There’s No Place Like Home

There’s no Place Like Home. This is what Dorothy in the movie The Wizard of Oz wanted most…to go home. All she had to do was click her heels three times and say, “There’s no place like home”. Home is our safe haven—it’s where we feel safe and where we have our family to love and care for. Home is where we can be ourselves surrounded by our favorite things. A home is a source of comfort—it’s no wonder that we love house quilts. I think one of the reasons we quilt is to make and display our quilted works of art in our homes. We work each day to be able to have a home and fix it up so it expresses who we are. To have a home that you love and where you feel loved is everything. I decorate my home with my quilts. This makes it feel cozy and where I want to be. Recently, I’ve seen more house quilt patterns -- I love them all. Home is more than likely what inspired Stacy Michell for the new AccuQuilt GO!® Home die. I recently watched a video of Stacy Michell discussing this new GO! Home die. She said she designed it to have the look of a Baltimore Album quilt. This die is so versatile that you could easily just use one of the shapes on the die for a mug rug or another project.

Coming Home is the fabric line I used for my next mini-quilt that I designed. This fabric was designed by Deb Strain for Moda and inspired by the Midwest Barn Quilts. Here is her statement of how she came up with the idea for this fabric line: “Living and traveling in the Midwest I have come to cherish the recent tradition of Barn Quilts. One cannot travel far without seeing a Quilt Lovers display of their favorite quilt block on the family barn. This wonderful phenomenon has added pattern, design and color to the already soothing landscape. It is a tribute to the love and growing movement of fabric art. Barn Quilts express a lifestyle of the person living there, a statement of creativity, passion and fun. For all Quilters, with or without a Barn Quilt, this group is in honor of you!”

Barn Quilts were my inspiration for this mini-quilt. For my little houses, I used the wood panel fabric and the quilt fabric from the Coming Home fabric line for my petite Barn Quilts. I was thinking the tiny triangles for the sun would be too small to work with but they worked out fine. For my appliqué, I used Steam-A-Seam2®. Just press to the backside of the fabric before cutting with the AccuQuilt GO! Baby® Fabric Cutter and GO! Home die. I then peeled off the paper backing and arranged my appliqué pieces where I wanted them to be. I then gave it another press to secure to the background fabric. I used matching thread and a blanket stitch on my sewing machine. The grassy meadow is one of the fabrics in the Coming Home fabric line.

I hand quilted the clouds on this mini-quilt. For the sky I used Moda marble fabric. I wanted my sky to be a bit lighter than the color of the fabric so I used the backside. My chimney’s are from a scrap piece of fabric that looks like stones. It’s easy to use up your scraps when you’re using the AccuQuilt GO! dies. You only need to place your fabric scraps on the shapes you want to cut out.

Homemade. Handmade gifts are fun to make and to give to others. It’s evident that people everywhere love homemade crafts.

To show the versatility of the GO! Home die, you can easily utilize one shape on the die for your next project. I used the heart shape and cut out 12 hearts using 12 different red fabrics. Again, I used the Steam-A-Seam2 and pressed it to the backside of the fabric before cutting it out on the die. I used the hearts for this cute little zipper bag. Zipper bags (as I call them) are fun and easy to make. They make for great gifts, travel companions, or for sewing supplies storage.

One of the things I love about AccuQuilt’s GO! dies is being able to cut out shapes for quilts quickly. This is something very beneficial to someone like me who works a full-time job. One of my favorite GO! dies is the GO! Hexagons. It’s wonderful for cutting out the hexagon shapes accurately and quickly. I cut out my hexagons and then take them on camping trips. It’s a great hand sewing project.

About Blogger:

Home Sweet Home. Carol lives in Glendale, AZ but was born and raised in Denver, CO. That’s where she met her husband Jim. Both she and her husband are crafty people by nature. She loves to sew, quilt and embroider while he loves woodworking and restoring a vintage 1951 Jeep Willy. They are lovers of the mountains and camping and they love their two little Boston Terrier doggies – Buster & Betty. Carol often uses the dogs in her pictures of the quilts she makes. Her husband is a retired teacher and she works each day in an office. In Carol’s spare time, she can be found in her sewing room where she’s always making something. Carol can also be found online at her blog, Carol’s Crafty Creations at http://carolscraftblog.blogspot.com. She started her blog in February 2008. That’s when her world opened up to meeting her best friends who she has never met in person but she can truly call her friends. Just goes to show you that quilters are the nicest, most generous people around.