Guest Blogger: Tote Bag to Carry all your Projects by Tilda's Twisted Life (Tutorial)

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Hello to all the Kool Beanz readers! Thank you so much to April for having me over as a guest blogger! My name is Melinda and I blog over at Tilda's Twisted Life.

I am a Georgia girl who started crafting at an early age. I learned to embroider, crochet and cross-stitch from my grandmother and mom as a child. I started making home decor items and some clothing about 12 years ago; this branched off later into lots of bag making. Just about a year ago, I got really interested in quilting so I sort of threw myself into it. Though I created my blogging site earlier, I didn't actually start posting anything until March so I'm slowly working toward a first year anniversary for that as well. I was trying to think of some interesting things about myself. Hmmm....

• I didn't learn to sew on a machine until I got married. Hubby bought me a machine and actually taught me how (his great grandmother was a seamstress, and his mom and grandmother both sewed!).
• Hubby and I knew each other in high school but didn't date until I was a senior. After a year of dating, we broke up and didn't see each other at all for 9 years. Then we ran into each other at a hospital we were both working at and we were married within 2 years!

I have been in desperate need for a project bag and searched the internet for what I wanted (with not a lot of luck!). So I decided to take a basic bag and modify it to meet my needs. This bag is BIG, but I give you instructions on how to make it smaller (I'm planning on making a smaller version later!). Want to see it?

Yes, you can make a smaller version! But I love the big one too. I actually took it to our quilting guild's Saturday Sewcial yesterday and it was so nice because EVERYTHING fit in it! I am planning on making a smaller version later with a quilt block front from my X Marks the Spot quilt.  Need a project bag, big or small? I have a great tutorial on my blog.  Come by and check it out!

Casting Call for Guest Bloggers!

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Hey Yall, If anyone is interested in sharing a tutorial you created or showing off something really cool that you made, by all means PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

Basicly how you do a Guest Post is you pretend as if you are typing up a post on your own blog.  Include pictures and any links as you normally do.  Then click on EDIT HTML in the upper right corner right above where you are typing.  You will then do a select all kind of thing, copy the entire post, then paste into a blank email to me.  I will then copy it, paste it into the EDIT HTML box on my own blog in a New Post, then click the COMPOSE button.  VOILA!  I have your guest post!  Does this make sense?

What we can do is you just type up a short paragraph or a few bullet points about yourself under your face picture preferably.  If you don't want to include a picture of yourself, no biggie.

Then under that you can include a highlight picture of your awesome project/full tutorial with a link that directs readers to your blog.  If the tutorial is already on your blog or you planned to put it on your blog, just do a post as mentioned above and link back to your blog's tutorial post.  There is no rush for this, just whenever.  Regardless if you want to show off or post a tutorial on my blog, make sure you do a post on your own blog telling your readers that you are Guest Blogging at KoolBeenz & please include one of my graphics in the button section on the right side bar.

I will proofread and correct any typos as needed before posting.  Don't forget to grab my GUEST BLOGGER button on the right side bar!  :)

Guest Blogger - No Guilt! by Hillbilly Handiworks

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Howdy! (That's Hillbilly talk for Hello *grin*). 

I am Tonya from Hillbilly Handiworks.

When first invited by April to be a guest blogger,

I thought that I would do a post about my unconventional (but very creative) way of storing fabric.

Two pictures ought to do that for you:

To read more about it, you may visit HERE.

Since that was quick and easy,

and since this blog is for a wide variety of creative people,

I thought I would share the words of one of my most popular posts.

I hope it encourages you too!

Do you ever feel guilty for using your creative talents?
I do. This is something that I really struggle with.
I feel like if I am sewing,
then I am not giving my husband his time,
or my boys their time.
There is always cleaning that could be done instead.
EVERY SINGLE DAY, without fail, I go through a battle.

I plan to head to my sewing room on certain evenings (Mon, Tue, and Thurs).
During the day I get so excited at the prospect of getting some projects worked on.
Then by evening...here comes the guilt.

I was reading a homeschool magazine a while back,
and they had great article about guilt.
I jotted a few notes that I expanded upon and want to share with you.
(Just to give credit where credit is due,
the article was written by Deborah Wuchler, The Old Schoolhouse, Spring 2010).

Basically Deborah says all of our guilty feelings stem from one thing:
EXPECTATIONS.
We expect things of ourselves.
We have a list of things that we feel others expect of us.
And all those expectations add up to guilt.

Some areas that are common for personal struggle are:

1. "I am not doing it the right way". It's ok to do it YOUR way. You don't have to do what everyone else in blog land is doing. Or how the pattern says to. Try it your  way. Make it work for YOU. 
2. "My work is not adequate enough." For who? Break away from the quilt police, or knitting police, or painting police,or jewelry police, or... Give yourself a chance to nurture your talent and to learn from it. I have really been doing that over the past year. 
3. "I can't do it all!". My house needs cleaned, I need to plan school, I need to sew this and that charity quilt, I need to sew things my family wants, I need to sew things to sell to relieve the stress on my husband, I need to have Husband and Me time, I need to find time alone with each child, I need to...STOP! Don't let yourself get overwhelmed by all that life has for you to do. I really badly struggle in this area. I think most of my personal guilt comes from this point alone. While each of these things are important, they can't all be done in a day. 

I could go on here, but you get the idea.

 Don't let your expectations take away your joy! 

Does anyone else struggle with guilt? 

Thank you April for having me. 

Please, pop on over for a visit and say hello!

Hi! I'm guest blogging today....

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Hi!
 I'm Jean from Jean's Quilting Page. I work by day as a Library Clerk for a local elementary school and in my spare time I teach quilt piecing classes. I have been sewing all my life, quilting for about 17 years and teaching classes for about 7 years.  I like to design quilts for my classes, but I also teach classes using other artist's patterns. I love trying new techniques and my students end up trying them eventually too!

Recently, I have been working on a new quilt from Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts by Kaffe Fassett called St. Marks. This is a picture of it from the book. It is made up of lots of diamonds. You use a combination of 4 light, 3 medium, 1 light/medium and 1 dark diamond to make a 9 patch diamond. It is very scrappy and I am using contemporary fabrics.

One of the challenges for me is deciding which fabrics are mediums. I think it all depends on how they compare to the lights and darks. Now that might sound just a little too simple, but haven't you ever noticed how fabrics can change appearance depending on what they are with? Lights can look medium, mediums can look light depending on what they are with. So I ended up pairing up fabrics that showed the variance of shades against each other

Here are the 9 diamonds I am using for this block. As you can see, my dark isn't super dark. I just hope it shows up well with the others in the whole quilt.

 You sew your diamonds together in diagonal rows...

and end up with this cute block!

 Here are some blocks I made yesterday. I have about 46 blocks now. There are 2 blocks of most color combinations.

Here are some of the blocks on my portable design wall.

Thank you, April, for asking me to be a guest blogger today, and thanks to YOU for taking the time to read my post! You can read more about making these blocks on my blog post tomorrow!

Guest Bloggers Wanted!

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Hey Yall,

I have seen posts on blogs by Guest Bloggers and would like to add that element to my own blog.  If anyone is up for it, please let me know.  I would like to have 2 Guest Bloggers per month, on the 1st & 3rd Tuesdays.  You can blog about a craft or sewing project.  Below is the "Grab" button that I made.


To create your Guest Post, you will create & send me the HTML for your post.  It's super easy!  Just type up your post with pics as you normally would in Blogger, but then click on the Edit HTML tab and copy & paste everything in there into an email for me.  Then I'll just paste it into a new post where I introduce you and we're all set.

Let me know if you have any questions.