I know many of you have found this blog because of my How to Make a T-shirt Quilt video tutorial. That class is one of the most popular ones I teach at my local quilt shop. I prefer to teach by first demonstrating the techniques, then assisting as the students practice. That means I get about two shirts done each time I teach the class.

The last time I taught the class I finished the top of the quilt I had been using to demonstrate on. That means I’ve taught the class a lot and I had to dig through the tubs in my basement to find a new set of T-shirts to turn into a quilt. I came up with a stack of vacation shirts.

Normally my fabric choices for the sashing and cornerstones on a T-shirt quilt is pretty neutral. But for this one, I wanted the fabric to take me to somewhere warm whenever I saw it. I came up with an orange batik for the sashing and blue for the cornerstones. It’s wild, but hopefully it will help transport me to Hawaii, Mexico and summers by the lake in Wisconsin.

In class on Saturday I attached the sashing to a T-shirt I got on a brewery tour on my honeymoon. I love how the orange batik really brings out the colors of the hula girl in the T-shirt.

There’s just one small problem with this quilt … I don’t have enough vacation T-shirts to finish it. I wonder if I can talk my husband into going on vacation so I can get enough shirts to finish it.  :)

My quilting changed forever when I took a class from Carol Doak. She came to lecture and teach classes at my quilt guild and that class transformed me from a so-so quilter, to one who can execute just about anything I envision in my mind.

Dubbed the Queen of Paper Piecing, Carol is a great teacher and got me hooked on the quilting technique. I love it because paper piecing is essentially sewing by numbers, but it allows you to produce beautiful, accurate work. Once you learn how to paper piece your friends will ooh and ahh over you work, thinking you are a master quilter. But you’ll know it wasn’t that hard at all.

Carol Doak has slowed down her travel and teaching schedule, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to paper piece from her. She has a new class on Craftsy, a website where you can learn all manner of new skills from HD videos taught by expert instructors. And that’s all on your own time, in the comfort of your own sewing room.

Since I learned how to paper piece, my quilting went from ho-hum traditional blocks to stunning New York Beauty blocks, beautiful tree skirts and a wedding quilt. If you’re looking for a way to improve your quilting, I highly recommend signing up for Carol Doak’s class.

My mom is learning to quilt. If you ask her, she’ll say she’s learning how to make table runners and she doesn’t want to make large quilts. But I just think she hasn’t been fully indoctrinated yet.

She has a very demanding job and is looking for something fun to do to relax. So I’ve been teaching her how to make a simple table runner from a charm pack. I made dozens of these when I was first starting to quilt. They’re really easy because there’s very little cutting involved. You just have to lay out the charm squares in a pattern that is pleasing to you, sew them into rows and sew the rows into the table runner top. Easy peasy.

She’s doing really well, learning how to sew a consistent quarter-inch seam, press her patchwork so the seams abut, quilt in straight lines using a walking foot and bind by hand.

While I worked on binding my sister’s baby quilt, my mom put the final stitches in her first project, a spring table runner made from a charm pack in my stash. We looked like quite the pair sitting on the couch together sewing binding on our projects.

But the reason why I think it is just a matter of time before she graduates onto bigger projects, is she has already caught the fabric bug. Before she even had her first top pieced, she bought two more charm packs and coordinating yardage for more table runners. Then when we were on a family trip to the quilt shop to pick out fabric for my sister’s baby quilt, she spotted yet another project, a duck panel with a pieced border.

When she spotted it she said, loudly so my sister could hear, “That’s like what we worked on last weekend right?” referring to the giraffe baby quilt we made with my cousin for my sister’s baby. My sister wasn’t supposed to know about the quilt and she looked from my mom to me with an, I know you’re up to something look.

I shot my mom a warning glance, hoping she’d get the hint not to say any more and told her that it was definitely a project she could handle.

That night we had a family craft night. My grandma knitted, my sister crocheted and my mom was supposed to be working on her first table runner project. But instead I helped her cut out the panel and borders because she just couldn’t wait to get started.

So she’s been quilting for about six months, has finished one project (two if you count the baby quilt we made with my cousin for my sister), two UFOs and a fabric for a third project. I think she’s going to fit in just fine with the rest of us quilt addicts.

I’ve been working on a super-secret quilt. Correction, my mom, cousin and I have been working on a super-secret quilt.

My mom and cousin are learning to sew, so we got together for a family sewing day over the winter. My mom wanted to work on her first quilted table runner and my cousin wanted to learn how to make a pillow cover for her dad.

But we also worked on a quilt for my sister who is expecting her first child. I found a giraffe panel that was just adorable and fits with the jungle theme of her nursery. I got a few coordinating prints to use as borders to make the quilt as easy as possible to piece.

I taught my mom and and cousin to use a ruler, rotary cutter and sew a quarter-inch seam. In one afternoon they pieced the top and then I quilted it.

My sister really was surprised to see a quilt made by all three of us and I’m glad the baby will have a quilt made by all his family members.

It was the morning of my sister’s baby shower, and I showed up at my sister’s house with a cardboard gift box. Instead of giving her the present, I locked myself in the nursery rearranged the room, much to the chagrin of her uber-friendly beagle, and staged a photo shoot with the jungle baby quilt I’ve been working on for her son.

Nobody really finds my behavior weird anymore. They get that I am completely obsessed with quilting.

I think my family was surprised that I actually finished the quilt before the baby arrived. I put the final stitches in the quilt at 1 a.m. two nights before the shower, so I cut it close as usual.

