Thursday, January 1, 2026

New Year's Day 2026: Studio Setup Continues with Design Wall, Ruler Peg Wall + Quilting Thread Racks

Hello and Happy New Year 2026.  I hope you all enjoyed wonderful holidays with your loved ones that were some combination of happy/healthy/peaceful/blessed/magical/exciting/restful and all the other good adjectives.  For those of us whose holidays were tarnished by things like grief/sadness/illness/disappointment/loneliness, I am sending out a big virtual group hug and a high five to you right now, because we made it through and we survived and now we are looking at a blank sheet of paper, a fresh bolt of fabric, and an empty design wall of possibilities for what we will choose to make of this brand new year.  Carpe Annum 2026!

The extra work of the Christmas season -- shopping, wrapping, Christmas cards, returning and exchanging -- necessitated a pause in the work of unpacking from our recent move and setting up my sewing studio in the new house, but we've used some of the quiet days between Christmas and New Year's to make progress in the studio again.  No, none of these Stonefields blocks is newly created, but this is the first time I'm seeing them again since I packed them up in Florida in October.  I have been struggling with motivation in recent weeks, especially with regards to setting up my sewing space, and I am hoping that these little quilt blocks will cheer me up and summon my "sewjo" to return to me.


Stonefields Blocks Unpacked and Back On My Design Wall


Here's what I decided to do with my design wall:


96 x 96 Design Wall Installed on Obtuse Angle Adjacent Walls


The new studio space has lots of windows and closet space.  Wall space suitable for an 8' x 8' design wall was in shorter supply.  I considered putting the design wall behind my long arm machine, but realized that there wasn't enough room back there for me to be climbing up and down on a step stool to arrange blocks.  So I convinced my husband that the design wall should go in this corner of the room instead:

Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt Finish for Brad + New Studio Update

Good Morning and Happy "Thanksgiving Eve" to all who are celebrating in the United States this week!  Our moving truck delivered all of our furniture and boxes to our new home in North Carolina a little over a week ago, and I'm feeling thankful that my family is together again and that (so far) we have not discovered any major damage sustained in the move from Florida.  I still have a ways to go before I will be able to get back to my sewing projects (I'll share an update on the new studio at the tail end of today's blog post).  But first, I want to share this unusual vintage quilt finish that I completed for a client about two years ago and never got around to writing up on the blog.  


95 x 100 Vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt Finish


My client Brad reached out to me about this beautifully hand pieced Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt top that was made by his great-aunt in the late 1960s or early 1970s.  I could tell from the photos he sent that the quilt top was well-made and in excellent condition.


Beautiful, Even, Hand Stitched Patchwork Seams