Free 2025 Quilt Along, Machine Quilting at Home + Weekend Fabric Sales

Hello friends! I hope this finds you well. Here's what's new around here:

For a myriad of reasons, this week was not as productive as I'd hoped. But, I did get some time at my machine to start catching up on the 2025 Riley Blake Designs free Quilt Block Challenge. Mainly I'm slow getting started because it took me a minute (okay, a month) to pick fabric I wanted to use. Here's a look at the progress that's been made!

This is the 5th year of this free challenge. Click below to read all of the details, get links to the free quilt blocks, find out more about the fabrics I choose, etc.

Using Acrylic Stencils to Simplify Quilting on your Home Machine

For anyone else out there like me who feels too intimidated to do any kind of quilting on your home machine other than straight lines, have I got a great tool to share with you!

Last Fall I met Melodie Harding and she showed me her clever and durable stencils for machine quilting. ANYONE can use them. And they're 20% off for my readers! Click below to meet Melodie and this super helpful tool for finishing your quilts at home!

Fun Finds on the Web: February Finds + Weekend Sales

​Embellishing clothing with upcylcled quilt blocks is a hot trend right now. My goal is to make myself a sweatshirt this weekend to wear to QuiltCon. Melissa of the Polkadot Chair shared a cute raw-edge variation here.

I am a huge fan to traditional folk art - one of the reasons I love quilts in general. In honor of Black History Month, Riley Blake shared an article about Harriet Powers, a 19th-century African-American quilter born into slavery, renowned for her narrative quilts that depict biblical stories. They are now preserved in world-renown musuems.

​SoJo Fabric is one of my favorite online fabric shops. They have an amazing selection + speedy shipping and this weekend through Monday February 17 the majority of the shop is marked down 10-40% off. Includes kits, yardage, bundles, and patterns. No codes needed. Plus Free Shipping for orders over $85.

​Connecting Threads has 20% off Red, White, and Blue fabrics through Feb 20. Plus they will donate 10% of each order to Quilts of Valor.

Are you going to QuiltCon in Phoenix this weekend? Jenni from Nollie + Bean, a Phoenix native, shares a great list of places to visit and eat in Phoenix.

For anyone going to QuiltCon: I'm so excited to go this year! I'll be there Thursday afternoon thru Sat morning. I'll be doing a demo at the Riley Blake Booth at 3:00 Friday afternoon, if you want to come say hi!

If you see me at any point, come say hi! I promise to try and not act like a weirdo, but I make no guarantees. I'm looking at putting together an informal meet-up for breakfast on Saturday morning. Reply to this email if you'd like the details. (For those who have already reached out, I've got you on the list!) I'll send details as soon as they're known!

If you're not going: I'll be posting and sharing as much as possible on Instagram if you want to live vicariously.

For EVERYONE: Congratulations on making it through the 12 darkest weeks of the year. We did it! 😅

If you're feeling stuck in a creative rut and looking for some motivation and creative inspiration - whether it's caused by too much doom scrolling, one of those crummy bugs that makes the rounds this time of year, or just the winter "blahs" - well, know you're not alone. I think it's a fairly common feeling this time of year.

So today I'll leave you with a list of 10 really do-able and helpful tips to help you make time to reignite your creativity written by Samantha Dorn of Aqua Paisley. Even if you only choose one or two of these tips, I think they can make a big difference in inspiring your creative "sewjo".

Samantha is also the author of this fun Memory Lane heart mini quilt that I made a few years back. It was the perfect little project to get over the winter blahs. It's still hanging in my sewing room today.

As always, thank you SO much for stopping by.

Hang in there, friends, and see you next week!

xo,

Amy

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