Making Zen

I’ve praised Making Zen in previous newsletters but I do love their events. I’ve come across all sorts of new people to follow. Last summer Rebecca Desnos was someone I found through their event and I’ve been following her ever since. I like to get the VIP pass and then save the workshops for my next vacation - and I am taking 6 days off at the end of May!

Some workshops I am looking forward to are

• Rebecca Desnos, Making botanical ink from flowers

• Ruth Woods, Spiral stitch basket

• Jerri Bellini , Marking days with dots

• Meredith Woolnough, Exploring negative space in design

• all of them, including several by quilters!

Other People’s Summits

I’ve run many myself (Quilt n Learn, Tour de Fabric etc) but I still love other people’s and seeing how they do them. Plus there’s always so much to learn! I’m looking forward to Jo Westfoot’s workshop on using 40wt thread at this quilting summit. And Mastering Mixed Media which is going on right now.

Pinterest

I was one of the beta testers for this crazy new thing called Pinterest back in London in maybe 2005? I was obsessed for years then fell out of love when every third pin was an advert. I’ve come back to it this year though and like to use it for inspiration. You can see some of my boards here - I think I have more than 20! I most frequently add to Wearable Ideas, Printmaking, and Bags and Pouches.

Substack

This is the platform this blog is hosted on, and you can find some amazing people here. I follow , , , and more!

Some I pay for and some are free. I love supporting other artists where I can and rewarding good content. Click around to discover all sorts of people.

I’d love to know what you go-to resources are. Tell me in the comments!

Leave a comment

Before I forget my next live workshop is coming up. May 12th at 11am PT on Zoom. You know how you have all those canvas totes? What if you could turn one into a basket to hold the rest, or to hold onions, or wool, or anything!? You bring the tote and I’ll show you how to measure and make the most of the design and fabric in it. We’ll then make a basket together during the workshop. REGISTER HERE

That’s it for this time!

Bea

Links & Info

• Join the globalquiltconnection.com newsletter list to hear about events for teachers, guilds and individual quilters.

• The All Star Sampler Platter is coming up May 16-17. You won’t want to miss it!

• My workshops & lectures for quilt guilds are here

• My workshops for everyone else are here

• 1-1 sewing lessons - book here (in person or via zoom)

• These are my on demand workshops that you can sign up for right now! But…the cathedral window one might just be free during the Quilters Life summit.

• This is my store. Candles, zippers, kits, plus a number of freebies.

• This is where I’m teaching in the next month or so.

• Subscribe to this substack to get updates twice a month from me.

Subscribe now

My Cathedral Windows Made Easy workshop is scheduled for 10.30am on Thursday but, as always, if you splash just $39 on the VIP Pass you can access it anytime and for life, along with everything else. Sign up for the free pass to get 24 hours access to everything.

I demo’d Cathedral Window blocks at my Guild’s retreat about a month ago and people were amazed at how much easier this new method is. Sign up for the Summit now!

Links & Info

• Want the Cathedral Window workshop but don’t want to join the Summit? It’s available here.

• My workshops & lectures for quilt guilds are here

• My workshops for everyone else are here

• 1-1 sewing lessons - book here (in person or via zoom)

• These are my on demand workshops that you can sign up for right now!

• This is my store. Many a random thing plus a number of freebies.

• This is where I’m teaching in the next month or so.

• Subscribe to this substack to get updates twice a month from me.

Subscribe now

• Built a bot/GPT for ChatGPT and listed it on Etsy (but paid subscribers to this newsletter get it free)

• Attended a Meet the Teacher event and got two bookings while there

• Recognized that I was NOT WELL and cancelled a class - but also realize I should have acted sooner.

Beabyrne.com Business

• Craftcation was last week and it went really well. I taught my “Totes to Baskets” class for the first time, learned loads from that, and am now offering it live on May 12th! Details here. After all, we all have too many totes. Transform one into a basket and store the rest in it! Easy sewing machine workshop.

• Although it did go well, I don’t plan to return to Craftcation as a teacher again. It’s fine when you’re starting out and haven’t yet realized that “exposure” is a pseudonym for “naive faith in humanity”, but otherwise the money is tiny ($200 and a conference ticket for teaching three 2-hour workshops for 15-20 attendees each [equivalent to less than half of my usual teaching rate] plus the time to prep, when the hotel is an additional $180/night for 4 nights and there’s a 6h drive each way) and the exposure has never got me a booking anywhere else. Plus I’m glad I didn’t take UV Resin kits this year to sell in the shop. There were Craftcation branded “craft kits” for uv resin and many other things which was a bit cringy since Amazon is known to mimic any product that sells well, and I sold a ton of kits there last year. There were other signs of the event evolving to be more commercial which I don’t criticise but which remind me of that transition from “we’re crazy entrepreneurs” to “we’re maximizing profit” that I’ve seen in two of the companies I’ve worked for. It’s hard not to notice that you’re being profited off.

• Event bookings for the summer continue to come in. If you have a team building event in mind or a party - let me know! A few Saturdays remain unbooked.

• Selling the candles I’d made at Craftcation was a negatory. There was another person selling them there with this AMAZING cat related candle concept and honestly I would have bought all of hers if I’d sold more of mine. And at least one other person selling candles. As a result, creative candles are in my store now! This was actually a really good lesson. I’d made those candles to sell at Craftcation, not because I make and sell candles, or like making and selling candles, but because I noticed no one was selling candles last year. I’m not a product person. I don’t need to try and be one.

  Leave a comment

• About that Bot - it helps you work out what your next workshop should be about and then how you should structure it, market it, position it and so on. Needs a free version of ChatGPT to work but then is genuinely super useful. Paid subscribers get free access, $9 on Etsy to the rest of you, which coincidentally is the same as the cost of a month’s subscription!

• I am teaching at the Quilter’s Life summit next week! Cathedral Window blocks hooray! Click here for more info. I have been horribly disorganized about promoting it.

Globalquiltconnection.com Business

• The Sampler Box is now live and available to purchase for the All Star Sampler Platter (and already selling well). If you quilt you want to get yourself a pass or get your Guild to sign up the whole membership.

• Have set up Facebook ads for the event and also fiddled with some Reddit ad targeting. The joy of having set up my Data Studio dashboard is that I can now keep an eye on traffic and adjust budgets accordingly.

• Goddamn Zenler continues to be a bain of my existence (it’s the platform I currently use for my websites). I finally published the post about all the issues I’ve encountered and already have a new one to add. If you were considering it…don’t.1

• H&H printing is all ordered and design of our cubicle is done.

