trick to remove pencil on cotton quilting fabric. For a little backstory, when finishing a Heart Fulls ornament, in the assembly tips, I recommend making a small […]

As I prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday (here in the US), this comment about something as common as apple pie from noted scientist Carl Sagan caught my attention: “If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch you must first invent the universe.” On the surface, it’s a simple idea. But when you […]

Before I get to my latest quilt-in-progress project featured in today’s article, there is a new Heart Fulls release ready in the Hummingbird Highway webstore that I thought you’d like to know about. When I need a little bit of a pick-me-up, I can’t think of anything better than some sunshine (with some rainbows thrown […]

It has been unseasonably warm and sunny for this area and this time of year. With so few sunny and warm days left before the chill set in. I thing it’s important to GET OUT and take full advantage of the (likely) last few lovely days of fall. This weekend, I went with a friend […]

Someone once told me that the best way to store your quilts is flat on a bed. The only problem with that concept is that after a handful of quilts, the bed is no longer flat. After a couple hundred, the bet looks more like a heap of quilty fluffy-ness. Regardless, that’s how I store […]

My niece is expecting and the baby shower is coming up at the beginning of November. So you-know-who needs a baby-shower gift, pronto!   Inspired by a Row by Row pattern from a few years ago, I started sketching. Then printing in supersize mode. Then tracing. Then cutting, fusing, and layering.       The […]

What are the ‘terrible ‘tweens,’ you may be asking. It’s not what you might think – there are no teenagers here, for example. The ‘tweens’ in my world are a lot like the ‘spinnies’ – when you’ve got a load of small, almost finished projects that just need an hour or two of dedicated time. […]

What are the ‘terrible ‘tweens,’ you may be asking. It’s not what you might think – there are no teenagers here, for example. The ‘tweens’ in my world are a lot like the ‘spinnies’ – when you’ve got a load of small, almost finished projects that just need an hour or two of dedicated time. […]

Last Thursday, Dave and I headed to Block Island, Rhode Island for a short off-the-grid vacation.   The island is located about 10 miles south of mainland Rhode Island and almost the same distance due east from the very eastern tip of Long Island, New York. We took the 5pm ferry and arrived at our […]

I’m headed out of town again, but this time, its 100% for fun and only for a very short spell. As a quilter and stitcher, you know that it’s important to be well-prepared with plenty to work on while you’re away! I always bring more than enough to work on, but this time I have […]

For the last few weeks, after finishing the quilting on Barney (Barney still needs a label before going on to its new home), I’ve been attempting to get organized with a couple of projects – some are coming, some are going, and some are in a holding pattern.   With the weather switching to ‘fall’ […]

Earlier this year I was inspired by a project at the local chapter of EGA (Embroiderers’ Guild of America). The project involved making one or more heart ornaments using any stitching or construction technique to be donated by the local chapter to the local hospice. The hospice could use the heart ornaments as door decorations […]

Last week, I talked about adding the binding to Barney, the purple quilt that came out of storage early this year and is finally nearing completion. There are a lot of very good reasons to bind a quilt entirely by machine. And there are five very good reasons to sew the binding to the quilt […]

  Barney, the purple quilt, has a binding. After many excellent suggestions and a whole lot of mental debate, I finally decided on a binding for the quilt that came out of storage earlier this year. I chose a purple that is a shade or two different from the border fabric.     From the […]

With the ‘Dog Days of Summer’ upon us. It feels like I’m busier than a mosquito in a nudist colony, but at the same time, a bit hesitant to work on some of the ‘big’ stuff. For example, this week I finished up the quilting around ‘Barney’ – that unfinished quilt that came out of […]

This project seems to be coming toward conclusion at long last! It started years ago as a stack of 4″ pinwheel blocks. And it came out of storage earlier this year. With progress a little at a time, it then became a quilt center, then borders added a place to experiment with a new-to-me tool […]

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 […]