Who says you can’t mix commercially printed fabrics with hand-dyed batiks? Not me! One of my most recent projects for Timeless Treasures Fabrics used both and turned out lovely in two different colorways. Check out the free download here: Mosaic-Mixed Media Free Quilt Pattern
The patterns uses easy 60 degree diamonds with sashing and cornerstones. So fun!

Here’s Cheryl’s itinerary for the foreseeable future. Click here to contact her if you’d like to see her in your hometown! Check back here for updates. We’ll try to keep it current.

March 7 –Top 10 Ways to Avoid Unsewing Lecture–Puyallup Valley Quilters, Puyallup, WA

March 9-10–Quilt-O-Grams class, Trunk Show, Paintstiks class–Mountain Stars Quilters Guild, Rogue River, OR

March 12–Trunk Show–Ladies of the Lake Quilt Guild, Longview, WA

April 8-13–student at Asilomar Empty Spools

May 3-4–Trunk Show and Workshop–Coos Sand and Sea Quilt Guild, Coos Bay, OR

July 8-15–Playing in Sisters for Quilt Show week

August 25– Teaching Quilt-O-Grams and Easy Chenille Applique at the 2012 Pacific West Quilt Show in Tacoma, WA

September 9-10–Trunk Show & Workshop–Mt Bachelor Quilt Guild, Bend, OR

September 11-12–Trunk Show & Fun With One Block Quilts Workshop–Sunriver, OR

October 1-2–Trunk Show & Workshop–Tehachapi, CA

April 2-7, 2013–Teaching Radiant Jewels from Blocks to Diamonds at Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar in CA

This is one of my newest designs for Timeless Treasures, and one of my all time favorite quilts! It’s available as a free download, just remember to set the page scaling to “none” when you print or your curve template won’t come out the right size. Just sayin’…

Here’s where to get the pattern from Timeless Treasures:
http://www.ttfabrics.net/cgi-bin/fabricshop/patterns.cgi?patternID=283

Sunday, May 22 at 3:30pm PT, 6:30pm ET, I will be interviewed on Artistically Speaking Talk Show by Rebecca Parsons on the internet at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/artisticallyspeaking/2011/05/22/artistically-speaking-with-cheryl-malkowski

Join us for a lively hour of chat and the opportunity to win a copy of  my latest book, Blocks to Diamonds!

If you’ve never found a good way to get an accurate mitered corner in a quilt border, try this method and see if it works as well for you as it does for me.

1. Cut the border fabric long enough so that the short end of the border fabric goes at least as far as the border on each adjacent side will be. So if your border will finish at 7 1/2″ wide, the border fabric needs to be 15″ wider than the unfinished quilt top.
2. Start by stitching the border onto the quilt, matching the centers and stopping 1/4″ from the raw edge of the quilt. Backstitch. Make sure the stitching just meets at the mark 1/4″ from the corners.
3. Press the seams toward the borders.
4. At one corner, fold the border down so it lays on the inside of the quilt and the short end butts up against, or goes beyond the border on the adjacent side.

5. Find the corner where the 2 border pieces meet on the outside of the quilt and pin right into the corner.

6. Fold back the top border between the pin and the place where the stitching lines meet at the corner of the quilt. Usea ruler to check the angle. It should be 45 degrees. With a striped fabric like this one, you can also line up the stripes so they are straight. I can barely see the fold in this photo because the lines match so well. It shows a little on the far right. Press to crease the miter.

7. Now that you have  a crease, lift the border piece that is on top and smooth it out right side up. Align the crease so that it forms a 90 degree angle when placed on top of the adjacent border.

8. Now, mark where the corners join and carefully lift up that crease. Use Elmer’s water soluble School Glue or a water soluble glue stick that you are confident will wash out and apply some glue to the underside of the crease. I use Elmer’s School Glue because I know it will wash out.

9. Press crease in place.

10. Okay, now that the miter is in place and can’t go anywhere, you’re just about set. Turn it to the back side and you will see the crease.

11. Pull the quilt center away from the border. It will fold up at the same angle as the miter. You don’t want it in your way when you’re stitching. Notice that the crease starts at the place where the stitching meets in the corners of the quilt.

