Lessons From 13 Years of Quilt Blogging

Devoted Quilter is 13 today! 🎉🎉🎉 I know I say it every year when this day rolls around, but it's still true, so I have to say it again - I can't believe how much has happened over the past 13 years because I started blogging!

To celebrate the anniversary, I'm having my annual Anniversary Pattern Sale, so head to my shop to save 25% off PDF patterns and printables. No coupon codes needed, the discount is already applied. Happy pattern shopping!

As today was getting closer, I was thinking about all the things I've learned since hitting publish on that first post back in 2013. There are plenty of tech skills I've picked up, beginning with my husband needing to teach me how to get pictures from our camera to the computer for those first posts. He then had to show me again a few days later when I forgot what to do 😅 Aside from all the tech stuff, there are a lot of lessons I've learned from 13 years of quilt blogging and quilt pattern design (which would never have happened without the blog). Here are those lessons, with a few quilts made over the years for added eye-candy.

The online quilting community is amazing

There are so many examples of this, but the most personal one for me happened in 2017 when the senior's home across the road from our house burned down. I asked for quilt blocks so I could make quilts for the 21 seniors who had lost their home and the online quilting community responded in a BIG way. To make the 21 quilts, I needed 882 blocks. I ended up with over 3,000 blocks, plus donations of backing, batting, and binding! With the help of local quilters, that turned into quilts for the 21 seniors, the 10 employees who had lost their jobs when the home burned down, and all the first responders who responded the night of the fire. I also sent 21 quilt tops to Houston after Hurricane Harvey.

It was amazing to be on the receiving end of the generosity of so many quilters, and to be able to pass that on to people who needed a little extra love and care. It's also amazing to see how quickly quilters step up every single time there's a need.

A stack of over 300 blocks that all arrived on the same day!

The things I think will be hard are probably not as hard as I imagine.

I can't even tell you how many times I have put off some task (even things I really wanted to do) because it was going to be hard to figure out, only to finally do it and discover it wasn't really that hard after all. Getting my patterns in printed form so I could sell them to quilt shops is a prime example. I wanted to do that for a couple of years before I reached out to another designer to ask her some questions about the logistics. Her answers sent me down the path that was surprisingly easy to follow.

This lesson has repeated often enough that I made myself a mini quilt as a reminder to just do the hard things!

You don't need special training to design quilts.

I quilted for a long time before I started designing my own patterns. During that time, I had this feeling that quilt designers had some special skill or training I didn't have. I didn't know what that was, exactly, but I was sure I didn't have it. Then I came across Craftsy in 2012 and from there found my way to quilt blogs, and started to realize that quilt designers were just regular people like me. The only special skills they had were the willingness to try, coupled with the willingness to learn the stuff they didn't already know. Realizing that I could do that, too, was life changing!

 What would you love to do, but you're holding back because you think you don't have the right qualifications? Are those qualifications real? A willingness to try + a willingness to learn can get a person pretty far with a lot of things.

Inner Beauty quilt

Technology isn't scary and it makes incredible things possible.

I used to be so nervous about trying anything new on the computer! Learning a new program, going into the backend of my blog, editing pictures... It all made me worry I'd mess it up so badly it couldn't be fixed. While I'm still not the most tech-savvy person out there, I have learned how to tackle a lot of tech stuff over the years, and most of it wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be (see the lesson about hard things, above!).

It helps that my husband is pretty tech-savvy, so he's my first stop when I can't figure something out with the help of Google. And when he can't figure it out, either, I turn to my brother, who is leaps and bounds ahead of either of us. Surprisingly, though, I'm able to handle most tech stuff on my own.

As for what it makes possible? 

• My Stash Artists members are scattered all over North America, and we meet monthly to chat and sew together over Zoom.
• I give lectures and teach workshops for guilds in Canada and the US, all without leaving my sewing room. Want me to 'visit' your guild? Send this link to your program chair!
• I've sold PDF patterns to people all over the world.
• My on-demand course teaches quilters how to paper piece with freezer paper, so they'll never again have to remove bits of paper from their blocks.
• I currently work as a virtual assistant to 2 other pattern designers, neither of whom I've actually met in real life.
• I have quilty friends who share their makes every time I check Instagram.

You don't need to meet someone in person to become friends.

Thanks to technology, I have so many quilty friends I've never been in the same room with. In the case of many of them, we've never even been in the same country! 

