One-Fabric Hexagon Quilt

We spotted this quilt, “Big Stripe Hexagonal” at Fall Quilt Market and knew we had to make it. The coolest part about this hexagon quilt? It’s made using just one fabric! To get the hexagon effect, the striped fabric is cut out using a 60-degree triangle ruler and pieced back together in rows. Neat!

All you’ll need is 4-1/2 yards of fabric. We have the stripe used in this quilt in two colorways. Buy enough fabric to make this quilt and we’ll throw in the pattern to get your started, or check out the pattern online on Michael Miller’s website.

Ombre Pixel Quilt

We now have the Simply Color line by V & Co for Moda Fabrics. The line includes several colors of ombre prints (where the color graduates from dark to light) which make really unique quilts.

Jane, our Moda rep, gave us a great, modern idea on how to use the ombre fabrics. I knew I had to try it out. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to make a “pixel” quilt. It’s a really fast and easy project. I used just one color of ombre, but picking two or three ombres in coordinating colors would make a stunning quilt as well.

You will need a total of 3-1/3 yards of ombre fabric to make a 54” x 70” finished quilt.

First, cut your fabric into (24) 5” strips. Then, subcut the strips into (192) 5” x 5” squares.

You will be sewing your squares together at random, so first you need to mix up your neat stack of squares. I did this by “shuffling the deck” and spreading all the squares out across my cutting table. Then, I dumped the pile into a bag and mixed them up even more.

Sew the squares together at random into (96) two-patches. The beauty of the pixel quilt is its randomness. However, at this stage I was careful to mix up the tones of the fabrics so there was at least some contrast between the two squares I sewed together.

Press your two-patches to one side. Then, sew your two-patches together to make (48) four-patch blocks. Press seams to one side.

Arbitrarily arrange your blocks into eight rows of six blocks. You’ll want to double check your seams alternate so they “nest” when you sew your blocks together. You can either rotate your blocks to make them fit, or you may need to re-press some of your seams.

Sew your blocks and rows together and ta-da! You’re all done. I love how modern and graphic the end-result is. Della gave me several ombre fabrics after her sewing-room purge and I’ve started making miniature pixel quilts to hang in my sewing room.

Have any great ombre-fabric project ideas? Please share in a comment!

– Posted by Stacy

Triangle Square Up Ruler Video Tutorial

Our latest video features the Triangle Square Up Ruler – one of our favorite tools! It makes half-square triangles a cinch. Take a look to learn more about using this handy notion.

Dresden Tutorial

It was no surprise to me when Kat came to me a few weeks ago and threw an idea at me — to do a Dresden tutorial on the blog. For those of you who don’t have the pleasure of knowing Kat, she’s a Dresden expert and has designed many popular Dresden patterns. Take a look here – her designer name is Cottage Creek Designs.  I’m always looking for good blog post ideas, and as I’ve been feeling up to a challenge, here we are.

The “Dresden Plate” is a traditional American quilt block that is made using a combination of patchwork and applique. It has a versatile design and looks great in both traditional and modern colorways. Although the curves may look intimidating, it is a fairly easy technique to pick up – especially with the right tools!

So, off we go. The first step to making a dresden block is to get your hands on an EZ Quilting “Easy Dresden” ruler. We sell them in our shop and online store. These rulers include really great step-by-step instructions to help you through the process as well.

Next, pick out some fabrics that tickle your fancy. You can really shape the overall dynamic of your block with your choice of fabrics. You can go high-contrast, tonal, scrappy — you name it. You’ll need a total of 20 “blades” to make one Dresden circle (10 for a half-circle, 5 for one “fan”). If you want a scrappy look, you can pick 20 different fabrics, or choose just a few fabrics and make several blades of each color.

Now pick a size that works for whatever project you’re working on. I decided to keep it simple and make a pillow, so I did a 4 ½” blade. The instructions booklet in the Easy Dresden ruler has a handy chart that tells you how big your finished Dresden Plate will be for each blade size. For example, it says a 4 ½” blade will make an 11 ½” finished plate.

Next, cut your fabrics into strips the same width as your blade size. Then, using your rotary cutter and Easy Dresden ruler, cut all the “blades” of the dresden, alternating the direction of the ruler each cut.

Time to sew. For this first part only, shorten your stitch length to get your stitches tighter than normal. Grab one blade and fold in half lengthwise, right-sides together. Sew a ¼” seam on the “top” end of the blade (the longer side), being sure to sew from the raw-edges to the fold. Chain-piece all your blades.

