Well, I started thinking about it and found that it’s hard to pin down EXACTLY what I’m all about. I guess I could say that I’m all about home, family, and educating others. It comes back to how I was raised, my bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and Family and Consumer Science (formerly known as Home Economics), and my master’s in reading and literacy. My second blog is all about reading and literacy in early childhood education.

Over the years, I’d say I’ve been leaning into sewing and quilting more. There are more frequent blog posts about my latest projects, quilts I’m working on, and machine embroidery projects that I’m attempting.

I post a lot of works in progress on my Instagram account, as well as finished quilts. Other people’s pictures on Instagram are usually my inspiration for trying a new pattern. As I scroll, something will catch my eye and I know I need to make something similar in the near future.

Recently, I’ve been learning how to longarm my own quilts. I took a class at Quilting Mayhem. They have longarm machines that you can rent, once you’ve taken their class, for $15 an hour..

My husband just got the Grace Little Cutie quilting frame for me for Christmas. It works with my regular sewing machine. It does not have quite the same abilities as a longarm, but it does some pretty cool things that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.

In addition to quilting, I’d say I’m also all about machine embroidery. I discovered Kimberbell and then it was all over. I got sucked into a new quilting/embroidery machine.

I tend to do a lot of projects that combine quilting and machine embroidery, just because it’s fun.

Making my house feel like a home is one of the ways I tend to show my family love. I love to bake my own breads, muffins, and cookies.

I was baking my own bread before baking bread was cool.

I’ve been making my own jam for many years. This year I added applesauce and peaches to the canning “to do” list.

I can’t forget to mention the garden. I spend most of my summer outside. If the sunshine is out, so am I. Gardening is something I learned from my mom. There is nothing better than picking a few things from the garden and then eating them for dinner.

I guess, it’s hard to sum up what I’m really all about. I can’t exactly say I’m all about homesteading because we don’t have a lot of property. But, I do enjoy a lot of things I find on homesteading accounts. I love to do all of the things my mom and grandma taught me. I love the old fashioned, slow living, type of lifestyle. I love to cook, bake, sew, quilt, garden, can, and spend time making my house feel like a home for the people I love.

Years ago, when I first started my blog, I wrote. “At the end of the day, it’s all about home and family.” I guess that still holds true.

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I’ve been working on a new quilt, using LOTS of half square triangles, for the past few weekends. If you aren’t familiar with half square triangles, they are used in a ton of different quilt patterns but aren’t always as easy as they seem. Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with half square triangles. I absolutely love the way they look in quilts. I love the contrast between lights and darks. There are no curves involved in half square triangles. (I will avoid curves at all cost.) The only problem is that they can sometimes turn out wonky. You need to be sure you use a perfect 1/4″ seem, make your cuts carefully, and then be sure to press carefully. If you iron, it can pull the fabric in different directions. I’ve actually been using a tailor’s clapper, lately, after pressing. That’s a tool that really seems to help. More on that in another post.

I’m not going to lie, there is a lot of trimming when it comes to half square triangles. Every single square needs to be trimmed to be sure it’s squared up. There are little dog ears that also need to be cut off. So, anything that makes this job easier, is awesome.

I bought the Clearly Perfect Slotted Trimmers. So far, I’m loving that each little triangle is perfect.

This is the work in progress on my half square triangle quilt. It also shows my portable design wall. I don’t really know what my portable design wall is, but I bought it at Lowe’s and it’s basically a piece of styrofoam with a shiny silver topping. I pinned a piece of batting to it and then I can stick my half square triangles on it to see if I like the layout. Truth be told… on rainy days, my husband plays ball with the dog, up and down this hallway. If I want the half square triangles to stick, I have to pin them or just pick up the whole board and move it onto the dining room table. That’s the beauty of having a styrofoam design wall… it’s very light weight.

By the way, this super cute fabric is called Meander. It’s from Moda Fabrics. Look at those perfect half square triangles! The points even match up! Guys, this might be a first for me.

Happy quilting!

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I find myself struggling to pick just one look that I love. There are so many designers that I love. I love the look of Lori Holt’s quilts, but I wouldn’t say that I could do my whole house in that look. I’ve always loved Camille Roskelly’s fabrics, but she uses a lot more blue, navy, and aqua than I do. I also love the muted colors that Joanna Figueroa uses in her fabrics, but there’s no way I could exclude my other favorites and just use these colors. I’d say that the closest I’ve come to finding a designer that is truly “me” is French General. Reds and tans are my fabric love language. I make a lot of quilts with those fabrics, but I regularly intersperse with my other favorite designers. I’m always a little excited when I’m making a quilt as a gift because it’s so much fun to shop for fabrics that are not my norm.

