And Sew It Goes

Category: Uncategorized

  • Gee’s Bend Quilting Retreat: Day One

    Today, more than 40 quilters gathered to begin planning, cutting, and sewing quilts under the guidance of Mary Ann Pettway and China Pettway, descendants of generations of women whose Gee’s Bend quilts are recognized around the world. I have wanted to attend this retreat for a few years, and was finally able to make it…

  • The Math of It All

    I love math. I know– it’s not a popular thing to admit, but there you have it. I’m a math nerd and I embrace it. The love of math has come in especially handy with sewing. I enjoy the math involved in measuring, cutting and piecing. I don’t always get it right the first time,…

  • The Stash Revealed

    This post is a part of the Stash Stories, a series about fabric, creativity, and the stories behind what we save. Each post explores a piece of my fabric stash- where it came from, why it matters, and what it’s teaching me about making, memory, and possibility.  Last week, I shared a handful of homespun…

  • Where the Road Leads

    I’ll admit it—I spend too much time scrolling through Instagram. I love images, art, and learning, and I’ve learned to curate my feed so that it mostly reflects what inspires my creative work or delights my quirky sense of humor. Somehow, I began seeing posts from Walk for Peace, USA, which follows Buddhist monks walking…

  • Balancing Color & Style, A Creative Challenge

    When my nieces each asked me to make quilts for their daughters, I was more than happy to say yes. Through this process, I learned something important: there has to be something in each  project for me, too. Selfish? Maybe. Sensible? Absolutely. I worked with the color palettes they gave me based on their children’s…

  • Sewing With Whimsy and Hope

    Winter has barreled through and left behind snow– lots of it. This is a time of year that begs for color, brightness, and hope that warmer days promise. Months ago I bought these fabrics simply because I was drawn to their vivid color and cheerful energy.  I had a plan in mind: to practice making…

  • Fabric Bits & Pieces

    This post is a part of the Stash Stories, a series about fabric, creativity, and the stories behind what we save. Each post explores a piece of my fabric stash- where it came from, why it matters, and what it’s teaching me about making, memory, and possibility.  Part of any fabric stash is made up…

  • Homespun Goodness

    This post is a part of the Stash Stories, a series about fabric, creativity, and the stories behind what we save. Each post explores a piece of my fabric stash- where it came from, why it matters, and what it’s teaching me about making, memory, and possibility. I’m collecting homespun for projects not yet named.…

  • Stash Stories

    Fabric has a way of finding us. Sometimes we buy it for a specific purpose; sometimes simply because it’s beautiful and it has to come home with us. We may use it right away (in which case it doesn’t add to the fabric stash but the finished project stash instead), save it for the right…

  • Fiber Arts & Social Justice

    25 Million Stitches As I thought about the stitches my machine sewed over the past year – two million of them — I was reminded of a powerful exhibit I saw at the WIsconsin museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts: 25 Million Stitches. I visited it two years ago, yet it has stayed with me.…