Hi ,

Are the flowers blooming where you live? We're nearing the end of April and spring flowers are popping up everywhere in our neck of the woods! One of my favorite flowers are lilies because their bright colors are so cheerful, and they're nearly impossible to kill (pretty important for my flighty gardening abilities!)

Speaking of lilies, check out this gorgeous lily wall hanging created by Judy Pearce from Canada - doesn't this look realistic?

This looks super realistic because Judy based the design on a photograph of a real lily.

She constructed the top using a super cool applique technique called No Sewing Until You Quilt It, which allows you to build a complex art quilt like you see above without ever taking a single stitch (no sewing) until the quilt top is finished and ready to be quilted. The quilting designs are what holds all the layers together!

My friend and terrific quilt maker, Ann Holmes invented this technique based on her experience making stained glass art. She even created a 2 hour DVD workshop to teach you how to construct both art and bed quilts using this technique!

This week we're featuring the No Sewing Until You Quilt It DVD, which normally costs $29.95, but this week you can find it in the Leah Day Quilt Shop for just $19.95! Click here to check out this DVD now.

So what have we been up to this week for the Building Blocks Quilt Along? We're again practicing on four different levels of scale, 1", 1/2", 1/4", and the challenging yet rewarding 1/8" scale! But this week we're quilting Gridlines on all these scales and getting loads of practice at stitching straight lines in free motion!

Click here to watch this week's video on quilting gridlines in a modern Building Block.

Make sure to watch the video on this design to get tips on how to handle the 1/8 inch grid area. Because the lines are so close together, this might be tricky to mark, so watch the video to see how I was able to work through this tiny area without marking every line.

If you haven't joined us yet on this Building Block Quilt Along, you have not missed your chance! You can sign up at any time as you'll get every month at once when you pick up the pattern. You can quilt along as fast or as leisurely as you'd like as all of the accompanying videos will remain online forever.

Click here to get started on the Building Block Quilt Along.

Last week, Josh struggled pretty severely with the 1/8" scale, but he decided to cheat a little bit (on advice from me!) this time. You can check out his video and read about his experience with this block by clicking here.

Below is Josh's finished block, quilted on a Spoonflower preprinted panel. He was happy with this block and very proud of his gridlines.

I've seen so much progress in the last few weeks both with Josh's skill, and the hundreds of quilters posting on our Building Blocks Facebook Group. Everyone is gaining loads of skill and really seeing a big difference in their quilting ability!

The truth is - the only way to learn free motion quilting is to actually DO IT! Yes, there may be some wobbly stitches. Some blocks may not be perfect, and yes there will be times you want to throw your machine against a wall.

But stick with it! Keep quilting, keep challenging yourself to figure out what works on your machine, and pretty soon you will be finding those pretty stitches and your ability to quilt on a marked line will improve with every block you quilt.

So that's it for this week! Make sure to check out the No Sewing Until You Quilt It DVD if you're interested in learning a cool, quick applique technique while it's on sale this week!

Let's go quilt,

Leah Day