Congratulations! You made the pivot to online lectures and trunk shows! Just in time to start pivoting back to in person programs for quilt guilds and quilt shows (fingers crossed!)
While virtual teaching has given us many opportunities (no travel time = reaching more groups! Students can’t important supplies at home, because they ARE at home!) the loss of the merch table at the end of class can certainly leave a teacher’s pockets feeling a bit lighter.
Fortunately, this is an easy problem to solve, if we look to the high converting sales techniques that digital marketers have tuned for their product launches.
Author: geekybobbin
All About the Orbital Quilt
Y’all know I have this thing for designing graphic, modern quilts with strips and curves. What if we did curves within strips, but the strips are actually rings??
That was the idea behind Orbital.
My initial sketch of what turned into Orbital. I flipped some of the curves and moved others around to give it a better rhythm.
Orbital Quilt Pattern Tester Parade
I’m so excited to share all the beautiful Orbital quilts that my pattern testers made! This modern curvy quilt pattern is so versatile, as you can see with the variety of looks here.
I’d love to know which Orbital quilt is your favourite! The Orbital quilt pattern also has a Mini size, Twin size, and King size option. I can’t wait to see what you’ll make with it!
Quarter-Inch Game Changers!
When I was a beginner quilter, I struggled with sewing an accurate quarter-inch seam allowance. How did I finally get perfect, consistent, quarter-inch seam allowances for accurate piecing, perfect points, and beautiful quilt blocks? Game Changer #1: The Flanged Quarter-Inch Presser Foot
Behold, my secret weapon in the Quest for the Consistent Seam Allowance!
A Plastic-Free Quilt-In-Progress Storage System
My quilting studio has finally gotten so messy, that my brain totally goes offline when I’m in there.
Thankfully, I had committed to do some quilt studio spring cleaning as part of the Spring Clean your Studio blog hop! As I said in last year’s Spring Cleaning post, nothing gets my butt in gear like a deadline. After a year of pandemic, my sewing room was soooo much worse.
How bad was it, you ask?
I shared these Before pics on Instagram with a double-bagged warning, and still, some viewers were shocked. Use the little arrow thingy on the side to scroll AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Book Review: Design, Make, Quilt Modern by Heather Black of Quiltachusetts
I was beyond thrilled to receive Heather Black’s new book Design, Make, Quilt Modern which released just last week.
In the book, Heather walks you through all the steps of designing a modern quilt. Heather lectured on creating balance and depth in quilt designs at QuiltCon a few years ago, and I refer back to my notes from that lecture when designing every quilt since; these design principles are beautifully explained in the Design Basics chapter, with illustrations from Heather’s own design process on her award winning quilts.
Best Posts of 2020
My favourite 5 blog posts of 2020 include a round-up of quilt binding techniques, my favourite new quilt pattern from this year, fabric storage tips, a Geeky Biz post for my fellow online marketers, and a cute, quick project tutorial!
I’m happy to see that my most viewed blog posts of the past year were on the helpful side!
But what does EQ8 DO?
Recently, I’ve been sharing a lot of mock-ups that I create in EQ8, and I got this great question.
Does EQ8 allow you to create a quilt completely from scratch? For example: Could I put in the overall measurements then draw in the pieces? And does it help you calculate fabric and seam allowances?
Today, in the light of day, I can show you what some of that looks like!
It’s Raining Cats and Cats
The Les Chats Noirs fabric collection by Leeza Hernandez for Dear Stella, with some of its black and white prints reading as grey from a distance, wanted to be mocked up in my Downpour quilt pattern, as “It’s Raining Cats and Cats.”
The thing that I love most about designing quilts in EQ8 is how easy it is to mock up a pattern in a different set of fabrics using the Swap Color button.
Beyond the “Top Nine” — Finding Patterns in your Instagram Insights
“Top nine” Instagram posts can add some much needed Instagram filler content during a busy time of year for us creative entrepreneurs, when you’re either shipping out orders or rushing to make those final hand-made gifts. They can also be a good reminder to look through your Instagram insights and see what they can tell you about how your Instagram feed content performs.
Look through the various facets of your insights, and scroll through the whole year, not just the top. You may find some surprises!
Some patterns that I noticed looking at the insights for my business Instagram account: