Spring Quilt Market 2016

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NOTE: The winners of this giveaway are Donna B. and Roberta Lottino, both of whom who liked Plume!  Congratulations, ladies – send me your snail mails please.  I’m sorry I don’t have more precuts to give to all of you, but we’ll have another giveaway later this summer! 

Hi everyone!  I haven’t blogged in SOOOO long!  It has been busy here with (in the spirit of Quilt Market) secret sewing stuff, but I’m finally getting around to writing about what I have been working on.  Since pictures speak louder than words I’ll try to keep words to a minimum.

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My booth at Spring 2016 Quilt Market…

My new collection for the Contempo division of Benartex is called Feathers & Flourishes and it is shipping in July.  It is inspired those shapes that we see so often in the quilt world.  This time my goal was to create a collection that allowed people to really experiment with color.  So I have added a deep navy and vibrant red, along with the greens and aquas that I love.  Consequently, each quilt can look dramatically different depending on the proportions of the prints used.  Here you can see a wider view and a little of my friend Cherry Guidry’s booth next to mine as well.

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I have 4 new patterns that will be released with this collection.  They will be on my website as soon as I get them back from the printer, probably in a few weeks.  The first is Plume.  This is a REALLY simple medallion quilt.  The blocks are made from a stack of 10” squares so you just change the borders and background to get an entirely new look!

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“Plume” – Special thanks to Traci Adams and Joanne Leonard for piecing the color variations hanging on the sides of the red version!

The next quilt is called “Starstruck”.  This one almost never made it off of my computer screen.  It was one of those that really sang in person and even more so once it was quilted so that  the secondary diamond pattern came out.  It was probably the “hit” of my booth so that shows you how much I know… haha!  Oh – and it is made from a couple 2-1/2” pinwheels and two background fabrics.

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“Starstruck”

The third quilt is called Posies.  You can only see a little of it here because it is folded up due to limited wall space.  Posies is a fat-quarter friendly quilt and the flowers are on-point – I’ll show you more once I have the patterns back.  I love how different the prints look against the navy background!

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“Posies”, an adorable tuffet from Tuffet Source (thanks for putting it together, Mom, and a cute little in-the-hoop bag from Pickled Pie Designs

And my final set of patterns is called “Flourishes”.  It is a set of 3 designs that can be finished as a tryptic of min-quilts or a pillows.  There is an SVG option on this pattern as well and Hill Creek (now Just Another Button Company) is producing a button pack for both the white and navy versions.

 

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The white version of “Flourishes”

 

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The navy version of “Flourishes”, finished as a pillow and peeking out from behind the precuts and a quilt made from one of the free patterns for this collection.

 

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To the left of “Flourishes” you can see the free embroidery pattern for this collection that I designed.  The embroidery collection is put out by OESD.

 

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You can see more embroidery from Feathers and Flourishes here…

 

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In another corner of the booth you can see a peek of my other free pattern for this collection called “Cinema” – more on that soon!

I almost forgot!  For the first time I’ll be coming out with a quilting collection to coordinate with my fabric collection!  So excited as it will be well-timed with the arrival of the Q-Matic system for the BERNINA longarm.  The Feathers and Flourishes Quilting Collection is undergoing testing in June and will be shipping in July.

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Here is my friend Cherry Guidry’s booth next to mine.  Isn’t it pretty?

So that was Market!  I can’t believe it is over.  You prep for months and then it goes by in a blur.  (Maybe even more of a blur considering we had an emergency evacuation of the hotel the night before we left due to a water pipe break which, when combined with a red-eye home, made for a very hazy couple of days!)

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My booth at Spring Quilt Market 2016 – a final view…

If you love this collection I’d love for you to ask your shop to order it – thanks!

SO if you have actually lasted through all of these pictures (hi Mom!) it is TIME FOR A GIVEAWAY!  Did you see those precuts sitting on the chairs at Market?  I snagged a couple for you guys.  I have a stack of 10” squares and a bundle of 9 fat quarters to give away so leave a comment below telling me which new pattern you like best – Plume, Starstruck, Posies, or Flourishes? Please only enter once and leave me some way to reach you if I can’t see it through your profile.  The last day to enter is Tuesday, May 31st.

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Thanks for letting me share and have a wonderful Memorial Day!

Happy quilting!

Amanda

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The Free-Motion Quilting Idea App!

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Oh my goodness the day has finally come when I can say that my Free-Motion Quilting Idea App has launched! Pinching myself! Then pinching myself again! It is a companion piece to the book and the sampler of the same name and it is all new in the App Store for your iPad and iPhone. (An android version is to follow – I don’t have a date yet.)

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The Free-Motion Quilting Idea App on the iPad

 

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The Free-Motion Quilting Idea App on the iPhone

 

As many of you know, The Free-Motion Quilting Idea Book is a reference tool – to keep by your machine and spark your imagination. It is comprised of drawings that show you, step-by-step, how to form many different free-motion patterns and then apply them to blocks, sashing, and borders. It is a reference tool to keep by your machine, really. If you can do just a few free-motion patterns you CAN do custom-style quilting. I really believe that. If I can do it you can too!

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The App builds further expands that concept, showing you step-by-step through, through animation and video, how to form the basic allover designs that all the designs in the book were based upon. In the app you can actually see each of the allover patterns animated and many of them stitched out by me on the BERNINA Q Series!

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On the app you can actually see this paisley design being drawn out!

 

Or you can watch me quilt it on a video…
Or you can watch me quilt it on a video…

I want to thank for C&T and BERNINA for making this project a reality. Seriously, I could have never ever done with with the help and support of these fantastic companies. All the filming was done at BERNINA USA headquarters in Chicago with an amazing and the entire thing was put together by the wonderful people at C&T Publishing, who had the vision to believe in the project in the first place.  And I want to thank you guys out there for your enthusiastic reception of The Free-Motion Quilting Idea Book – quilters are amazingly creative and generous people.

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The Video Library

To find the App you can search the App store or use my affiliate link by clicking here.

 

If you are interested in being part of my Facebook group for people who are getting inspiration from the book, app, and/or the companion sampler, please join us!

I hope you really love the App!

Happy New Year and happy quilting!

Amanda

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Quilting BERNINA-Style: Swirl Feathers at We All Sew

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Hi everyone!
I hope you had wonderful holidays. This is just a short post today to tell you that I’m guest-posting over at We All Sew today on Friday (sorry – change of plans!) with a free step-by-step quilting tutorial there and below. Last month when I visited I could tell from comments there was a lot of interest in learning how to quilt feathers – so today I have an easy and forgiving variation of a feather for you. It is one of my favorites – a swirl feather!

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This swirl feather is quilted on a red print for my Sparkle line for Benartex (shipping in March/April) in Aurifil 50 wt. thread on my lovely BERNINA Q24.

You can get step-by-step instructions for quilting a swirl feather by clicking here or on the picture below and you can see more pictures and a few videos by visiting We All Sew on Friday!

Happy quilting!

Amanda

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