Inspiration from Garden of Quilts + Perfect Patterns for National Jelly Roll Day!

Greetings friends!

Hope your weekend is treating you well. So many things to share today!

First of all, a brand new blog post about the Garden of Quilts event that I participated in last weekend.

2025 Garden of Quilts Recap + a little healing for the soul

My heart is still so full after attending this inspiring event. I know it's not possible for all of you to be there, so I tried to capture the feeling and views of this years' Garden of Quilts.

Surrounded by stunning gardens and hundreds of breathtaking quilts, I was reminded again of the healing, hope, and connection that this creative community brings.

Plus I got to see 2 of my favorite famous icons in one morning. Click below to read more.

Improv Log Cabin Quilt Tutorial

This week I pulled out my recent favorite fall quilt. This Improv Log Cabin quilt is SO much fun to make. And, believe it or not, it's so EASY!

I am ready to make another in a new color palette. But what to choose? Maybe all low volumes? That would be fun! What color palette would you choose?

National Sew a Jelly Roll Day

Today (9/20) is National Sew a Jelly Roll Day! In honor of that special, time-honored day, The Fat Quarter Shop is having 20% off all Jelly Rolls with code JR2025 at checkout.

For anyone new to the quilting-world-lingo, "Jelly Rolls" are a collection of 40 precut 2 1/2" wide Width of Fabric strips. They're perfect for getting a large variety of prints that are pre-cut and ready to sew!

Looking for ideas for using Jelly Rolls? Here are a few of my favorite patterns and tutorials. AND the patterns are 20% off through 9/21 only!

• ​Free Rail Fence Tutorial​
• ​A Bushel and a Peck Pattern​
• ​Hopscotch Quilt Pattern​
• ​Fraulein Quilt Pattern​

And here are a few other favorite Jelly Roll Patterns from around the web:

• ​Free Jelly Roll PDF patterns from the Fat Quarter Shop​
• ​Free Two by Four Quilt tutorial from Film in the Fridge​
• ​Free - Easy Courthouse Steps Baby Quilt​
• ​A New Take on Jelly Roll Patterns (book)
• ​Fast Track Pattern by A Bright Corner​

Come Take a Photography Course With Me!

I've had my eye on the Beginning Quilt Photography course taught by Shelly of Ma Tante Quilts for over a year now. (Quilts are not the easiest thing to photograph!) This week she's opening the doors to the fall session of this course. I'm so excited to finally take it and uplevel my quilt-photography skills.

Want to learn more about this course? Shelly is hosting two sessions of a FREE one-hour quilt photography masterclass this week (Sep 22 or 23) where she'll teach 3 secrets to upping your photography skills. You can find the details here. Maybe I'll see you there?

This week has been all about recovery and cleaning up the chaos left over from the whirlwind that was Garden of Quilts last weekend. I started out super motivated and then came down with a cold, which held up my mojo a little bit. But good news, I'm slowly returning to full function. And maybe it was good for me to take a few more naps this week.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it - as much as I love in-person events, they kind of exhaust me. I've always thought I was an introvert, but just this week I learned the term Otrovert: "people who enjoy being around people but need alone time to recharge afterward". That describes me perfectly. 😅

That said, the time with people and nature in that stunning garden was so beautiful and exactly what I needed. In a world that feels so fractured and divided it did my heart and mind so much good to connect with a variety of good people from all over the country who came together because they love quilts. You can see more of my favorite quilts from the event in my Instagram Stories.

I had some profound conversations about how working with our hands - especially sewing through times of stress, loss, or grief - bring healing, hope and comfort.

Many of these conversations were with people who were complete strangers at the beginning of the conversation. And yet hearts were knit together through connecting over similar thoughts, feelings and experiences. It was such a beautiful contrast and restorative balm in our current environment of distraction, discord, and division. And a reminder that humanity is still made up of good, good people. They're just not getting the big headlines.

And let's not forget the calming, therapeutic properties of getting outside into nature, just sitting and "being" still. A magnificent garden is a pretty great place to practice that.

If you're feeling weighed down by the world, I highly recommend talking to more people in person, not less. And take time to be outside. Especially during this golden month of the year. (At least for use northern hemisphere folks.)

It doesn't need to be a fancy garden full of quilts - just take a walk, look at the clouds, feel the breeze or change of temperature in the air, and take a deep breath. It's so restorative.

(And stop doom-scrolling. 🙃 I'm pointing to myself on this one.)

Love to all of you, my friends.

xo,

Amy

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