I've been able to meet a few of them over the years, and have plans to meet more this year (I'm so excited about every one of those plans!). But even if we only ever talk and share our love of quilting through a screen, I'm so grateful for the friends I've made in this online quilting community.

Stripe Shuffle quilt

You don't have to have it all figured out when you start.

Right from the first day I started blogging, I've been figuring things out as I go along. That's been true for designing and writing patterns, for running my shop, and for teaching workshops. As long as we know the next thing we need to do, we can gradually find our way along the path, especially if we're willing to ask for help from people who are a little farther along that path than we are. Thankfully, the people in the quilting industry are generally very generous with their knowledge.

Running a quilt pattern business involves a lot of computer time.

I mean, A LOT of computer time. I had no idea how much time I would spend with this computer. I work on a laptop, which means I'm often sitting in the living room typing a blog post (as I am right now) or a newsletter, but I could also be creating appliqué templates in EQ8, or standing at the kitchen counter answering emails while waiting for the water to boil for pasta. While I do get to spend a lot of time making quilts, I spend even more time doing a multitude of things on the computer.

Creativity doesn't run out when you use it.

When I was first considering starting the Stash Artists membership in 2023, there was a little worry in the back of my mind that maybe I'd run out of ideas for stash-friendly patterns. Well, not only has that not happened, but I have so many ideas and plans for quilts (and whole series of quilts!) that I don't have time to get to them all 😊 And yet I still find myself designing more things that weren't even on the list! Yes, I actually have a list on my phone of quilts I want to get to eventually.

All of that to say, creativity doesn't run out when you use it - it grows!

Thread Love quilt

You'll never know if you don't ask. And if you ask, they might just say yes!

This is one of my favourite lessons! 

The first time I submitted a quilt design to a magazine (Make Modern, for the record), I didn't really expect them to accept it. I had this dream, though, so I submitted it even though I expected a no. But I got a yes and the Flower Box cushion was published in May 2015.

The first time I reached out to a company to ask them to sponsor a prize for something for the blog, I thought my blog might be too small to be worth it for them, but they said yes.

Over the years I've reached out to a lot of people and companies for a lot of different things. Sometimes the answer has been no and sometimes I didn't get a response at all, but quite often the answer has been yes. That doesn't mean I don't sometimes hesitate to send that email, but I try to remind myself that I'll never know if I don't ask and that they can't say yes if I don't ask.

I had no idea any of these lessons would come from me decision to hit publish on that first blog post! I'm so glad I took that leap and joined the online quilting community! I'm looking forward to all the things I'll learn as I keep blogging, making quilts, and writing patterns. 

Thank you for being here for the journey. I wouldn't still be here 13 years later without you!

My First Quilt with Leslie Rutland

I unintentionally took a break from posting My First Quilt interviews, but I'm back with one today 😊 This time Leslie Rutland is sharing the story of her first quilt.

Leslie Rutland is the founder of The Seasoned Homemaker where she shares simple quilting, sewing, and crafty projects for busy women looking to connect with their creativity. She loves to teach and inspire her readers to spend a little time doing something they love and help them connect with future generations through a quilting legacy. Today, she shares quilting on her blog, writes quilt patterns, and hosts a membership community for quilters. 

You can connect with Leslie at her website, Instagram, and her membership.

And now, here's Leslie's first quilt. As a lover of blue and a lover of star quilts, this one is right up my alley!

What year did you make your first quilt? What prompted you to make it?

Around 1989 or 1990. It was a graduation gift for my youngest sister and intended for her to take to college the next year. It's been a part of her life ever since.

What techniques were used in that first quilt? Did you quilt it yourself?

This was before acrylic rulers and rotary cutters. I made templates from cutting up cereal boxes. Then I traced these templates onto my fabrics and cut everything out with scissors. I squared up the quilt by using a carpenter's square. I hand quilted with 100% cotton thread and used Mountain Mist Polyester batting. The binding was wrapped from the back to the front. 

Who taught you to make the quilt?

I took a class at a short-lived local quilt shop.

Are the colours you chose for your first quilt ones you would still choose today?

Never! It was during the "country blue" era. While I would still use these colors, I wouldn't use them in this way.

Did you fall in love with quilting right away? Or was there a gap between making the first quilt and the next one?

If I wasn't making it as a special gift, I would've abandoned the project. It felt tedious and I knew there had to be another way. I didn't make another quilt for 25 years. 

