A Hexagon Quilt Video Tutorial: The Honey Pot Quilt

I've been planning this little video (below) for you for quite some time. Today I'm featuring hexagons and the fascinating way they fall together to create a beautiful quilt. I'm so happy for the hexagon revival in the sewing world, whether machine pieced, as in my video, or hand sewn, English Paper Piecing style. In this video, I break down the 'Y' seam, step by step to show you that it's actually one of the easiest quilts to make! And, with no blocks to piece together it finishes much faster than traditional quilts!

photo by Bonnie Christine

This is a pattern that my daughter, Bonnie Christine, and I designed to compliment her fabric line, Sweet As Honey, for Art Gallery Fabrics. All Bonnie's fabrics are available at my online quilt shop with free shipping.

Quilters didn't invent this perfect shape, but, as with may other quilt designs,  we saw the opportunity and adapted it to fabric! Isn't the honeycomb amazing? Our God is great! Hexagons in quilts have been around for a long time. Remember Grandmother's Flower Garden quilts?

istockphoto

So, let's get started! As always, I offer kits for this featured quilt, The Honey Pot, shown in two colorways, on my shopping page. The kit includes pre-cut hexagons (yay!) to make the 65" x 70" quilt shown in the video, the pattern, and a plastic template, (just in case you add more hexagons or prefer to mark your hexagons before sewing). I hope you catch the hexagon fever! Your grandmother would be proud.

Thanks for visiting with me today! Happy sewing and God bless!

On Pincushions

I am a collector of pincushions, and many of my friends know it! I've been gifted with very beautiful pincushions, I've made some and bought some, and I use them! I like to keep one at every station in my sewing studio so that I'm not constantly searching for pins. Here are a few from my collection.

But, realistically, this is what happens at the sewing machine.

It can take so long to pick them up, then pick up the ones that slipped through my fingers and onto the floor, and arrange them into the pincushion. So, I added one more pincushion to my collection.

There are many brands, but this one from Dritz has a little secret drawer on the bottom for chocolate. The package said it was for extra pins, but this just made more sense to me. And yes, I eat them straight from the bag.

So, collect many pincushions and use them all, but have at least one magnetic pin caddy for quickly picking up loose pins. It's very easy to transfer them from the magnetic one to a fabric one because the pin heads stay together!

Thanks for visiting! Happy sewing and God bless! Maxie

Maxie Makes 'Modern to a T' Quilt, a Video Tutorial!

Video tutorials are my favorite things to share with you! Today, I'm bringing you a special pattern that I reworked from a vintage quilt that featured a block popular around 1890. Can we make this modern? Why, yes, we can! I'll show you how in the video below!

While strolling in an antique shop in Asheville, NC, I came across the quilt pictured below. The binding was tattered and almost disintegrated. Hand quilted and hand pieced, it was heavy with the cotton batting so familiar in the old quilts I slept under at my grandmother's house. Maybe that's why I was so drawn to it. I inspected the blocks and saw that it was made with quilt units familiar to most quilters. I felt that this quilt would be a cinch to make, even for a beginner. Watch the video for even more facts about the quilt, and I'll give you some tips and tool ideas that will make it easier than you can even imagine.  Two products help to make the piecing more accurate and timesaving:  Triangulations and the Flying Geese Bloc Loc Ruler, both available on my shopping page, as well as a fat quarter bundle to make the quilt in the colors shown! The pattern is provided with the fabric bundle. Oh, yes! I have a surprise at the end of the tutorial, so, grab a cup of coffee and let's get started!

I hope you enjoy today's video...please leave me a comment so that I know you were here. Happy Sewing and God bless! Maxie

Book Scents Friendship

In February I had the priviledge to attend the Movers and Makers Summit, held in Charleston, SC. It is a retreat, of sorts, for entrepreneurs. There were keynote speakers that shared their expertise on many subjects, including how to stay the course in your business, market successfully, and how to take care of yourself while doing so.

Photo by Paige French.

