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Friday, July 12, 2019

Sew In With Cozy Quilter, Day One!


Our thanks to Karen who brought cookies!

They are all so beautiful, And tasty to boot!

This is our second annual event here in Louisville, and our location at the Drury Inn has been PERFECT in every way. 

It’s not easy to put on an event like this – find the right location with conference rooms big enough to host 50 stitchers and all of the machines, irons and other items that draw electricity.

And of course it’s Louisville – hot and humid, so the A/C must ALSO work.

We’ve been sewing in style and in comfort and loving every minute of it!


String snowballs in the morning!


Corners made easy using a combination -

Doug Leko’s Simple Folded Corners (mini or full size) to trim the snow ball corners -

And then the Essential Triangle Tool to cut triangles from strips ready to sew back on to the blocks. A match made in triangle heaven!


Snowballs a plenty!


After lunch it was all about the nine patches!

The best hint ever?  Cross-cutting strip sets for nine-patch row 1 and row 2 already placed right sides together so units are ready to simply feed through the machine.


Once row 1 and row 2 are together -

We scrappy it further by mixing up row 3 and sewing them on!


Way to do it!


Oh yeah – this makes my string-loving heart so happy!


And evidently theirs too!


Getting in on the lay down action!


Thanks for an awesome day, everyone!

For the rest of our Indigo a Go-Go fun, Click to Play:


You will find the pattern for Indigo a Go-Go in my book String Frenzy.

Purchase String Frenzy from the Quiltville Store and receive a free bonus PDF pattern for my Hunter’s String Star quilt automatically at purchase! Download link sent to your inbox upon completion of book purchase.


And in true retreat fashion - even though we ended the official workshop instruction at 4:30pm, the quilters were welcome to stay until lock-up time at midnight!  

I am so curious as to who was the Last Quilter Standing – as this girl was in bed by 10:30, just worn out after such a busy day.



My own evening of Leaders & Enders!

A bit of hotel room sewing happened – and while I’m not able to share the whole project just yet – suffice it to say that these four little Shoo Fly blocks were easily assembled in between the lines of chain piecing my main project, with very little effort and no thought at all since I had taken the time to cut them out and kit them up before coming to Louisville!

This is our 2019 Leader & Ender Challenge – and you can find the instructions for Shoo, Fly, Shoo Under the free patterns tab at the top of the blog. This year’s challenge is not only intended to get you in the habit of using Leaders & Enders in your every day sewing, making a free quilt in between the other projects you have going - but ALSO get you into the rhythm of WEBBING!


Quiltville Quote of the Day

I give this the biggest yes ever, and 100 thumbs up!

Time to get myself together and head on down for a quick breakfast – I hear the rumble of quilters below!

Have a wonderful Friday, everyone!


17 comments:

  1. Good Morning, looks like you all are having a great time! Thank you for sharing your adventures with us. I receive much inspiration from you!

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  2. What a lovely array of colours so pretty, I’m loving this new leader Ender project and really getting the idea of webbing which has always seemed so difficult before.
    Have a wonderful day
    Love and quilty hugs
    Anne xxx

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  3. fun day of quilting adventure here in Southern California ...kitted up the 10 L/E blocks (except once you get going it is difficult to stop at ten) and am webbing them between experimenting with the trapezoid ruler from Quilt Now (issue 63) in Great Britain. Yes it arrived Wednesday ...ordered it on the 7th and it arrived on the 10 ! in California ! what fun. My 301 is calling me, bye.

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  4. Love all the quilting fun! Look at that cute little doily under the spool of thread! Genius and I need to go find one for my little featherweight.

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  5. All the quilting is so pretty! I love all the different color combinations everyone brought in. Speaking of love...that yellow Singer! YES! it is gorgeous!!!

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  6. I loved the side show, so did my cockatiel singing along to the happy tune. Beautiful work and beautiful machines ladies.

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  7. So excited to be participating in my first Leaders and Enders! I have lots of semi-disorganized scraps, so I am also implementing your Scrap User System currently. My L&E will be QOV scrappy. Such happy faces in today's post.

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  8. Your retreats and workshops look like sew much fun! As a fairly recent follower of your blog, I love to read your stories. In this post you refer to webbing...can you please explain what that means?
    Thanks so much

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    Replies
    1. Hi. I'm not Bonnie but I think I can help. Webbing refers to the practice of leaving the thread between your pieces as you stitch. Bonnie asks us to practice webbing on the Leaders & Enders challenge, which you can find under the tab at the top of the blog. In the Shoo Fly Shoo block, we first sew three separate units together but we don't cut the threads between the units. Then we sew the last three pieces to those units and again don't cut the threads. You now have 9 pieces that are "webbed" together -- this makes for easy assembly of the block. Bonnie also recommends leaving the threads because it means the seams are stronger and less likely to undo. Hope this helps.

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    2. Hi, Fran. I'm not Bonnie, either, but wanted to help, too. If you go up to the very top left of the screen, there should be a little search bar in the corner where you can type in search words. If you type in webbing you'll get several posts where Bonnie has talked about that. Two posts that caught my eye as possibly being helpful to you are: https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2017/08/sew-simple-blocks-sugar-bowl.html and
      https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2017/08/quilt-cam-night-8162017.html

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    3. Oh, and this: http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/webbing-top-or-how-to-chain-stitch.html from the Tips & Techniques Tab at the top of the page.

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  9. Love those cookies -- nothing like a sweet treat while you're quilting. Love the Shoo Fly Shoo. I'm really enjoying this block.

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  10. Love the mat underneath the yellow Singer. I remember that fabric collection - Tranquility, I think it was called? - and still have some of the brown/cream colorway in my stash. Never got my hands on any of that multi-colored print under the machine, though. So pretty!!

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  11. Those cookies look great!

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  12. I wanted to be in Louisville so bad to take a class with you, but just couldn't make it this time. Maybe someday!

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  13. I do look forward to these emails for multiple reasons. Of course to see the blocks coming together but also to see all the different fabrics to see if I have any of them, to see the different machines everyone is using (especially love the beautifully painted vintage machines), the different T shirts everyone is wearing even all the beautiful jewelry. Just so so much to see. I usually watch each video at least twice!

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  14. You are amazing!!! I love your blogs and someday I am going to make one of your quilts. I have started saving all my scraps and working on it. You tire me out by all the things you do in a day.

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