12. Stitch from the place where the stitching meets in the corners of the quilt to the outside of the border right on the crease.

13. Trim away excess fabric.

So there you have it! This is the easiest, most accurate method I’ve used for  mitering corners. And since the glue comes out when the quilt is washed, stiffness is not a problem. I love that I don’t have to mess with pins OR slippery fabric!

After about a year of working on designing a line of fabrics for Paintbrush Studio, the independent-only side of Fabri-Quilt, my line of fabric is now here in the states! It’s been pretty fun watching and working on its evolution. I’m very happy with the results and can’t wait to see what people do with it. It features 2 main fabrics, one with a caramel background and one with a light background:

I love the watercolor look of the flowers and the mix of the caramel with the pinks greens and golds. If you know me well, you know that this color scheme is a bit of a stretch for me. Usually I can’t think in brown. But the whole mix of colors really works for me here.

There is a very useful stripe in the line, which I’m thinking will be used for borders. It cuts neatly into 8″ strips and has 5.4 repeats across the width of the fabric, so you will only need to purchase whatever length you need once, and have enough striping for all 4 sides of a quilt.

Rumor has it that it will be shipping in July. It takes a while for the fabric to get onto the bolts and everything to get all ready. Check to see if the whole line is in at Paintbrush Studio. While we wait for it, know that I’ll be designing away with it. Because that’s my job!

This weekend there will be fun times in McMinnville, OR, at the McMinnville Comunity Quilt Show. It runs September 18 and 19 from 10-4 each day at the Bethel Baptist Church, 325 NW Baker Creek Road, McMinnville, OR.  They will have over 300 quilts on display, door prizes and more. On Saturday, I’ll be presenting a trunk show at 2pm. If you’re in the area, stop by, we’ll be looking for you!

A good time was had by all–at least it looked like it to me! So despite one ridiculously long flight to Texas that day, and only 3 1/2 hours sleep, I proved to myself that I really can do anything for just one day! God bless my hostess, Sarah, who was up until after 3:30 am to retrieve me from the San Antonio airport.

We had a trunk show in the morning and a 3 hour class in the afternoon where we made Quilt-O-Grams.  Here’s a photo of the ladies sorting through the shapes for their projects. It reminded me of shopping the sock sale the day after Thanksgiving!

 

Today I’ll make my way to Portland, OR, so I can fly to Texas tomorrow. The New Braunfels Quilt Guild near San Antonio has invited me to teach and speak there and I’m really looking forward to my trip. We’ll be creating some fun, fused cards that are featured in my book Quilt-O-Grams, © 2008 C&T Publishing. The last 3 days have been spent preparing a slide presentation to supplement the quilts I’m bringing, and juggling those quilts and supplies so that every piece of luggage is the right weight.

 

 There was fabric to be fused and shapes to be cut out for the projects. We’ll be making Fantasy Flower cards like these:

All these are made with simple shapes cut with the Accucut die cutting machine–easy and quick!

This one has some couched yarns on it just for fun.

This is my class sample project. I’m sure we’re going to have a great time. Wish you could be there!

Have you seen the newest design I made for Timeless Treasures?  They sent me the most scrumptious batiks to work with and this was the challenge: design a quilt that will look great in 2 totally different color ways, uses 12 fabrics each, all in the same amounts. Once I got my brain in the right frame of mind, the rest was a blast.

Here’s a tip: When you’re making the  long diagonal seams along the line that you’ve drawn on the block, be sure your seam allowance is a scant 1/4″. I just put the “fence” on my 1/4″ foot on the far side of the line and that worked very well. By doing this, you’ll be sure to have enough fabric to square up to exactly 12 1/2″. On the other hand, if the whole block is a bit smaller, the quilt police are not coming….
In this block, there are actually some goofy little seams that end up out in the middle of nowhere, that are part of the reason this block is so easy to make. It is also the reason I have you being a bit careful about matching the colors when you’re adding the frames around the squares. When the colors match, those goofy seams just don’t show. Using this goofy seam method keeps us from having to stitch a really long, unprotected bias edge and from having to match what would be diagonally cut frame pieces. Whew, I feel better already. Have fun with this!