By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador I've been thinking about the evolution of quilt design. If you stop to consider it, people had to design their quilts even as America was born, and in other cultures, long before that. Star of BethlehemMaker Unidentified1850 - 1870Probably made in Maryland or OhioHand-pieced, hand-quilted; International Quilt Museum [...]
By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador Earlier this month I visited Massachusetts and New Hampshire to do programs for two quilt guilds there. I had a free day between them and my hostess sweetly offered to take me wherever I wanted to go. I opted for the textile mills in Lowell, Mass, and I [...]
By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador Last week it was my pleasure to speak at two quilt guilds in New England. Hannah Dustin Quilt Guild meets in Hudson, New Hampshire. It's named after the colonial woman who was captured during an Indian raid, and escaped from her captors by killing them in the night [...]
By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador A while back I started browsing antique quilts on eBay. For me this is the best kind of window shopping! I'm regularly gobsmacked by the ingenuity of quilt makers from centuries past. I don't need to own these quilts, which are often in poor condition. I can be [...]
A Useful Trick! By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador I've been practicing a new type of binding recently and this morning I added it to a new Christmas quilt. The method is surprisingly simple. It takes a little longer to prepare this binding over a traditional one but I think the results are worth [...]
By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador I've been binding quilts for decades but until recently had never done what I'm about to show you. I have never seen this step spelled out in binding instructions and I can't quite determine why, as I find it to be very helpful. Sew the binding to the [...]
By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador My current project is a sampler quilt called Halloween Figs from Joanna Figueroa at Fig Tree & Co. I'm making mine more scrappy than the original, which means there's a new decision at every turn. Yesterday I came to the point I always reach in a scrap quilt, [...]
By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador There are days when I feel like I am under the pile. Do you know what I mean? An actual photo of my space one day last spring. So (or sew) much to do, and so little time to do it. It seems to be life in the [...]
By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador I hope you've discovered the engaging new campaign by Handi Quilter called "And I Quilt." It is so interesting! The quilting community is diverse, and Handi Quilter shines a light on that. The latest person featured is Jeresther Thorpe-Page, who is a school principal and a mom, AND [...]
By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador I have a few dozen Christmas and holiday quilts that make up the Jingle Bells Trunk Show. This time of year, I give it regularly for quilt guilds around the country. I'm always adding to it, and last week I picked up a quilt from my extraordinary longarm [...]
