Last year (2022) was my first opportunity to attend and teach at International Quilt Festival in Houston Texas. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to return this year, and I hope you’ll join me!

Below is my complete schedule along with links for more info. If you plan to attend (whether or not you take my class) I’d love to see you and say hi! And if you aren’t going, be sure to put this festival on your bucket list for the future!

Tuesday 10/31 #243 Forgiving Free Motion Fillers 9 AM – Noon

As of this writing, this class is currently sold out. However, you’ll get a similar experience with my other free-motion quilting workshop below.

Tuesday 10/31 #259 Free-Motion Designs with Lines 2-5 PM

In this workshop, students will learn how to turn basic shapes into linear free-motion
quilting designs. Using the seam lines on your quilt as a guide, learn how to divide and conquer
your quilting while you stitch interesting motifs that are a great alternative to straight line
quilting. These can be quilted as allover designs across the surface of your quilt, or scaled
down to fit a specific shape in your quilt.

A copy of my book, 99 Machine Quilting Designs is required for both of my workshops shown above.

Wednesday 11/1 Lecture #358 Prepping Your Quilt for Domestic Machine Quilting 3-4 PM

Those batting shears are a game changer when it comes to trimming batting & basting your quilt!

In this informative lecture, I’ll share secrets for domestic machine quilting success which include adequate preparation and planning. Learn my game-changing, back-saving basting technique, and how to divide and conquer each task so it’s not such a chore. Also learn how to become friends with your iron and understand how to choose the right thread colors for your project. Once you discover how to create rich texture with little to no marking of the quilt, you’ll feel empowered to finish all those tops in your UFO pile!

Thursday 11/2 #450 Machine Quilting Forum 9AM – Noon

Join me along with Nina Clotfelter, Sue Heinz, Jenny K. Lyon, RaNae Merrill and Carol Wilhout for a morning of machine quilting focus and fun! We’ll each present a show & tell of our expertise along with a demonstration of our favorite techniques. My presentation is called “If you can sketch it, you can quilt it.” Click here for a more detailed explanation of each artist’s showcase. It’s going to be educational and inspiring for sure!

Thursday 11/2 Lecture #462 How to Make a Quilting Plan 4-5 PM

Most quilters understand the concept of practicing machine quilting designs on small fabric samples, but they often have trouble applying those designs to an actual quilt. In this informative lecture, I’ll discuss the importance of making a quilting plan, so you can figure out the best pathway around the quilt with the fewest stops and starts. Learn how to divide and conquer each task so it doesn’t feel so overwhelming. Feel empowered to quilt your own quilts once you see how easy and carefree these methods can be.

Click here to grab a signed copy of my book, How Do I Quilt It?

Both of my lectures and my machine quilting forum topic are based on my latest book, How Do I Quilt It? It’s not required for these events, but I highly recommend it. And if you are unable to attend, grabbing your signed copy is the next best thing to being there!

It’s going to be a fun and frenzied fall, but I’m looking forward to it!!

Click here for the complete quilt festival class catalog and registration info.

Welcome to my stop on the C&T blog hop for my friend Daisy Aschehoug’s brand new book called Quilting with Curves. If you love the look of curved piecing but don’t know where to start, then this is the book for you!

Even if you are a curved piecing aficionado, the 20 geometric, modern designs in this book are sure to inspire! Below are just a few of my faves.

So Daisy and I have been friends for many years. We originally met at a quilting retreat and we’ve taught at several of the same industry events. She’s also an expert at designing in Illustrator, and I’ve taken a couple of her courses to improve my design skills. I was very happy that C&T sent me 2 copies of her new book, so that means I get to give the second one away!

We recently met up with a group of friends for dinner at the Road to California quilt show back in January. We’ll both be teaching together at QuiltCon in 2024 so it will be fun to hang out again then!!

To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment letting me know if you’ve tried curved piecing before. I do enjoy the technique, and each time I see a quilt made from curved piecing, it makes me want to play around more with curved designs!

I’ll leave this giveaway open through the end of the blog hop which is on July 1, 2023 and will notify the winner via email. It’s open to all so if it happens to be an international winner, you’ll get a PDF copy of the book instead.

Click here for the complete blog hop/instagram hop schedule.

I love it when I get to share fun things with you all. And when I can offer them for free, that’s even more special! So next week I’m traveling to BERNINA headquarters in Chicago to film a free live event in conjunction with National Quilter’s Circle. I’ll be sharing tips & tricks showing how to make my Modern Table Runner shown below:

Click here to download my free Modern Runner quilt pattern.

All 3 versions of my modern runner were made with my Stitchy fabric collection from Benartex.

All the Juicy Details…

The free live event will take place online at 10 AM central time on Wednesday, May 24. It will be co-hosted by Colleen Tauke who shares lots of fun & inspiring videos every other week for National Quilter’s Circle. I’ll be showing how to get 3 different looks for the same project. Using different color combos makes it interesting, but I really enjoyed creating 3 different quilting plans, too. I love seeing how the same design will look quilted with straight lines, curvy lines, or both!

Click here to download the free PDF pattern, and get an email reminder about this event.

The event will take place live on their website and will be available to watch after the fact, if you can’t make it live. You all know how much I love my BERNINA and it’s extra special when I get to work with them on an event such as this. For the live presentation, I’ll be showing how to quilt on the BERNINA Q20 sit down longarm machine. It should be a fun event, and I hope you’ll join me!

Click here to join the fun!

Each time I release a new fabric line, I love including a free pattern to help promote it. For my most recent collection called “Stitchy” I made this fun & colorful quilt called Herringbone.

Click here to get the Herringbone quilt pattern emailed to you.

