Music of the Spheres

Saturn's rings detail pieced and quilted by Emily Milne

This was a quilt that Emily did for a Festival of Quilts exhibition when she was quite young. I'm re-visiting it because of a conversation that we had with our son Ben when he came home for a visit. I love having kids! They keep you up to date on all the interesting things that are happening in the wide world and beyond.

Saturn's rings and stars an original line design by Emily Milne

Ben, who is Emily's twin brother, came home to celebrate Pete's 13th birthday a couple of weeks ago. He wanted us to hear this NASA recording of the sounds that the planets make in space. Well, we were surprised. Rosie who is taking physics in Sixth Form said that she was surprised that there could be sound in space. But Ben assured us via Nasa that there were enough particles in space to carry the sound waves and that the sounds could be heard by the human ear. Cool stuff! Here's the link for Saturn but you can hear all the planets by following the other links on the right.

Saturn - the Lord of Time

I chuckled because the ancient philosopher and mathmatician, Pythagoras had a theory about the Music of the Spheres. Many people in the Middle Ages were fond of the idea and they came up with it without all the modern technology of NASA. There is nothing new under the sun!

Heart FMQ Tutorial

Heart Muscle an every-which -way pattern

Hearts are, perhaps my favourite motif.  I use them all year but I'm always happy when February rolls around. This year we've posted a Heart themed FMQ tutorial on the Line Dancing site.

Baby Bum hearts

The heart shape is a core shape for Free-motion-quilting. We use it on it's own and in combination with other shapes.

Scalloped hearts in Bubblegum Rainbows Thread

Our tutorial shows lots of different ways to create and extend the heart shape in many directions. The Line Dancing tutorial will get you doodling and stitching in all directions. You'll see some great thread tips too. 

There are some fun ideas for Valentine projects.

heart feathers

There are down-loadable Valentine post card templates so you can cut up your practice piece to create Valentine postcards! The downloadable post card template comes free with the purchase of the Line Dancing heart tutorial.

Valentine post card

Practice stitching the heart shapes on some pretty scrap fabric. You've had fun, and learned lots of new ways to make hearts. Now you can make something pretty and useful with your practice piece.

FMQ heart practice piece, all ready to cut up

 Simply print our downloadable post card templates on card in your printer.  Then cut them out with a dull rotary cutter.Cut pieces from your heart practice piece to match the post card shape and zig-zag stitch around the outside. You can make lots for family and friends. People are so surprised that they really do go through the post!

Zig-zag stitch around the edge

Way to Go Ravens!

Joe Flacco Super Bowl MVP

Yes, I'm from Baltimore. And the Baltimore Ravens did win the Super bowl!  So it's happy times for lots of my friends and family back home. My son Ben who lives and works in Lincoln came home to visit Sunday so he could collect his American football gear and watch the game in style. He must have had a great night. I went to bed and only found out in the morning. But I wanted to celebrate too. So I hung out the fleece!

And Played around with the Ravens' purple and gold colors on the 6 foot Art Quilter frame.

 This new colour from the brand new Fantastico range from Superior Threads would have been perfect. But all the cones of Fantastico were gleefully grabbed at the Machine Quilting Retreat last weekend. We tried Fantastico at the Retreat for the first time and we loved it! It's so new that there's only 20 colours available but I'll be re-stocking everything I can get!

Fantastico 5015 Purple and gold - perfect Raven colours

I'm going to make this into a post card for my brother-in-law Dan who is quite the Ravens fan!

using the JUKI TL98P on the 6 foot Art Quilter frame