The quilt was inspired by jungle graphics she ordered on Etsy for the nursery. I took the original graphics, blew them up and arranged them in a formation that would work for a quilt.

The lion was the centerpiece of the quilt and arguable the cutest animal of the bunch. This was the first time what I saw in my head translated into the quilting when I worked on the longarm. I was very pleased with how the echo quilting added texture to the mane.

For the giraffe I used a small meander for the body and swirls within the spots. I thought the circles helped to accentuate the shape of the spots.

The elephant gave me some trouble during the quilting. I had hoped to the head using waves, to make it look wrinkly like an elephant. But the fabric was moving and bunching, so I had to rip it out and use a large meander instead.

I worked on the binding during a quilt getaway my Guild sponsored. There I got the best compliment I’ve ever received on a quilt. A fellow Guild member asked who quilted it. I think that means all my practice at Quilting By You is starting to pay off. Plus my sister loved it, and that’s all that matters.

If you want to see more photos, check out my Facebook page.

My sister is expecting her first baby in May. She is my only sister, so that means I was tasked with designing an extra special quilt for her baby.

I finished the top last weekend at quilt retreat and took it to Quilting By You in Bettendorf, Iowa, to quilt it this week. I love Quilting By You, I rent time on the longarm there so I can finish my own quilts. But Jen and Char, the owners are always around and are so helpful when I run into trouble.

I’ve got a set date every third Thursday of the month there. Lord knows I’ve got enough tops to finish and I want to get more practice on the longarm so I can continue to get better.

I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can make my piecing and applique come out the way I envision it. But the quilting is far from where I’d like it to be.

This is the first quilt where the quilting turned out pretty much as I wanted it to be. I experimented with echo quilting, stitch in the ditch and changed thread colors nine time and I absolutely love how it turned out.

The baby shower is in two weeks, so I’ll post a full quilt reveal after that.

I really needed the time away because my job has been really stressful recently. I sewed, slept and got a ton of sewing done. But rather than go on about it, I thought I would just share my weekend in Instagram photos.

Do you think this is a subtle commentary on UFOs? #iheartquiltretreat

My sewing machine pillow case is done! Now it is time to use it. #iheartquiltretreat

Time to make another #quilter’s pillowcase #iheartquiltretreat

I got my second ultimate quilter’s pillowcase done. #iheartquiltretreat

Cutting a new quilt #quiltretreat

Mittered border #iheartquiltretreat

Quilt top number three is done #chevronquilt #iheartquiltretreat

424 inches of hand sewn binding #binding #kingsized

Just in case you wanted to know how to spead manure. #americanpcikers #leclaire #quiltretreatshoppingtrip

Just finished my second quilt top today. I love #quiltretreat @mvqguild

I’ve been at quilt retreat an hour and I already finished a quilt top.

If you’re looking for a weekend getaway that includes a trip to a quilt, shop then consider visiting The Cotton Cabin in Dubuque, Iowa.

Dubuque is a lovely town on the Mississippi River with a vibrant Main Street where you’ll find local restaurants, coffee shops, a knitting shop and The Cotton Cabin Quilt Shop.

The historic main street shop is with more than 2,000 bolts of fabric to fit most tastes. You’ll find country fabrics, reproduction prints.

There also is an ample supply of homespuns, which is fitting for a quilt shop in the Midwest.

But you can also find bright modern prints, like the one used to make this shop sample. I love the quilting on this piece, I wish my own free motion quilting was this steady.

I was also quite impressed with the children’s fabric section. Most of the quilt shops I visit only have small areas dedicated to juvenile prints, which can make it difficult to find the fabric you want when it is time to make a new crib quilt. But The Cotton Cabin has an entire section dedicated to fun prints kids would love.

The Cotton Cabin is located at 1075 Main St., Dubuque, Iowa.

I just finished teaching a T-shirt quilting class at CommUniversity. The local program offers two-hour classes every Sunday in February. The way the class is set up meant my students got two more hours of instruction and time to do homework between classes.

That meant they actually had finished tops at the end of class and I got a chance to see the quilts come together.

The experience was very satisfying because, as a teacher, you don’t always know if your students will be able to overcome difficulties they run into when they get home and you’re not there to help.

There are some who are already very good, or who catch on fast. But it is not unusual to have a student in class who doesn’t even know how to run their machine, let alone sew a consistent and accurate quarter-inch seam. I do my best to explain everything, so they understand why they need to do something. But there’s just no way of knowing how they’re going to do on their own.

I had a couple students who fit that description in this class. But the difference is since the students had time to work on their projects in between sessions, I was able to see their progress and know they were going to be OK.

Most of the students got their tops pieced before the last class, and one over achiever even finished hers. She was sewing the binding on during the last class.

If you’d like to learn how to make a T-shirt quilt, check out my 10-part video tutorial. You can watch it for free in the tutorial section of the website.

I live in the Midwest, which means a big winter storm has blanketed my town. Appropriately, I was working on my king sized Winter Blues quilt when the storm hit.

I already finished a lap-sized one for practice and the pattern is available on Craftsy.

I’m about halfway done with the quilting. I think I could have been about three-quarters of the way done, but the thread keeps breaking. The thread, needle and bobbin don’t appear to be the issue. I think it may be the batting. I picked up a polyester batting that I’ve never used before because the store was out of my favorite cotton brand in the size I needed.

Let’s just say this may be the first and last time I use polyester.

I’m renting time on a longarm at Quilting By-You, in Bettendorf, Iowa. I love going there because it means I can finish my quilts myself without spending an arm and a leg.

What are you working on while you’re snowed in from winter snow storms crossing the nation?