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Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Crafty Gemini has been around on the internet for a while now. Vanessa, a clever millenial, has been sharing fun projects to make for your family, friends and home. She now has partnered up with the Jenny Doan empire of Missouri Star Quilt Company, so will become much more familiar to an older audience. But none the less, her projects are cute and quick. In this video she will walk you through the steps of making a drawstring bag. She bills it as a gift bag, but I think it could be useful in many other ways as well. The little boys in my life have all sorts of soldiers and small characters with which they love to stage battles. When going to a restaurant, a few always come along for the wait before the meal is served. My nieces, now too old for dollies, […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I don’t know about you, but I hate binding a quilt. It’s like I’m almost to the finish line and then I have to stop in place for some boring work. I don’t enjoy the hand stitching process that so many quilters tell me is very relaxing for them. I have learned a few tricks along the way that make stitching the binding entirely by machine good enough for me, but this video and tutorial I found this morning are very intriguing. I might have to invest in this foot for my machine. I know I could use it for other applications as well. Click here. BTW the heirloom creations site that is referenced in this link is a very good resource for both Bernina owners and Husqvarna Viking owners. Great instructional videos on all sorts of aspects of those machines. I also have e-mailed […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. The dresden plate block is one of my favorites in quilting. I love traditional blocks made with modern fabrics. Here is a video, accompanying a free pattern, for a beautiful dresden style tree skirt or large round table topper. You may not take this on for this holiday season, but it’s definitely a keeper for another year. It would of course be lovely made in non-holiday fabrics as well. Making it with the tree skirt opening would allow you to use it on an umbrella table on your deck this summer. Lovely! Click here.

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Have you (or a laundry helper) ever mistakenly put a sweater into the laundry only to discover it at half its original size when it came out of the washer? If so, then you have already felted wool. Actually wool is not the only fiber that will “felt” but it is the most commonly used one. With the price of felted wool in quilt shops so astronomical, it’s well worth making some of your own. If you did the math to calculate how much per yard those luscious 8″ x 8″ pieces actually cost, you would have apoplexy. If you have a friend who also loves felted wool who would join you in this project, you could trade pieces and get a nice assortment for yourselves. I have some bits left from felting some men’s suit coats that I found in a thrift shop several […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Do you think the end of the falling leaves is coming soon? The piles of leaves at the curb are quite high, the Town hasn’t even made one pick up run yet, and my yard is really getting covered today. I’m hoping that these variable temperatures, rain and wind are going to bring down the rest of them so I can finish up and declare fall finished for 2015. Raking leaves is not as fun as it was in my childhood when all the families would make a huge leaf pile, and then we’d set it afire and cook hot dogs! Of course that was many, many moons ago before all of those pesky rules about open fires were put into place to protect us. How did we ever make it to adulthood with all the “dangerous” (air quotes) things our parents let us do! […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Ever since I was a little girl I have made gifts at the holiday time, and made decorations, and made cookies, etc. etc. The holidays have always been a time for crafting. Judging by the displays in most of our local stores, it is now officially holiday time. I even came across a radio station which is already playing Christmas tunes 24/7. That’s over the top in my book. Anyway if you are a bit like me and enjoy making all sorts of things for the holidays, you might enjoy this website’s annual tradition. They call it Handmade Holidays. There is a theme each day, with a list of projects fitting the theme. They explain it much better than I can summarize, and if you like you can look back through what they have featured in years past. So here you go–let the crafting begin. […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Was at the hairdresser this week and the hot topic was how close we are getting to Christmas! Just about 8 weeks to get all that shopping done. Well, those of you who have kept up with our gifting challenge here on the blog should be in good shape. You’ve got 10 gifts complete if you stuck to our timeline—LOL! I hope you have a few done anyway-those UFO’s that you intended to finish up. Remember?? Sure you do. If not, here’s a very quick idea for the teens and twenty-somethings on your list or maybe even for yourself if you need some warm hats for winter. This video came in my e-mail today and I have a sweater that I bought in Scotland years back that will be perfect for it. Isn’t it funny how sweaters just shrink up when left in the drawer […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. In every class I teach where marking the fabric is involved, the topic of Frixion pens comes up. I use Frixion pens for some of my marking, but I am very careful about the placement of their marks. When Frixion pens first hit the quilting world, I did some experimenting on my own, and some research at the company website. Quilters love the nice fine line markings they make, and how easy it is to remove them with a little heat. I thought that a red line drawn by a Frixion pen would be a perfect marking for the red work embroidery I was doing at that time. The problem is…those markings are not really gone. Here’s an article written by a quilter who did her own research, (click here), and who contacted the company to get their input. I will tell you that the […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Busy, busy, busy! Even though I no longer am going back to school at the start of September, life really ramped up for awhile. How about for you? Let’s check on a few things. How are you coming on the gift-a-long challenge? Remember? The challenge was to make/finish a gift each month this year so when the holidays roll around, you have quite a few gifts ready to go. I’ve gotten a few more things finished since my last update but I’m not at #9 for September! I think I’ll look around for a few UFO’s which are very close to completion to see if I can get back on track. Awhile back I talked about a selvage project I am working on which uses a 60 degree triangle ruler as well. That project is in pretty good shape. The 48 triangles covered in selvages […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. At the end of July I wrote 2 posts about Carol Bryer Fallert whose quilts and awards changed the trajectory of quilting. She gave machine quilting its stature in the quilting world, I feel. The quilting police were forced to recognize the skill and artistry that are required to quilt projects by machine, whether those machines are long arms, mid arms or, for most of us, our domestic machines. If you’re going to be in Massachusetts this fall you might want to visit the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts to see a retrospective of Carol’s work. What spectacular quilts you’d get to see; it might be worth making a special trip with this exhibition as your destination. Click here for details.