Lots to crush on this week! First is MaMa’s finished quilt.
I’m so happy to have this finish, and I am really pleased with the way it turned out. Especially since my quilting plan was to “sew and see what happens”. Do you ever use a plan like that? 🙂
Everything about this quilt was fast and easy. The blocks are big (9-1/4″ unfinished) and I had the top together quickly. The most time consuming part of this make was trimming the HST blocks and that didn’t really take very long. Stitching the floppy feathers is always fun and fast – I just love using that quilting design.
Then came the binding. I used this scrumptious print from Corey Yoder’s Flower Mill Collection. She has the same print in green that I would rather have used, but all I had was a fat quarter piece. The quilt shop didn’t have it, so the red it was. I think it ended up being the best choice because it gives the quilt such a bright, uplifting vibe.
Now, hold on to your seats because I’m about to surprise you. I put the binding on, top and back, by machine! And while it isn’t perfect, it doesn’t look bad. I’m pretty happy with it. I just love how that binding looks on the quilt.
I have to share a couple more shots of the binding to show how nice it looks. I surprised myself!

Machine Binding – Front View

A pretty nice mitered corner!
I’m happy to say the quilt has now been delivered and I hope MaMa finds a tiny bit of comfort when she uses it. I said a lot of prayers for her while making the quilt and I trust she will feel the love that went into it.
So, you’ve probably noticed my blog has a new look. What do you think? The redesign has been in the works for a while. I wanted to update everything to reflect my new branding and give it all a cohesive look. I began by working with Lindsie Bergevin, a wonderful graphic designer who took my jumbled ideas and created a branding package for Cooking Up Quilts. Lindsie also created a template for my patterns with the new branding. After we had the pattern template in place it was time to work on the website.
In the website redesign, one of the things I wanted to add was a shop to make purchasing patterns and finished items easier for my readers and customers. Lindsie pulled it off like a champ, and you can access the pattern shop through the side menu, the slider at the top of the home page, or by any of the links sprinkled throughout the site.
I would also like to invite you to sign up to receive my newsletter, which I’ll begin sending out the last quarter of this year. It will be a monthly newsletter that will focus on free motion quilting and be filled with tips on helping you turn those finished tops into finished quilts. When you sign up, you’ll receive my paper Top 10 Tips for Moving Past ‘Quilt as Desired’.
(Dang! I just totally impressed myself that I was able to add that opt-in box! LOL)
There’s a lot more to the site that I’ll be talking about later but I’ve done enough talking for today. I hope you’ll take some time to browse around and let me know what you think. If you find anything confusing or difficult to navigate please let me know. I promise it won’t upset me. I want this site to be easy and enjoyable for you and I appreciate all your feedback.
Now it’s time to hear from you – it is your turn to talk! What are you crushing on that has you excited to be in your sewing space? I would love to see what your are working on. You can link any blog post, Instagram or Flickr pic – here’s how:

Your new website looks grand! As does Mama’s quilt! I approach my scrap quilting in the same manner. I’m seldom disappointed in the results.
Your new site is awesome Beth! I love the look and feel, and it is very easy to navigate through. Did you program the new design yourself?
love your new website! And the colourways in it too. I much prefer main crush to man crush. A fabric crush is much more useful!
Hi Beth, your website is fabulous! Congrats!!!
Great quilt and I like the new look of your website! Nicely done. It’s easy to navigate from my phone, and the color and design are fresh and fun.
Your binding looks great as well as the new blog look:)
Beautiful quilt! And I love the new website design – I’ve been tossing the idea around myself lately, and now I’m inspired!
The site looks great! Wonderful design. And your machine binding looks spot on–much better than I’ve managed, for sure, without cheating by using a faux flange!
I love the geese in the print fabric. Thank you for hosting the linky party.
I’m going to try machine binding on my next finish. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I saw a tutorial recently in which dots of glue was used to hold it in place while stitching. The fabric you choose for the binding was great. It is really cheerful. Your new blog is just fantastic. All my clicks seem to work perfectly.
Your branding and redesign is terrific. I love the way the quilt finished and will be binding a quilt like that this week. It is a great and quick way to bind.
The site looks great!
I love your new look. It is quite a feat to have all this hard work come together for you. I wish you much continued success!
It’s awesome that you were able to finish MaMa’s quilt so quickly; the binding looks great to me! Congratulations on the big website change, too.
looks great! isn’t it nice that there are people out there that design web sites for people, hope it works well for you
Your blog looks fabulous! The color scheme is a lot of fun. 😀
I really like your new blog design! I would love to have someone take my half baked ideas and do the same thing! Your binding looks pretty darn good to me!
Looking great, Beth!
Congrats on the finish, it turned out beautifully! Lots of fun stuff on your updated site. It looks very fresh, which is a good thing for a quilt cook.
Love the redesign! Nice job!
Cute new website design, I love it! Beautiful binding, well done by machine ????