I love playing around with half-square triangles and fun bright colors. This quilt is simple to make: choose 5 fun colors with coordinating backgrounds to create a rainbow effect. For a limited time, you can grab the quilt kit to make this quilt.

I’ve also filmed a video showing how to make this quilt from start to finish. Click play below to watch it on my YouTube channel. I especially love sharing more details on the machine quilting so that you feel comfortable finishing this quilt yourself.

Free Patterns Galore!

In addition to Herringbone, I currently have 4 additional free quilt patterns that you can immediately download and get started on today. And here’s a heads up: I’ll have another one coming later this fall when my next fabric line releases, so stay tuned!

Click here to access all of my free pdf quilt patterns.
Click here to view all of my quilt kits.

Above is my free pattern called “Rainbow Taffy” which was made from my first fabric line, Modern Marks. Although that fabric line is long since gone, you can still create a fun, bright quilt using charm packs of ANY of my fabric collections.

Click here to view all of my designer precuts.

Hi all! It’s been awhile since I’ve been active online because I have sooo much going on behind the scenes right now. But I’m excited to be out and about teaching in person again. I get a LOT of requests to teach in my hometown of Las Vegas. Although that’s not on the schedule anytime soon, I AM teaching close by in St. George, Utah and also Provo, Utah – for both locations of Dave’s BERNINA.

I’ll be teaching a full day of machine quilting at both locations – Provo on Friday, May 19, 2023 and then in St. George on Saturday, May 20. You’ll learn my techniques for combining walking foot and free motion in the same quilt, along with ways to easily quilt your quilts and have fun doing it!

Click here to register for my machine quilting workshop at Dave’s Bernina Provo
Click here to register for my machine quilting workshop at Dave’s Bernina St. George

If you plan to attend, or have any questions, please leave me a comment. You can also click here to see my current teaching schedule for the rest of the year and into next year. I hope to see you in person at one of my events soon!

I was very pleased to see Laura Coia of Sew Very Easy demonstrating my new mini mat and ruler set a recent video tutorial. 

Together with my ergonomic rotary cutter, they are the perfect tools to keep next to your sewing machine. Click play below to watch. She always has great tips to share!

Previously, Laura had shared a video with bonus tips when using my machine quilting gloves. I’ve been wearing them in all of my videos, but she demonstrated extra ways to use them that I’d never thought of before. Click play below to check it out:

Have you tried my sewing notions yet?

You’ll be seeing them in more of the new videos I create, but it sure is fun to see other quilters using them “in the wild, too!”

Click here to view my sewing notions. They’ll make you a better quilter, I promise!

Did you attend QuiltCon this year? I did and it was so amazing. In fact, I feel like it was one of their best shows yet! Put on by The Modern Quilt Guild, QuiltCon has been going strong for 10 years now, and I’ve been a part of every single event! In years past, I’ve written blog posts about the show and shared a lot of real time pics on Instagram and Facebook.

This year, I made a 24 minute video sharing all about my experience as a vendor, along with over 50 of my faves from the show. Click below to watch:

Whether you were there in person, or watched from afar online, the excitement and camaraderie are unlike any other show I’ve attended. I’d love to keep the conversation going, so I’d love to hear about your thoughts. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Recap Below For My Previous QuiltCon Experiences:

Click each of the links below for previous blog posts. Most of them include more links to other thoughts from the show. So don’t be afraid to go down a rabbit hole to get the full experience from the last 10 years.

From the years 2019-22 I was a bit overwhelmed with blogging and mainly shared on instagram rather than as a separate blog post. So be sure to check out #quiltcon2019 #quiltcon2020 #quiltcontogether and #quiltcon2022 to get a feel for it on social media. The event was virtual in 2021 and then back in person in 2022.

• QuiltCon 2013 – The First One!!
• QuiltCon 2015
• QuiltCon 2016
• QuiltCon 2017
• QuiltCon 2018
• My Jury Experience from QuiltCon 2019
• My Excitement for QuiltCon 2020
• My QuiltCon 2021 Reject Parade
• Getting Ready for QuiltCon 2022

There’s also a great hashtag #tenyearsofquiltcon. If you have memories from previous shows, I’d love to hear all about them! Other than that, I’ll plan to be there again in person in Raleigh NC in 2024. I hope to see you there!

While I recover from QuiltCon 2023 and sift through all my photos, I thought I’d share a few videos showing how I made some of the quilts in my booth. Be on the lookout for my recap video soon!

How to Make my Bling Hashtags Quilt

How to Make my Charming Chevrons Quilt from 5″ Squares

How to Make My Charming Chevrons Quilt from 10″ Squares

How to Make My Blooming Wallflowers Quilt

How to Make my Color Weave Quilt

While I’m away at QuiltCon this week, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite technique tutorials with you. I’m diligently working on adding more videos to my YouTube channel in my hope of making quilting more accessible and less intimidating for everyone!

How to Spray Baste Your Quilt Using a Design Wall

By far, this is my most popular technique ever. Once you learn how to demystify the basting process, machine quilting is a breeze! Click play below to watch:

How to Build a Design Wall

I built my design wall before I started making regular videos. However, I took step by step photos of the process so that you can follow along. Click here to learn how to build a design wall.

How to Machine Bind Your Quilt

When I’m in a hurry, this is my go-to method for a fast quilt finish! Click play below to watch:

How to Hand Bind Your Quilt

I love hand sewing but don’t often have much time for it. So my favorite thing is to relax and watch a tv show or listen to an audio book while hand binding. Take a look below to see how I attach the binding to the quilt and finish by hand:

Any Requests?

Do you have a specific technique you’d like to learn? Or do you want more guidance on how to make a quilt from one of my patterns? Please leave a comment letting me know what you’d like to see more of! I’m happy to add it to the list!