Step into Karla’s Corner for a peek into her thoughts, her favorite shops, her adventures in fabric, quilt, and merchandise design and more!
This special corner is filled with all kinds of creative thoughts, ideas, family traditions, favorite things, magazine reviews and a whole lot more!
Family Traditions
See the Wild Goose Chase quilt under the Christmas tree and learn about the Geese-a-Layin’ family tradition.
Summer, Winter, and Beach Quilts
See Karla’s favorite quilts for all kinds of occasions, locations, and seasons.
Favorites
Karla’s Corner is where you’ll find her favorite shops, books, quilts, magazine reviews, and more. You’ll also get favorite tool reviews and
The World of Design in Karla’s Corner
Additionally, you’ll learn more about Karla’s adventure into fabric and merchandise designs. See the quilts she designs for Hoffman California Fabrics.
See the process from sketches to fabrics and sketches to quilts. Find fabric collections and different colorways in Karla’s Corner.
Moreover, get a peek into the fabrics designed especially for Karla’s quilt patterns and matching merchandise, too!
Sundry
See quilt show reviews, gifted quilts, guild challenges, quilt retreat memories, inspirational posts, family memorials and more in the Sundry section.
When I read this summer book (while snuggled under my quilt), I feel like I’m learning more about nature while being entertained and intrigued with the storyline. I yearn to be outdoors, to breathe in the sounds and smells of nature and to study my surroundings. I’ve read Wherethe Crawdads Sing numerous times as well as listened to it while on trips.
When I first read it I was at a loss for words for more than 24 hours after finishing it. I hadn’t planned on sharing the quilt shown below yet, but I need to – I guess it’s my feeble attempt to thank Delia Owens for the insight into a habitat I knew nothing about while enjoying a fantastic and enlightening book.
Summer quilts are also a favorite!
This guy was hanging around me at sunrise on Pensacola Beach. He might have been disappointed that I wasn’t a fisherman, but he let me grab some awesome photos. I found the feather focus fabric later that day at A & E (Pharmacy) Fabrics.
Making use of “value”, the light on his face and throat is made using the REVERSE side of the feather fabric. The borders are, too!
Lord Stanley got his name for several reasons: 1) He’s a Great Blue, 2) We are big fans of the Blue Angels 3) The Saint Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup (Lord Stanley) that year!
One artist, Mary W. Kerr, had a featured spot during quilt show week in Paducah, Kentucky. Her fantastic quilts, featured in her book, Twisted, hung in the Rotary for Quilt Week.
First, its difficult to know what quilts to share when it comes to quilt shows. There are just so many! Therefore, this time, I chose to focus on an artist. Mary W. Kerr’s collection was outstanding in concept and variety. Here are just a few that made me stop, take out my phone and grab a shot. Hope you like them, too!
Mary likes to use vintage fragments in her quilts.
She’s always been drawn to antiques and orphaned blocks. Mary also likes the colors, designs and quilting of the modern era of this craft. In her book, Twisted, the culmination of the two styles are on beautiful display.
Oje De Dios by Mary W. Kerr, quilted by Candace West
Oje De Dios by Mary W. Kerr, quilted by Candace West was featured with Mary’s whole series at the Rotary. She takes pieces of old quilts, blocks, or parts of quilts and incorporates them into new works with a modern flare. She gave each quilter freedom to do whatever they wanted for the quilting.
Below is Homespun, quilted by Donna Ferrill James. The wonky star was made from a worn quilt with lots of various designs in it. Mary was able to salvage parts by hand-piecing the star points. She used other workable parts as part of the backing.
Homespun by Mary W. Kerr, quilted by Donna Ferrill James
Similarly, Fan Flower, shown below, is a combination of individual vintage blocks made modern through quilting. Vicki Maloney quilted this piece. Mary purchased three fan blocks at an antiques shop and came up with the flower concept. Vicki worked her magic using those three blocks!