Snip your blades apart. Next, finger press the center crease, or use your iron if you want a really defined line.

Then, put your pointer finger “inside” the blade, thumb on the top and pinch your fingers together, flattening the seam open.

Then, turn the blade right-side out and use the tip of your Dresden ruler to push out the point.

Before you press flat, match the center of the open seam to the center crease to make a perfectly proportionate blade.

Next, lay out your finished blades into a circle, distributing your fabric colors/patterns as desired.

I panicked a little when I got to this point. I wasn't expecting the center "hole" to be so HUGE! Thinking the same thing? Don't fret. The hole shrinks down as you sew your seams. ALSO: Notice anything missing? How about that pretty white meander fabric I had picked out? Once I pressed my white blades out, I realized you can see right through the fabric and can see all the folds on the backside. That won't work! I had to make one more of each of my other colors to compensate for the loss. Oh well!

Before sewing this next part, remember to put your machine back to your regular stitch length. Take two adjacent blades, put them right-sides together and match the top corner points together. Bottom-edges won’t show, so it’s not as important that they match up.

Starting a ¼” down, backstich to the top, then sew down to the bottom using a ¼” seam. This hides your threads and secures the top of the stitch. Be careful which blade sides you sew together! After laying my whole dresden out just how I wanted it, I started sewing the wrong sides of the blades together and ended up with something totally different from my original plan. Oops!

Join the rest of the blades, making a full circle. Then, press your seams in one direction to get your dresden to lay flat.

TAKE THAT, DRESDEN! VICTORY!

Woo! Almost done. Pick a center fabric and decide how big you’d like to make your inner circle. A small circle will give you a flower-y look and big will make your dresden blades look more like a decorative border around the center. Making your center circle can be done using any applique method that you prefer.

If you are working with transparent fabric, like white, here’s what to do. Draw a perfect circle onto the wrong-side of two pieces of your center fabric. Fancy-schmany Perfect Circles by Karen Kay Buckley will give you a wide variety of sizes to choose from, or a bowl or mug borrowed from your kitchen work just fine, too.

Cut out your circles. Place them right-sides together and sew about a ¼” seam all the way around. Clip the seams. Cut a 2” slice into one of the circle-fabric pieces. It helps to pinch both sides and pull apart as you are cutting. Turn your circle out through the hole and press flat. Kat warned me that this method will make your circle look more like a dodecahedron. She was right.

If your fabric isn’t transparent, Kat suggests cutting a perfect circle out of your fabric, applying a few layers of freezer paper, then use starch around the edges to turn under your edges. You’ll get more rounded edges this way, although it seems like it takes some practice to make it perfect!

It’s applique time! Position your dresden where you want it. There are about a million ways to applique these babies down, so do whatever you prefer. We like to dab a bit of Quilter’s Choice Basting Glue at the end of each blade to temporarily attach it before we applique. Then, machine or hand-applique everything down. Pick your favorite stitch — blanket, zig-zag, satin or just straight.

Hmm..I think I should change up the center color. Maybe black?

Now that you know how to do a dresden, get sewing! There are a gazillion cute projects out there. We created a Pinterest board full of Dresden projects to pick from. Dresden Rose & Dresden Fans are some favorites of Kat’s designs. Check ‘em out! The Easy Dresden ruler comes with a free pattern, too. Need a smaller project to get you started? Try a placement, table runner, pillow, pouch or just frame one block for some sewing-room art.

 

Dresden Fans

Pincushion

 

 

 

Dresden Pouch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– Posted by Stacy

Binding Tutorial

Binding is one of our most popular topics for our in-store free seminars. It can be a daunting last hurdle to finishing your quilts, but we promise it gets better with practice. There are many ways to do binding and our favorite method is simple and easy. This post will show our method step-by-step so you’re binding like a pro.

We don’t require any special tools except maybe a calculator. Now, don’t get frightened, but we are going to do a little math! For those of you that just had a panicked flashback of pop quizzes in high school math class — don’t worry. We’ll make it easy! Promise.

Before doing any of the cutting and sewing of binding, we first need to calculate how much yardage you’ll need to make the binding.

A. Measure the quilt’s dimensions. Take a deep breath…time for a little simple math. We’ll start off by figuring the number of linear inches of binding you’ll need.

