Sally Said Sew

I volunteered to make and donate two quilts for Quilts Beyond Borders , a charity that provides quilts to children in underserved areas of the world. I found this group through my Yahoo! Hinterberg Quilters group. I thought this would be a perfect way to practice on my new Voyager longarm quilting machine. My first two quilts are finished and ready to send. I found the Dr. Seuss themed fabric on the 50% off rack at the Bay Window Quilt Shop in Perham, MN. The inspiration was a panel that was supposed to be made into a soft quilted book, but instead I inset the "pages" into a quilt using Izzy's Quilt Pattern by Katie Hennagir. I made the border around the panels wider to get a bigger overall size suitable for the QBB quilts. Are these perfect? No, but for the children who receives one, I'm sure they will think it's perfect. That is all that counts! Plus, the experience I gained using my "new" machine was well worth the effort involved. Quilts Bey...

Sometimes you come across a quilt kit or piece of fabric that you know will be perfect for someone. That happened to me not too long ago in my "home away from home" quilt shop in Perham, Minnesota. I went into Bay Window Quilt Shop looking for something else but no sooner had I walked in the door when I passed by a new display of fabrics from Shelly Comiskey for Henry Glass Fabrics called Bee Happy . They had a couple of quilt kits cut and ready to go with an accompanying free pattern. It caught my attention and I thought of Heather, my friend and owner of The Quilting Hive in Twisp, WA. She always has a bee-themed fabric in the shop but I hadn't seen this line on my last visit. I bought the kit and enough fabric for backing and set to work on the quilt. It was going to be a gift for her. Using my inexpensive Brother machine in my hotel room, I was able to assemble the quilt top in no time. Then using the same machine (which was a bit more challenging), I quilted the ...