It's Monday

I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve my communication with people who are interested in what I do and to grow my audience.  Recently, I was reading an article about how to have an unsuccessful blog.  Who would want to spend all that time writing a blog post, thinking about interesting content and moving the photos into the right spot for uploading if they wanted to be unsuccessful? It sounds silly, but I guess the title was to grab your attention, and it grabbed mine.  I felt pretty good reading the article.  The tip that would make me an unsuccessful blogger is that my posts are erratic.

The other day, this message was brought home to me.  My husband is not really into much soial media, but the other day hes mentioned that he was looking forward to someone's blog that he reads every Friday.  That surprised me, but it showed me that people do indeed look for certain blog posts on certain days of the week.

So starting with this post, I am committing to blog every Monday, thus the name "It's Monday".  Now that I have a monthly newsletter and post frequently on Instagram, a weekly post seems just the right frequency to blog.

This is my quilt that I created with a new line of fabric from Riley Blake, designed by Betz White called Juxtaposey.  The llamas caught my eye, and I have a certain DIL that loves llamas.  I named the quilt " Llama Kisses" and I constructed it with Curvalicious both to make the blocks and to create the scalloped border.

I started out with a plan to make a 9 patch.

I wasn't happy with how it looked so I eliminated a bunch of blocks and made it into a 4 patch.

It looked a little plain to me.  Curvalicious to the rescue to create a scalloped border.  I find that it's easier to attach  the binding to the border after it is quilted and before trimming.  

The first step is to mark the border.  Any pen will work because it will end up being the cutting line.  I  like to use one that I can see easily.  

To form the corner curve, use a circular template, like a plate or plastic templates in one corner. 

Copy it onto a piece of parchment paper and use it to create identical curves in each of the other 3 corners.

Since I had a limited amount of fabric for the binding, I had to use straight grain binding, even though I would have preferred bias binding. I make double fold French binding.   I lined up the raw edges of the binding with the line I drew using Curvalicious.  The good news is that since the curve was so gentle, straight grain worked just fine.  After stitching, trim along the marked line being careful not to cut into the quilt and then turn the binding to the back and stitch it down.

I do have a video on YouTube that demonstrates using Curvalicious for binding. 

 Click this LINK to be redirected.

And I created the backing to use up the extra fabric.

 What a sweet little quilt and it looks like Spring is finally here! Check your local quilt shop for Juxtaposey and maybe you'll make Llama Kisses.