Off the Bolt
Stories, stitches, and the little wins between seams ~ pull up a chair.
Off the Bolt
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Boss's Day in a Room Where Nobody Takes Orders
Hi there. Boss's Day is coming up, and we have a small confession from the sewing room: nobody in here has a boss. Not one of us. We looked. There is a chair, a machine, a stack of fabric that keeps growing on its own, and a dog, and not a single person who gets to say what happens next. Sound familiar? -
Straight from The Scrap Basket: The Collection That Says What We're All Thinking
Hi, quilting friends. Penny here. Jenny usually does the writing around Chic Quilter, but she handed me the keyboard for this one, and honestly, it was about time. Because this collection is my kind of honest. -
The Haunted Threads Are Here ~ Penny's Tour of the Spookiest Corner of Your Sewing Room
Hi, quilting family. Penny here. The Triple Js are elbow-deep in fabric at the moment, so I waddled over to the blog myself, because something seriously gorgeous just landed in the shop and somebody had to tell you. The HOLIDAY - Haunted Threads collection just filled up with a whole flock of long sleeve tees made for the quilter who stitches a little closer to midnight than she admits at guild. Sound familiar? -
Quilter Approved Gifts: The Page You Send When They Ask What You Want
Hi, Penny here. The penguin. Usually my job is keeping an eye on your cart, but today the Triple Js handed me the keyboard, so settle in. -
Penny Reports: Humor Basics Is the Collection That Says the Quiet Part Out Loud
Hi, friend. Penny here. Jenny usually does the talking around Chic Quilter, but she handed me the keyboard for this one because, in her words, nobody delivers a deadpan like a penguin. -
Good Days, Long Sleeves, and a Little Salt Air
Hi friends, Judy here. This morning I pushed my sleeves up to press a seam, pulled them right back down (my sewing room runs chilly before the iron warms up), and decided the universe was telling me something ~ sleeve weather is sewing weather. Sound familiar? -
The Ghosts Took the Night Shift and the Skeleton Is Still Not Done
Somewhere around the first of October, our sewing rooms change hands. The Halloween Shop is Chic Quilter's record of who moves in: skeletons who never quite finish the binding, ghosts working the late shift at the machine, a jack-o'-lantern who has claimed the whole table, and a coven piecing a quilt top faster than any guild we know. It is the quilter's Halloween, drawn with the same rotary cutters, rulers and fabric heaps that fill your sewing room all year. -
Move Over, Plastic Lawn Flamingos: These Pretty Birds Can Sew
Somewhere in every neighborhood there is a pair of pink plastic flamingos stuck in a flower bed, standing on one leg and doing absolutely nothing. We quilters respect the look. We simply think a flamingo that pretty ought to have a hobby. Stitching Pretty is our flock of flamingos who found theirs, nearly all of them with a hairdo that says Quilt Hair Don't Care, and every one with a quilting habit to match. -
Two Grand Marshals Lead the Sewing Room's Hometown Parade
Small towns do a parade right. There are lawn chairs staked out along Main Street by eight in the morning, a fire truck that toots its horn for the kids, and somewhere near the front a float wrapped in red, white and blue bunting with a quilt draped over the side. Stars, Stripes & Stitches is the float we quilters would build. It carries two American icons, both reimagined by someone who has clearly spent a lot of hours at the machine, and both wearing the same unmistakable expression: Resti -
While the Bobbin Winds: The Sewing Room's Official Break Schedule
Nobody sews straight through a Saturday. There is always a pause while the bobbin winds, a stretch after the last seam in a row, and one long, lovely break when the whole block finally lines up. Sips Between Stitches keeps those pauses company with wine sippers and quilter's flasks, each one carrying a member of our wild-haired Quilt Hair Don't Care flock. Every bird comes in both, so the only hard choice is which break you are planning for. -
Can't Sleep? Try Counting Quilt Squares Instead of Sheep
You know the night. The house is quiet, the pillow is perfect, and your brain has decided now is the ideal time to rearrange every block in the quilt on your design wall. Sheep never worked for us quilters anyway. We count squares. Sewn Into Dreamland is what floats past when you close your eyes and let the sewing room drift in: sunrises, soft waves, a machine humming somewhere far away and a few very sleepy words of wisdom. -
Clipboards Out: The Sewcial Seamstress Club Is Filling Its Committees
Every club worth joining has a sign-up table. There is a folding table by the door, a row of clipboards, a pen on a string and a cheerful woman who will absolutely talk you into volunteering for something. The Sewcial Seamstress Club runs the friendliest sign-up table around, and each design in this collection belongs to a different committee. Find the clipboard with your name on it. We already know you will sign more than one. -
