Lucie The Happy Quilter's Blog

I’m a great believer in paying it forward. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to learn a lot about quilt making and various other crafts. I never shy away from buying books and magazines that are full of inspiration and I also have access to the internet which gives me a wealth of information at my fingertips. Well as a way of paying it forward, I decided a couple a few weeks ago to share some of my scraps and a little bit of know-how by adopting a Newbie. My chosen newbie, Carol, has informed me that her little parcel of goodies has arrived. So thru the month of April I will be keeping in contact with Carol, thru the magic of email, giving her ideas and tips on quilt making in general. Carol missed out on January’s Use up Your Scraps month because as a newbie she just didn’t have any scraps to work with. So hopefully I will be able to inspire her to piece one or two small projects. I was wondering if anyone else out there has ever adopted a newbie and helped them along for a bit. I think that all us old timers have a responsibility to keep quilt making alive. If we don’t pass on this quiet gentle pastime onto the next generation it will die out. Just think what the generations to come might miss out. I think this is something we should keep in mind.

Thru the month of March, along with doing plenty of longarm quilting I have been using up scraps by piecing some Dresden Plates and also finishing up UFOs by taking a Freemotion Quilting practice piece and turning into something. Do you remember this?

Well this afternoon I turned it into this……..

I was wandering around the house thinking about what to do next ….. I ended up in the sewing room when my eyes fell on the Continuous Boxes Freemotion Quilting practice piece and decided to turn it into a bag. I decided to treat the bottom corners of this bag a little differently than usual. I usually just use the normal everyday paper bag corner technique but I have wanted to try this type of corner for some time. So today was the day.

Once again this project is totally pieced using scraps. I plan on adding some odd buttons the colours in the variegated thread to liven it up around the aqua coloured band. With Easter coming up, I think this bag is perfect for holding lovely colourful foil wrapped Easter Eggs. I guess I’m all set for attending an Easter Egg Hunt!

At ten o’clock this morning I was ready to have my morning coffee break. By then I had done a whole load of chores. I made my coffee and was taking it thru to the living room where the sun was shining when I heard something hit the doormat with a thud. As if by magic the postman had just pushed this magazine as well as another thru the door. I will show you the other in a later post.

So I sat quietly and looked thru the magazines choosing the projects I would like to make. The first one on my list is this one designed by Michelle Ridgway…..

Click on the photos to zoom in.

I’m surrounded by inspiration at the moment. The sun is shining and it makes me feel so much better than I have lately. Today has been a magical day. I have accomplished more than I ever expected to; household chores as well as crafty bits. I never expected to have a finish to show you.

So for this evening, this very happy longarm quilter will be sewing buttons and hand quilting. Whatever you may be doing this evening, I hope you enjoy it. Until you read me again,

Happy stitching. ♥ ♥