• (width + length) x 2 + 24” = linear inches

• EXAMPLE: (60” + 70”) x 2 + 24” = 284”

• If you’re wondering why we add the 24”, it’s because you’ll need more than just the number of linear inches around your quilt…you’ll lose a bit in the corners, plus you’ll want a bit of a tail on each end to overlap your start/finishing point.

B. Once you get the number of linear inches you’ll need, we calculate the number of strips to cut. To do this, we divide the number of linear inches by 40” and round up to a whole number.

• Linear inches/40” = number of strips (round up!)

• EXAMPLE: 260”/40” = 6.5 → 7 strips

• We divide by 40” because there are about 40 inches of useable fabric once you trim the selvages per each width of fabric. Each strip you cut will be about 40” long.

C. Lastly, to determine the amount of yardage needed, multiply the number of strips by the width of the strip. We use 2 ½” strips for all our binding.

• # of strips x 2.5″ = inches of fabric needed

• EXAMPLE: 7 strips x 2.5″ = 17.5”

Now that you have that figured, the real fun begins. Time to cut and sew!

1. Once you have the appropriate yardage of fabric for your binding, cut it into the number of needed 2 ½” strips. Be careful how you cut! Cut exactly perpendicular to the fold, otherwise you will end up with a “V”-shaped strip.

I used the lines on my ruler to be sure I cut at a perfect 90 degree angle with the fold.

Note: You don’t need to cut off the selvage just yet — you will be trimming them off as we join the strips together.

2. Join all the strips with a diagonal seam.

• Place the two fabric strips right sides together, perpendicular to each other. Let the ends overlap each other as shown in the photo. This will allow you to see the corners where you need to sew. Secure strips with a straight pin. Once you have your strips pinned in place, you can “check your work” by folding your strip over and see if your seam will give you a straight strip of fabric.

In case it wasn't clear, I've noted what the right side of the binding fabric I used is, and what the wrong side is since they look similar.

By folding over where I pined, I can see that when I sew a seam, my strip will make a straight line.

• Using a fabric pen or pencil, mark the top strip on the diagonal, beginning and ending the line at the corner created where the two strips intersect each other. Sew strips together on the marked line.

• Continue to join your strips until you have the binding length required for your quilt – this is the linear inches calculated in Step A.

• Trim away all excess fabric, leaving about a 1/4″ seam allowance to the right of the seam lines. Press the seams allowance open.

Trim off your excess fabric -- including the selvages.

3. Fold the strip lengthwise and press with wrong sides together.

4. Trim your quilt. After the quilt is quilted, trim the excess backing and batting from the quilt.  We leave a scant 1/8″ of batting and backing around the quilt edge.

5. Next, unfold the left end of the binding strip and lay flat with the wrong-side facing up. Make a 45º cut to the left – see photo for the direction of the cut.  Fold in about ⅜” on this angled end (wrong sides together) and press. Fold the whole strip in half again and re-press. Trim off the extra little “flap” (see photo).

Here's what the left end of your binding should look like when you're finished.

6. Start sewing your binding onto the quilt.

• Starting in the middle of one of the quilt sides, align the raw edges of the binding with the edge of the quilt top (not the back!) – you will have a little batting showing.  Pin binding to the project at the beginning of the binding in a few places.

Note: I did not use batting on this quilt, so make sure there is a little bit of batting showing when you align your binding with your quilt top!

• About ½” in from where the double thickness of binding starts, begin sewing using a ¼” seam allowance.

Start sewing about where I am pointing.

7. Sew around your entire project mitering the corners.

• To miter a corner, stop sewing ¼” before the corner of the quilt and backstitch a few stitches.

• Fold the unsewn tail of quilt binding straight up, positioning it so that its right edge is even with the next side of the quilt to be bound (Side B) and perpendicular to the side you just sewed the binding to (Side A).

• Next, fold the binding down, with the top of the fold flush with the edge of Side A and raw edges aligned with Side B. Pin the fold in place.

• Start sewing at the top edge of the binding. Then sew one or two backstitches before you continue sewing down Side B of the quilt.

8. Continue around your quilt until you are close to the starting point.  Stop a few inches before your starting point.  You do not need to remove it from your machine.  Put the needle of the sewing machine down into the binding to help anchor it while you cut the end.

9. Lay the end of the binding over the starting point and cut the end (using sharp scissors) at an angle (a 45 degree angle to the right) and nest into the tube of the binding. Make the binding lay flat – edges flush with the edge of the quilt. Continue sewing until you are past your starting point.