Cabin Assignments Are Posted for This Year's Quilt Retreat
The best moment of any quilt retreat happens before a single machine is plugged in. Somebody tapes the cabin list to the lodge door, everyone crowds around with their rolling totes, and you find out who you will be sharing a bunk, an outlet strip and a bag of pretzels with for the next three days. Quilt Retreat Icons is that list, filled with the characters who make a retreat legendary. Here is who landed where. -
Pages From the Cabin Guest Book, Signed in Pine Sap and Thread
Every good rental cabin keeps a guest book on the kitchen table, usually next to a jar of pens that mostly work. You flip through it on the first night and read about the moose someone spotted, the storm that knocked the power out and the pie from the diner in town. Pieced Pines & Patchwork Trees reads like that guest book, if every visitor happened to be a quilter. Each design pieces a favorite place together from fabric-textured pines, rivers, peaks and lakes, stitched with the words Stitc -
Open Mic Night at the Guild, Where the Tees Bring Down the House
Once a year somebody plugs a microphone into the church hall speaker, sets out a folding chair and faces a room full of quilters who have heard every joke about fabric hoarding and still laugh at the good ones. Funny Quilter Humor Tees is that open mic night, printed across the front of a tee. Every design is a punchline we quilters already live, from the stash we swear we needed to the sewing machine that is quietly smoking in the corner. Sound familiar? -
A Brand New Box of Crayons, With Every Color Sharpened
Remember the first day of school, lifting the lid on a brand new box of crayons? Every tip sharp, every color lined up, and not one of them broken yet. Quilters never really outgrow that feeling. We just trade the crayons for fat quarters. Colorful Stitch Parade opens the whole box at once: rainbow swirls, stained glass, sunflowers, a few tangled pets and some very bold opinions, all in the brightest shades we could find. -
Nobody Remembers Who First Called Her Thread Head, but It Stuck
Maybe it was her husband, finding one more snippet of thread in the butter dish. Maybe it was a guild friend, watching her match a spool to a fabric swatch from across the room without even squinting. However it started, the nickname stuck, and she wears it proudly. Thread Wit & Whimsy is a small, playful collection for anyone whose head is full of thread, color and a little mischief. -
Nose to the Glass at The Tailor's Corner, Where the Window Changes Every Season
Picture a little corner shop on Main Street with a big front window and an owner who takes her displays very seriously. In spring she fills it with sea and sunshine, by October it is all leaves, and in December there is a tree. The Tailor's Corner is our collection built around that window, and nearly every design puts a sewing machine front and center, dressed up for whatever the season or the mood happens to be. Go ahead and press your nose to the glass. We all do it. -
Studio Tour: How the Animals of The Quilter Life Set Up Their Sewing Rooms
Is there anything more fun than peeking into another quilter's sewing room? The Quilter Life is a collection of soft pastel animals who live exactly the way we do, surrounded by fabric, thread and one more project than is strictly reasonable. They were kind enough to open their doors, so let's take the tour. -
Tonight's Meeting of Stashers Anonymous Will Now Come to Order
Pull up a folding chair, grab a cookie and find a spot in the circle. The Happy Stash is the Chic Quilter collection for anyone who has ever tucked a fabric store receipt into the bottom of her purse, and tonight nobody here is quitting anything. We are here to celebrate. The meeting runs after dark, naturally, because the best stash stories always come out once the porch light is on. -
Overheard in the Quilt Show Lunch Line: My Hometown Is the Best One
Stand in any lunch line at any big quilt show and you will hear it within five minutes. Somebody asks where you are from, and suddenly everyone is bragging about home: the view, the music, the barbecue, the traffic they secretly love. Stitchin' In Your City is the Chic Quilter collection that lets a quilter wear her bragging rights, with each city drawn in a bright, stitched-together scene and its name written underneath in pretty script. -
Pages From a Quilter's Road Trip Scrapbook, Captioned in Canyonlight
Some of us come home from a big trip with a camera roll. Quilters come home with a scrapbook, of course, every page trimmed, layered and captioned by hand. Stitchin In Beauty National Parks reads like the prettiest scrapbook we have ever flipped through: each design pairs a park name arched across the top with a soft pencil sketch of the animal who lives there, a spray of wildflowers at its feet, the year the park was founded and a little handwritten line about stitching underneath. Turn the pag -