Fan Flower by Mary W. Kerr, quilted by Vicki Maloney
Additionally, I like how Mary combines the old with the new. Not only does she combine old blocks with new fabric, but also the color selections and techniques, too.
With this in mind, I recall having a book about how to combine hand and machine quilting. Seems like another interesting concept to explore!
See Mary W. Kerr’s work and get her book TwistedHERE.
Maybe I should take a look at it and see where it takes me. Quilt show aren’t just about prizes, ribbons, and vendors, are they?
Without a doubt, quilt shows are about inspiration, aspirations, goals, achievements, sparking ideas…and happiness.
I learned about some totally cool quilting tools at quilt retreat – thanks to friends who like to share!
For the first year EVER, I had my retreat projects planned, cut, packed, and ready-to-go to retreat one whole month before we left. What I didn’t plan for were some unexpected opportunities to pop up! I had not brought two totally cool quilting tools that became highly necessary. The new opportunities took priority over all that great planning of mine! But, who cares!
I didn’t even get my projects out of their neat, organized cases!
Me, under duress
First, you can see the outcome of these opportunities in the following link:
Next, in spite of all my planning, I wasn’t prepared!
While shopping for fabric one day, Justin (Hancock’s of Paducah), who understood the concept of using both beautiful sides of fabric, suggested we collaborate on some quilts!
While I was super excited about this opportunity, I hadn’t brought the right rulers to do the tasks at hand. Back at the cabin and with only a few days to vet my ideas, this led me to ask (frantically), “Does anybody have a squaring ruler?”
The Tucker Trimmer ruler became my new best friend!
These new projects included lots of half-square triangles, quarter-square triangles, and flying geese. I quickly fell in love with this ruler! Thank you, friend, Nancy, for introducing me to this trusted sewing tool! Click HERE or on the picture below to see more of Deb Tucker’s tools.
Notice I #usebothsides of the fabric in this block?
Here’s another view of the ruler.
The second tool I find indispensable I borrowed from friend.
Retreat roomie, Peggy introduced me to the LEDGLE Rechargeable LED Book Light.
LED Light
What makes it so great for me are the re-positionable arms which let you guide the light to any angle. It rests around your neck so it is hands-free and perfect for hand-stitching in a dimly lit room. It also works great for reading in bed or even walking back from the neighbors or feeding the dogs in the dark! You set the light to shine where you want it and it stays until you move it. And best of all, I’ve used mine every day for more than a week and I still haven’t charged it once! Click HERE for link to book light.
I practiced with some scrap fabric, marked my ruler as indicated in the pattern directions, and off I went! It was fun to watch the curved piecing literally “come together”.
There are numerous quilt patterns available which use this ruler. Here’s the one I used. Stunning quilt, isn’t it? I love it when my brain can’t quite find one simple design, but jumps around to the various secondary patterns in a quilt.
Here’s my first try at a mix a fabrics. As you can see, I have a few bumbles for my first block, but it was fun to make! I do suggest using a fine marker to mark your ruler for better accuracy.
I think this quilt is now on my bucket list! What’s on your bucket list? Do you have a favorite specialty ruler?
To the tune of “On the Cover of the Rolling Stones”, I feel like singing! At the close of 2018, I happened onto my pattern, “Holly”, featured on the cover of a Hoffman California Fabrics’ catalog!
It began with an email asking if I (along with four or five other designers) would like to try our hand at designing with a new Christmas line of fabric. It’s my understanding that other designers use digital fabric swatches and their computers to design patterns. But since I use BOTH sides of the fabric, I need the real thing!
Click HERE to see the Winter Projects 2019 Catalog by Hoffman California Fabrics.
We had a week for the deadline – but since I needed the fabric shipped to me and then I needed to ship the finished quilt back to California, I had less than that to design and make the quilt!
Frankly, I was in a hurry! Add to the mix that it was Thanksgiving weekend, I was driving six hours on Saturday, attending our daughter’s show, driving four on Sunday, and staying in a hotel (with terribly inadequate lighting) until Tuesday AND, until I could see and audition BOTH sides of the fabric, I had no idea if my idea would work!