I found the Farm Girl Vintage book on Instagram, after I saw the adorable Baking Day block.  I fell in love and HAD to have the pattern.  This was the first block I completed in this awesome sampler.

The Canning Season block was just too cute to pass up.  I finished this one second.

The blocks were very simple to make.  I wouldn’t call it a beginning quilt, but it’s a good project for an intermediate quilter.

There are so many blocks to choose from.  The barn block is another favorite and it’s been on my “to do” list for quite a long time. A word of caution… when you are looking for a block, double and triple check which size you are making and be sure it fits with your quilt. I made a couple of errors that could have easily been prevented if I had just checked my measurements before starting to cut my pieces. Let’s just say that the book is correct. This happens to be a user error. Ugh.

I’ve been using a variety of vintage-ish fabrics and I finally ordered some Bee Lori fabrics too. I’m so excited to use those. I think it’s time to start cutting into the vintage fabrics and get sewing on this project again! (I currently have 3 baby quilts and a lap size quilt in the works that are all gifts which need to be finished!) Like I said, I need more hours in the day.

I’m promising myself some quality time with my sewing machine this coming weekend! Lately, I’ve been piecing more than I’ve been embroidering. I’m hoping to get my gifts finished up soon so I can keep going with my Farm Girl Vintage.

Happy sewing!

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My mom and grandma both taught me to sew when I was pretty young. I loved making stuffed animals or aprons on my mom’s 1960’s Singer. We always had homemade quilts on our beds growing up. My mom would always tie the quilts with yarn rather than machine quilt them. Whenever I see that type of quilt, it always reminds me of the 70’s and 80’s. One of my favorite quilts that my mom made was one that she made with her sister. They appliquéd their own houses, along with my grandparents’ lake house onto the quilt.

When my grandma was packing up to downsize, she gave me a few old quilts and a quilt top that were made by her mom or my grandpa’s mom. So, I guess you could say that quilting is in my genes.

I made my first quilt when I was in college. I’m pretty sure most college kids don’t stay home and quilt on Friday night, but I’ve always been a home-body. My first quilt was a Trip Around the World quilt in red, white, and blue. It was my first time using a rotary cutter, cutting mat, and ruler. I did a TERRIBLE job of cutting my fabric. My fabric was only 1/8th of an inch off on each cut, but when you add that up, you can imagine how wonky it was by the end. I tied it off with yarn, just like my mom used to do. A while later, I decided that I didn’t like the finished look, so I took out all of the ties. I was planning to quilt it, but then decided it was too much trouble for a quilt that was so wonky in the first place.

My next quilt was a labor of love. At this time, I knew I wanted to make beautiful quilts, but still didn’t really know how. I went to the public library and checked out every book they had on quilting. I read them and learned more about how to actually make quilts. Then, I spotted the most amazing Fall leaf quilt in one of the books. I totally fell in love with this quilt. I went to my local Jo-Anne fabric and bought a bunch of fall colored fabrics and fabric for the border that made my heart happy. This was going to be a queen size quilt. I spent a LOT of time working on this in the tiny apartment that my husband and I lived in. I remember getting SOOO frustrated with my 60’s hand-me-down sewing machine, and I couldn’t afford to have it serviced because it was going to be more than a new machine. At that point, my wonderful crafty-supporting-husband took me to Sears and let me pick out a machine that would actually sew without me yelling at it.

Fast forward 25 years and I’ve made more quilts than I can count. I’ve made baby quilts, wedding quilts, Summer quilts, picnic quilts, quilted wall hangings, and now machine embroidered quilts. I have quilts in every room in my house. I’ve upgraded machines over the years and now have a Bernini 770 QE (quilter’s edition). For years, I said that all I needed was a machine that would sew a straight line with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. I still stand by that statement, but having all of the bells and whistles makes sewing so much more fun. Now that my kids are grown, I have time to take classes to learn how to use all of those bells and whistles on my machine. (Although, I don’t think it’s possible to learn EVERYTHING this machine can do when you are not treating sewing as your full time job.) Last Summer, I even took a class to learn how to use a longarm machine at my local quilt shop. They rent their machines by the hour, so it’s the perfect option for someone who wants to finish their own quilts but doesn’t have room in their house for a 12 foot long machine.

