Hi ,

 

Mother's Day is this coming weekend and we're celebrating with a short and sweet Sewing Table Sale! Save an additional $15 this week only. 

 

I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day weekend filled with beautiful fabric, chocolate covered strawberries, great food, and family. Well, that's what I'm hoping for at least!

 

Now let's check in on our progress on the Friendship Quilt Along.

 

On Monday I shared the piecing video on the Scrappy Pinwheel block. I used 16 precut small squares to create the Scrappy Pinwheel block. I first pieced them into Half Square Triangles, and then into super half square triangles. Click Here to watch the video on how to make half square triangles.

 

And here is the piecing video below. Click Here if the video does not load.

I've been so delighted with all the interest and enthusiasm about my new videos on the Grace Qzone hoop frame!

 

This is a cute little frame that's designed specially to fit into smaller spaces. At only 54 inches wide, this is our smallest and most affordable quilting frame.

 

But the #1 question I've received is how this frame works to quilt a bigger quilt. How does the quilt shift from left to right as well as forward and back on the hoop?

 

This week I tackled that question and worked out a method that works great and ensures the quilt doesn’t slip out of position as you shift it side to side.

 

Here are a couple emails we received last week about the Qzone hoop frame. Wendy J sent us this picture of her practicing on the Q-Zone for the first time!

 

Wendy shared, "I love this frame. My free motion was such a chore. I'm using the Juki TL2010Q as it has a larger throat space. Using the frame has made quilting a joy. I'm getting better at making my stitches more uniform. Thank you so much for introducing the frame through your videos. I did have the assembly one on while putting it together. It helped a lot. Thanks again"

 

And Sharon L. shared: "Thank you thank you so much for your videos! I have this frame ( less than a month) and so glad to see your videos. I’m on my 2nd quilt and it’s much easier than my first! Love your baby quilt. My stitches don’t look like a drunken monkey either......so glad about that!"

Speaking of the Qzone, I've added a bunch of new accessories so you can get the most from your Q-Zone hoop frame, Continuum Frame, or Qnique Longarm.

This weekend I sewed two Ms. Bunny dolls, complete with dresses and panties on my treadle sewing machine!

 

This was quite challenging and resulted in LOTS of thread breaks. My treadle likes to turn in the wrong direction which causes the top thread to break every time.

 

But after sewing these two dolls, I gained lots of experience and understand the nuances of my machine and treadle base so much better. I can't say the thread breaks have stopped completely, but it's significantly better than it was in the beginning.

 

I hope you have a marvelous Mother's Day and enjoy lots of time working on your favorite quilting or crafting project this weekend. I'm plan to spend time wood turning, quilting, and setting up a huge longarm on my Continuum frame. More about that next week!

 

Let's go quilt,

 

Leah Day