by lsmith | Sep 27, 2026 | Quilting Tips
What is your favorite holiday/season to decorate? My top one is Christmas and the runner up is Halloween. There is just something fun about adding spooky and discordant stuff. It doesn’t have to make sense, just have that eerie vibe to it. I started with my...
by lsmith | Sep 18, 2026 | Canva
One of my Quilting… You Say? QAL friends — let’s call her Nancy — is working through the QAL right now. In the QAL, we stress personalizing the quilt — pick fabric colors you like, pick threads that thrill you, pick stitches that seem right to you, and for...
by lsmith | Sep 17, 2026 | Quilting Tips
Picture it: you’re deep in the zone — chain piecing, quilting, stitching on a binding, whatever it is — everything humming along. Then you glance down and realize there’s not a stitch to be found. Your bobbin ran out and you never even noticed. And that...
by lsmith | Sep 17, 2026 | Therapy
The other night, we had a storm warning coming in. After our near-miss with the tornado, I’ve been diligent — cushions off the deck and inside, plants moved to the floor so they won’t blow over, all the usual prep. I finally sat down to work on the couch....
by lsmith | Sep 9, 2026 | Quilting Tips
Our design wall is always busy. I am fortunate to have so many wonderful fabric collections to inspire...
by lsmith | Sep 7, 2026 | Quilting Tips
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Ribbon is one of my favorite ways to level up a project. A little metallic shimmer along a seam, a woven trim tucked into a border — it...
by lsmith | Aug 28, 2026 | Applique Quilting, Classes
I hear you. You want to make the Poinsettia Runner. I know. It’s the one that makes people stop and stare. It’s the one that gets touched, photographed, and coveted at every guild meeting and show. I see your messages. I know what you want. Here’s...
by lsmith | Aug 18, 2026 | Patterns
Most children remember being told: no running in the house, no running with scissors, and for goodness sake, stop fooling around. Well — now that we are all grown up, we can spool around all we want! I still wouldn’t recommend running with scissors though. And I...
by lsmith | Aug 18, 2026 | Patterns, Quilting Tips
In my previous life — the one before quilting consumed me entirely — I traveled extensively for work. I found myself in some very unusual places: the bowels of hospitals, maintenance yards for trains, alongside bottling machines for soda, inside nuclear power plants,...
by lsmith | Aug 18, 2026 | Patterns
My first encounter with wildfire came years ago while working at a federal facility in South Carolina. They were performing prescribed burns — controlled fires designed to clear dead foliage and prevent something larger from igniting later. Only this one got a little...
