Thursday, July 4, 2019

9 Year Blogiversary and Introducing Tutorial Throwback Thursday!!!

Wow, so this week marks the 9 Year anniversary of staring my blog, Happy Quilting!!!  Just wow!!!  In that 9 years I have posted over 2000 blog posts, hosted over 300 Giveaways,  created over 75 free step-by-step tutorials, including the annual Quilt Alongs, and made a countless number of quilts!!!   And more importantly, I have made a countless number of quilting friends along the way!!!    I am daily grateful that I can share this quilting journey with each of you and can not thank you enough for joining me!!!


And so, with this being 9 years that means next year is my big 10 year anniversary.   And as I considered this, I decided I wanted to do something special leading up to that big 10!!!  I thought for a while and  I decided to do a new little feature here at Happy Quilting :)  It's called  Tutorial Throwback Thursday!!    Staring next week, and every Thursday leading to July 2020 I will share one of my Happy Quilting tutorials.   And I plan to share some "bonus features" on each of the tutorials.   Some more of the story of the quilt, the design inspiration, or just some funny introspect that I realize now after writting for 9 years ;)  My hope is that for a lot of you who joined in on the Happy Quilting journey somewhere along those 9 years, that you will get to see a little throwback from the past, and hopefully some "new to you" tutorials that inspire you ;)   And for those who have been with me from the start, well, it will still be a throwback and I hope you will be equally inspired to try something from "yesteryear" :)



And what better way to start off a Tutorial Throwback Thrusday that just happens to be on the 4th of July than with a Star Spangled Tutorial!!!  So let's throw way back to 2012 when I shared my Star Spangled Table Runner Tutorial!!!


And right away, the fun thing I realized with sharing these throwbacks is that with older tutorials comes older pictures as well.   These pics are at 200 pixels, which means sorry, a little blurry when I try to make them larger ;)  Another thing that I learned with time.   But I did try and spruce up the color a bit ;)

Anyhow, this tutorial is such a fun one to make!!!   I learned to do improv curves at a retreat and enjoyed every second of it.  So I incorporated what I had learned into this tutorial.   You make the improv curve by stacking your strips on top of one another with an inch overlap.  


And then you just start cutting a wavy curve, and it cuts both pieces with the same curve, making it easy to sew together.   And when I say easy, I do mean easy.  Because these are improv curves and they will be trimmed, it doesn't even matter if your ends line up, just start stitching and see where you end up, and then trim the ends straight.  So fun and easy and a wonderful way to start learning curves because you can't go wrong!!!



And then add some machine applique stars and you have a cute table runner!!!  And if you have never done applique before, I did a video tutorial over here that walks you through all of the steps of applique.   So you can possibly try two new things with this tutorial, Applique and Improv Curves!!



And another reminder that this particular tutorial is quite a throwback, I am quilting it on a home machine, and it happens to be my very first sewing machine ;)   I actually posted about Bernadette back here.    I still have her and she is a great little machine for teaching beginning sewers on.   I just love that!!    And speaking of the quilting, I did some all over Stars and Loops, which is a design that happens to be in the 180 More Doodle Quilting Designs book that I posted about over here ;) 



And how about that for our first Tutorial Throwback Thrusday!!!   That really was so much fun :)   So to make your own Star Spangled Table Runner just pop over here to the free step by step tutorial.   And when you are done, I would love to see it!!!  !!  You can email me a picture at happyquiltingmelissa@gmail.com, post it to social media with #happyquiltingwithmc  or or add it to my flickr group here ;)  I can't wait to see your Star Spangled Table Runners!!!


Thanks so much for popping in today and each and every day!!!  I am so looking forward to this entire year of Tutorial Throwback Thursday's!!  I really think it is going to be a fun feature that has a lot of looking back over the Happy Quilting journey ;) 

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17 comments:

  1. Happy 9th AD. Looking forward to seeing all your tutorials! I really like this tutorial as I have been thinking more about trying to do improv curves. Maybe this is the push I need! Thank you and Happy 4th.

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  2. Happy 4th of July and this is a great Idea. I did one of your quilt alongs and I loved it. Thanks for all you share.

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  3. Happy anniversary. I love your tutorials. I don't think I've seen this one before.

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  4. This is a great way to bring back fun tutorials, Melissa! I need to try curved stripes like this, so it's exciting for me to see this! Happy Blogiversary to you and your awesome blog!

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  5. Well, how cute is that?! What a fun way to celebrate with this lovely table runner! Happy 4th and Happy Blogaversary!

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  6. Happy Blogaversary! You've done a great job keeping it going!

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  7. Congratulations! I am looking forward to following along.

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  8. Happy Blogaversary Melissa. I enjoy your blog and I am looking forward to seeing these tutorials. I am sure I have forgotten about some of them so they will be new to me.(Like the one you shared today) Thank you.

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  9. Wow
    9 years. Congratulations. I just looked back to see how long I have been following you. My first Quilt Aling with you was Starburst so it will be nearly 7 years. Thankyou for all you have given in that time.

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  10. Congratulations on your 9 year blogiversary! I love reading your post and will appreciate the "TBT" tutorials, too!
    Sandy A

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  11. Congrats on your anniversary! I recognize that blue star fabric and think there might still be scraps of it hanging around in my stash!

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  12. Congratulations! I have used a few of your tutorials along the way, so thank you very much for all your hard work!

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  13. Happy anniversary! I have enjoyed your blog, especially the posts when you teach children or your daughter to quilt!!! I have participated in two quilt alongs and have used several tutorials! Your instructions are so easy to follow!

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  14. This is going to be so much fun! I am glad that I have followed along on your journey. Happy blogaversary.

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  15. Happy Blogavery Melissa.
    Great one for your US friends....

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  16. happy blogversary!
    je continue en français parce que je ne suis pas confiante pour écrire en anglais. j'aime l'idée de revenir en arrière pour cet anniversaire. même si nos images sont trop petites et floues, c'est merveilleux de mesurer le chemin parcouru avec un blog.
    heureux anniblog !

    Muriel la Française

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Thank you so much for your sweet comments. I just love hearing from you!!
Have a Happy Quilting Day :)

Melissa