One of my first quilts on the longarm was one I was sending to Project Linus, after the Uvalde school shooting. They were trying to get enough quilts for every single person (child or adult) who was impacted by the school shooting, to give to them on their first day back.

I think one of the smartest things I did was purchase an antique quilt top off of Ebay and use that as a practice quilt for longarm quilting. I didn’t have any sentimental attachment to it, so I was ok with messing up once in a while. It actually turned out pretty good and I have this in my family room now.

It’s hard not to get addicted to quilting, once you start. I’ve started following lots of different fabric designers on social media and always look forward to seeing their new fabric lines. Sometimes, one of those fabric lines seems to jump out at me or a certain new pattern is calling to be made. I can’t really explain it. Over the years, lots of hobbies have come and gone, but quilting is something I keep coming back to.

Happy quilting!

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About a year ago I started really getting into machine embroidery. I took a class at my local quilt shop (Quilting Mayhem) and I was hooked. Machine embroidery makes everything look so much more professional than traditional embroidery. I realize that there is a lot more talent involved in traditional embroidery, but WOW… I really love the way these projects have turned out. A lot of the Kimberbell machine embroidery projects have places for fairy lights, which make the finished product absolutely adorable. The project, shown above, is the Kimberbell Candy Cane Lane machine embroidery bench pillow. I bought the fabric kit and the embellishment kit for this project. I’m not a huge fan of pink, and I don’t have any aqua in my house, but I just loved the finished look, so I couldn’t pass it up.

I worked on the Kimberbell 2 Scoops machine embroidery bench pillow over this past summer. Again, I don’t love pink and I don’t own anything else in blue, pale green, or aqua, but how can you say no to the color combinations in this pillow. Doesn’t it just scream SUMMMER? This was the fabric kit and embellishment kit for 2 Scoops. The best part about this project is the ice cream truck. There is a little pocket sewn into the back side of the ice cream truck that holds a music box. If you push on the speaker that is on the top of the ice cream truck it will play music that sounds like it’s coming from an ice cream truck.

I finished making the Kimberbell Sweet As Pie machine embroidery bench pillow well after Thanksgiving. (Back to school season is a little crazy when you are a kindergarten teacher.) The fabric kit for this project included a lot of purple and did not have red. I shopped my fabric stash and pulled a few different red fabrics. I love the color combination and was sad to put this pillow away so quickly after it was made, but it was time to move onto Christmas decorating.

The Kimberbell Spring Showers machine embroidery wall quilt was one of the first projects I completed when I really started in with machine embroidery. It was a loooong project. This was supposed to be a seasonal wall hanging, but it’s been up all year, since the only time you see it is when you walk down the stairs.

You might have noticed a theme when it comes to my love of the Kimberbell machine embroidery projects. I truly think they are the best “project kits” out there. I have ventured out on my own machine embroidery projects. I saw a really cute pillow on Pinterest, so I decided to make the Christmas pillow in the picture below. I just used the font that was already on my machine and did a little patchwork piecing with some Christmas fabrics that I had on hand.

I have spent a lot of time, over the past year, making kitchen towels. They are the easiest things to make. The coffee embroidery project, below, took a lot more time than most of my towels because I needed to change the color of thread so often.

My husband was little worried when I made the Bunny Snacks embroidery kitchen towel. He thought that because we have a bunny, I was going to embroider bunnies on everything. This was only an Easter embroidery project and now it’s back in my kitchen drawer until next Easter.

I’ll have to post about my embroidery machine and the process that it takes to complete embroidery projects soon. Until then, happy stitching!

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I think I may even take these quilts to the beach with us, and snap a few pictures.  How can you resist taking pictures of projects made with Salt Air, when you’re at the beach.  (Ok, that just shows how incredibly dorky I am.)

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 When I got the urge to start this quilt, the fabric had been sitting on my sewing table for quite a while and I really had no plans for it, so a quilt seemed like a good choice.  I wanted something simple and mindless.  I wasn’t in the mood to think too hard about measurements and fabric placement.  I just wanted to sew.  I came up with a VERY simple quilt top, which I figured I’d try free motion quilting on.  I wasn’t too excited about the free motion quilting part of that idea, so when I finished, the quilt tops sat there for about half of the year.  Finally, I decided it was time to get these quilts out of the craft room and into the family room.  While I was at it, I took pictures of the quilt binding process.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn to bind a quilt, here’s the step by step tutorial.  If you really don’t care, please don’t waste your time reading this, because it’s very picture heavy.