10. Once your binding has been machine stitched to your quilt, press the binding from the front of the quilt and down over the back.  You should be covering up the stitches and your binding should be full of batting.  Hand stitch in place using a blind hem stitch or ladder stitch about 8 stitches to the inch.  Use binding clips to help hold your binding in place while sewing by hand.  When you reach a corner, place a few stitches in the miter on both sides of the binding.  Also make sure you stitch the join closed.  And you’re done!

– Posted by Della & Stacy

Top Ten Notions

Without notions, quilting would be a laborious task (well, more than it already is…) These useful objects are the tools that make your sewing more efficient, more accurate and ultimately more fun! As a quilt shop, we do our best to carry all the top notions — both the essentials and the unique ones that help you with some of the more advanced techniques. Our girls have tried it all, and through years of trial and error we’ve found the best of the best.

So here’s our list of the top ten essential notions. You aren’t livin’ life to the fullest if you don’t have one of each of these. Trust us — they will make a difference!

THE ESSENTIALS
Havel’s Snip-Eze
These snips are lightweight, have a curved blade and are super easy to use. Unlike most snips, you don’t have to search for the finger-holes. Just pick ‘em up and squeeze!

OLFA Ergonomic Rotary Cutter
These comfy cutters come in 45mm or 60mm sizes and have fantastic safety features. When not in the “locked” position, these cutters only expose the blade when you squeeze the trigger to cut. The advantage of an extra sharp blade? Quick, clean cut edges.

O’Lipfa Lip-Edge Ruler
I won’t cut fabric with anything but this ruler. The lip-edge latches on to your  cutting mat or table to help stabilize each cut. No more slippy-slidey rulers!

Sewline Fabric Pencil
These mechanical-style fabric pencils come in a variety of color choices and use refillable erasers and lead. They are manufactured well and will last you forever.  The best part? Unlike traditional pencils that need sharpening, your lead will always be sharp and make an incredibly accurate line.

Collins Crystal Glass Head Pins
Throw away all your dull-pointed pins and buy these babies! The fine tips are  sharp and glide through fabric like a knife through butter. Unlike plastic-headed pins, the glass-heads won’t melt when you iron over them! They heads also don’t break or fall off like other, cheaper pins and the ⅜” lengths are pretty  sturdy. They can still bend like all pins can, but you can’t beat all the other great   features. Tip: don’t get the ⅞” length if you can help it. Although the tips are still  sharp and the heads will stay put, the longer length has a greater tendency to bend with normal use.

Magnetic Pincushion
Ok, I know quilters just love making pincushions, but ladies, you have to up your game. These magnetic pincushions will save you time and energy. Rather than  stick each pin into your cushion, you can just toss your pins in the general direction of the magnet and they’ll zip right on there. We have larger magnets for beside your sewing machine, or you can jump on the new trend and get one that clips onto your shirt for a mobile option. (Seriously, these things are a hot item.   We sold twenty-two last Saturday. Twenty-two! They come in a million colors and make great gifts!) Beware! After getting spoiled by the magnet, you’ll start  throwing pins at any pincushion, and they’ll just bounce right off the traditional kind. I do this all the time. It’s embarrassing.

Schmetz Sewing Needle
Simple. Easy. Reliable. We use these and you should too. When was the last time you changed your needle? Can’t remember. It’s probably time to change ‘em out. Just do it!
Binding & Hem Clips
Just like hair clips, these handy notions make hand-sewing binding a bit easier. Just press your binding fabric onto your quilt top and attach some of these throughout, especially at the corners. The best part? You’ll never get stabbed by a million pins if you carry your quilt around. No one likes to bleed on their projects, ladies…

Quilters Glue
Whether you’re doing some applique or need to finish up that binding real quick, quilter’s glue is the answer — it keeps your materials together and washes out when you’re done. There’s a million different uses for this stuff and Quilter’s Choice is our favorite variety.

Triangle Square Up Ruler
These rulers make all kinds of triangles so easy. Half-square, quarter-square…you name it they make it. Don’t fuss anymore – you will honestly make PERFECT triangles every single time.  They come in 6-1/2” and 9-1/2” sizes and have easy to understand instructions included. And unlike thangles, you’ll never “run out” when you’re feverishly finishing up a project at 3 in the morning. All you need is one ruler for the rest of your life — just don’t lose it!

Already have all these? Check our our bonus list of the top five notions that tackle new techniques.