Working with both sides of fabric means lots of value-checking. You can’t tell from the front of fabric if the reverse will work. Some fabrics have great reverses and some just don’t. Click HERE for “The Tricky Traits of Value”.
The Christmas tree panel is gorgeous on its own – who would want to cut that apart? I certainly wouldn’t cut it to make another tree. I was also pretty certain that other designers would be designing borders around the whole panel, so mine had to be different.
I started to focus on the fat-quarter panel they sent. I had received a whole box of fabric to choose from and I knew if I wanted to use this panel, I couldn’t just use one fat-quarter of it or even half of them- I needed to use the whole panel. After auditioning many combinations, I decided I could use the panel – BOTH sides of the panel!
So…once again, it all comes down to fabric values. In classes, I have quilters audition many background fabrics and take lots of black and white pictures to see how their background fabrics “play” with their focus fabric. The smaller accents strips are allowed to be a bit “louder”, but the larger pieces need to provide interest as opposed to distraction. So take a look at this picture of the panel. Lots of dark fabric, right? Really pretty fabric…but more darks than lights.
Now look at a close-up of the quilt. Do you recognize those fabrics? …same fat quarters from the panel – just using the other side! Most of the accents strips are made from the front side. The bows, bells, stripes, plaid, and Christmas words make this an exciting background for the Holly wreath. One of the fat-quarters had two stockings printed on it. I used the one on the wreath and I embroidered the second stocking for the quilt label.
See the candy canes made from the reverse stripe?You can see the quilting, the extra stocking as a label, and the prairie point hanging method here.
The wreath is made using fused holly leaf shapes from the Christmas tree panel. Being a digital print, the fabric has a sparkle of light to it, making the wreath sparkle as well.
You might notice I didn’t have time to take great pictures – and apparently I borrowed my husband’s house shoes that day!
Even the pieced binding is made from the fat-quarter panel!
This is a fun quilt to make and so easy to shop for if you use the two panels! While I have no official timeline, my guess is that these fabrics will be in shops by summer!
If you have Christmas yardage in your stash – you can use it! I wrote this pattern to work with the panels as shown OR using your own choices of fabrics. The same method applies to both – it’s all about the value!
Here’s how Holly look inside the catalog!
I designed Phoebee 2.0 using BOTH sides of Hoffman California Fabrics “Electric Garden” as the focus fabric -it’s available in shops now!
Shop all my patterns at my Etsy Shop: Creative Bee Studios (Click HERE)
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I love nothing better than seeing quilts in nature! You’ve seen “Summer Quilting” (click HERE) to see quilts both poolside and on the beach), so I thought it’d be only fair to share some winter-themed quilts and a few with nature.
First up is a McKenna Ryan quilt pattern. I purchased the kit from Missouri Star Quilt Company several years ago – the year of the bear in our yard (Click HERE to read “It’s a Bear Out There” and see the markings). This bear was supposed to have a red cap and scarf, but I changed it up by using the wool from a sweater which was in my late mother-in-law’s stash. It makes the quilt more special for me and I feel I can keep the quilt on display throughout the winter.
Next is quilt is called Winter Blessings and was kit I purchased from Shabby Fabrics. It was so fast and easy to put together – I highly recommend their kits if that’s what you like. Everything was labeled and organized beautifully. It was kinda like a paint-by-number, only a lot more fun and waaaaay better outcome!
The next photo shows just a bit of a quilt (with a Buttercup bomb) that I made long ago in my second-ever quilt class. It was supposed to be bed-size and I actually thought I would finish it my first day in class! I only got it to the throw-size stage (and not during that class), but it’s a favorite!
Here is my latest version of JOY Quilt Pattern. I used a Hoffman panel for the tree (front side) and gifts (reverse side) on a scrappy, snowy background. See all my patterns in my Etsy Shop HERE.
JOY Quilt Pattern
Snow makes a lovely background for quilt photography.
This is a Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt called Grand Illusion.Water Colours
Hope you are enjoying some warm stitching time during these short winter days.
