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 Sewtoday 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!
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!
Hi everyone, I hope you are having a lovely holiday season. I was playing on Q24 yesterday and stumbled on something really fun I thought I’d share with you. Quilting free-motion holly leaves!
Holly leaves, quilted on the BERNINA Q24
Oh my gosh… it is so much fun! And you don’t have to be an expert to do it since leaves are pretty forgiving. (I used my Sparkle line for Benartex and Aurifil 50 wt. cotton thread.)
I made a video for you guys…
But 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.)
Note: This giveaway is now closed. The lucky winners (by random number) are Ruth B who liked the red/blue/green snowflakes on white and Alicia Key, who like the stripes! Congratulations, ladies! Please send me your emails. For more a chance to win The Free-Motion Quilting Idea Book, follow along with the blog hop November 2nd – 12th!
Hi everyone!
I just returned from a very wet Market (record rains in Houston) where I shared the Contempo portion of the Benartex booth with my good friend Cherry Guidry.
Contempo Fall Market Booth 2015 – Cherry’s designs are on the left, mine are on the right around the tree. Sarah Vedeler’s fabric is in the front on the left and Michele D’Amore’s is on the right.
Despite the weather, we had a lovely time and really enjoyed catching up with all the creative people at Market. This Market was pretty exciting for me because I had three new books debuting with C&T Publishing, as well as the BERNINA panel, new patterns and embroidery collections, and a fabric line with Benartex!
Today I wanted to introduce, Sparkle, my newest line for Benartex. It is called Sparkle and is a crisp and bright holiday line.
The original prints that inspired the Sparkle collection – the light tossed snowflakes and the wreaths. I think the red wreath might be my favorite print in the collection right now – but I like the softness of the blue wreath too!These ornament prints were developed later on in the process, but they also function as feature prints. And I found while sewing it was quite nice to have the darker shade of blue with which to work.These are the supporting prints that gave “Sparkle” its name. They are fun to play with, vivid, and make FANTASTIC binding!… and here are the coordinates. They are great for appliqué or to contrast with the feature prints. Note there are three swirly leaf prints and three petal prints – the third being barely visible as the white background white light blue line work. I always think it is so useful to have low volume prints.And last but not least a fun stripe print. It makes a great binding too!
There are four new patterns for the Sparkle collection and they should be available in about three weeks. I’ll talk more about them then, but here is a sneak peek…
There is also a panel print for the Sparkle collection. (I designed two complimentary patterns to work with this panel, but I’ll save them to show another day.)
OESD has already digitized embroidery for Sparkle. It is available now so you can ask your local shop to order it. Writing a complimentary pattern to make these gift bags is on my to-do list this weekend.
Sparkle gift bagsMore Sparkle EmbroiderySparkle “redwork”
I’ve already talked about the Free-Motion Quilting Idea Book and Quilted Celebrations, but my coloring book for C&T, Modern Elegance, arrived on my doorstep while I was at Market, so all three books are now in my shop.
Is anyone (but my mom) still with me? If you are it is time for the giveaway! Benartex gave me a stack of 10” squares and a stack of 5” squares to give to you guys and I’m throwing in Modern Elegance too. We’ll have two winners – one wins the 10” squares and one the 5” and both win coloring books. To enter leave a comment telling me what Sparkle print you like best and please leave your contact info. One entry per person please. The deadline will be this Monday, which is actually the kickoff for my Free-Motion Quilting Idea Book blog hop over at C&T. (There will be giveaways of that book on different blogs for two weeks.)
I really hope you like Sparkle! Have a lovely weekend!