Personal

• Craftcation was good but also hard work. My partner came with me and so I was 24/7 peopling, even though he doesn’t really count as “a person”. I listened to this podcast episode on Tuesday while feeling myself getting sick and realized I really should have taken a day off when I got back, to spend time staring at the ceiling by myself.

• Charlotte had a cat sitter while I was away and that went really well. She has barely left my side since I got back, which of course I love.

• As I’ve got older I’ve definitely noticed that you need to take time to recover when you’re sick. Otherwise it will last twice as long. Last night I had an event that would have paid me $300 but I had to cancel. Could I have taken a load of cold & flu meds and made it through? Yes. Would I have given my cold to some of the people there, even if I wore a mask? Probably. Could I have gone to bed at 8pm and be feeling very slightly better today if I’d done it? No.

• The catalytic converter on my friend’s car is now fixed and I am about 2 weeks away from owning my own first ever car. These things are so freakin expensive and having missed last night’s workshop, well… If you like what I do, do me a favor and buy me a coffee.

What were your wins this week? I hope you had a good one.

Leave a comment

Bea

Links & Info

• Join the globalquiltconnection.com newsletter list to hear about events for teachers, guilds and individual quilters.

• My workshops & lectures for quilt guilds are here

• My workshops for everyone else are here

• 1-1 sewing lessons - book here (in person or via zoom)

• These are my on demand workshops that you can sign up for right now!

• This is my store. Many a random thing plus a number of freebies.

• This is where I’m teaching in the next month or so.

• Subscribe to this substack to get updates twice a month from me. Even better, become a paid subscriber and get (some of) the things I sell for free as well as a warm cozy feeling inside your tumtum.

Subscribe now

Here are just some of the issues we’ve had since December 2025.

1. Untruths on their sales page about limits

“Unlimited people” does not, in fact, mean unlimited people. I’ve now been waiting 12 days for Support to make a change so new people can register as Leads and Students on any of my three sites. It’s costing me money every day. “Unlimited people” is a complete lie. I would complain - except there’s no one to complain to except the same team already sh*tting on my business.

2. Untruths in their support docs about subscriptions & memberships

They say the have set up reminders for recurring subscriptions to comply with international laws. They have not. There’s actually no way to automate this after the first renewal. Have to do it manually.

3. Email limits have to be begged for. Otherwise you only get 10k emails a month.

Their sales page says you get 100k emails a month on the Pro plan. But only if you first email the Support team and spend a few days pointing out which plan you’re on.

4. Images deleted from the media storage. Unexplained how this happened.

I’ve still got images not showing up - including the images the platform provides for bullet points. They say they didn’t delete them and there the investigation ends. I didn’t delete my own images either. I guess I’ll never know but it hardly inspires confidence.

4. Hard to answer questions go unanswered by Support email

There’s no complaint process. You email Support and they choose whether to answer.

4. Zoom settings don’t work.

They have a built in zoom. Great saving! you might think. Except the settings are weird so don’t expect a recording to show the slides the speaker shared. It only records the faces. So odd. And you can’t edit system emails so they’ll continue to send out janky zoom links you don’t want to be shared.

7. Only the most basic email analytics.

Opens, CTR, unsubscribes. No detail on what was clicked. No way to link automations to behaviour.

8. Automations can’t be linked to most actions.

Only buying something or registering for something.

9. Support is based in GMT timezones.

Expect to wait 12 hours for a response if you’re US west coast like me. That means when you need to go back and forth it takes days. Their live support hour each week is at 8am on a Thursday which is not super convenient.

10. The Facebook Group only posts approved posts, and nothing gets approved unless it’s 100% non-critical.

No way to ask others how they deal with an issue. Zero community.

11. Unlimited people does not mean you can import all your previous users. It means a maximum of 25000 imported users over three website.

Don’t go to NZ if you have an existing user base larger than that and expect to use the Pro plan. The limit isn’t mentioned anywhere but it’s there. Support will eventually explain it to you over a period of days and be unable to send you links to any reference to the limit in the Support docs.

12. If you try to import your existing membership, there’s no way to enter their start dates. You’ll have to put them all on manual renews for the first year then once they pay on the NZ system you can automate the renewal for the first year only. Then you’re back to manual. (see point 2)

13. The Support team does not know how to make favicons work on their own sites. Took a few days of back and forths about that. Their first instructions didn’t work. I don’t know why this kind of basic info isn’t int he support docs.

14. You cannot edit system emails. This causes all sorts of individual issues. One example: The password reset email gives their user type (there are about 6 user types, for use on the backend) but you can’t edit the terminology. I keep being asked why an individual is listed as a “student” when in fact they are VP of this and that etc. If I could take out this one line it would save me a lot of support debt. Just one example.

15. Affiliate payments are only on Courses. Not Lives. But this does include memberships. It just doesn’t make any sense. I’ve given up trying to understand it.

I’ll keep updating this list as I continue to encounter problems al most daily even after 5 months of using the platform.

Originally published April 16, 2026.

And yes, of course I am going to teach this virtually for each of you. Click the image below for details.

REGISTER NOW… This will be LIVE on Tuesday May 12th from 11am-1pm PDT (check this in your timezone here) PLUS when you register the recording will be available to you for a whole year.

Want to get in for free? Paid subscribers to this blog get free access. Click here to subscribe (from just $9/month…workshop is $16 [for two hours of workshop!!!]…16-9=7 dollars left to spend on a half yard for the workshop, just saying…) and you’ll receive a coupon code by email for 100% off.

I was also selling at Craftcation - candles, lip balm and various sewing amusements.

The few that were unsold are now in my online store and are limited edition! I don’t plan to make more after this.

As for participating - I am now in love with Ice Dyeing, as well as the indigo and natural dyeing I was doing before and teach. Here are my items just after sprinkling. Note socks in the colander (what else does one use a colander for?) and in the corner surrounded by a tin foil moat.

Now note socks rinsed and laundered on my apartment’s old school laminate flooring.

It really is an amazing process where the dye has time to separate into its constituent particles and so you get all these amazing blends and bleeds of color. I am going to do some further experiments then add it to my repetoire of workshops I teach.

I ventured down to Ventura with a Partner for the first time and so there was a little celebrating after I’d taught my third and final class.

This is a sweet potato cocktail from a bar called Strange Beast, where you can find a neon axolotl on the wall. My Partner had never heard of the axolotl, which is an aquatic salamander from Mexico and critically endangered. I don’t know why I know these things. The cocktail was delicious though.

