For the first time, I had a booth at Quilt Expo! In fact, this was the first booth I've ever had at any show -- talk about jumping in with both feet! It was a huge undertaking, but I had a lot of help!

The people I need to thank the most are my husband, RT, and my friend and fellow TuffetSource affiliate, Meg McKinney. Meg is a fantastic photographer -- you should really check out her gallery. If you see good photos in this blog post, they're probably hers. She came up from Alabama to help me out with the booth and her assistance was invaluable. 

​Here's the booth:

And a few closeups:

Did you miss Quilt Expo? You can still take advantage of free shipping if you visit my store and use the code QUILTEXPO2017 through tomorrow!

We had a big class at Quintessential Quilts in Madison this spring. Check these out! (Pssst... I'm up to March now!)

Hey, did you know that I'll run private tuffet classes? This one happened to be at my house, but I now have a space in Madison where I can teach small private classes! So if you have a group who wants to make a tuffet, contact me! This particular group is a craft collection of moms from my daughter's school.

Hey, I have finally reached the current year in my tuffet post backlog! Time to celebrate! (woohoo)

This post is brought to you by Quilt Play in Grayslake, Illinois. Yes, this Cheesehead made her way across the border, and not for the first time! Quilt Play is an awesome, modern shop and I want to buy everything there. 

Last December (yep, I'm still catching up on tuffet posts), I visited Attic Quilts in Beloit. We had a fantastic class and made a boatload of tuffets! Since I was there, Attic Quilts has moved to a new location across the street, and I can't wait to visit their new shop!

Sheesh.... I need to learn to line up my photos so the tiles on the floor don't look like our tuffets have been hitting the bottle...

Check out these great tuffets made at Patches and Petals in Belleville last fall. This is a great shop with lots of character. It's worth the drive if you haven't been there before!

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: I'm terrible about updating blog posts! So right now i'm sitting in a Starbucks and will be writing several of them, posting every few days, to try to keep up with tuffet posts. I'm really sorry to those who have been in the classes and may have been waiting to see your tuffet featured. These posts are from a long time ago! So let's take a trip down memory lane.... We'll start with an October class at Quintessential Quilts in Madison... look at these beautiful tuffets!

I'm not sure why I don't have a top-down photo of every tuffet in this group. Mysterious. But they're all great!

Back in October we had a tuffet retreat at Prairie Star Lodge in Browntown, Wisconsin. The location is really nice. I'd recommended it if you're looking for a retreat location. If you're interested in attending a tuffet retreat, check out my upcoming one in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin the weekend of April 7 - 9. It's a great way to get one or more tuffets done in just a weekend!

We had a great class at Bungalow Quilting and Yarn up in Ripon recently. I love this shop. Have you been there? Judy, the owner, is a delightful person and a published quilt book author! Be sure to check out the last two tuffets in the photos -- they're made from wool!

We had a wee little tuffet class at Quintessential Quilts this past fall... just two people! But that didn't stop us from having fun!

I still can't believe how far behind I am on tuffet posts! Anyway,  way back in September, I visited the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and we made tuffets!

If you haven't visited the museum, you should check it out. There are some wonderful works there, and lots of educational opportunities!

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I'm way behind on posting.... so with that said, way back in SEPTEMBER (yes, September), I visited Olive Juice Quilts in Onalaska, WI. What a gorgeous shop! If you haven't been there, you should definitely go! Lots of modern fabrics, tons of Kaffe Fassett fabrics, and a huge classroom/discount area. It's worth the trip, whereever you're coming from!

Here's a glimpse of students at work on day one...

And here they are with their finished tuffets! All of them came out so beautifully! I am often told by people that they didn't think they'd be able to make a tuffet; that it would be too difficult. I can tell you that they're NOT. Sure, there may be skills you learn that are new to you, but you CAN do it. As a teacher, I've seen students make hundreds of tuffets -- and do you know what? They all get done! The only time I've not had one get finished is if the student didn't finish their homework, and even then, sometimes we've been able to get them done. Don't let fear keep you from signing up for a class. 