This is the amazing group of women that attended the summit. Speakers included my daughter, Bonnie Christine (pink blouse, front row), and Lisa Jacobs, Paige French, Kerri Burki and April Bowles. The rest of us just sat back in the beautiful house by the seaside and centered in on the reason we were there. That's me, far right with eyeglasses.

One special attendee was Nalana Lillie, pictured above on the back row in the black and white stripe blouse. Nalana is a blogger and candle maker, presenting each with a special story presentation. For the month of May, Nalana is featuring Mother and Daughter relationships and entrepreneurship on her blog. I was so excited when she asked to interview Bonnie and me for a post! I have to say that working with Bonnie is, well, just fun! To read more about how Bonnie and I support each other, read Nalana's article, as well as the other featured posts on Mother and Daughter pairs.

Bonnie and me, exhausted after breaking down our booth at International Quilt Market last week.

Thanks for visiting! Happy sewing and God bless! Maxie

Quilting with Dresdens & Prairie Points

I'm loving Dresden Plate quilts these days! I attended International Quilt Market last week and it seems that I'm not the only one enamored by the design! I especially loved the double pointed Dresden designs from Susan Cleveland of Pieces be With You. So, I came home and adapted the design for a pillow.

Using an 18º Dresden ruler, I cut twenty 4" wedges. Make both ends of the wedges pointed and sew them all together as follows:

1. Fold a wedge in half lengthwise, right sides together.
2. With a 1/4" seam allowance, stitch straight across each of the narrow ends. Finger press the seams open, with the tiny triangle at the tip laying flat. Turn right side out, using a point turner to get a nice point at each end. Press well.
3. Arrange wedges to your liking. Using a 1/4" seam allowance, sew five Dresden wedges together. Press well. Lay the 5 piece section on a gridded rotary mat to make sure it is nice and square. The raw edges will extend 1/4" over grid lines, but make sure it's square and flat. If not, adjust seam allowances and restitch.
4. Construct four sections in this manner and then sew them all together to create the circular Dresden Plate.

Applique´ the Dresden Plate to a 16" square of background fabric. See last Friday's post for instructions and a video on the stitching the applique´. To center, press the square in half vertically and then again horizontally to form crease lines. Line up the crease lines with opposing seams in the Dresden plate, as shown below. Pin in place, then stitch.

Layer the 16" Dresden plate block with batting and backing and quilt as desired. I stitched in the ditch around the Dresden Plate, and then echo quilted around the outside tips twice. (See photo, below, right.) I finished the remaining portions with a loop meander to create texture.

The photo on the left shows how great Baby Lock's Free Motion Echo Quilt foot works for applique´with the feed dogs raised (see last Friday's post), and the photo on the right shows how great it works for echo quilting with the feed dogs dropped! This foot has many registration marks to help you keep your stitches just where you want them. Use it with the pivot feature and the needle placement feature engaged for stressless sewing!

After quilting, I made prairie points from 3 1/2" squares. Nine (9) points fit perfectly on each side, requiring a total of 36 points. You'll find a wonderful article on McCall's Quilting website on how to make prairie points and how to nest them. Pin, then baste them in place around the outer edge of the pillow top. If you'd like to make continuous prairie points from one fabric, I'll refer you to my blog post for those instructions and my video tutorial here.

To make an envelope pillow back, cut a 16" length of 44" wide fabric. Cut on the fold to make two pieces 16" wide x about 22" long. Remove the selvage edge. Press each piece in half along the 16" width, as shown below in the first photo. (Click on the photo to enlarge it.)

View fullsize

Place one piece of backing fabric on the pillow, right sides together, with the raw edges lining up with the outside raw edges of the pillow. (Center photo.) Place the remaining backing piece on top of everything, again aligning the raw edges. The folded edges of the backing will overlap each other by about 4 or 5 inches. (Right photo.)

Stitch around the entire pillow, about 1/4" seam allowance, making sure to have all the raw edges of the prairie points enclosed in the seam allowance.

Turn your pillow right side out. Use a point turner for the corners and press well.

For the inside pillow, I purchased a pre-made 16" pillow form. Insert through the opening in the back of the pillow. Enjoy!