Share

Finally, plans progress for when Global Quilt Connection takes H&H Trade Show by storm. Anyone involved with a Guild who is going to F&F (the consumer show open to the public in Chicago the week before) should look out for a GQC meet-up run by my colleague Susan Couch. I did a little try out our H&H booth activity…

I now have 2 yards of this fun fabric which I’ll be making into a quilt and inviting people to color in during the event. If you are enamored you can find this design and other coloring in patterns on Spoonflower’s site.

That’s it for this time. Let me know if you enjoyed the newsletter in the comments below.

Leave a comment

Bea

18 teachers, 2 days, and so much fun to be had! May 16-17 on YouTube. Details here.

Links & Info

• Join the globalquiltconnection.com newsletter list to hear about events for teachers, guilds and individual quilters.

• My workshops & lectures for quilt guilds are here

• My workshops for everyone else are here

• 1-1 sewing lessons - book here (in person or via zoom)

• These are my on demand workshops that you can sign up for right now! But…the cathedral window one might just be free during the Quilters Life summit.

• This is my store. Many a random thing plus a number of freebies.

• This is where I’m teaching in the next month or so.

• Subscribe to this substack to get updates twice a month from me.

Subscribe now

Top Three Wins This Week

• Booked a Summer load of classes for local Libraries on UV Resin, Block printing and Mending

• Global Quilt Connection opened registration for the All Star Sampler Platter

• I decided to start living in my apartment properly

Beabyrne.com Business

• Shipped a 44lb box of candles and such off to Ventura for the Craftcation Pop-Up Shop. Will be adding the rest to my website any day now. Any day…just you wait…any day…

• Following on from submitting all those Library listings, I got a boat load of bookings afterwards.

• I’ve started monthly planning for the second month in a row, and it does seem to be helpful. Who’d have thought it!

• My most recent newsletter is available here.

Globalquiltconnection.com Business

• It’s pens over stickers! An impromptu focus group at my quilting retreat last weekend suggests we ditch the free pens (who has ever bought a service based on a pen with a logo) and instead go with a sticker sheet. Don’t need to tell me twice.

• Registration is open for the All Star Sampler Event on May 16-17. It’s going to be epic! Details here.

• We are trialing a Sampler Box for ASSP attendees, so this week I was buying supplies in bulk. So far I have scissors, fabric, needles, a rotary cutter, a tea towel, a notebook, a mug, and fabric markers all identified if not actually bought. The mug is rather sweet. There will only be 50 available so registrants will need to act fast to grab one!

Personal

• Catalytic converter theft in the Bay Area is endemic, and last week it was my turn. $3k to get it replaced and not covered by insurance. It’s just not funny. Did I mention that taking out a paid subscription to this newsletter would really help me?

• The SF Quilters Guild Retreat was great. Learned some fascinating techniques I am going to start using in the Round Robin quilt I currently have at home.

• I returned to my apartment after the Retreat on Sunday and thought “This does not look like a place anyone enjoys living.” I want to change that! Let pictures go up on the walls and let me stop focussing on all the crazy broken stuff around the building.

Links & Info

• Join the globalquiltconnection.com newsletter list to hear about events for teachers, guilds and individual quilters.

• My workshops & lectures for quilt guilds are here

• My workshops for everyone else are here

• 1-1 sewing lessons - book here (in person or via zoom)

• These are my on demand workshops that you can sign up for right now! But…the cathedral window one might just be free during the Quilters Life summit.

• This is my store. Many a random thing plus a number of freebies.

• This is where I’m teaching in the next month or so.

• Subscribe to this substack to get updates twice a month from me.

I am a pretty hardcore volunteerer, so not only was I in charge of “Make & Take” (a self-paced evening activity for those who wanted to) but I was also one of six volunteers in the “Demos & Desserts” segment one evening, demonstrating Cathedral Window blocks.

Make & Take - Fabric Flowers

Having cxreated the instructions for the Retreat, I wanted to also share them with you here. I think they’re rather adorable and intend to make a huge bouquet rather than stopping at the six shown here. The 2nd page of the PDF gives the three sizes and you can use floral wire (I used these) or a skewer or chopstick as the stem. You could also easily add leaves too should the spirit move you.

Download PDF Instructions

Patchwork Shirt with Stacey Sharman

Stacey is a lovely woman and great teacher who I first met at her makerstudio/sew space years ago, which sadly closed down when the landlord sold the building. For one workshop she asked us to bring a garment we knew fitted but didn’t wear, plus some scraps. I dug out my Japanese fabric stash from when I lived in Tokyo, which has been added to sparingly over the years since then. My table soon began to resemble my sewing space at home.

This is how far I got during the class. I started with a rayon shirt which was super lightweight but which always seemed too warm for warm days and too cool for cool days. I cut off the pockets and shortened the long sleeves.

I definitely need to take that blue strip off the sleeve on the right, but other than that I am very happy with it. It’s all big stitch quilting and similar to Kawandi, but different.

I also did another class with the pre-eminent Rachel Clarke but I will save that for another time.

Not Thinking

I had intended to not think about work while I was away, but that’s not easy when you are surrounded by 70 quilters who mostly know you run two quilty businesses and want to support you and show they’re taking an interest. Many questions abounded and I also took advantage a few times to run a mini focus group and help resolve a few questions I had.

I have a tendency to get all up in my head about creativity and so I relish opportunities to create without thinking about it too much. There is a book coming out soon called “Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better” by David Epstein, who’s substack I read. I find it easiest to create when I limit myself to a set of materials, such as old book pages and ink.

If I get out all my art materials to play with, I end up feeling overwhelmed about which direction to go in. If I limit myself, it’s easier to get started… to let go of the thinking, and just “do”. I did this with Rachel Clarke’s workshop and was able to create patterns quickly and easily, all of which I’ll share next time.

The problem with constraint is where it meets my ADHD. Generally, if I can’t see something…poof! I’ve forgotten all about it. It ceases to exist. To avoid forgetting, I need need to have things visible, but that makes me messy. But if I leave things out, or at least visible so I don’t forget them, I feel overwhelmed by what to pick up and use. It’s a definite dichotomy.

All Star Sampler Platter, 16-17 May

Heads up that registration for this bi-annual event is open! Last September, nine thousand of the finest quilters around the world sat down and watched 18 teachers each give a 15 minute demo, and this May you could be among them. I am not teaching at this one - I am the host! There will be champagne for everyone1 and every attendee is permitted to eat as much cake as they like.

