Quilt As You Go, Simply Done

Simply Done

Marguerita

Quilt As You Go Quilt Retreat!

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If you are in (or coming to) Alaska and want to take an exclusive class with me, here’s your chance! Only 10 people will be able to sign up for this weekend retreat, which is a fundraiser for a friend. I’ll be bringing quilts from my first 2 books plus quilts I have made for the next two books – a little exclusive sneak peek!

We’ll spend the weekend making a Shortcake Quilt – 36″ x 45″ – and covering the basics of quilt-as-you-go and then jump into adapting the QAYG techniques to work for other quilt blocks – not just the Crazy Shortcut Quilt style.

It will be a little bit of everything 🙂 June 8, 9, 10th, 2012 in Palmer, Alaska — $100 per person — email me to sign up — MMQuilts @ gmail.com

If you are (or know of) a quilt shop owner in the area of Anchorage to Palmer, and you want to host the Trunk Show, please let me know. I am looking for either Thursday June 7th or Friday, June 8th, from about 7-9pm.

Crazy Shortcut Quilt Retreat

New Quilt Pics!

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Stella made her fourth Crazy Shortcut Quilt! On this one, she writes:

I have shown the back as it has a rather lovely fabric with ‘wols’ (owls) on it. I went a bit over the top and added two more designs which I knew she would like. One of the seaside to remind her where she comes to stay and her favourite hot air balloons. She lives in the middle of the Swedish countryside where there are a lot of lakes but no seaside.

Stella's Quilt for grandchild Cayley


Back of Caley's Quilt
















Linda Rheault sent two views of her Jelly Roll Crazy Shortcut Quilt! Check out these colors – I want one like this!

Hi! After fighting with machine quilting a large quilt I found your site and decided to give it a try. I was especially inspired by your red and white jelly roll quilt and the directions you gave in your video. I did get your book in addition to watching the video. I had never heard of jelly rolls since I haven’t quilted for many years. I just finished the quilt which is a gift for friends.

I needed a big queen size quilt so my borders were added last like an envelope and then filled with batting and quilted on my machine.

I have enjoyed your videos especially the one on thread which was enlightening.

I will attach some pictures but I’m afraid they aren’t very good because the quilt is so large

I do want to do one more short cut quilt wall hanging out of Alexander Henry’s Freida Kahlo fabric.

Have a great day! Linda Rheault

Linda's Jellyroll Quilt

What a gorgeous border!






































Nicky Lowitz is an expert at re-inventing quilting! She recycled Hawaiian Shirts to make the quilt below and Nicky also made a Tee Shirt Quilt! – click on the Tee Shirt Quilts tab above to see them. About her Hawaiian Quilt she writes:

I love your method, and it was wonderful to do the whole thing myself, and avoid the machine quilting expense. This one is 90 x 90, and made from recycled Hawaiian shirts from the local thrift stores. I also bought all the threads from the thrift stores, as I was not working when I started the project. My Hawaiian quilt was in the Quilt Faire show at Ironstone Vineyards in Murphys CA this weekend. Several ladies in the Guild asked me how on earth I joined the squares! I gave a demonstration with pieces of paper and they both asked for your name and the name of the book, which I was pleased to give them!

Nicky's Hawaiian Shirt Quilt

Gorgeous matching shams!






Back of the Shams

Beautiful Stitches

Quilt Class in Palmer, Alaska

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Do any of my local friends have a building space or know of a building space that could be used for a weekend quilt class? My friend and fellow Crazy Shortcut Quilting teacher Joanna Stokinger and I are fundraising for her daughter Tessah get to Japan. We will be teaching a multi-day t-shirt quilt class (bring your t-shirts and leave with a fully finished quilt). We just need to find a free space that could accommodate 10-12 quilters – tables ironing boards etc… in or near Palmer, Alaska and any help at all would be greatly appreciated!

Here’s a pic of my newest tee quilt, at the layout stage….

Marilyn's Tee Shirt Quilt - marathon Race Tees!!

Quilt Pics from Linda & Christine

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Christine made this bright and lovely Crazy Shortcut Quilt. She had emailed me a while back asking how to handle some oddly cut fat quarters and I gave her my best suggestion: use them as they are (badly cut, very uneven sizes) and trim the quilted blocks to a uniform size. This is something I’ve had to do myself and it results in smaller finished sized blocks than I had originally planned, plus extra scraps (the trimmings) in my scrap-basket, but it still works.

Christine sent this message with the picture of her finished quilt:

I had so much trouble with my fat quarters I had purchased from Jo Ann Fabrics
not measuring properly. I wound up buying few half yard pieces to replace some of those
fat quarters that were so severly off. I had a hard time squaring up at the end and had to cut
my blocks down to 15″. All in all it came out great and looks so nice in my son’s bedroom.
I really enjoyed the process of crazy quilting and have already bought more fabric to make
another one, this time I bought better quality fabric in half yard pieces so I will be off to a
better start.

Christine's Quilt

Linda sent pics of two of her quilts, and you can see that she modified the sashing strips slightly to suit her own design tastes – yay for her!

Linda Swartz's Red White & Blue Quilt




Linda's first Crazy Shortcut Quilt




Thank you Christine and Linda for your quilt photos and stories!