BEYOND THE BASICS
Washable Marker
These are Karen’s favorite. She uses them “liberally” (meaning by the dozen.)  They have many uses but they’re perfect for custom, free motion long arm quilting. Karen can draw on a pattern or trace a stencil/ruler to get a guide for her quilting. Check out her full post on using the washable marker with a Sue Pelland Leaves Galore Large Ruler here.

Angler
This is Della’s favorite sewing machine tool — it makes piecing 45 degree angles easier and more accurate (as the name suggests.) The lines on the clear plastic tool act as a guide when sewing half-square triangles, mitered corners, Flying Geese, Snowballs, or diagonal ends and corners.

Rotating Mat
Have a lot of pieces to cut? This ruler is great, especially for using a triangle square up ruler. Just place the fabric and ruler on top of the rotating mat (maybe use some  fabric grips to keep everything in place) and make your first slice. Then, just rotate the mat to cut all the way around without having to move your fabric.

Flying Geese Ruler, Tri-Recs Ruler and Dresden Ruler
These three rulers take the guesswork out of making these advanced quilting techniques. Each comes with clear instructions to make your impressive blocks faster and more accurate.

   

Perfect Circles
The name says it all. Each package includes 15 different circle sizes (a small circle or large circle option) for hand and machine appliqued circles.

  

– Posted by Stacy

The Big Dig: Part IV: Sewing Again

I’m sewing again! I have a sewing table and machine and a cutting table in my sewing room. Since Karen took away my big ironing board, we had to come up with another solution for pressing. The cutting table that I have lends itself to a great ironing station, but I had to figure out some way to make a pad for it. We  picked out fabric that matches the walls and some of the accessories. It was one of my favorite prints – a bright Philip Jacobs design in all the right colors. I lined the fabric with Insul Fleece to protect the table and attached it temporarily with tape – I’m still trying to decide if I need a better solution to keep the pad from slipping. It felt so good to hear the hum of my sewing machine – oh how I have missed her!

The shelves are up, too! They are beautiful, and the best part is that I can adjust them if I need to. I still don’t have much in my room and every time Karen comes over she checks things out to make sure I’m not sneaking something in. Where is all my fabric? You guessed it, still in Karen’s basement. We are still sorting. The plan is to get everything folded and then decide what I really have room for. We haven’t even tackled the projects that are in progress – I just know she won’t let me have all of them at once (or maybe ever).

What have I learned so far?
• Have a plan.
• Be thorough even if it means going slow.
• Be realistic about what can get accomplished.
• Donate what can’t or won’t be used.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates about Della’s Big Dig.

– Posted by Della

The Big Dig: Part III: Dump, sort, fold.

We've made progress here. There used to be countless trash bags of fabric piled in our basement workstation.

In our free seminar on January 8th, Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Organizing Your Sewing Room, we gave out lots of ideas on how to get organized. Well, the next day we used Karen’s good advice and started to sort my fabric so we could start bringing my stash home.

We started by grouping like-sized fabric together into five groups:
• fat quarters
• yardage (selvage to selvage) that is more than 9″ and less than 18″
• yardage ½ yard to 3 yards
• yardage over 3 yards
• scraps that are odd shapes and sizes

Since all my fabric is in large garbage bags, we sorted one bag at a time. Dumped the bag, sorted the fabric, folded the fabric.

Here's some fabric we dumped into laundry baskets. Ready for sorting and folding!

Folding Fabric
• Fat quarters are folded by bringing the long edges to meet in the middle, folded in half again lengthwise, then by bringing both short ends to the middle and folding in half. Stack in a pile.
• Yardage between 9” and 18” are grouped by color. We trim these fabrics to 12” x width of fabric. The scrap goes into the scraps pile. We pick six fabrics, open each fabric and layer it with the narrowest on top then roll the fabric into a 12” roll and put a rubber band around it to hold it together.
• Yardage that is ½ yard to 3 yards are folded on to a 5″ or 6″ long ruler, slip the ruler out and fold in half. Stack in a pile

Aha! All folded. Here's our neat piles of folded fat quarters and yardage. Doesn't it look pretty?! I just wish Karen would let me take it home now...

After five hours of dumping, sorting and folding, we only made a small dent in my stash, but the finished product looks so nice, neat and pretty. Now we just have to keep working away at the mess in Karen’s basement. Can’t wait to bring it all home. I walk past my empty sewing room and just dream about how beautiful it will be. It’s hard to be patient, but it’s well worth the wait.