Registration is just $25 for an individual, but if your Guild registers on behalf of all their members it works out as around $1 per person. Not bad for 6 hours of live content, bonus recordings, access to the recorded live sessions afterwards, a workbook to download and keep AND more.

Find out More

Lastly, did you know that being a self-employed creative is not terribly lucrative? You can help a sister out by taking out a paid subscription to this newsletter from only $9 a month! Just click here for details.

Or if you want something more substantial than a warm glow in return for your $9, you can buy one of my on-demand workshops here.

And that is it!

Stay classy everyone,

Bea

Links & Info

• Join the globalquiltconnection.com newsletter list to hear about events for teachers, guilds and individual quilters.

• My workshops & lectures for quilt guilds are here

• My workshops for everyone else are here

• 1-1 sewing lessons - book here (in person or via zoom)

• These are my on demand workshops that you can sign up for right now! But…the cathedral window one might just be free during the Quilters Life summit.

• This is my store. Many a random thing plus a number of freebies.

• This is where I’m teaching in the next month or so.

• Subscribe to this substack to get updates twice a month from me.

• If you’re curious about my business shenanigans, read the posts about that here.

Subscribe now

Bea’s News

There has been so much going on - and you can read about a lot of it in my weekly business summary here. One fun thing I got to do this week was make bunting samples for a new workshop I’m offering in the Bay Area.

If you’re not familiar with “bunting” - it’s flag garlands that can be hung inside or out. And it is rather hard to photograph “in the wild” hence the WIP shot above. I am a big fan of bunting in all its forms.

• This is when I appliqued it on a duvet cover (which my sister still has)

• This is when I made it for the birth of my first niece (plus bonus shots of the HUUUUUUGE amount I made for a friend’s wedding.)

• This is the one I made for the same niece with her name on it

I’ve made a lot more before and since and have some in a box at the oment, ready to go, which I plan to put up - just not sure where to put it.

I also got to play with some cathedral window blocks as I will be doing a workshop on this for the Quilters Life Summit in April. Registration will open soon and I will be sure to share the links when it does. I am also demo’ing this at my Guild’s Quiltaway event in 2 weeks.

Your First Hexagon - Workshop Next Week

This workshop is filling up, taking place on Thursday 19th. Paid subscribers to this newsletter get free entry and everyone else can get access for just $9 by clicking here. We’ll be making fabulous pin cushions or coasters.

Workshops Everywhere

I have been teaching my Intro to UV Resin and Mending & Hemming workshops all over the place recently. I got to work with a new organization last week called San Leandro 2050, which is a resident-led nonprofit committing to curbing carbon emissions and improving quality of life for local people. It was great to meet with them and help keep clothing out of landfill by teaching them to mend it. I also went to teach at two Santa Clara libraries for the first time this week.

It’s the first time I’d been labelled as a “performer” but I’m not objecting! If you are near me you can see where I’ll be teaching next on my calendar. You’ll find a list of all the workshops I teach in the links at the end of this post.

Fascinating Finds

• I have been loving the Textile Talks series recently. These are free lectures on all sorts of topics, supported by SAQA, the Quilt Alliance and more. Recent standouts are “Transmissions: Quilts & Trans Care” and “Quilts as Living History”. Free to watch.

• Kate at ZenStitching has a great “Mending & Sustainability Reading List”. I’ve read several already and it gave me a few more to add to my reading list on Goodreads. (Are you on Goodreads? Friend me!)

• 1000 Year Old Paper Flowers? The preservation is mind blowing. The shapes and colors prompted me to do a little free sketching and doodling.

That is it for now. I hope you are all well and want to thank you for being here and reading my newsletter. Now that it’s easier to comment I’d love to know what you think - add your opinion and I promise to reply!

Leave a comment

Stay safe everyone.

Bea

Links & Info

• Join the globalquiltconnection.com newsletter list to hear about events for teachers, guilds and individual quilters.

• My workshops & lectures for quilt guilds are here

• My workshops for everyone else are here

• 1-1 sewing lessons - book here (in person or via zoom)

• These are my on demand workshops that you can sign up for right now! But…the cathedral window one might just be free during the Quilters Life summit.

• This is my store. Many a random thing plus a number of freebies.

• This is where I’m teaching in the next month or so.

• Subscribe to this substack to get updates twice a month from me.

Subscribe now

Top Three Wins This Week

• Santa Clara Libraries - taught in two this week and they are excited about a new workshop for their America 250 celebrations.

• Global Quilt Connection held an amazing session “Building a Healthy Quilt Guild” with Guild Leaders worldwide.

• Held my first 1-1 sewing lesson at my Studio

Beabyrne.com Business

• Been submitting my new and “old” workshops to the libraries again for the next round of bookings.

• Taught UV Resin and Mending workshops all over the Bay

• Made samples for a new workshop on making bunting (flag garlands)

• Finally finished my workshop for the Quilters Life Summit happening April 21-23.

• Designed all the labels for the candles, lip balm and bubble bath I’m selling at Craftcation.

• 1-1 sewing lessons can now be booked on my website. Had two people book with zero advertising so there’s definitely a market for them!

Globalquiltconnection.com Business

• We have had SO many problems with our platform, NewZenler. I would definitely not recommend them to anyone. A lot of support emails going back and forth this week.

• Had a very successful lecture for Guilds with Belle Brunner.

• Recruited the teachers for the next All Star Sampler Platter - and Guilds can now buy passes for all their members.

• Lots of work on our booth and promotional materials for the H&H trade show in May. There is a whole bucket of stuff to be designed and then printed. Have ordered samples of some promotional items.

Personal

• The 100-day project has me all in my head again. I have such bad imposter syndrome. Which is ironic because it’s something I lecture about.

• Did my 2025 taxes! Just got to give them one last check and then submit them. And then pay the tax sob.

• Got the Make & Take project sorted out for the San Francisco Guild’s Quiltaway event - happening in two weeks! Expect to see lots of flowers appearing sometime soon…

• Charlotte is not supposed to sit on my WIP, not least because of the pins but also because she is molting as it heats up in Oakland. Nonetheless she managed to get settled when I got up to grab a drink, and then looked too cute for me to move her. She knows what she’s doing.

Links & Info

• Join the globalquiltconnection.com newsletter list to hear about events for teachers, guilds and individual quilters.

• My workshops & lectures for quilt guilds are here

• My workshops for everyone else are here

• 1-1 sewing lessons - book here (in person or via zoom)

• These are my on demand workshops that you can sign up for right now! But…the cathedral window one might just be free during the Quilters Life summit.