For My Rabbit Loving Friends

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Sarah sent me this video and I just love it – it’s too funny to not share 🙂 If you read my blog regularly you will know that we have had pet rabbits for years and they have free run of the house. Occasionally we’ll take them outside in an enclosed area to run and play and they are better entertainment than anything I know except babies. Enjoy!

The video comes from this blog by Sweedish a farmer who made the video at a friend’s farm after they told him about their “sheep herding bunny”. The bunny’s name is Champis and I believe he’s a Netherland Dwarf breed. He’s just adorable!

Michelle Made the Jelly Roll Quilt!

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Michelle's Jelly Roll Baby Quilt

Michelle and Joan are about the two most prolific Crazy Shortcut Quilters that I know, besides Sarah and myself and I love the fact that each of them sends me photos!!

This is Michelle’s version of the Jelly Roll Red & White Quilt that I made (video here) and I just love her soft colors. There’s a special place in my heart for grey and she managed to make that difficulty to work with color just sparkle.


Back of the Baby Quilt


She also sent a peek at the back of the quilt – soft and dreamy for the baby!

Click on the photos for larger images. I just love the striped fabric and I had never thought of that! She’s a genius 🙂
Now I can’t wait to try some striped fabrics too!

And here’s the kicker – Joan just moved to the same town that Michelle lives in and they had a meet-up a few weeks ago. I believe I need to go there too!


More Quilts!

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I love to receive photos in my email!!

Angie in Canada sent me these of her quilt, and she blogged about it!

Angie's Quilt

Angie's Stitches


















Diane B in Eugene Oregon posted her quilt to her blog and sent photos of her pink quilt and this note:

First of all, I have had your book for ages just kept reading it and going over it. I finally just told myself to make it. I did not do fancy stitching, too time consuming and I’m impatient. I just straight line quilted or made up my own designs as I went along. Love, love, love your method. It was so easy, I don’t know why I was intimidated by it. Enough leftovers to make a 18 x 18 pillow cover.

Diane's Pillow


Diane B's Quilt

Diane's Quilt - Back


































Gayle sent me this note and her photo:

Hi there! This is the 2nd quilt I made with your Crazy quilt book, I sent you the first one and thought I would send the second as well! I also purchased your new book,read it cover to cover! Awesome tips and book! Getting ready to use the Roly Poly 2 pattern to make ME a quilt! LOL Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us! Happy New Year!

~Gayle

Gayle's Second Crazy Shortcut Quilt




















Bonnie sent a photo of her gorgeous, bright baby Shortcake Quilt:

Dear Marguerita,
Yesterday I finally finished the Crazy Shortcake Quilt for my newborn grandson (born 12/31/11). It was so much fun to make! I used a bug theme for the quilt squares. I had many challenges with the binding, trying to figure out how to do the final joining, so I kind of jury-rigged it. Here’s the photos…

Bonnie's quilt for her grandson


Bonnie's quilt back

















Lottie Sue posted her quilt to her Flickr account!

Book Giveaway!

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Hi Quilters, my friend and quilt artist Gene Black is having a book giveaway of my new book, Finish (almost) Any Quilt. Gene even wrote up a review of the book, so you can see what he thinks of it 🙂

Gene Black is one of the many quilters who inspired me to write this book. Several years ago he bought our first book, Crazy Shortcut Quilts, and he followed some of the quilt-as-you-go process but, being an artist, he changed it up to suit his style and what he wanted to accomplish with his quilts. Here’s another peek.

Quilt artist Mary Couch also changed the process to suit herself on Tanners T-Shirt Quilt and a quilt for her daughter. Mary’s daughter’s quilt is featured on page 12 of the book – you can peek inside at Amazon.com.

Mary’s friend Elizabeth Haines also changed our quilt-as-you-go techniques and her quilt is featured on page 19 of the new book. Elizabeth and I started chatting about changing some measurements in January of last year and she very graciously allowed me to use both her measurements, photograph and her quilt story in my book.

Truthfully, I am in awe of the kindness and creativity of the quilters who have shared their projects with me. I don’t know how got so lucky, and I am deeply grateful to everyone who sends me their quilt photos or posts them to their blogs or Facebook.

I hope that you’ll click some of the links above (I’ll be posting more soon) and see how easy it is to adapt your projects and finish your quilts. My word for 2012 is FINISH and I’ve still got a lot of projects on the design wall. I’ll be posting about them and uploading videos for them as I finish each one.

What are your finishing goals for 2012?

Using Kindle Fire to Read Quilt Books

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I’ve been working on two new quilt books for a year. One is done and available as a print book and as a Kindle Book, specifically formatted for the Kindle Fire. While testing the book on the Fire, I found out how to make the photos bigger so I made a video about it. The official announcement for the book is here. I’ll be posting photos of quilts from the book soon. Sending Happy Holiday Wishes to all, Marguerita

Borrow Crazy Shortcut Quilts Book from Amazon.com!

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If you have a Prime Membership to Amazon.com you can borrow our book, Crazy Shortcut Quilts, for free!! Download the sample to your Kindle (or Kindle for PC app, or Kindle for iPad app) and you’ll be offered the chance to borrow the book – then start reading!! Again – you must have a Prime membership to borrow books from Amazon. Here’s your chance to share the book with a friend or view it on your PC or tablet.

I must admit that I bought a Kindle Fire (the new color one) JUST to see how my books look but -WOW- I am enjoying this device!

Do you have an Amazon Fire Tablet?