Open Gate Blog

Hi Everyone! Thanks for stopping by to get the last instructions for the sew along.  Click here to get the final instructions. You know when they say that you should move every 10 years so you can weed out all your stuff?  Well, I am totally agreeing with whoever "they" are!  I am moving after being in the same home for 25 years.  I have accumulated a lot of great stuff but when you move, it doesn't feel so great!  So, this is what I've been doing for the past few weeks instead of sewing the final steps of the French Connection Sew Along. I hope that you understand and thank goodness for Celine!  She has finished her quilt and it looks fabulous.  Check it out on her blog:  http://www.perkinsdrygoods.com/blog/ Now, back to packing...

Hello! I hope that you all got your blocks done and are ready to start the first border.  I finally got my alternate block done and here it is: To download Week 3, click here . Week 3: Border Construction The border is done with large flip corners on one side of a rectangle and small flip corners on the other side.  I wanted to use my Fit to be Quarter 6.5 & Companion ruler set so the first thing that I did was cut my main light to 3 1/2" x 5" and my greys larger than needed, 4 1/4" square, cut diagonally once. Then using my Fit to be Quarter 6.5 & Companion, I trimmed the top right corner off of the light.  I put wrong sides together so that I could get mirror images. Next, I lay my piece on the triangle cut from a 4 1/4" squares of grey. I sewed using 1/4" seam and pressed out. Then I trimmed the pieces using the Fit to be Quarter 6.5 ruler with the 3 1/2" diagonal line across the seam.  I repeated for the mirror i...

Are you ready to start sewing??  I know I am!  So, here we go! Download the directions here:  French Connection, Week 2 . This week we are making the two blocks for the center of the quilt.  I did mine a bit different so that I could use my Fit to be Quarter 6.5 ruler .  The ruler is handy because I can oversize the pieces and square them down.  This is how I did it: For the main block, unit 1, I oversized my pieces.  For Q, I cut it 2 1/4" x 2 1/4" and for E, I cut it 2 1/4" x 3 1/4" and for I, I cut it 4" x 5". Follow the same instructions to construct the square.  When you are squaring the finished square up, they will be larger than needed so you can make them exact.  To square up the piece, line up the 1 3/4" line up on the rulers with the red square and the 3 1/2" diagonal line along the long diagonal seam.  Trim. Rotate and line up the 3 1/2" diagonal line of the ruler along the diagonal line of the piece.  Als...

Hello!  I'm finally back and plan to be blogging more.  My friend and fellow designer, Celine Perkins of Perkin Dry Goods and I reconnected at Quilt Market in May.  We decided to collaborate and came up with the French Connection sew along.  The idea of the sew along is that we each designed a quilt center and gave the centers to the other designer to design the border.  We are starting with Celine's center and my border design.  We will be doing our second sew along starting in October and we'll be creating my center with Celine's border design. We are both super excited to share our designs with you!  The first month is picking your fabrics and cutting. Click here to get the first week's instructions.  Selecting the fabrics is one of my favorite parts of quilting.  My imagination runs wild with the possibilities!  I decided to use Joyeux Noel by French General for Moda Fabrics .  I'm a huge French General junkie and have...

After much debate (with myself), I decided to vend at Quilt Market.  I'm super excited for many reasons.  First, I haven't vended at a trade show since Kansas City, MO show and I think that was 3 years ago...yikes!  Second, I miss seeing my customers and friends at Quilt Market.  It's an awesome place to make friendships and connections.  Third, I LOVE going to Quilt Market!  It  renews my excitement for quilting and let's me see what's new and show what I've been working on.  Although Quilt Market is wholesale only trade show, keep your eyes open for what's new from all the designers, quilt shop owners, bloggers and companies out there. It's a great way to see the newest trends and ideas.    Don't forget that my classes for Craftsy are available.  Here are some video trailers for my classes: Hope you like them!  If you are interested in signing up for a class, here are the links for the discounted classes: ...

Okay, you are probably thinking, "Wow, another post?!"  Well, good things have been happening lately and I want to share my excitement.  It was such a tough beginning of 2014 and I'm grateful that things are going better. Here is the latest.  I was asked to be one of the designers for Quilts and More Scrap Lab along with 2 other designers.  They gave us 42-10" squares of fabric and 1/2 yard solid cream and asked us to come up with a design, so here is mine: Tote This is what Sherri from This & That Patterns made.  What a great little table topper! And the other designer is Amy Sinibaldi of Nana Company.  (nanacompany.typepad.com)  Here is her interpretation of the fabrics. So cute! The images were used with permission from Quilts and More magazine. 2015 Meredith Corporation. All rights reserved. Pick up a copy on the newsstand today!

YEAH!!  It's finally live, my latest class with Craftsy :  Discover Design Playing with Half Square Triangles .   You are probably wondering, what, where, when?  Well, one of the things about classes for Craftsy is that they ask you to keep everything quiet until the launch date.  So, now I can talk about it and I'm so excited!   Let's start with how I got to make a second class with Craftsy.  In the summer, I was contacted by June Dudley, the acquisition editor for the Quilting category for Craftsy.  She had recently moved from Quiltmaker and was now looking for new classes for Craftsy.  I proposed the Discover Design Playing with Half Square Triangles .  They accepted it in October, I filmed right before Thanksgiving and now it's live!  Needless to say, October and November was crazy busy getting ready for the class.   Here is some info about the class: Unleash your inner quilt designer with ve...