Off the Bolt
Stories, stitches, and the little wins between seams ~ pull up a chair.
Off the Bolt
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Threadcation Season: Beach Towns Where the Sewing Kit Comes Along
Threadcation (noun) : a trip to the water where the sewing kit gets its own tote bag. Stitched by the Shore is our seaside corner of the Stitchin' In series, full of lighthouses, piers, palm trees and waves drawn in wavy lines of stitching, and if you look closely, a few spools of thread that clearly packed themselves. -
The Prettiest Seams in America Are Bridges
A bridge is really a seam. It takes pieces that were never meant to meet and joins them so neatly you can walk right across. Bridges Worth Stitchin' For gathers our favorite spans from the Stitchin' In series, each one drawn like appliquรฉ and embroidery, with a river running underneath and the name of the place lettered below. -
Wish You Were Stitchin' Here: Hometown Postcards Made for Quilters
Unpack a quilter's suitcase after any trip and you will find two treasures: a camera roll full of pretty views and a bag of fabric from the local quilt shop. Stitchin' In is our postcard collection, a set of city and state scenes drawn to look embroidered and pieced by hand, each one signed with the words Stitchin' in and the name of the place. It is a souvenir from the shop hop you already took, or the one still circled on your calendar. -
Quilt Art Bright Enough to Spot From Across the Quilt Show
Quilters spend their days making things people stop and stare at, so it only seems fair to wear a little of that attention. All Eyes On Quilting gathers our boldest, brightest Chic Quilter art: spinning color wheels, exploding spools, comic-book speech bubbles and the word Quilt rebuilt more ways than one. Quiet it is not. -
The weekend forecast is quilting, with a chance of chocolate
Somebody at work is going to ask what you did this weekend. You already know the honest answer, and you already know the polite version you usually give instead. The Quilting Life Tees say the honest one for you. -
The Mug That Gets Reheated Three Times
Every sewing room has a mug that has been microwaved more than it has been drunk from. It goes in hot, it sits beside the machine while one more seam becomes a whole row, and it comes back to the kitchen at 4pm still mostly full. That mug is not a failure. It is proof that the block was going well. -
The wine sipper that survives the fall off the cutting table
It is going to get knocked off. Not tonight, maybe, but some night, by an elbow or a ruler or the cat, and it is going to hit the floor of the sewing room. The question is what happens next. With a stemless steel sipper and a lid, the answer is: you pick it up, you keep sewing. -
Remember, my quilting time is for everyone's safety
It is not a threat. It is a public service announcement, and the household has been briefed. When the sewing-room door is closed, the people on the other side of it are safer for it. The Sewn With Sass shelf says so in writing. -
What the Last Week of the Month Is For
Every quilter keeps a fabric budget somewhere, even if it is only in her head, and every quilter knows the last week of the month is when it gets interesting. The UFO gets finished so the new month starts clean. The stash gets counted (not accurately). And the thing she has been good about all month gets, finally, allowed. -
Softens Like a Quilt, Wears Like a Favorite
A quilter does not trust anything new. A new quilt is stiff and a little proud of itself; the good ones are the third-winter ones, washed soft, edges worn pale, the ones the family argues over. Clothes earn trust the same way, which is why the Cozy Heavyweight Tees at Chic Quilter are cut from the heavier Comfort Colors cotton that starts out substantial and turns into the shirt you reach for without thinking. -
Quilt hair, don't care: the flamingle flock has seen things
Starla Flamingle has quilt hair. It stands straight up in a burst of pink, purple and teal, and she is not going to fix it, because she is holding a finished block and standing next to a stack of nine more. The banner over her head says Quilt Hair, Don't Care. It is the most honest tee on the Stitch Happens shelf. -
It started as one block. Well. That escalated.
There is a crow on a gray tee, standing on a half-finished quilt with a length of thread in her beak and a whole tangle at her feet, and the caption underneath reads Well. That Escalated. Every quilter who has ever sat down for one block and stood up at 2am with a finished top has already bought this shirt in her head. -
A face for the mood, a scene for the view: two kinds of sewing-room cup
There are two kinds of nights in a sewing room. The night where you want a cup that gets it, and the night where you want a cup that gets you out of your own head. The Sip and Sew Drinkware shelf has both, and you can tell them apart from across the room. -
I'm a Quilteontologist: I make bold cuts (while my cheeks brace for impact)
A Quilteontologist is a quilter who has studied the subject long enough to name her own findings. The field is young. The findings are on tees. The Stitched with Sass shelf is where most of them are published. -
Still Warm From the Press
A new tee has a smell, the way a new bolt does. It is the press, still warm, and the first time you unfold it there is a half-second where it is nobody's yet. Fresh Tees Just In is that half-second, on a shelf: the Chic Quilter relaxed-fit tees with the newest at the front. -
The studio birds have taken the night shift, and they are holding your wine
By day the birds run the sewing room. Snipsy Wren stands on the good scissors so nobody can borrow them. Chaos Finch has opinions about the layout. Curlene Spoolworth has the thread situation under control, mostly. By night, they move to the wine tumbler, and they hold your glass while you hold the pins. -
The First Pour Belongs to the Quilter
The house is still asleep. The machine is not on yet, but the light in the sewing room is, and there is a mug in both hands that is too big to carry with one. That hour is not about coffee. It is the only part of the day that is entirely hers, and the mug is the ticket in. -
The Shirt You Actually Sew In
There is the shirt you wear to guild and the shirt you wear at the machine, and they are rarely the same shirt. The machine shirt has to survive an iron running at cotton for three hours, a lap full of half-square triangles, and the cat. It cannot be fussy. It cannot be heavy. It has to be the one you forget you have on until somebody reads it out loud in the fabric store and laughs. -
Retreat Morning, and the Mirror Has Given Up
Day two of a quilt retreat has a hairstyle, and it was not chosen. It was produced overnight by a hotel pillow, a 1am binding session and a decision to skip the shower in favor of the cutting table. Every quilter in the room has it. Nobody minds. The cap goes on, the coffee goes in, and the day starts. -
The Space Heater Is Losing. The Hoodie Is Not.