I use 2 1/2 inch strips when I make quilt bindings.  I use a cutting mat, rotary cutter, and quilting ruler to make sure my strips are perfect.

 

Once the strips are cut, it’s time to join them together.  I place two pieces (right sides together) and sew from corner to corner.  I overlapped a little on the ends of each piece because I knew I’d cut that part off.  You can draw a line to follow if you’d like, but I just eyeball it.

Cut off the extra fabric.

When you open in up, it looks like this.  Press the seams to one side and then keep adding more strips in the same way.

Next, you need to iron your fabric.  In the past I would fold my fabric, wrong sides together, finger press it down, and then iron it.  It’s not hard and it’s not too time consuming, but then I spotted this cool contraption on a quilting show on PBS. (There I go again, admitting that I spend my spare time watching sewing shows on public television. Nerd alert!)  This is a binding maker from Singer.  It is so cool! It folds, presses, and spits out perfect quilt binding in about 2 minutes. 

It comes out of the machine perfectly pressed.  That little piece on the end is the iron. It has a little roller in it so everything is automatic.  If you sew, you know how cool this is!  It even makes piping, although I haven’t tried that yet.  Ok, so if you don’t have this cool machine, just fold the fabric in half and iron.  That’s the way I have made it for the past 15 years and it works just fine. 

Just one more picture of my fun new toy doing its thing.

Ok, maybe just one more.  See how it fold the fabric for you before going into the iron.  You can get that tip in other sizes too.  It’s “sew” much fun!

When you’re done pressing, you’ll have a pile of quilt binding.  Get ready to sew.

The first thing I do is trim my starting edge at an angle.

Then I open it up and fold it back.

When you close the fabric back up, it gives you a clean edge.

To start binding my quilts, I usually don’t start at a corner.  I just pick somewhere in the middle, at the bottom, and line my binding fabric up.  You’ll notice that I have the raw edge of my quilt lined up with the raw edge of my binding fabric. The over hanging fabric is my quilt batting, and you can’t see it but the backing fabric is there too.

Line the presser foot up along the edge of the fabric, backtack a few stitches and then start sewing a straight line.

 

When you get just about to the end, maybe a quarter of an inch away, backstitch about an inch.

Pull the binding fabric back on top of itself, so it folds into a 45 degree angle.

Then, fold it back on top of itself, lining the edge up with the next side you need to sew.

I know that’s kind of tricky.  Let’s try that one more time.  I’m close to the edge.

Backstitch an inch.

Fold.

Fold and line up with the new side.

Then, you can lift your presser foot, turn your quilt, and get ready to sew the next side.

 

When you get to the end, turn the fabric under again, like you did at the beginning.  That gives it a nice clean edge.

Finish sewing the binding down. 

Hey, look at that!  Someone got a pretty new cutting mat!  I really needed a new cutting mat and found this one in red.  I’ve never seen a red cutting mat before, but I’m loving it!

I use my ruler and rotary cutter to remove the extra batting and backing fabric.  I line the quilt ruler up along the edge of the binding fabric and cut.  This still leaves that 1/4 inch seam allowance.  Don’t cut that off, because it’s what makes the binding fluffly.

When you’re done trimming, the quilt will look like this.

Flip the quilt to the back side, roll the fabric around the edge and pin.  I really hate pinning, so I only do it when I really have to.  The first couple of times you bind a quilt, you’ll want to pin.  After that, just hold it with your fingers and go for it.

When you are sewing the binding down, you want to get REALLY close to the edge.  See how my needle is right next to the edge of the binding fabric.  I want to go right along that edge.  It takes some practice.

 

When you get to a corner, you’ll need to fold the fabric.

It makes a nice mitered corner. When you get to the point, put the needle down into the fabric, and turn the quilt so you can keep sewing.

Keep going all the way around the quilt.

Here’s my finished quilt.  I can’t say I’m in love with it.  I love the fabrics, but I’m a little bored with the finished product.  

I did get to try my hand at machine quilting.  I made the swirly patterns in the big squares, which is something I’ve never done before.

I made two of these quilts and put them over the chairs in my family room.  They add a little color and I’m happy about that.  If you’re working on a quilt of your own, I’d love to see it.  You can email me a picture at homeiswheremystorybegins@gmail.com.

Happy quilting!

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The Baking Day block was the one that caught my eye on Instagram and I just couldn’t resist! Throw in a vintage rolling pin and sifter, and it makes a pretty cute photo too (except for the lack of daylight, making an exceptionally dark photo).

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