At that point, I started dabbling in quilting, but I "had a moment." In 2015, QuiltCon came to my hometown of Austin, TX. While sitting in a lecture about the Ohio Star quilt, a beautiful quilt was shown and it was like my brain lit up at that moment. After that, everything about quilting shifted and I knew I would be a quilter for life. I dove in head first and haven't stopped making quilts since that moment.

Where is the quilt now?

It is still in use at my sister's house, sitting in a basket in her den. It went with her to college, and then marriage, kids, pets, and all of her life.  It's in fairly good condition considering its age and use. Three kids have all snuggled under this quilt. I  need to replace the binding, but I hesitate to make a single change because so much of my sister's life has happened on this quilt. 

Is there anything you wish you could go back and tell yourself as you made that first quilt?

Don't stop. Keep quilting. Make small quilts and experiment with blocks.

Thank you, Leslie, for sharing your first quilt with us!

How to Appliqué with Ladder Stitch

We were on the road one morning recently and I was stitching hexie flowers to their backgrounds for my Shoo Fly Garden blocks when I thought, "I should write a tutorial for this." So here I am 😊

I'm using ladder stitch to attach the hexie flowers to the background and I'm always amazed at how invisible the stitches are. It makes me think of a scene in a book I read many years ago (though I can't remember the name of the book, the author, or anything else except this one scene). In the scene I remember, Japanese school girls are hand sewing kimonos and the protagonist/narrator says that her older sister was showing off how invisible her stitches were by using red thread to sew a white kimono. I know nothing about sewing kimonos, so I have no idea what stitch they would have been using, but ladder stitch might just be invisible enough for that!

To do appliqué with ladder stitch, the seam allowance of the appliqué shape needs to be folded under. You can't have raw edges for this technique. English Paper Piecing shapes, like my hexie flowers, are perfect, since their edges are folded under. The way I made the circles for my 2020 temperature quilt also resulted in the edges being turned under, so I used ladder stitch to appliqué them to their backgrounds, too. This would also work for appliqué shapes you've prepared with the freezer paper method, though I've never tried that. Basically, any appliqué shape with the seam allowance folded to the back is perfect for stitching to the background with ladder stitch.

What you'll need

• Your appliqué shapes
• Your background square
• Small pins
• Thread to match the appliqué fabric (or bright red, if you're feeling brave!)
• Hand sewing needle
• Thread gloss (optional, but I find it helpful)

First, position the appliqué on the background square. If you want to be sure it's centered, fold the background in half horizontally and vertically and finger press it to create light creases, then use the creases to center the appliqué. Pin the appliqué in place. I love these tiny appliqué pins from Clover!

Thread your hand sewing needle with the thread, then run the thread through the thread gloss if you're using it. I use So Fine Thread Gloss and the Satsuma scent is my favourite (I also have and use vanilla and strawberry).

Tie a knot at the end of the thread. I do this by wrapping the thread around the end of my finger twice, then rolling it off my finger and pulling it tight. I then wrap it around my finger again and roll it off, aiming to get the new knot to land right on top of the first one, making it slightly larger. I find this helps prevent the knot from pulling through the fabric.

I take a tiny stitch just through the background where it will be hidden under the appliqué shape.

To start the ladder stitch, bring the needle up through the background to the right side at the edge of the appliqué shape. All of the work will be done from the right side of the fabric.

Insert the needle into the edge of the appliqué shape, where the seam allowance is folded over, and travel it through the fold just a little bit. I usually travel about ⅛", but it's not exact.

Pull the needle out of the fold of the seam allowance and pull the thread tight, but not so tight that you ripple the background fabric.

Insert the needle into the background square, right at the edge of the appliqué shape, and then back up, again about ⅛" away. Pull the thread tight.

Again, insert the needle into the fold at the edge of the appliqué shape and take a stitch about ⅛" long. Insert the needle into the background square and take a stitch about ⅛" long. Repeat all the way around your appliqué shape.

If there are corners on your appliqué shape, be sure to have a stitch right at the corner to secure it down.

Here's what the stitches look like from the back.

When you come back around to where you started, or if your thread gets too short, pull the needle through to the wrong side of the background, right at the edge of the appliqué shape. 

I like to take a small stitch only through the background that is hidden under the appliqué shape. Then take another tiny stitch only through the background, but leave the needle in the fabric. Wrap the thread around the needle two or three times, then pull the needle the rest of the way through to create a knot. I usually take another tiny stitch just to secure it a little more, then trim the thread.

That's it! You appliqué shape is now secured to the background with nearly invisible stitches. Feel free to admire it for a minute or two before moving on to the next block 😊