Since we moved to Madison, Wisconsin from Richmond, Virginia, I've been wanting to teach beginning quilters. I just love sharing in their excitement and enthusiasm for this this wonderful hobby.

So, I've started teaching a beginner class at Mill House Quilts in Waunakee. Check out the progress made by my students! This was a long class -- eight weeks. 

On day one we talked all about fabric selection and I gave them a challenge where I assigned them a focus fabric and they had to pick out coordinates. They weren't always given the fabric they would have chosen themselves, so it's a great exercise.

The next several classes focused on making the different blocks themselves. Then we had a "putting it all together" session. Finally, we ended with quilting and binding. Two of the students took on the challenge of trying free motion quilting for the first time!

I really got to know this group of quilters and am happy to call them friends as well as students. If you're interested in learning to quilt, check out my classes. 

Nope, this isn't about the retreat I'm hosting in June; this is about a retreat we had at the Homestead Cabin Retreat in Hillpoint, Wisconsin. I cannot express how wonderful this experience was! Patsy (and her sister Nancy) really made the weekend special. We had nine students, though one of them made four tuffets! This was my first time teaching tuffets in a retreat format and it was really great. Typically, the class is two sessions of four hours each, but in a retreat scenario, we did it all in one weekend. So fun!

We started doing our tuffet building in shifts starting after dinner on Saturday. From that point forward they kept me pretty busy so I don't have any action shots, but if you follow my blog you've seen plenty by now. But I do have finished tuffets to show you! First we have Annette's tuffet. She wasn't able to stay long enough for the group photo, but here's her gorgeous Kaffe tuffet. It's so pretty!

What a fantastic weekend! If you're interested in taking a tuffet retreat with me, I have one coming up in Mineral Point from June 24 - 26, and another one the weekend of October 7 - 9 at Prairie Star Lodge in Browntown, Wisconsin.

In the meantime, check out the Homestead Cabin Retreat. Patsy is a great hostess, and you can have groups of multiple sizes! 

We had a fun class at Quintessential Quilts in Madison earlier this month. Not everyone finished at the same time, so no group photo, but check out these tuffets!

I was asked to make a very special tuffet out of some neckties. It was such an honor to turn these beloved ties into a special memory piece. 

Note: Ties are pretty difficult to work with. I highly recommend interfacing them, and also being very careful that ties with vertical motifs go straight up the middle of each section instead of running into the strip next to them.

For the bottom, I pieced more ties. I sewed them directly to a circle of fusible fleece. Then I topstitched around the bottom after folding the edge under. I finished with another tie. This one was sewn on not unlike a quilt binding. After I sewed it on (and joined the ends, which is tricky around a curve), I first glued and then hand stitched the finished edge to the bottom of the tuffet.

I was honored to be asked by Free Spirit fabrics to make three tuffets for their booth at Spring Quilt Market in Salt Lake City! The gorgeous fabrics I was given were from the Kaffe Fassett Collective Spring 2016 line, April Cornell's Gypsy Dance, and Tanya's Whelan's Zoey's Garden. You can image how thrilled I was!

Here is the Zoey's Garden tuffet. I made it with the typical 64 strips, but added a ruffle and fussy cut the button to highlight the bird:

Next is the Kaffe Fassett Spring 2016 line. For this one, I decided to go with strips that were twice as wide as a typical tuffet has. I felt it was a nice way to show off the fabrics.

Last is the Gypsy Dance tuffet. This was especially fun because it involved a border print. I chose to do a combination of wide and narrow strips for this one. Its button also features a fussy-cut bird!

I still can't get over how honored I was to be asked. I know I'm gushing, but you'll forgive me, right?

We had a great tuffet class at Patches and Petals in Belleville, Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago! Jean, Julie, Diane, Candy, and Leslie all did a great job!