Want to experience some old style Christmas? There are a couple of ways here locally (Southeast Missouri) and in towns all across the nation – and if you can’t find one near you, grab a Christmas themed book – the one I’m sharing includes quilts, a Christmas Walk, and antiques in a quaint wine country town.
Celebrated author and creator of the popular Colebridge Community and East Perry County novel series, Ann Hazelwood provides insight into a new community with her Wine Country Quilts series. I am currently reading Lily Girl’s Christmas Quilts (2nd book of the new series) and was fascinated to learn that the real town, Augusta, Missouri (upon which the series is based), is having a Christmas Walk (as depicted in the book), and the author, Ann Hazelwood, will be signing books at this Stone Ledge Antiques shop (I wonder if it looks like Lily’s) starting at 7 tomorrow night! Learn more about Ann’s books HERE. Take a stroll on the Candlelight Christmas Walk tomorrow night – find more information HERE.
A beautiful sight- we’re happy tonight.
Stone Ledge Antiques during the Candlelight Christmas Walk in Augusta, MO.
Another opportunity for an old-style Christmas experience is to take the driving tour of country churches in rural Southeast Missouri counties of Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, and Perry. You are encouraged to tag your steeple-chasing buddies for this self-guided tour and travel the beautiful country-side to these decorated country churches where you’ll find music, warmth, treats, and the real meaning of Christmas. This tour begins today at 2 p.m. The tours run both today and tomorrow until 9 p.m. Learn more HERE.
I hope you’ll find joy and take a break from rush of the season by going walking in a winter wonderland.
New JOY made from Hoffman Fabrics panel.
Use both sides of poinsettia fabric!
JOY made using Hoffman Digital Spectrum fabric.
Need a last minute gift for the quilter in your life?Shop #usebothsides quilt patterns HERE.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14.
b) me learning about the first-time discount was what it took for me to finally subscribe. I want to share my discovery with YOU!
I remember as a teenager subscribing to a make-up club. It was so fun to get different products in the mail to try each month. I figured, what could be better than make-up? Fabric, patterns, notions, thread, and more, all mailed in a cute little teal and brown box and delivered to my mailbox!
Options: They state there is a Quilty Box for everyone – and there is!
Classic: This is the original box which features a different artist each month, 2 yards of fabric, a spool of thread, pattern, one or two notions or tools, and a mini-magazine. The price is $48.00 but if you prepay, you can get discounts on that monthly rate.
English Paper Piecing: In partnership with PaperPieces.com, this box includes a pack of 5 x 5″ fabrics, thread, templates and paper pieces for the pattern, and a mini magazine. This starting price is $34.99 with discounts applied for prepayment.
Mini: Inside this little package you’ll find a full-sized pack of 5 x 5″ fabric and a small spool of thread, the mini-magazine, three patterns, a mini-pattern, and an English paper-piecing pattern all for $23.99 (with discounts for prepayment).
First-time discount? Receive $10 off your first box!
So what are my thoughts about Quilty Box?
I loved it! It was so fun to get in the mail. I saved my box to open until I could give it my full attention! My box came with eight fat-quarters of Tula’s new line. This was especially fun because when we heard her speak this fall in Paducah, she explained how she designed that line of fabric. Also inside my box was Aurifil thread, a cute pattern for zippered pouches which I would actually love to make, zippers for the bags, and large piece of Soft and Stable for the bags. The Bundles of Inspiration magazine is high-quality and I’m looking forward to reading it cover-to-cover. It features an article about Tula, several patterns, history and how-to’s for English paper piecing, and more!
Need a gift for a quilter friend? Send them a Quilty Box!
Shipping is free in the USA.
One thing you need to know about Quilty Box is that your order begins an automatic subscription. You can easily and promptly cancel your subscription with a simple email to [email protected] . I did it and received an email confirmation of the cancellation immediately.