January in a basement sewing room is a negotiation between a space heater and a concrete floor, and the floor is winning. The quilter does not leave. She puts on the hoodie, pulls the sleeves over her hands between seams, and keeps going, because the quilt on the frame is due in February and the cold has never once finished a border. -
Plan for today: quilting. That is the whole list.
Some people keep a planner. Quilters keep a plan, and it is one word long. The Sewn With Sass Tees shelf opens with Plan for Today: Quilting, which is the most honest to-do list ever printed on a shirt, and it comes as a premium tee, a V-neck and a hoodie, because the plan does not change with the weather. -
Stand in Front of the Whole Wall
Every quilter has a wall she stands in front of when she is not sewing. The stash wall, sorted by color, every bolt and fat quarter she has ever said yes to, and she is not looking for anything. She is just looking. It is the most restful place in the house. -
Friday Night of Retreat, and the Flamingos Are Pouring
There is a moment on the Friday night of every retreat when the machines are still humming, somebody has put the good playlist on, and the flask comes out of the tote. Nothing gets sewn faster after that. A great deal gets sewn happier. -
The rotary cutter goes in the drawer. Then the sipper comes out.
Every sewing room has a closing ritual, even if nobody wrote it down. The blade gets covered. The iron gets unplugged (checked twice). And only then does the wine come out, because there is a sipper on this shelf that says Don't Drink and Quilt, and it was printed by people who have tried. -
The quilt you designed at 2am, in your sleep, on the back of an envelope
It came to you at 2am. A layout, a color run, a border you had never seen anywhere. You got up, drew it on the back of an envelope, and went back to bed. Three weeks later it was a top on the design wall, and it looked exactly like the envelope. That is where dreams are sewn: in the room where the envelope goes. -
At retreat, every cup looks the same. Except yours.
Picture the retreat kitchen at 9pm. A dozen wine cups on the counter, all the same shade of stainless, all unclaimed. Somebody picks up the wrong one. Somebody always picks up the wrong one. -
The sign on the sewing-room door, worn instead of hung
Every sewing room needs a sign on the door, and every quilter eventually realizes the sign should just be on her. That is the Sew Funny Tees: the notices you would post if anyone in the house read notices. -
The One That Names Your Town
Quilters are from somewhere, and they will tell you. The guild is the Bozeman guild or the Charleston guild, the retreat was in the Adirondacks, the block was started in a hotel room in Albuquerque with the iron balanced on a towel. Where a quilter sews is part of the quilt, and the shelf called Hot New Arrivals ~ Uniquely You Designs is where the shop finally started saying it out loud. -
Your Name Goes on the Back of Every Quilt. Not This Time.
Every quilt a quilter finishes gets a label, and the label goes on the back. Her name, the year, who it was for, stitched small in the corner where nobody looks unless they know to. It is the most modest signature in any craft. She puts her name on the back of everything and on the front of nothing. -
When the Songbirds Put Their Sleeves Down
There is a morning every fall when the sewing room is colder than the rest of the house, and the quilter who has been happily working in short sleeves since May pulls the long ones out of the drawer. The songbirds noticed the same morning. Long Sleeve Tee Aviary is where the circle went when the room got cold: the same birds you know from the summer tees, now in long sleeves, plus a row of distressed baseball caps for the hair situation that quilting produces. -
Made for This Month, Delivered as It Begins
Quilters keep a different calendar. The year is not January to December, it is the retreat, the show, the month the Christmas quilts have to be started or they will not be finished, and the week the guild challenge is due. Something that arrives on the first of the month, made for that month, fits that calendar exactly. -
Pick the Cut by How You Sew
A quilter chooses fabric by hand before she chooses it by eye. She rubs the corner between two fingers, decides, and only then looks at the print. Choosing a tee should work the same way, which is why All T-Shirts at Chic Quilter is sorted the way a quilter thinks about it: by the cut, then by the joke. -
The face you make at the forty-seventh seam, now on a wine sipper
You know the face. Everyone who has ever pressed a seam open at 10pm knows the face. It is not angry. It is not sad. It is the face of a person who has decided the block will be square whether the block agrees or not.
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Latest Articles
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For the Quilter Who Never Misses a Snap or a Stitch: Game-Day Gear for the New York Quilter
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For the Quilter Who Bleeds New York Green ~ Game-Day Gear Stitched for Us
Hi friends, Judy here. Every fall Sunday at my house sounds exactly the same: the game roaring in the next room, somebody hollering at a replay, and me at my machine, pressing seams between plays and glancing up just in time for the big ones. Sound familiar? -
Touchdowns and Thread: Inside the Minnesota Quilter ~ Game-Day Gear Collection
Hey friend. It is Sunday afternoon. The game is on in the living room, somebody just yelled at the television, and you are exactly where you want to be... at your machine, chain-piecing straight through the third quarter and looking up for the good replays. Sound familiar?
