Introducing the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club


Have you seen the news about the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club? The Mighty Lucky Quilting Club is the first monthly subscription club of its kind that focuses on challenging quilters with different aspects of the quilting process. 

Each month a new challenge is delivered to your inbox via PDF. The challenges are put together by twelve different quilters so you get twelve unique design skills. From piecing to quilting, from physical design to colour work... and everything in-between, you will learn something new each time. 

To take part in the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club you need to subscribe. You can sign up monthly or take on the whole year. Subscriptions are $5 per month or $50 for the year (that is US$). Think of it like a gym membership for your quilting skills.

Check out the trainers!

January - Krista Fleckenstein
February - Season Evans
March - Rossie Hutchinson
April - Alison Glass
May - Amy Gibson
July - Cheryl Arkison (That's me!)
August - Sarah Fielke
September - Jacquie Gering
October - Nicole Vogelsinger
November - Amanda Jean Nyberg
December - Carolyn Friedlander

Each designer/trainer will also be featured on a Crafty Planner podcast during their month. During the podcast they'll discuss the challenge and talk in depth about their design process with hot and producer, Sandi Hazelwood.


 As quilters work through each month's challenge in the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club you'll be supported by the designer/trainers - who will provide tips and encouragement with a mid-month email. You'll be able to share your work and watch fellow quilters using the #mightylucky hashtag on Instagram. Also, there will be randomly selected giveaways in the form of fabric, books, patterns, and more!

 Quilters will learn and share a new and exciting design concept each month through the MightyLucky Quilting Club, and by the end of the year, you’ll be amazed with where your new quilting skills have taken you! 

 Oh, and there is a guild option too, don't forget to check that out.

Smooch - Using Half Circles in Quilt Design




Smooch
74'' x 53''

Depending on how you look at, it is hearts or lips. I choose to see lips. Big, juicy lips heading towards a kiss. Whether that is the first kiss of a married couple, the slobbery attempts of a toddler attempting to kiss Mama, tentative lip locks of teenagers, a son kissing his mother goodbye.

This entire quilt started as a plan to show quilters that you can use half circles just as easily as two quarter circles. Just that, in a fun design. But now I have grand plans for this quilt. But first, the details.



I used only 5 fabrics in total. Absolutely shocking for me! The lips are Cloud 9 Cirrus Solids, the background is a print from Cotton and Steel. The backing fabric is a gorgeous voile designed by Bari J. for Art Gallery. Finally, the binding is an older one I found in my stash, I think it is from Birch Organics.

Quilting was done on my Bernina 820. My Stitch Regulator is not working properly so I turned it off and just free motioned the hearts inside the lips. I used a variegated pink, then a red from Wonderful for the lips. The background is quilted with straight lines using Aurifil. There was a lot of stopping and starting on those lines, but it was totally worth it for the finished impact and texture.



It is fairly densely quilted, but with the voile backing and Quilters' Dream Cotton batting it is quite soft. Gloriously soft.

Perfect for snuggles. Because if there ever was a quilt that invited snuggles...



Small Wonders by Mary Fons - New Quilt in the Works


It isn't often that I get asked to make something with a designer's fabric. And it is less often that I say yes to the request. But when Mary Fons asked I was more than happy to respond in the positive. Mary has been tremendously supportive of my career through our relationship at Quilty and I'm happy to return the favour.

Small Wonders is her new fabric line with Springs Creative. She dove through their archives and worked with them to produce a dramatic and graphic line. The colours are out of my personal norm, but so rich. Sure to be a hit with many different audiences.

I have a plan worked out for the fabric and look forward to cutting into it this weekend. I see some playtime in my future.

Keep up with my work on this project on Periscope. Haven't heard of Periscope yet? It is the latest social media app - allowing for live broadcasts to be streamed from my phone to your phone or computer. I am enjoying it for sharing snippets from my sewing room and process posts about quilt projects. If you don't have the app you can still watch my broadcasts on Katch. My first post on this series is up there now.

Quilt Local (Weekend Reads)


One of the most common questions I get asked is "Where do you find your inspiration?" I'll admit, it is a frustrating question. Partly, because the answer - everywhere! - seems trite. But mostly because the answer itself frustrates many. So many of us seem to think that inspiration is some magical creature that touches only a select few. Like the Greeks and their Muses, that is comes from something else and not within. Poppycock!

If you open your eyes and your heart to seeing the world around you, if you listen to the people talk and the love you feel, the inspiration is right there. And if you get your butt in the sew it can come to life in a quilt.

Quilt Local, by Heather Jones, is a book that walks the reader through noticing the world around and capturing it in a quilt. It takes you through her thought process on everything from colour, capturing inspiration, designing a quilt, and decision making. For a quilter wondering how it goes from planks on a dock to a quilt, this is it.

Heather is a lovely woman, a quiet and reflective soul. I've known her through the industry for a few years now. She was gracious enough to contribute to You Inspire Me to Quilt. Her quilts are bold, even if their colour schemes are usually more muted. It is her emphasis on line, translated with large scale piecing, that gives her a unique voice in quilt design.

Where Heather is restrained and focused in her palettes, I am all over the place. Neither is better or worse, just different. In many ways I am drawn to her quilts because of this contrast. Only a handful of fabrics, muted colour ways and straightforward constructions. Not my usual more is more mentality when it comes to fabric selection!



In Quilt Local I was particularly drawn to her quilt Indian Hill. I loved the bright colours she used in both versions of the quilt. A difference for her and probably what made it more appealing to me. I also quite liked the angles of the design. What I found interesting is that when I read her construction method I was surprised. It isn't how I would have put the quilt together. Now I'm not saying her way is wrong, not at all. It is more about noticing and remembering that each of us approach a design challenge and pattern making differently, from our own experiences. It is the same with inspiration - we see the world through our own lens and what we find fascinated, another might be bored. Where we see a quilt, someone else just sees a misty mountain. The important thing is to see.


This is one of the final stops on the blog tour for Quilt Local. Check out the other posts for more inspiration and insight.

10/5: Creative Bug
10/6: STC Craft Blog  
10/8: Robert Kaufman
10/9: Melanie Falick
10/10: Sew Mama Sew
10/12: Plaid Portico
10/14: Modern Sewciety
10/16: Pellon
10/19: The Tattooed Quilter
10/21: Amy’s Creative Side 
10/23: Diary of a Quilter
10/26: Film in the Fridge
10/28: Tall Grass Prairie Studio
10/29: Okan Arts
10/30: Kara Sews
11/2: Crimson Tate
11/4: Dainty Time
11/6: Nap Time Quilter
11/9: Spoonflower
11/11: Aurifil 
11/13: A Gathering of Stitches

A few details about the book. Heather runs through an extensive colour discussion. She also details her approach to design. It really is like sitting with her as she explains a quilt from start to finish. The photography is beautiful. My one issue is that the original inspiration image is not all that large. It is included, as are Heather's sketches, but I would have liked to have seen more of them.

One of my favourite things about the book is that Heather made two versions of each project. That means you see two different colour ways. This makes a huge difference for the reader because we are less likely to get hung up on making that quilt, or dismissing a quilt simply because we don't see the colours. It also shows us the power of fabric selection in quilt making.

My camera and phone are filled with images that may one day become the basis for a quilt. I can't stop seeing the potential. Once you open up you will indeed see that inspiration is everywhere.