I’ve been making a lot of fiddly small blocks lately for a couple of different Sewalongs, and I’m thinking it might be about time to get a straight stitch plate for the Juki. I use a boatload of starch and always use leaders to keep from getting little pieces sucked in, but a straight stitch plate might be just the thing to make it a little easier.
These are some of the fiddly blocks for the Fat Quarter Patchwork Sewalong benefitting Make-a-Wish. They still need a bit of trimming and pressing, but I was done with them last night and not going to fuss with them any further. I understand that there’s big version of the blocks on the Out of the Blue blog and I wonder how much mixing and matching might work. Big blocks would be less fiddly. The FB group that goes along with this Sewalong seems like a nice enough group. I guess I’m just a bit tired of Facebook lately. How do you develop a sense of community in Sewalongs or groups? I’d love to see a Craft Night Call that we could arrange to dial into and talk one night a week. I think it would be fun to get to know some of the other quilters better. Let me know if something like that appeals to you. It would have to be verbal only because I sew in my pj’s which aren’t necessary something everyone else wants to see on an older lady!
I just decided to buy the Supernova kit and Pattern from our very own Designs by Sarah J. Those are bigger blocks, so I’m hoping for a wonderful, happy sewing adventure. Anyone want to sew along with me? I think it will be loads of fun.
And there’s my reading for tonight! I’m putting together a list of fabrics I want to use in quilts from Vanessa Goertzen’s Charm School book. Some of them look not only easy, but downright fun. I’m feeling a bit fried from the shenanigans where I work lately, and I’m just not keeping up. I have enough fiddly stuff going on. Let’s quilt something together and talk in a channel or call and relax a bit together. Send me a message, 2017NewQuiltBloggers. I think it would be fun.
Chaos Theory Quilting 
I was part of the 2015 New Blogger Blog hop and it’s only through following people for a long time and chatting back and forth that I feel I have a sense of people. The only people I feel close to in swaps are people who also have blogs and we’ve corresponded through the blogs. On line community is difficult to maintain as we all go through periods of business where we blog less. Yvonne of quilting jetgirl is really good at keeping going and keeping in touch.
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Yvonne is generally amazing. If you want to join our little future community, that would be great!
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Great musings, Cate. I kind of started to feel the same way about FB (that it is hard to really develop community there) so I wanted the new quilt bloggers this year to give Slack a try. I don’t know that it’s a perfect solution, either, but I thought it would be worth a shot. The #random channel there would be a perfect place to start a discussion about this with the group and see what develops.
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I’m seeing quite a bit of discussion both here and in Slack. Thanks for the suggestion. I don’t want to give anyone the idea that I’m shilling for Sarah. Not that I would be averse to doing so. This is just purely coincidental that someone whose work I enjoy joined the hoppers.
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Love this idea! I did Meadow Mist Mystery and am doing “#freefallqal and enjoyed both. I love diving into my fabric stash to start things. I may have a move at home and a move at work, so I will try to make this all pretty stress free. Every two weeks or once a month always seems doable!
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I’m thinking this is going to be a lot of fun. I really like the feeling of a group of others who share a love of something.
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Enjoyed the post. My hubby and I volunteer with Make-a-Wish every once in a while when a particular “Wish” seems to resonate with us. I love that Fat Quarter Shop has started this opportunity for Make-a-Wish. I’ve been enjoying “meeting” other quilters through the New Quilter Blogs this spring. I am always looking to enlarge my quilting community friends. They’ve done a fantastic job.
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I really like the quilt community and would love to belong to a regular sewing group, but I’m not a fan of carrying around a machine. So a Skype call would be fun maybe. Will you join us?
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I’ll head to our Slack group and jump in on the discussion. I am interested in this idea.
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I hope you decide to do the quilt with us. Maybe we should just send out an open call for mass Quilting fun on a night that works and see what happens.
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Interesting post, especially about not necessarily feeling connected through facebook. I didn’t realize that you were using Slack as a tool for the new blogger’s hop either. As the coordinator for Stash Bee, I’m struggling to find ways for the various hives to form a good sense of community. The more people you have involved, the greater the balancing act.
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Balancing acts can be so difficult, but I’ve been fortunate enough to belong to a few communities that were a ton of fun and support and humor. If you want to sew along on the Supernova quilt, your company would be welcome.
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