• This is my store. Many a random thing plus a number of freebies.

• This is where I’m teaching in the next month or so.

• Subscribe to this substack to get updates twice a month from me.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

Bea’s News

The 100 days project is ticking along and this is day 3. You can absolutely still join and just add a few days on the end (that’s what I plan to do if I miss any days). So far I’ve been using collage and mixed media, but I plan to introduce fabric soon.

On day 1 I got my stash of fountain pen ink samples and just enjoyed making marks on pages from old, damaged books. On day 2 I did a little therapy exploration and used some of that paper. The fellow with the horns is Chernabog from Disney’s Sourceror’s Apprentice (video here).

Two New Quilts

In my last newsletter I criticized the murders of citizens by ICE at the order of Trump. Responses came in three groups.

1. Go back to where you came from, and I’m unsubscribing.

2. I quilt to escape politics so don’t keep mentioning it or I’ll unsubscribe.

3. Thank you for speaking out.

I understand all three groups and I get it. Having a safe space to go to escape the hatred and intolerance is important. It’s also a privilege. As an immigrant, I’m always at risk of being kicked out of the USA on one of his whims. This got me thinking about what would cause a not-currently-at-risk group to get involved. There is a famous poem that I’ve been thinking about daily since Trump was first elected. “First They Came” was written in around 1947 by a german lutheran pastor who was not exactly a straight forward character (wikipedia page). He was pro-Hitler until it impacted his religion. The poem starts,

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist…

My friend Matt saw the quilt and said “wow, imagine how far they would have got down the list of groups in order to get to the quilters”. Yes. Just think.

Meanwhile the colorful quilt is for my soon to be published (any year now) Hexagon Gradient English Paper Pieced quilt. This is the baby size, all hand pieced and quilted. I will share here when I actually get around to publishing that darn pattern.

Never Miss a Quilt Label Again - Now Available

My “Never Miss a Quilt Label Again” workshop is now available on demand at beabyrne.com. It was so much fun to teach this one earlier this month!

Your First Hexagon: A Simple Introduction to English Paper Piecing

My next live workshop will be March 19th at 11am PT (2pm ET, 7pm GMT). It’s all about english paper piecing and while we start with just one hexagon, we’ll make another 7 and you’ll end up with a pincushion or coaster. Perfect for your sewing space!

I have taught this one all over California and love seeing all the finished items!

Save Your Spot

Paid subscribers to this newsletter get free registration! Simply go ahead and subscribe and you will get a coupon for 100% off registration.

That is it for now. I hope you are all well and want to thank you for being here and reading my newsletter. Now that it’s easier to comment I’d love to know what you think - add your opinion and I promise to reply!

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Stay safe everyone.

Bea

If you enjoyed this newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers will get my new pattern for free, as well as my thanks for supporting my work as a fledgling artist.

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Top Three Wins This Week

1. Officially cancer free after five years - no more Tamoxifen!

2. Three word of mouth people contacted me about delivering workshops for them, and one has already booked.

3. Debuted my “Then They Came for the Quilters” quilt.

Beabyrne.com Business

• Created and submitted my handouts and worksheets for Craftcation. Going to be epic!

• Confirmed what I would be selling in the Craftcation pop-up shop. Going to be making and selling soap, lipbalm and more!

• Taught a candle workshop at LinkedIn.

• Attended the SF Quilters Guild meeting and showed two quilts - “Then They Came for the Quilters” and my new baby sized EPP quilt which is finally finished.

• I am the Workshop Chair for the SFQG and made the next workshop tickets live - Michelle Trimble in April. To be followed by E Bond in June and perhaps Shibori Dyeing in May.

• Planned my next zoom workshop using the GPT mentioned below.

Globalquiltconnection.com Business

• The lead collection pop-up on the new site was broken and labelling all leads as teachers. Still trying to fix it. Lots of back and forth with Support.

• Created email sequence to re-engage lapsed teachers. Starts Monday.

• Lots of promotion of the Belle Brunner lecture next week on Building a Healthy Quilt Guild.

• Created a GPT (AI Bot) to help teachers come up with either a demo for the All Star Sampler Platter, or an outline for a longer workshop. There will be a free version as a lead magnet and a bells and whistles version for teacher members. Still tweaking it.

• Lots of planning and some very good news around our Booth at H&H (Craft trade show in May) and F&F (public show in April).

• Confirmed the title and description of the Panel I’m moderating at H&H. Very excited to be working with such an expert Panel of creative women. “Micro Influencers, Macro Impact”.

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Personal

• My (hopefully) last ever call with my fabulous Oncologist Dr Reddy. Been 5 years since my breast cancer treatment finished and I can now stop taking Tamoxifen. My chance of recurrence is “Zero to single digits” which is AMAZING!

• The 100-day project starts tomorrow and my Partner and I are going to be working towards some kind of joint show/reveal to friends of our work at the end of it all.

• Charlotte still the most excellent and fabulous cat in the world.

What have been your wins this week? Tell me in the comments!

PS: Join the globalquiltconnection.com newsletter list to hear about events for teachers, guilds and individual quilters.

PPS: Subscribe to this substack to get updates twice a month from me.

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For the last three years, since becoming self-employed, I’ve been thinking of myself as a Quilter - with a capital Q. It’s been awful. I’m constantly longing to do some quilting, but have to spend my time doing 72 other things. I spent Martin Luther King Day gelli printing with a friend, purely for the joy of it.

“Do you get to do this kind of thing all the time?” they asked, delighted by the opportunity to play and create.

“I hardly get any time to be creative.” I replied, despondently.

But…that’s not exactly true. In the last 27 days I have:

1. Hand sewn

2. Hand quilted

3. Machine sewn (not much, but still…)

4. Knitted

5. Collaged with paper

6. Dyed with indigo

7. Made skincare products from scratch (lotion, soap, bath bombs, scrubs)

8. Made a lot of push pins (and other things) with UV Resin

9. Cooked/baked

10. Written

For someone who has no time to be creative, that’s quite a lot of creativity. I’ve also taught hemming and mending, knitting, dyeing, UV resin and making skincare products to a couple of hundred delighted students during those 27 days. Like this awesome lady below - look how happy she looks! This was 3 days ago and she’d just made those awesome earrings with purple flowers and green glitter out of UV Resin at one of my classes.