So why did I cancel my subscription? ONLY, ONLY, ONLY because I am already overwhelmed with projects, new patterns designs, my Etsy shop, and my teaching/program schedule! If I were wanting a fun way to treat myself, get inspiration, and learn about the latest in the industry, I’d definitely continue my subscription!
By the way, I hereby reserve the right to order Quilty Box again!
In fact…maybe (on behalf of my readers), I should really order at least one of each TYPE of Quilty Box – so I can report back, of course. What do you think?
Here is my Tula Pink version of Aria (expressive music heard in opera – she’s a “singer”…) Quilt Patttern. See Vintage Machine Quilt Pattern for more information.
I just love it when two of my favorite things come together! Best-selling quilt author Marie Bostwick’s book, The Second Sister, is being filmed now as a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie!
While I enjoy a number of quilt-themed (and not) books and series, I’ve often referred to Marie as “My Favorite Author” – mostly because her witty comments and clever nicknames for her family members are endearing and inspiring. (I’ve often thought we could be best friends if we were neighbors, but in reality, I’m one of many fans who exchanges about two minutes of conversation with her once a year (if I’m lucky) at book signings.)
Of course, I love her books, even those not completely engrossed in the quilting themes and I read each one more than once! I suspect Christmas Everlasting will be another staple during the holiday season!
Are you buying a quilt or a blanket? Troublemakers on social media sites seems to go through phases where they like to confuse the unaware buyer.
Buyer’s beware…
Oftentimes, companies will promote products that show in our Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest feeds based for things or subjects we like and follow. Sometimes social media learns these details when we simply talk in front of our phones. (I’ve had things show in my feeds that I’ve only THOUGHT about – how’d they do that?)
A popular trend for a while was what appeared to be beautiful appliqued quilts for sale. Not only were these “quilts” were priced was too low. Furthermore, they were way too pretty to be true.
You and I know the difference between a quilt or blanket!
While they are marketed as quilts, how does a non-quilter know if they are buying a quilt or a blanket?
First, the biggest clue for you or I is based on the fact that we KNOW the amount of work and time it takes to make one of these works of art. Mass production is highly unlikely. If fact, for many of us, an intricate quilt like one of these is a “one and done”!
Beware of themed quilts.
These people like to prey on unsuspecting parents or grandparents. For example, they might feature a quilt with a music theme. If one’s child or grandchild is into music, it’s an easy sell!
What was my next clue? THEY CALLED THEM BLANKETS!
Furthermore, which is it, a quilt or a blanket? In the photo you see what appears to be intricately appliqued quilt. Their mistake: calling it a blanket!
You likely won’t get either!
The problem is they are fake companies stealing real quilters’ pictures and using them to cheat other people. It’s unfortunate. Quilters need always be aware that their photographs can be hijacked.
Next clue: $59
You couldn’t buy the fabric for a quilt (or maybe a blanket, these days) for $59!
Last Clue: Selling MANY different quilts (or blankets)!
It’s amazing (and kinda sad) how many people respond excitedly to these posts by tagging their friends and loved ones. You can read the comments to see how many people are tagging others to show them this great buy. One such post which was being massively shared was for brilliant pieced, appliqued, and quilted musician-themed quilt of a cello – all for $59!
The personal story behind the quilt or blanket dilemma.
It’s been a “thing” in my family for years that when one of them asks me to pass them the blanket, I stand up and yell, “They’re quilts, not blankets!” (like Harry Potter, only with a pretend wand). Then, I add, “I am not a Blanketer!”
Karla
I’ve recently joined a pattern-maker group and, sure enough, they are suggesting you search these sites to see if these companies have stolen your pictures. (I have no idea what you do if that happens.)
What to do about the sites?
I try to report the company, when allowed by Facebook. I also comment on the post that the company is a fraud. The only other thing I know to do is to tell as many people as I know not to fall for something that looks too good to be true.
By the way, even if you ask for a blanket in my house, your’e going to get a quilt!
Step into Karla’s Corner for a peek into her thoughts, her favorite shops, her adventures in fabric, quilt, and merchandise design and more!
