We’re almost at the half way point for the year! Summer Solstice (or “Winter Solstice” as it is called in the southern hemisphere) is June 21st but did you know it isn’t just a date but a specific time as well? It is when the Earth’s tilt toward the sun is at its maximum, resulting in the longest period of daylight and shortest night of the calendar year.

Bea’s Bright Idea

Feel like designing your own next project, but not sure where to start? Keep it super simple with some graph paper. You can print it one sheet at a time or buy a pad.

Decide on the finished size you want.
Decide what one box of graph paper is going to represent. It might be two inches, 10 inches, 20 centimeters or whatever suits you best.
Draw the outline of your project on the graph paper.
Start filling in the middle.

Here’s how I’ve used this when planning my next Cathedral Windows quilt. This helped me work out how much fabric I would need and compare it to the precuts I had. Now I know I have a choice. Make the quilt smaller, or buy another layer cake!

I design a lot of my projects so I have a dotted notebook I always use to keep them all together

Two printable graph paper sources:

For square grids: https://print-graph-paper.com/
For triangles: https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/triangle/ (I use this all the time for EPP hexagon planning)

And if you like Cathedral Windows, check out my “Cathedral Windows Made Easy” workshop for just $9!

From the Studio

One person’s floor is another person’s design wall

I am still sweating away on this bad boy, following an improv workshop earlier in the year with Claudia Shearer. I had a bit of a revelation while trying to make the blocks work. I’ve talked on a podcast recently about exploring destruction and chaos in my quilts. I have one I am about to set fire to! But with this one I kept finding that the block I wanted to use just didn’t work unless it was backwards. So I thought…why do the seams need to be on the inside? There is plenty of deconstructed clothing in fashion where the seams are visible. So that’s what I did. I’m still trying to get the blocks in their final layout and I’ve resewn two of them since the above layout, but I’m almost there.

What do you think I should call it? I have zero ideas right now and would appreciate your input!

Leave a comment

Join Me on Tuesday

My next virtual workshop is one of my favorites! On June 16th at 10am PST (1pm EST) I am teaching my Sew Together Bag workshop for the Global Quilt Connection as a YouTube livestream. SUPER easy to watch - no logging in, no passwords. Just click the link at the start time and away you go. I have more than 320 people from GQC signed up already so I figure there is room for one or two more!

This 6-hour workshop is usually at least $49 (and is available at that price as an on-demand workshop in case you want to buy now). But for my newsletter subscribers you can join the livestream for 50% off, just $24! You get the workshop on June 15th live and then also get to watch the recording for one-week afterwards.

Register Now

Needless to say, paid subscribers of my newsletter/blog get the workshop for FREE. Subscribing is $9/month or $90 for the year and someone who subscribed in January would so far have received $60 of free workshops…

Learn With Me

My teaching calendar is updated for anyone in the California Bay Area, but I also have a few spots available for Guild lectures and workshops in September! Let me know if you’d like me to visit.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Bea

Links & Info

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.
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)
This is where I’m teaching in the next month or so.
Join the globalquiltconnection.com newsletter list to hear about events for teachers, guilds and individual quilters.
Subscribe to this substack to get updates twice a month from me.

Subscribe now

Love for June, for Scraps and for Making…