Do you feel lucky? 🍀🐇 Read on to find out if I do, plus a lesson I learned in the Costume Shop
Denise Rutter-Lang 
Happy start to Summer! Living in the Pacific Northwest, I am SOOO ready for summer! May saw the most rain in over 70 years- I am ready to dry out a bit, and enjoy some sunshine.
I have been so busy longarming client quilts and watching my son play baseball, I haven’t had much time to work on other projects. My plan is to create a new class where students will learn three different ways to use freezer paper to create quilt blocks, which will then be made into a table runner (using a kit). I will teach it in-person locally, to begin with, then will work on making it available on-demand. Stay tuned- newsletter subscribers will be first to know the details…and will receive a discount on the class. To subscribe, click here.
Tips & Tools
Have you heard the term “scant ¼ inch” and wondered what it means, or why it is recommended? Let me tell you a little story. If you have seen my lecture “My Art Quilt Journey”, or read my bio on my website, you will be aware that I earned a Master of Fine Arts in Costume Design and Construction from San Diego State University. Part of our education was learning various costume crafts, to include millinery (making hats). I was tasked with creating a 3-piece wool hat, with a brim and crown. It is customary to first create a muslin mock-up, to test the look and fit. After the fitting, I made adjustments to my pattern, and proceeded to cut out my pieces. As I began constructing the hat, I was finding that the pieces weren’t fitting together as they should. It took me a little time (and consulting with my supervisor) to realize that the wool was thicker than the muslin, so I needed to include some ease in my pattern to allow for it. The same concept applies to piecing quilts, and the thickness of the thread you are piecing with. If you are making a simple quilt with few seams, you may not notice much of a difference. But with more complex quilts, with many more pieces and seams, the 1/16” thickness of your piecing thread adds up. Which is why you want to set your seam allowance at just under a ¼”, to allow for the thickness of your piecing thread. That is also why some quilters choose a thinner thread to piece with, to help minimize the thickness of their seams.
This edition of Tips & Tools focuses on a Tip. I posted some recommended Tools in the Shop section of my website. I included a short description of why I like each tool with it’s link*. Future newsletters will go into more depth about why I like each of the tools.
Walks With Luna
Do you feel lucky? I do. Because I choose to. I believe “being lucky” is more a state of mind, than a decree of fate. I choose to focus on the positive things in my life: my two compassionate, generous kids that are growing into wonderful human beings; we have a nice house to live in; I have a job (longarming business) that I LOVE, with a flexible schedule so I can be there for my kids. There are aspects of my life that aren’t so great, that often cause me a great deal of stress. While it is important to acknowledge the not-so-great, it isn’t productive to dwell on them. Because then they suck more and more of your energy. My energy isn’t limitless, so I am very careful how I spend it. Dwelling on negative things just sucks too much of my energy. So I choose instead to focus on how lucky I am.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you are able to do something creative today.
Cheers,
Denise
*The links I provide are affiliate links, which means if you click the link and make a purchase from it, I make a small commission (you do not pay any more). I only provide links for products I actually use and recommend. If you have a question about any of the products, the process, or really anything at all, you can contact me here.