Midnight Quilt Show

Good morning and welcome back

On the 15th of every month, my intention is to post a project that I have completed in hopes to provide inspiration. In these posts, I welcome you to share in the comments, projects you have been working on in order to inspire us and your fellow readers. 

On the 25th of every month, I will provide instructions for a project or a valuable and interesting resource that you can refer to when needed by clicking on the appropriate label found on the right hand side of the screen. 

One of my readers suggested the Midnight Quilt Show as a YouTube channel to watch.

Angela Walters is a very interesting woman with a lot of character. She is definitely entertaining.

I have found that many of her quilts give a modern vibe to traditional blocks; maybe it's the vibrant colours she selects. Her YouTube videos will compliment the Missouri Star Quilt and Jordan Fabrics videos I linked to in January 2019.

Angela's love is on the free-motion quilting and it radiates in her show. She focuses less on the construction of the quilt top and more on the quilting design that holds all the layers together. It is inspiring to watch her draw with thread and a machine.

I have linked to a list of free-motion tutorials Angela provides for beginners and beyond. 

If free-motion quilting is not your style and you enjoy more precision, she does sell shaped acrylic rulers demonstrated here. You can find her rulers in your local quilt shop or at least that's where I found them.

If you know of other useful resources, please leave a comment.

Vinyl Iron-On

I am having so much fun with iron-ons and my new Cricut Explore Air 2.

I received the Cricut Explore Air 2 in June to replace the original Cricut Expression I've had for years. The Cricut Expression is a great machine that was still working wonderfully, however, some of its features like using Cricut Craft Room for digital files were no longer supported.

I have only dabbled in a couple of projects since getting the new machine but don't be surprised if I post a couple more before the end of this year.

Here are projects using two types of t-shirt iron-on vinyl also known as HTV - heat transfer vinyl. The first one was made with Siser Easyweed Stretch HTV and a design from Craft Genesis that I could not resist.

and the other was made with Cricut SportFlex Iron-On vinyl and a design purchased on Etsy. It is amazing the stretch these products have which definitely work well on t-shirts.

Prepping the design prior to applying to the shirt;
weeding out the negative space

I made three shirts with this design

I found that on average you can machine cut one t-shirt design per every 12 inches.

I also learned that the final product needs to be laundered with care. The t-shirt should be washed inside out in cold water and hung to dry. I had placed my first project (the cat) in the dryer and parts of the design were pealing away. Since none of the design was completely off, they were just lifting in areas, I ironed them back in place and it was new again.

If you have a cutting machine, let us know what projects you are creating with it.