My name is Andy and I blog here at abrightcorner.com. I sell some of my quilts and patterns on an etsy site and I keep a flickr page for my quilting projects. I also write a food blog over at dinnersonme.blogspot.com although I'm not as faithful about posting over there. You can email me at: abrightcorner [at] gmail [dot] com
Here are answers to some of the questions I get asked most often:
How long have you been a quilter?
I created my first quilt when I was 17. It was one of my last Personal Progress goals (a program of goals for personal and spiritual development for the Young Women's organization of my church.) So that is about 20 years of quilting. I did slow down a bit in college - I remember making only three or four over those years.
Do you do your own machine quilting, or send it out?
I do my own. I used to do the piecing and quilting on a small Brother machine that I bought from Costco years ago. It did a miraculous job! I recently upgraded to a Juki TL-2010Q.
How do you have time to sew? / You must sew all day!
I really only sew when my kids are sleeping. That limits me to about 90 minutes during the day (nap time) and two to three hours in the evening before I get so sleepy my vision becomes blurry. I don't sew every night - maybe four times a week. Sewing and quilting has replaced tv time. There's not really anything on that I care about anyway.
Will you show me how to bind a quilt?
I use this tutorial by Heather Bailey. I could write up my own how to with lovely photos and such, but why re-invent the wheel, right?
Where do you find your patterns?
Most of my quilt patterns are my own creation. I see an idea or an inspiration and work out the measurements with graph paper, Adobe Illustrator and a calculator. A handful of times I have used an online tutorial to help with measurements or block construction (like for my Picnic String Quilt). I've also done two quilt-a-longs (Red White and Blue and Old Red Barn Co. Quilt-a-long).