What I really meant when I said I hardly get any time to be creative, is that I hardly get any time to make quilts. Or Art. Or Art Quilts. Because in my head I am a QUILTER. That’s been my goal for the last few years - to “make it” as a Quilter with a capital Q (or an Artist with a capital A, whose art is mainly textile based). While spending those years lamenting not having time to quilt, I have been building a career as what I’ve heard described as a “multi-hyphenate creator”. No time to make? I am crazily creative everyday! Even when I’m doing computer work I’m creating websites and designing events and researching creative, new ways of doing things.

Over the last three years my focus has been on developing an audience of quilters and serving the quilting community. I have developed quilterish things like on-demand courses, and newsletters, and events and products. I’ve spent hours, days, weeks, promoting my lectures and workshops, and I have taught and lectured a lot. I even acquired Global Quilt Connection and became even more immersed in bringing quilters, guilds and teachers like myself together. However, most of my time is spent teaching and doing other things and I have neglected that majority group of creative people who I spend my time with as a potential audience because I was a Quilter, and they mainly weren’t. When you consider that I am trying to make a living out of all this, that’s a really silly mistake!

So here’s the deal. I am a quilter, but I am also much more than that. My schema in the past had QUILTER written in the middle and everything else in a spider diagram around it, and anything non-quilter was neglected. No more. From today I am CREATIVE. I embrace all the crafts, all the making, all the experimenting, making bad art and making the good stuff too. I’ll still “do” quilting and post about it, but it will be among everything else as I blossom into the fully creative person I am, rather than squeeze myself into only the “quilter” category. I hope my current newsletter subscribers will stay with me, but I also hope to bring my creativity to lots of new people and encourage them to join me in fulfilling my purpose. Which is…

I want to make, and I want to help others feel the joy of making.

• January began with a Quilt n Learn Summit where thousands of quilters around the world joined us for fun and making. It would be followed in July by the inaugural Tour de Fabric which will be making a come back in 2026!

• Starting in January, I continued throughout the year to deliver my lectures for Guilds on “English Paper Piecing - Now & Then” about the history of EPP, as well as “You Made a Quilt, Now What?” about using images of your finished quilts on clothing and household items.

• 2025 was a year of financial literacy for me. I signed up for the Million Dollar Year program and booked myself a retirement planning deep dive with a free Fidelity Advisor.

• February saw me at my first QuiltCon, recruiting teachers for the Tour de Fabric. I also started teaching as part of the “Market Street Arts” crew, aiming to reinvigorate downtown San Francisco.

• March saw me volunteer as the San Francisco Quilt Guild’s Workshop Chair and I started booking and hosting workshops, which I’ll continue with in 2026. I also won a ribbon at the SFQG’s Quilt Show!

• In April I taught at Craftcation for the second time and also re-up’d my mixed media skills. Haven’t been? You must! Read about it here. I’m teaching there again in 2026.

• I trained as a Quilt Judge and also did my first official judging at the San Mateo County Fair!

• Throughout the year I continued getting coaching to help with my freshly diagnosed ADHD. I did a lot of research and still think signing up with Expert ADHD Coaching was the best decision.

• I appeared on a number of podcasts this year including a Quilter’s Life, Sugar Gay Isber, and Creatives on Camera.

• My doctor gave me a kick in the backside about my eating habits and I did several nutrition and cooking classes with my healthcare company which were actually pretty useful.

• I ended 2024 by starting Somatic Therapy, which really has changed my life. In June I had a setback but with the help of the therapy was able to get back on track and am finishing the year really strong.

• September saw me at the SFQG’s Retreat which was a breath of fresh air. I also took part in an All Star Quilters Platter event with Global Quilt Connection.

• In October I added a “Hemming & Mending” workshop to my portfolio and have been teaching these to sold out groups ever since. I also celebrated my 5 year Cancerversary - five years since hearing those magic words at the doctor’s office but also five years surviving!

• In November I moved apartment - going from one part of Oakland to another, and gaining a whole extra room along the way! I didn’t want the month to seem too peaceful though so I also acquired Global Quilt Connection and have been busy behind the scenes ever since.

So yes, one or two things! What will 2026 hold? Subscribe to my blog or follow me to find out!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beabyrneartist/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bea.byrneyarnover

You want to teach quilting online - awesome! You’ve taught in person and know how to structure your workshop. You’re ready to move to teaching over Zoom or recording your own workshops. Great! Let’s get you started.

Establishing Who You Are

People need to be able to find out that you are a teacher, which means having an online presence. As a minimum you’re going to need a list of what you can teach and some contact details. That could all be a single online page - but it needs to be somewhere people can find it.

Choosing your Online Location

You want a main hub, such as a website or facebook page, where people can read about who you are and what you offer. Facebook has guidance on setting up a free page and there are several places where you can get a free website linked below. Your own website is preferred because many people do not use facebook so will never be able to access your information, and you never know when Facebook are going to stop showing your content.

• Weebly - very easy to use

• Wix - slightly more sophisticated

But wait - what is your contact information going to be? Obviously your name and approximate location, such as the US State or UK County you are in. NEVER put your full address online unless you have a brick and mortar store. Now your email address - are you going to use supernan@... or crazy4huskies@... or whatever your personal email address is? Or is it time to create a new email address for your online teaching... You can create a new email address with google or another provider very easily and for free. Choose something such as yourname-teacher@... or yourname-quilting@... That is usually enough contact information, but if you want to add a phone number think twice about using your personal or home phone. Instead you can go to Google Voice and get a free number that will forward calls to you, without you needing to put your own number online, which can lead to spam.

Getting Social

If you are going to teach something, people need to be able to see that you can actually do it. You will want either a gallery on your website showing examples of your work, or a social media presence. Instagram and Facebook are the most common but you can also use others. Again, think about what you want your username to be and remember you can change your existing Instagram name.

Learning to Teach Online - VERY IMPORTANT

Teaching online is not the same as teaching in-person. You cannot see what everyone is doing and they need to be able to very clearly see what you are doing. The best way to learn is to do an online course such as the Video Making Crash Course with the Academy for Virtual Teaching. (Lyric is a friend of mine and very kindly gave me a 10% off code for my readers - use my link and the code QUILTNLEARN to get the discount.) This is an excellent course that will save you days if not weeks of trying to work everything out for yourself.

Equipment You Will Need

• Lighting is essential - simply sitting near a window will not give you strong enough light. This is the ring light I use which also holds your phone in an ideal place.

• Additional cameras - your phone will give you one angle but you are probably going to want to show your face and where you are working, and switch between the two. Hence needing a second camera. Logitech is a well known name and has been making webcams for decades. This is the one I use.