A Message in a Bottle, Drifting From the High Peaks Down to the Delta
Picture a little glass bottle with a note rolled up inside, tossed into a mountain stream and set loose to see where the water takes it. Stitchin' Along the River is the Chic Quilter collection that follows that bottle. In every design a blue river winds through the scene like a length of thread laid across the fabric, and each place is drawn in soft, stitched-looking layers of color. Fair warning: this bottle does not follow any route a geography teacher would approve. -
Piecing a Sampler Quilt From the Badlands to Kauai
A sampler quilt is a little bit of everything, one block at a time, each one a small experiment in color. Stitched Across the Land is the Chic Quilter collection that treats the whole map that way. Every design looks as if it were cut from fabric scraps and pieced into a landscape, with hills in patchwork greens, rivers in rippled blues and rock in every warm shade from rust to rose. The pattern for the whole thing is SewJourner, a compass rose with a sewing machine at its heart and a winding ro -
Pajamas On, Kettle Warm, and the Machine Humming by Seven
Some days ask for nothing more than a quilt across your lap and the heat turned up in the sewing room. Snuggle Up and Stitch is the Chic Quilter collection for exactly those days, when the whole plan is to stay home, stay cozy and let the machine do the talking from sunup to lights out. Sound familiar? -
Meet the Muses Who Hang Around the Sewing Machine
The ancient Greeks believed a muse would drift into the room and whisper in an artist's ear. The sewing-room muse keeps different hours. She does not drift. She sits right beside the sewing machine, usually on the one clean chair, and she has opinions. Sewing Machine Muses gathers the whole company of them, from the artsy to the outdoorsy to the ones with a smart remark ready, and every design keeps the beloved machine at its center. -
Say Cheese: The Resting Stitch Face Guild Sits for Its Official Photo
Once a year the guild hires a photographer. She sets up her lights in the church hall, arranges the folding chairs in three neat rows and asks, very sweetly, for everyone to smile. This is where things go sideways. The Resting Stitch Face Guild is our gathering of famous faces, patchwork faces and a few cats, all of whom share one expression: the calm, unbothered look of a quilter thinking about her next seam. The photographer tried. Here is how the rows came out. -
Open the Closet and Pick Your Mood: Sweet, Sassy or Gone Till Sunday
Every quilter wakes up knowing what kind of day it is going to be before her feet hit the floor. Some mornings are gentle and full of good intentions. Some mornings, frankly, somebody had better stay out of the way. Quilting Dreams Wardrobe is the Chic Quilter collection that lets you say which one it is without saying a word, in sayings washed in rainbow and sherbet colors that look like a fat quarter bundle turned into lettering. -
Birds Gonna Fly, Bakers Gonna Bake, and You Already Know the Rest
Some things in this world are simply laws of nature. The sun comes up, the cat sits on the fabric you just pressed, and a quilter with a free afternoon heads straight for her machine. Quilters Gonna Quilt is the Chic Quilter collection built around that one unshakable truth, written out in a handful of different hands so everyone can pick the version that sounds most like her own voice. -
Wrap It in a Fat Quarter: Gift Notes for Every Kind of Sewing Soul
Here is a secret the guild will never tell you out loud. When you give a quilter a present, the wrapping matters almost as much as the gift. Skip the paper and fold it in a fat quarter, tie it with a strip of selvage, and she will be delighted twice. Gifts for the Sewing Soul gathers the designs we reach for when it is time to celebrate a quilter, so we have paired each kind of sewing soul with the fabric we would wrap her gift in.
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Latest Articles
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Boss's Day in a Room Where Nobody Takes Orders
Hi there. Boss's Day is coming up, and we have a small confession from the sewing room: nobody in here has a boss. Not one of us. We looked. There is a chair, a machine, a stack of fabric that keeps growing on its own, and a dog, and not a single person who gets to say what happens next. Sound familiar? -
Straight from The Scrap Basket: The Collection That Says What We're All Thinking
Hi, quilting friends. Penny here. Jenny usually does the writing around Chic Quilter, but she handed me the keyboard for this one, and honestly, it was about time. Because this collection is my kind of honest.
