Creative Stress Relief
Join Us and Capture YOUR Undiscovered Creativity
This used to be a small section in the Wisdom Path department at www.LLPublish.com Magazine --- using creativity as an outlet to relieve stress.
In the process, we've gained some new members who bring us enough creative ideas and resources that we're giving them their own department
We believe the best "pill" we can take for any ailment is in the form of knowledge and understanding. Our goal is to support each other to achieve better lives.
This year we have many new advertisers and we hope you'll visit them when you see something that interests you. We also have new links for your information, and new departments to continue the research and sharing.
Do you have a helpful hint to share? Do you have a quilting experience or a new resource to tell us about?
Beginner's Diary - LLoni learns quilting one piece at a time
My first assignment was to visit a "Quilt Show" that left my mouth watering to learn more. I'm sure that's what Sue had in mind when she made that my first assignment.
We browsed up and down the aisles of quilts on display, and studied some of the differences between them.
There were "Cheater Cloth" quilts --- those whose fabric was printed to look like different pieces, but were in fact solid fabric. The variety was impressive and so were the designs. The Cheater Cloth style fabrics provide a shortcut that is acceptable in proper circumstances.
We spent more time studying "Pieced Tops" and the variety of styles on display. Many of the Pieced Top designs have wonderful stories at their core. My favorite was the "Log Cabin" design because it reflected the historical frontier days cabin with it's fireplace in the center.
I understood that each of the Pieced Top designs has a traditional name, some historical, some contemporary. I was not going to learn them all in that one afternoon, but just learning a few helped me understand the tradition behind them.
The difference between "hand-pieced quilts" and "machine-pieced quilts" was not always as obvious for me on that beginner trip. That was okay to start.
The point to be learned was that a hand-pieced top should always be hand-sewn at the quilting stage, referred to as "hand-quilted".
Machine-pieced tops were usually machine quilted, though some of them looked more like they were hand-quilted to me. I'll be learning that particular technique in a future lesson. (read the full text -->)
Memory Quilts
The variety of family traditions among quilters and the new suggestions being submitted are filling a treasure chest for our readers.
Join the "We Love To Quilt" Group Forum and share YOUR family's memory quilt ideas.
and bookmark this page to return often. We'll build a feature column around what we're learning about family memories and traditions.
Precut Kits?
Pinwheels and Kaleidascopes could take hours to arrange and properly cut.
They're fascinating to look at. Even more fun to sew the pieces together into a block, because you can't wait to see what the next one will look like!
We didn't find many members anxious to lay out and cut one, though. That takes a little longer to find the right fabric and a lot more planning before the cuts are made. Even a few of our "professional" level readers are grabbing the pre-cut versions because they're so much fun to work with.
The whole concept will be detailed in a future installment for those who haven't ventured into this eye-catching style yet. For now, we offer the pre-cut kits from our sponsor Overstock.com at a great price.
More Creativity for Stress Relief
We have a large membership in the quilting craft, but several have let us know they have other craft favorites too. We'll use this area to explore those other ideas. Whenever we receive enough material to fill a page, we'll allocate a new page to that craft and put a link here so you can reach it easily.
Coming soon : Crochet, Knitting, Gardening, Painting, and more.
See more from OVERSTOCK.COM
Thread Art
Inspired by the Elm Creek Quilts Novels
Pre-cut kit from our affiliate Overstock.com