• Sound is another essential thing to get right. If you are moving between two cameras you need a single microphone recording your voice, and it needs to stay a consistent distance from your mouth. For me, a lapel mic was an obvious necessity and I bought this one at the start of the year.

The Technical Tools

If you are only teaching live then set-up your zoom and away you go. If you are making pre-recorded content you’ll need a few extra things.

• The pandemic did the making community a huge favor - it taught us all how to use Zoom. That’s the good news! The bad news is that the free Zoom plan only lets you teach for 40 minutes at a time. If you want to teach for longer than that you will need a paid plan.

• For pre-recorded videos you’ll want to be able to neatly start and finish recordings, and crop out any long pauses or bits that go wrong. I am a mac user so I can use iMovie for free to help me edit recordings. Put aside 2-3 hours to watch “getting started” tutorials and then jump in.

• If you want to have nice graphics at the start and end of your videos, or make marketing materials or polished looking handouts, then you need a graphics tool and Canva is the one everyone is using now. The free version is very easy to use and if you want more sophisticated templates and functions the paid version is not too expensive.

Running an Event Online

There’s that quote “Build It and They Will Come” which absolutely does NOT apply to anything on the internet. A more realistic quote would be “build it and then market it a lot for ages and then you might get some people turn up and after a while you’ll build an audience but it will take a real effort to get there.”

If your event is live you need to schedule it and then make tickets available online. Eventbrite is the most commonly used platform although it does charge the highest fees. Other options are Ticket Tailor and Humanitix. If you are paying for your website hosting there may be an option to sell tickets from there too. You can integrate most of these tools with Zoom and set it up so your attendees are sent a link to join at the right time.

If you are selling access to a pre-recorded video you want to use a platform such as Teachable, Kajabi or similar. Yes, you could just send people a google drive or dropbox link to your video when they pay for it - but then they’ll be able to send the same link to their friends, post it on facebook, download and copy your video and sell it as theirs and so on. Using a trusted platform means you can control who gets access. Kajabi is much more technical, with a lot more features than Teachable, and is therefore more expensive. There are also other options.

Teaching at an Online Summit

If you are teaching at an online summit such as Quilt n Learn you only need to make a recording, not host that recording yourself. The Summit Leader will likely ask you to upload your recording somewhere and will then host it for you.

It’s All in the Marketing

You’ve decided what to teach, you’ve designed the curriculum, you’ve possibly created an online event for people to sign up for or you’ve created a pre-recorded video that people can buy...now’s the time to tell everyone about it. First steps:

1. Find every email address you can and email them about your new course. Offer them a discount or incentive to sign up and encourage them to tell their friends. About 40% of your friends will open this email. About 10% of that 40% will click on a link to be supportive. Probably none of them will sign up. Don’t be discouraged.

2. Set up an email collection widget for your website at somewhere like Kit or MailChimp. You need to make sure you are collecting and using people’s emails legally and these tools will help with that.

3. Start building your email list and email them regularly with updates about your teaching etc. Liz Wilcox is an email marketing expert who I refer to pretty much weekly and I recommend her email marketing membership which I am a member of. She has advice about building your list and much more.

4. Write an article for your Guild’s newsletter and see if any other local guilds would like an article for their newsletter.

5. Look for your regional quilting organizations, where Guilds go to find teachers. This is not always easy as no two regions do things the same way. The following are a few relevant organization you can list with - and there is usually an annual fee to remain listed.

• Northern California Quilt Council

• Southern California Council of Quilt Guilds

• Quilters Calendar

• Global Quilt Connection

6. Paid advertising - this is always an option but think carefully before committing yourself. NEVER be tempted to “boost” a post on facebook or instagram. If you want to advertise with Meta use the proper ad platform. Do your research on where to advertise and how, how much you need to spend and how long your ad needs to run for before it will be effective.

So that’s it! I’d love to know if you decide to go ahead and teach and how you get on!

This blog post may contain affiliate links.

I have been doing a series of interviews with the ideal customers for the Quilt n Learn events, having come to terms with the idea that it is not eight thousand people just like me. In a recent newsletter I offered $50 for an hour’s interview with members of my mailing list and sure enough a handful of people stepped up. I knew taking notes during the interviews would slow things down and stop the natural flow developing so I decided to record and take notes later.

I have seen a few people recently using AI that integrates with Zoom to make a recording of a meeting and then afterwards the software provides a summary of what was discussed and the resulting actions. Zoom seems to have a version of this available as an add on but one I have used before is Otter.ai. This is a useful tool that has evolved a lot since I first used it about 5 years ago purely for transcription of a recording. The free version is definitely worth a look but meetings are limited to 30 minutes so it wasn’t going to work for me in this case, plus I didn’t actually need a summary. I wanted ALL the words.

Photo of cuddly otters by Jim on Unsplash

A year or so ago I came across Aiko which is free and it has become my go-to tool for audio transcription. My flow is that I have the app on my phone. When I want to record something I use the Voice Memos app on my iPhone (or Android has something similar). Once the recording is complete I can “share” it using the 3 dots to the right of the recording. I find Aiko in the app list and click on it and then it automatically starts transcribing. I have found that if the recording is longer than an hour, Aiko will crash when I share it. I rarely have to transcribe things longer than that though so when I occasionally do I just split the original file and do it in pieces. I can copy and paste Aiko’s transcript straight into a google doc or note and can then edit as desired.

Aiko Icon

Pros of Using Aiko

• Free

• No ads

• Works in 100 languages

• IPhone and Android

Cons of Using Aiko

• Will crash if your recording is more than an hour long

• Does make your iPhone hot - there is an explanation for why this happens on his website.

Overall I really like it and would recommend you give it a try. When checking the link for the app I discovered the creater’s webpage has a number of useful tips to improve the output including FAQs. The tip on dividing the transcript into paragraphs is going to be very useful.

If you have a different app you recommend please let me know in the comments - thanks!

At the EBHQ Show in March, Artist Jenny Hurth made quilts and more out of discarded masks she collected during the pandemic. There is an article about this here and my photo below.

Julia McCleod makes beautiful silk quilts and also teaches how to work with silk. Danny Amazonas is a quilter known for using all sorts of fabrics in his pieces.

So, in short, use whatever you have on hand or whatever you want to.

For the Creative Entrepreneur with ADHD

ADHD Coaching/Book: I only discovered I had ADHD at the age of 45 - two years ago. And I SO have it. Add in becoming self-employed and perimenopause and I was a mess. After a LOT of googling I signed up for coaching last October and it was a game changer. My coach is Natalie and I 100% recommend her. It isn’t cheap but so worth it. And if it’s out of budget then I can recommend Founder Shanna Pearson’s new book - Invisible ADHD.

