St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, and before we start enjoying corned beef and cabbage, let’s make a Four Leaf Clover quilt block that is sure to bring us luck throughout the year!
Watch Misty and Jenny Fish explain how to create a lucky four leaf clover block in our March 6 Live Video below.
It’s March, and we all know what that means, it’s National Quilting Month, an entire 31 days dedicated to cutting, sewing, basting, and all kinds of creativity in between! This month, we want to share with you some inspiring stories from our Missouri Star team, and the reasons why they sat down at a machine and started quilting! The first story up is from Jenny! Read on as she shares how her quilting career began.
When did you make your first quilt?
I was actually quilting before I knew I was quilting. As a girl, I often sewed quilt squares together for my grandmother, but I took my first honest-to-goodness quilting class in 1995 shortly after we moved to Missouri. It was a quilt in a day class about the Log Cabin pattern. It was held in Chillicothe at the Vo-tech school. And I haven’t stopped quilting ever since!
Why did you make it?
I made my first quilt because I have to sew! It is my creative outlet. I sew, and when sewing is your “thing” and you don’t need any more clothing, and your children won’t wear matching clothing, and no one needs a costumer, you jump at the chance to quilt!
Who did you make it for?
I made it for my son Alan. He still has it.
This log cabin quilt is one of the very first quilts Jenny ever created. She sewed this one for her son Jake, who requested the purple and orange fabric, more than 20 years ago.
Is it the kind of quilt you would make today? Why or why not?
It IS the kind of quilt I make today! I gravitate toward quick and easy projects, so that was a great one for me to start on.
What has changed since that first quilt?
For me, the main change was the onset of precut fabrics. They make quilting so much easier for me. Also, the Internet has changed everything! You can learn all kinds of neat things from the Internet.
After reading Jenny’s story, are you ready to make a Log Cabin Quilt of your very own? Here are some of our favorite log cabin quilt tutorials to help you get started:
Log Cabin Quilt Snips
Curved Log Cabin Quilt
Summer Camp Quilt
Check back throughout National Quilting Month for more quilty stories! And be sure to share your creations and your first quilt stories with us on social media using #makesomethingtoday and #msqcshowandtell!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year for all you quilting and embroidery fans out there! February is National Embroidery Month and March is National Quilt Month, so this week we are combining the best of both worlds for an “I Heart Quilting” embroidery project!
Around here, we certainly love our sewing machines, but sometimes you just can’t beat a little hand sewing, and this embroidery project is just the ticket! And, because we really love quilting, we created a few different designs that you can download HERE.
Courtenay, a member of our Missouri Star team, showed us how to create this darling wall hanging in a Live Video. Watch it below:
We hope you have a ball stitching up your “I Heart Quilting” wall hanging. Be sure to share photos of your creations with us on Facebook and Instagram using #msqcshowandtell
Have you heard? Hamilton is covered in ice. Literally! The streets are slick as a hockey rink, and the windows are obscured by a thick layer of wavy ice. I can’t get into my car because the doors are sealed shut, but even if I could, I’m sure I’d just slide my way into a ditch!
No one wishes for freezing rain, but when it comes, we hunker down and try to stay toasty under a mountain of sewing projects. This week Jenny is stitching up a new disappearing block. It’s a simple 9-patch with a couple of snowballed corners thrown in for kicks.
Click HERE to learn how to make a beautiful Nine Patch Madness quilt!
Surrounded by emerald fields of corn and rolling pastures dotted with cattle, Hamilton, Missouri, sits in the middle of America’s heartland. As in many such communities with strong agriculture roots, there is a group of students who fully embrace what it means to live, work and support the business that is agriculture, our local FFA chapter.
If you have ever donned the blue corduroy jacket and recited the FFA creed, or know someone who has, then the FFA Forever Blue fabric by Riley Blake Designs is a wonderful tribute to the traditions that make up the National FFA Organization. The Forever Blue fabric features the timeless blue corduroy jacket, the FFA emblem and a variety of livestock and agriculture prints. You can shop all of the Forever Blue fabrics, including the Forever Blue quilt kit, HERE.
With such a wide variety of prints, we knew we wanted to create a quilt that could show off some of the larger prints and the different color schemes. A member of our sewing team, Janice, used the Slice of Life Quilt pattern, and sewed up the entire quilt! Check out the finished quilt below, and watch Jenny’s tutorial on how to create a Slice of Life Quilt!
You can also find a fantastic panel that makes a wonderful wall hanging or a centerpiece of a quilt as part of the Forever Blue collection. We used this panel, along with some extra yardage for borders, to create a wall hanging.
After the quilt and wall hanging were completed, they needed a home, and with National FFA Week on the horizon, we knew that these creations would honor the Hamilton FFA chapter at Penney High School for all of their accomplishments and the work they do throughout our community.
Janice, who created the quilt, was on hand to present both the quilt and the wall hanging to Mr. Burns, the FFA advisor, along with all of the Hamilton FFA officers.