As you may know, one of the things I do is making skating costumes. My daughter is on a synchronized skating team (what's that., you ask? Check out this video to see more!) and I have been making team costumes for the past few years. Usually it takes a good amount of the fall, but this year was especially difficult, so I haven't done anything but make costumes and teach classes that were scheduled. Sadly, this means blogging fell to the wayside. The good news is that I can now sit down and write up a bunch of backlogged blog posts and your tuffet itch will be scratched! So, for the next several weeks, you'll be getting regular blog posts every couple of days. I'll be honest, most of them will have been pre-written as I try to catch up, but there will be a few timely ones slipped in there as well. And a few skating costume posts. And quilts! Can't forget about those! 

In the meantime, here is a tuffet I made for my niece, who recently had a baby girl. Enjoy!

I taught for the first time at the lovely A Touch of Amish in Barrington, Illinois last month. The staff here is so friendly -- I really felt welcomed. And I have to say, if you use an Accu-quilt Go, this is the place to get dies because they have a ton of them! Wait, what? Did I get a photo? Well, shoot, that would have been useful. Oh well. Trust me on this one, though. 

Oh yes, we made tuffets! And check out the punchneedle button!

More tuffets! This time from Quintessential Quilts in Madison. Since I've brought them up, I just wanted to mention that Quintessential Quilts very generously offered to donate some backing fabric for the Madison Modern Quilt Guild's contributions to the Quilts for Pulse project. This happened months ago, and their generosity was mentioned at our meeting, but I wanted to personally thank them myself. Thanks, Quintessential Quilts!

Anyway, on to our small tuffet show. But hey, I remembered to take some photos during class this time! They're all of people stapling, but hey, it's a start.

Sorry. I am trying to catch up on blog posts and so I'm doing them all at one time (did you know bloggers can do that?) and I'm getting a little punchy with the tuffet post titles. Aaaaaanyway, another group of tuffets came out of Mukwonago in August. Quilt-agious keeps pretty busy with them! 

I had a wonderful time teaching tuffets for the first time at Attic Quilts in Beloit, Wisconsin, several weeks ago (yes, I'm behind on blog posts again). I have to tell you, I had no idea that downtown Beloit was so vibrant! The shop is right near the square, and there was music playing and the whole place just seemed so festive! And so were the tuffets!

I'm not sure how many of you know this, but Quilt-agious in Mukwonago was the first shop I taught tuffets at (in fact, it's the first shop I taught at in Wisconsin). So of course I love to go back there to teach. It's still a fairly young shop (a couple of years old) but you'll find a great assortment of beautiful fabrics if you go there. They have an especially great Kaffe Fassett collection, and lots of patriotic and modern fabrics. 

And of course, they have great tuffets! And great tuffet students. Here's the latest batch...

I've just scheduled two more tuffet classes at Quilt-agious this year, Sundays, October 16 and 23, and Thursdays, November 17 and December 1. Call them at (262) 363-3066 to sign up!

Every once in a while I get a request to make a custom tuffet for someone. Well, the client in this case sent over this adorable elephant fabric. This whole tuffet only uses three fabrics (four if you count the button), and they're a heavy weight, either outdoor fabric or at the very least, upholstery fabric. 

When it came to choosing feet, I didn't want to take away from the rest of the tuffet, so I asked the client if I could paint them. I happened to have a set of Stephanie feet with finishes that didn't match, so I sanded them and used chalk paint. I think they came out great! Since then I have added some unfinished feet to my inventory (I'll link them up as soon as I add them to the store), which I plan to use on an upcoming tuffet soon.

Time for another installment of "Cheryl catches up on tuffet posts"! This time we're visiting Quilt Play in Grayslake, IL. We had a great class, even though not everyone finished at the same time. I love being able to teach in so many different places!

If you haven't been to Quilt Play before, you should go. I couldn't resist buying some fabric (and socks!) myself. 

Wow, May. It's been a long time since I've posted! Not that it's a good excuse, but since then I've camped twice, held a garage sale, went to an out-of-state funeral, held another tuffet retreat (post to come later), and am currently dealing with some water damage at my house. But you'll see a number of posts from me coming up because I have a lot to share!

So this post will be all about a tuffet class we had at Quilt-agoius in Mukwonago in May. As an aside, if you're a Kaffe Fassett fan, Quilt-agious has more KF fabrics than any shop I've ever visited. But I digress... on to the tuffets!

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!