Author: Diana Mann

Long time no post! I’ve been so busy teaching and making quilts that the poor blog has fallen behind. I’ve been loving patterns by Sarah Furrer lately. She’s an in house CI at Studio 180. Her design aesthetic is so pleasing and modern. This is called Filigree and it uses the Corner Beam tool and the Large Square Squared tool. I used some old Jason Yenter fabrics I had in my stash and I also used a gorgeous Kona Solid called Chalkboard.

So what has been going on in my little corner of the quilting world? I’ve been doing a lot of virtual teaching through Wish Upon a  Quilt.  Tucker Tool Club is still my most sought after set of classes. We will be starting a new session in June. I’m very excited to start again because I get to introduce a whole new group of people to the Studio 180 system. And I get to use Laurie’s gorgeous panels. Laurie is one of the shop owners and she designs fabrics. Because we work together on some of these projects, they are exclusive to Wish. It has opened up a lot of new possibilities for me and it’s very exciting.

I’ve also been teaching a series on the Lemoyne Star tool. It was my intro to Studio 180 and my favorite tool.

Life has been busy, but I love having such wonderful projects to work on. But I take time every day to do things for myself, such as yoga. I started doing it back in December when I was having some back issues and kept up with it when I started feeling better. Now I’m doing daily practice. Tomorrow my husband and I go to get our first dose of the COVID vaccine. We are both excited. It’s a promise that things can’t stay the way they are forever.

Spring is arriving and with it all the flowers and trees will start to come back. Spring is my favorite season. Seeing all the new growth after winter always makes me feel hopeful.

Have you ever begun a quilt so excited to watch it take shape, and half way through get frustrated because your points don’t match, your seam intersections are off, or your blocks aren’t all the same size? When I first began quilting I thought that those things would come with time and practice. And in some ways they did. I learned about that all important scant 1/4″ seam allowance. I learned the best practices for pressing. I learned about the grain of the fabric and bias. But still, sometimes my blocks weren’t the same size or if I was making a complicated block the points would be off. My biggest frustration came in the form of a Lemoyne star block. No matter how many times I tried to make it work, I couldn’t. Wish Upon a Quilt was having a series of classes on the Studio 180 Design Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star tool, taught by a former CI (Certified Instructor). I signed up and I was hooked from the very first stitch.

So what’s the big deal with the Studio 180 Design tools? Why are people so passionate about them? Most tools out there require you to cut precise sizes of the pieces of your units and then sew them together using that perfect scant 1/4″ seam. For things like half square triangles  you’ll often see a 7/8″ measurement included in your instructions. With Studio 180 Design tools you start out but cutting pieces that are slightly larger than they need to be and then once your units are sewn together, you use the tool to trim them down to a precise size. Because all of your units are then trimmed to the exact size you need, your blocks go together with more accuracy and less frustration. Besides that, these tools make quilting fun! I quilt because I enjoy it. It’s an escape from daily stress. And while sometimes it is my job, it’s also my hobby. Who wants to have their hobby be frustrating?

Once you start with a Tucker Tool (Deb Tucker is the founding genius behind Studio 180 Designs) you want to learn more of them. There are a total of 21 tools in the Studio 180 arsenal. Some of them are variations on the same tool, like the Square Squared, Corner Pop, Hunter’s Star, Tucker Trimmer, and the Wing Clipper.  Any quilt out there I see I try to “Tuckerize” it. I convert it to use my Tucker Tools.

If you’re interested in learning these amazing tools, Laurie of Laurie Kent Designs and I came up with a fantastic quilt to teach you 11 of the most basic Tucker Tools. Laurie is one of the owners at Wish Upon a Quilt and she is also a fabric designer. Using one of her panels and gorgeous coordinating fabrics that Laurie chose, I came up with this quilt.

Over the course of a year you will learn all the different tools that go into making the quilt, how to use them, and how to apply them to other patterns. We decided to call it the Tucker Tool Club and this is exclusive to Wish Upon a Quilt. All the classes are being taught over Zoom, so even if you aren’t local to us you can still participate! There are only a few spots left. The membership into the club gets you all the fabric to make the quilt top, access to the private Facebook page for members only where I will be posting extra video content, and 10% off Studio 180 Tools and Technique Sheets for the year. The classes are an additional fee, but if you already know how to use the tool for the month, you don’t have to take the class. Classes are available during the day, evening, and a weekend. If you’re interested, come take a look at the info on the club!

Tucker Tool Club at Wish Upon a Quilt