One Piece at a Time

Coming this Saturday...

I will have the directions for Applique and Pieced Blocks 7.

October Sale...everyone has an issue

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about ways to pay back for all the wonderful work that has come my way since I started my blog on a total whim back in 2009. There are no shortages of worthy causes and people who need our help. Of this I am reminded daily. So I started thinking about what things most touch my heart in this world of hurt we sometimes live in. One of the things that will almost certainly move me to action are stories about people who have had trouble with illnesses. Some of you who have been my long term readers know that my mother died of breast cancer when I was in college. That was awful enough, but what many of you don’t know is that my family also experienced incredible hardship due to her medical expenses and that we eventually had to sell our house to pay her bills. And if that is not sad enough, my aunt also lost everything paying the medical expenses for her daughter who died of cancer when she was only 5. So, you see, this kind of thing gets my attention.

I wish I could say that these were my only stories about medical hardship but, unfortunately, they are not. Over the years I have had several friends and family members go through some pretty incredible ordeals medically and financially. Many have recovered, some have not. Some of you may remember the Miss Kyra pattern that I published in 2012 to help a little girl dealing with a complicated autoimmune condition. She’s one of the people doing well.

Just this week I heard a story about a young woman dealing with a very complicated immunodeficiency diagnosis. You can read more about her by clicking on the link on the left side of the site. I know from personal experience that it can be extremely stressful to be sick and have no one be able to tell you what is wrong. Navigating our medical system when you are sick is no easy task. The accompanying financial strain just makes everything worse. If you are able, please help her.

All that being said, here’s what I’m doing this month. I’m having a little sale. I’m reducing the price of all my Patternspot patterns by 25% for the month of October. Everything I make will be donated to helping people who are dealing with financial hardships brought on by medical issues. At the end of the month I will give you a little update on where it all went.

Let’s have a great month of giving!

A Sneak Peak Into My Design Process

When I first started designing quilts I was convinced that I had to have all the colors and fabric figured out before I started putting stuff together.I still think that way from time to time and have to remind myself that I won't really know what I want exactly until I see it in fabric. The down (and up) side to this is that I need to have bunches of fabric around when I am designing. Here is a little glimpse into my process.

The above quilt started off looking like this...and yes, all the shapes were made and glued on before I could see that this wasn't going the way I wanted it to. To me, there was just too much of that green.

So, I added some more pink. I liked this a bit better, but now there was too much green AND pink. At this stage I went to bed. I don't know about you but the term "sleep on it" is very good advice.

When I got up the first idea that popped into my head was...multicolor fabric. So I exchanged this pink print for the center circle thing....Hmmm, better. But now I think it needs more color, it's still too pink.

So, I replaced some pink berries with some other colors and ta da! I am a very intuitive designer, which surprises me since my background is in the sciences. By this I mean that I keep tweaking things around until it feels right, something I just know...wish I could be more specific but that's really how it goes.

Comment Madness

Hi Everyone, I have been having a huge amount of spam lately and I am looking for ways to eliminate it. I thought I had things set up so that you had to end the little code thing in order to comment but maybe not. Anyway, I have that set up now and I hope it helps. Sorry for any one who had to read those weird spam comments.