You ask. I answer. Volume I

I get emailed all the time with questions usually relating to something I've said here.  Though sometimes it's because of something I've posted on Pinterest or Twitter or Instagram. Some questions are easy to answer, others I have to google, some are strange, and others are repeatedly asked.  I think that every now and then I will share some of those questions and answers here.  Mostly it will be the ones that I'm asked often.  And of course sometimes it will be the strange ones.

Awhile ago I said that we drink raw milk, and I get asked about that at least a couple of times a month. Back in 2008 when we first found a source for raw milk we drank it and enjoyed it for several years. Then that farmer stopped milking and we were out of a regular source for awhile.  However, we've recently found a new farmer and are happily drinking the milk, enjoying the cream and the amazing biscuits it helps make, making butter and thinking about learning to make cheese this summer. Probably mozzarella because I've heard it's easy.  Any recipes you want to share?

Back in 2009, I hosted a quilt along that taught each step in making a quilt.  I still get a ton of traffic to those posts and end up fielding lots of questions about the quilt making process.  I love that! I love turning people into quilters!

When I first started quilting in 2006/07 I learned most everything I knew at an area quilt shop and from ladies from a long-standing traditional quilt guild in my area.  I remember the little lady that taught me how to bind a quilt and she explained that her mother taught her, and her grandmother taught her mother.  She taught me to bind in the exact way that I outline in my tutorial . . . and the way the ends meet up with the end tucking into the other was purposeful.  She explained that quilts got lots of loving and daily use and bindings often needed repaired or replaced over the years and that's the way they liked to do it. I honored that tradition and taught that same method during that quilt along in 2009. Whenever I sat and stitched with those ladies it garnered lots of approving nods and knowing looks of respect when they saw I was doing it the same way.  But, to answer your question, somewhere over the years since then I've stopped doing it that way and now connect the two ends of the binding before stitching it down.  I've gone back and forth on whether to amend the original tutorial but always decide to keep it as is.  It just feels like the right way to honor the woman that taught me and those that taught her.

-dana