Rainbow Timer Clock: I use this thing constantly (on the advice of Natalie) to keep myself on task and make sure I take breaks. Lots of designs. Set it for 30 mins and don’t let yourself get distracted until it goes off. Or in my case, set it for 15 mins to make sure you’re still working on what you wanted to do 15 mins ago.

Simple Planner: Wire bound, one page per day, perforated corners, extra notes pages, lots of colorful covers to choose from. Yes, it’s a brick, but I’m a paper notebook person and this lets me make notes/doodle while giving lots of room for planning my day/week.

PaperMate Flair Pens: The perfect pen for notes, journalling, planning, doodling, you name it. I change colors as frequently as possible to help my ADHD brain stay engaged both with taking notes and re-reading them afterwards.

For the Quilter

Quilt Tattoo Fabric: I had the honor of meeting Amy, the designer, printer and owner, at QuiltCon 2025 and fell in love with her work. Use this fabric to write messages on your quilts or use her other designs as jumping off points for other pieces.

Quilt Alliance Membership: Doing great work, the QA are “bringing together the creative, scholarly, and business worlds of quiltmaking to celebrate and preserve our shared quilt heritage and inspire today’s quilters.” One year’s membership is just $35 and I just received a sheet of stickers I will definitely use and a FQ of quilt labels as a welcome gift.

The Color Cube: I always reach for this when starting a new project. There are now 4 different ones but I find the first one is enough for me. Invaluable for anyone who has to choose a color palette before starting a project - so quilters, embroiderers, coloring enthusiasts, knitters and so many more! It really boosts your confidence about your color choices.

6” Perfect Scissors: I took a reverse applique workshops with Celeste Compion recently and she sold me on these scissors. Micro-serrated blades for super clean and sharp cutting. Yes please.

For Creative Workshop & Class Teachers

Overhead Camera Phone Stand with Light: Ah the joy and the curse of recording content and delivering workshops online. Good lightening and a stable camera are ESSENTIAL and this has given me both. Easy to clamp to the table and move around.

Protalus Insoles - For Those Long On-Your-Feet Days: I have been wearing these for about 8 years now and they really do make a difference. I have flat feet (TMI, I know) and had really bad Plantar Fashi-thing for years. These genuinely helped.

Listen B*tch Affirmation Cards: I swear by, at, and with, these. They talk to me like I talk to friends in need of a pep talk. Just seeing them on my desk reminds me that I am a badass.

Other lists I’ve been admiring are Austin Kleon’s and the Craft Industry Alliance’s. If there are products or lists you’d recommend leave me a comment below - I look forward to exploring them!

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Top right speckles are the cochineal bugs. Amazing things (“mexican red” - more about them here. Saw them living their little lives on cactus in Peru.) Top left green bits are the carrot tops. Little bit of pink in the midsection from the avocado (yes, it gives pink dye), and then the blue further down is either an unexpected effect from the rosemary or a little bit or iron impacting the cochineal. General greeny yellow is the bay leaves.

I took zero pics of the process but essentially I wet the fabric, rolled it up, and steamed it for 15 mins before allowing it to cool, unrolling and rinsing. (Of course you don’t use your usual pots and pans for this as natural things can be poisonous aka deadly nightshade, arsenic, all other members of the bay leaf family etc).

This first one was more by way of a “control” rather than an experiment since I was already familiar with the various elements and the colors they gave. What I was really interested in was stage 2. On the left we have the exact same plants but interspersed between them are bits of iron. Chains, nuts, bolts, springs, screws and so on.

Now this is what I’m talking about. I freakin ADORE the effect iron has on natural dye colors. This is what they should have been teaching in chemistry classes instead of covalent bonds and whatnot. Here are a few close ups.

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It’s the same cochineal causing the rich fuschia pink and the almost black purple. It’s just that the iron causes it to go so much darker. You can see the outlines of some of the iron pieces too (which is why I prefer using actual pieces to using ferrous sulphate generally). The brown is the rust from the iron. For this bundle I prepared it in the same way as the first one, but also dampened the fabric with white vinegar. After steaming for 15 mins I let it cool down enough to handle then put the whole lot still damp in a ziplock bag with an extra shot of vinegar for 2 days, during which time it got a lot darker and without which I wouldn’t have the rust areas. Rust needs time to develop and the acidic vinegar helps hugely.

I am in love with this piece of fabric.

I’ve been teaching natural bundle dyeing for a few years now but have definitely been doing more of it for use in my own work during the last few months. I can thoroughly recommend Rebecca Desnos as a resource and her guidance works worldwide, not just in her native England (which I wondered about as they have different plants in the UK, but an avocado is an avocado. Mostly.). And I do of course teach natural and unnatural dyeing myself - details here.

But, if you were paying close attention, you’ll be wondering about the actual fabric I meant t mordant, not this random white cotton I added. Well…that is for the first of the 6 Peru-inspired quilts I’m working on and I will show you the results of that next week.

Boom, here we are making the hat. That’s the royal we. It was just me but Charlotte was there too for moral support.

Here it is on YouTube (like follow please thank you)

I am very happy with it! Here is what I realized along the way:

1. I taped together all those wretched pages when really I just needed the size of cone I wanted (pattern has 15” tall and 18” tall - I went with 15”) and the head hols shape and size. The brim is actually a circle based on the size of your hexagon.

2. I used pellon flex foam (or possible Soft and Stable - they’re basically the same) instead of batting and also added a layer of lightweight iron on interfacing for the brim.

3. I minimally quilted the brim to the flex foam, stitching in the ditch of where the triangles were joined. On the cone I free-motion-quilted a few stars.

4. I very much adopted my “close enough” approach to this project so the closing of the hole in the brim (where I turned the hat inside out) was a mess. But it’s for a costume so meh.

5. The pattern suggests adding heavy gauge wire to the edge of the brim to mold the shape of it. I skipped that.

Overall I am loving this hat and I fully intend to where it just generally out and about over the next few weeks.

She describes really well how to make a HEXAGON…table centerpiece. Doesn’t sound like a hat huh, but stay with me. Plus hexagon - the most wonderful of all the shapes? I’m in. And it’s the perfect size to cut out your brim. And where do you get the free witches hat pattern from? Some digging lead me to Maggie and her HST (half square triangle) hat …

… and she mentioned this free pattern.

I love it when a plan comes together! (Channeling my 80s childhood love of the A-Team). Watch out for Part 2 when I actually make the fabulous thing!