Sewing Room!

Posted on July 24, 2016August 20, 2016 by Amanda Murphy

Hi everyone,

It has been a busy couple of months here and I can finally talk about all the secrets I’ve been keeping all this time. At BERNINA University this past week I debuted a brand new collection for Benartex – Sewing Room! This one is close to my heart as a BERNINA Spokesperson because it has my very favorite sewing machines!

Although the collection is available to quilt shops everywhere, the SKUs with the BERNINA logo are only available to BERNINA dealers. If you like the collection please ask your quilt shop to give Benartex a call.

Patterns are just starting to ship this week to distributorsand are also on my website. Of course, if you can order from your local shop please do so – shops are the heart of our industry and we want them to stay in business!

First up is a new pieced block-of-the-month pattern called Sewing Room Sampler. It is my favorite pattern ever I think because it was such fun to sew and to quilt. (I quilted it on my BERNINA Q 24 and I’ll be talking about how I did so in my Facebook group later in the year.) It is a larger pattern than my usual patterns – 16 pages full-color. Shop owners can find the shop guide for this sampler here.

Next up is “S is for Sew”. It is a fun project that incorporates appliqué and basic piecing. It comes with a download code with embroidery files for “in-the-hoop appliqué”, cutwork files and SVG files if you’d like to digitally cut your fabric so it is something new for me. I also have a new Aurifil thread collection that I’m really excited about that allows you to try appliqué with the 28 wt. thread I love for a reasonable price. (More on that at the bottom of this post.)

The third pattern is called “Sewing Garden”. It is a simple pieced design made from two stacks of 10” squares.

I also have two Aurifil thread collections which I’m really excited about, both of which coordinate with not only Sewing Room, but with all of my collections so far. The first is great for piecing and quilting – it contains 11 large spools of 50 wt.

The smaller thread collection is perfect for appliqué! I love to use thicker thread for my appliqué, so it contains 8 spools of 28 wt. in a range of colors for blanket and specialty stitches and two spools of 12 wt. to use for the triple stitch and/or to mimic (or actually do if you are brave!) hand embroidery. Aurifil is having a giveaway over on their blog for this one so check it out!

Next month I’ll be coming out a coordinating Sewing Room Quilting Collection as well for long arms and embroidery machines, similar to my Feathers & Flourishes Quilting Collection, which just started shipping as well.

There is also a coordinating embroidery collection available from OESD. I’ll post pictures of that soon!

I hope you are enjoying your summers – happy quilting!

Amanda

Feathers & Flourishes patterns are in – plus a giveaway!

Posted on June 16, 2016July 5, 2016 by Amanda Murphy — 73 Comments

Note: The winner of this giveaway is Mary, who loves nature-inspired collections with dark colors mixed in. Congratulations Mary and thanks for commenting everyone! I am underwater with prep for BERNINA University right now so haven’t gotten to respond to all of your comments but I did read them. Thanks for the GREAT ideas! – Amanda

Hi everyone!

My 4 new Feathers & Flourishes patterns will all be in by the end of the week! I’m so excited I thought we’d do a giveaway for a full set of patterns! (All were pieced on the BERNINA 780 and quilted on the BERNINA Q 24.)

Here’s the rundown…

Plume cover — Plume! A 10”-square-friendly design that can look wild different by switching out just the border and background prints.

044_Posies_COVER — Posies… a fat-quarter-friendly quilt on a dramatic blue background. This is a 1-block quilt with strip-pieced sashing.

043_Starstruck_V1_COVER — “Starstruck” – a 2-1/2”-strip-friendly design. (And my personal favorite this time.)

045SVG_Flourishes_V2_COVER_1000 — Last, but certainly not least, Flourishes, a fusible appliqué design with an SVG file option.

If you like the patterns and fabric, if you would ask your local shop to order them I’d really appreciate it. They listen to you guys!

For those of you who don’t have a local shop, the patterns will be up in my shop, but will not ship until early next week ’cause I need folding time! Also, you’ll notice my shop is in a bit of a transition and some of my patterns and books are shown. I’m rebuilding it so that I have the ability offer PDFs so international customers and I’ll be adding items back over the next few weeks.

Ready for a chance to win a full set of patterns? If so, tell me what type of style or theme you’d like to see in my next collection by commenting at the bottom of this post. (If you buy a set of patterns before you win, you can opt for other patterns in my line instead so no worries.) You may have to click on the title of the post to see the comment area at the bottom. Limit one entry per person please and make sure to leave a way for me to contact me if you win if your email settings are private. The deadline to enter will be two weeks from now so end of day on June 30th. Also, if I don’t respond to all comments like I normally try to do, I apologize. I have new projects and fabric due for BERNINA University in July so things are crazy around here!

~~For another chance to win, head over to Brewer’s blog and follow the instructions to enter! Good luck!~~

Have a lovely weekend and happy quilting!

Amanda

Free-Motion Quilting Ideas: How to Quilt Hearts Free Tutorial

Posted on February 8, 2016February 8, 2016 by Amanda Murphy — Leave a comment

Hi there everyone. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner I thought I’d make up another free PDF tutorial and video for you guys. This one is on how to quilt hearts! I love quilting hearts because they are very forgiving and have a lot of movement.

Here are some examples of hearts from portions of my Free-Motion Quilting Idea Sampler. (You can join the Facebook group for the Sampler, Book, and App where we talk quilting here.)

I like to put pebbles in the areas between the hearts to fill in any awkward gaps and add interest.

And here is a video so you can see how I actually quilted these out on the BERNINA Q 24…

Before I had the Q 24 I quilted this on my BERNINA domestic machine all the time so you CAN do this!

If you are like me you like to have a visual reference close by while you are quilting, so I also made you a free handout. To get the pdf delivered to your inbox click here or on the graphic below. (But don’t worry, if you are already on my list for updates it won’t send you a duplicate emails – it just needs your email to send the pdf.)