Teach Crafting Online with Melanie Ham, Episode #39
Or you can watch the podcast using this player:
Click Here to check out Melanie’s YouTube Channel. I love her videos which are so nicely edited and clearly demonstrated.
Also check out Melanie’s Premium Course Website Melanie Makers. This is where Melanie shares more in-depth courses, projects, and quilt alongs. Remember she shared a coupon code in the podcast – make sure to enter Leah in the checkout to save 25% on your course!
I really enjoyed talking with Melanie because she and I do the same thing! We both make videos and teach a craft online and work daily to balance our busy schedules along with taking care of our kids, running our businesses, and managing our households. Of course, all of the messy bits get edited out of our videos (along with the unfinished bits too!) but it can be a struggle to get everything done on time.
Melanie mentioned struggling to be consistent in posting her videos and ultimately decided sharing videos on a set weekly day wasn’t for her. She shares videos as they’re ready, which seems to be working great on her channel!
Many of Melanie’s crochet videos have gone viral which means they got a much larger number of views in a shorter amount of time than other videos. Making a viral video is like winning the lottery – you never know if what you’re making will be a hit.
I admit, I honestly didn’t expect Melanie to respond when I asked her to be on the podcast. It’s easy to look at numbers and let comparisonitis set in and start feeling less than someone else just based on subscribers and video views. But Melanie immediately responded and wanted to join in the fun!
The most important thing is to keep putting yourself out there and don’t let fear stand in your way. I’m so happy to have a new quilting friend to root for on YouTube!
Now for the updates for this week…
I have a new machine embroidery collection ready for you! Marvelous Modern Designs is an awesome new collection of 25 designs that will stitch out into a 100 mm (3.9 inch) square.
Click Here to find this new embroidery collection.
We’re already working on a few fun projects to showcase these designs and I’ve been experimenting with some new quilt-as-you-go techniques to connect the blocks together faster as well.
Click Here to find a simple table runner project. Change out the embroidery designs to create a showcase of modern textures for your table!
Yesterday I shared a collaboration with Margaret Leuwen and a tutorial on quilting hearts and echoes. Click Here to find the tutorial.
I love how this block turned out! I’ll be sharing another video for Margaret’s quilt along in a few months on how to audition quilting designs. It was so sweet to be included in Margaret’s project!
This week I’ve also been working on my Express Your Love embroidery project which is nearly finished! I noticed some distortion on this project after finishing the blue background. It was pulling around the edges and not laying flat with nice straight sides.
So I mounted it onto a piece of Bosal foam and I’ve been hand stitching it in place and sorting out the worst of the distortion. I also plan to add black borders and maybe quilt it too so who am I kidding?! This thing is never going to be finished!
I am really pleased with how it’s going and how much I’ve accomplished on this project in just 30-40 minutes a day since September. You can do a lot in a short space of time, so long as you take that time every day.
I’ve also been working on my novel and I have a writing friend, K, that’s helping me stay motivated! I wanted to play around with making stuffed animals for the characters in my book so I stitched my first bunny doll:
She’s a bit cheeky isn’t she? Honestly the pointy cheeks have grown on me! I found tips online for making dolls and one suggestion was to make the shape and design desired out of clay first, then model the fabric pattern off the clay so I’m going to try that next.
Last Friday I shared a post with tips for picking your fabrics for the 2018 Machine Quilting Party. I’m really excited about these new projects we’re starting in January!
I’ve been focusing on getting videos finished, all my ducks in a row and nice organized pages so you can find everything you need easily to get started. I also went back and organized all of our past quilt along videos on one linked up page. If you’re ever in the mood to travel back in time and see what my videos were like in 2012, check it out right here.
Remember, to join the party all you need is a copy of my book Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day!
We’re running low on print copies of the book, so you can also find it right here on Amazon.com.
Let’s go quilt,
Leah Day