– Posted by Della

The Big Dig – Part II: Everything Out

Holy cow, there really was a room in there! My clutter and collection has been building up for years (maybe even decades?) It was almost to the point of no return, until Karen stepped in to help me get it under control.  I know I’m not alone in having a scary sewing room, so for the next few weeks you can join me on this journey to a more organized life.

I don’t have a large room – it’s a converted bedroom about 9′ x 11′ – give or take a few inches.  I really had it jammed packed with stuff.  There were lots of pictures on the walls; an oversized ironing board (which I love, but most of the time was covered in stuff); a large design wall that I was unable to get to because the big ironing board was in front of it; two wonderful pieces of furniture that filled up most of the room; my prize file cabinet with 30 years of quilting patterns and magazines in it; and oh yes, I must not forget that my fabric collection was in the walk-in closet filled to the brim – in fact you couldn’t even walk into the walk-in closet.  Yes, I had a problem.

Here was the start of our plan:
·      Remove everything
·      Clean and paint
·      Draw a floor plan on graph paper to optimally arrange furniture
·      Limit what I put back into the room

My first task was to remove everything, yes everything, from the room. Wow, was this going to be hard! I soon found out that I was not just packing, but packing AND sorting. This job would take me forever.  Where was I going to put all of this stuff?  Luckily, Karen came to the rescue – she offered her basement to temporarily store everything.  January 1st was our date to move everything out. Well, guess what?  I hadn’t even made a dent by then.  That’s when I found out the proper way of doing things.  Pretend that you actually are moving (I haven’t moved in over 30 years – no wonder I don’t know how to do this). Dump everything in a box and sort it later.  It took Karen about 3 hours to pack everything up and get it out of the room.  Here is a tip for you: use small moving boxes to pack in.  I sent my husband to buy some moving boxes and he came back with big plastic storage tubs.  Yes, you can fill them up, but you can’t pick them up!

Once the room was empty except for the large furniture (that I moved to the center of the room) and I could start to clean.  Gee, it was easy to vacuum when the room was empty. I could even see the carpet for a change! Next step – paint. Karen and her son came over and painted my room in only a few hours – I’m the luckiest person to have a friend like her.   I got to watch the action – I don’t think she trusted me to paint; sure can’t imagine why.  The room is now a lovely color of green and I have been working on cleaning the woodwork for the last couple of days.  It is so hard to walk past my empty sewing room; it’s like having withdrawals.  I don’t even have my sewing machine here.  All that was left was a couple of old quilt magazines. She would have taken those too if she realized I had them in a magazine basket in my family room.  I think I have looked at them at least 10 times – I really miss my stuff.

The next step will be to come up with the furniture arrangement and decide what shelves need to be purchased for the walls. Can’t wait to get back to sewing!

– Posted by Della

The Big Dig – Part I: Organizing Della’s Sewing Room

A few weeks ago, I got to go on a field trip. To Della’s house. This was very exciting for me because Della’s cute little abode is famous, especially at Christmas time. Her husband is a fanatic for Christmas decorations, specifically Christmas trees. They are rumored to have well over 30 trees inside their house, each meticulously decorated. But the trees weren’t what I was going to see. Nope, it was another kind of horrorshow that I was interested in. I was going to see her sewing room.

Della is a sewing goddess. She cranks out projects like an industrial machine, quilting perfectly in practically no time at all. But when I saw her room, I was shocked. How can she move around in there? How does she even know where anything is? Della once told me “I must have been thin and organized in another life, because they are both things I have never managed to be.” Regardless, we love Della to death and as Della gave me a tour through her tiny sewing universe, stopping to tell me adorable stories of all her nick-nacks, it all came together. Della is so focused on her sewing that organizing her stuff never came into the picture. But we are out to change that.

As half Christmas present, half torture, Karen decided to give Della a sewing room makeover. Hopefully by the end of it all, Della will be a happier, more productive sewer (if she can keep it organized.)

Stay tuned as we follow Della through her sewing room saga and maybe you can pick up a few tips here and there on how to get your own creative space in order!

– Posted by Stacy

How do you cut at your cutting table, Della?

This is where the fabric lives.

At least something was organized.

Do you need three irons?

Adorable!

If the lights are on, it means her iron is on, so she never forgets to turn the iron off. Clever!

This is a castle in Scotland that her ancestors lived in. Now it's a hotel and some say it's haunted. I want Della to take me there!

Della times all her sewing projects and tries to do them faster each time. You go, girl!

The rumors were true, folks. Well over 30 Christmas trees, big and small, are at Della's house.