Happy Halloween

Watch out for flying quilters!

Be careful what you eat.

Watch out for your pets.  They want to have fun too.



And remember to have fun. Giveaway some smiles. They are some of my favorite treats!

Treasures from the '30s

As a little girl, I remember watching my grandmother quilt.  She hand pieced and hand quilted, with beautiful stitching.  She also had a wonderful collection of old quilts, many from the '30s and I believe this period of time was one of her favorites.  And, thus, it has become one of my favorite styles of quilting.

"Treasures from the '30s: Cheerful Quilts with Vintage Appeal", by Nancy Mahoney is a wonderful new book, published by Martingale & Company, home of That Patchwork Place.

The introduction for this book sets the stage, sharing insights on what it was like to be a quilter in the '30s.  Another section is included for Quiltmaking basics, making this an excellent choice for a beginner quilter as instructions, and great visuals are provided for everything from rotary cutting, applique, to binding a quilt.

There are eight projects in this book, all scrappy in a style. 

Patterns range in size of 56 1/2" x 56 1/2". to 53 3/4" x 70".

Some of the designs contain beautiful applique.

Several designs have very "manly" names, such as the Airship Propeller.

This is a must have book for anyone that likes to make reproduction quilts.  It is also a fun book for anyone interested in cute designs, that can easily be made with current fabrics.

http://www.martingale-pub.com

Bloggers Quilt Festival - Halloween Quilt

Are you participating in the Blogger's Quilt Festival,  hosted by Amy's Creative Side?  This fun show officially starts today and runs thru  November 5.  There isn't any fee to enter and, as this show is a virtual quilt show, you can sit back and enjoy the show at your liesure.      

I struggled with which quilt I wanted to enter in this show.  And then I realized exactly which quilt I felt was appropriate and hope you like it too!  This is a hand applique, machine quilted quilt.  The design, a Halloween Baltimore Album quilt is from P3 Designs, by Pearl P. Pereira.  Here a picture of the original design.

And here is a photo of this quilt made by my very talented friend, Bobbie Zinker.

This quilt spoke to me and said "I want to be in a quilt show", but Bobbie was happy hanging it in her living room.  As I wanted to see this quilt shared, I asked Bobbie if it was ok if I entered her quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival and she agreed.  So, my entry is Bobbie's beautiful quilt.  Should I be lucky enough to win anything in this fun Festival, it will be given to Bobbie to thank you for sharing her beautiful quilt with all of us.

While her quilt is finished, I have several photos of this quilt, some of which were taken while she was still working on this quilt.  I want to share a variety of photos so you can pretend you standing up close, admiring this beautiful quilt.  The detail is amazing (far better than what my camera can capture).

I love the detail in this block, especially the candy corn.  Bobbie uses a hand applique technique (needle turn), and as you can see she changed the borders from the original design. 

And the detail in this block is amazing.  Love those little spiders.  It was beautifully machine quilted by Susan Davis, of Escondido, CA. 

I am also amazed at what a great job Bobbie did selecting fabrics for this quilt.  Love this cute Owl.

And this block is so cute!

Bobbie is always has spectacular borders on her quilts.   We tend to casually refer to these borders with a skinny strip (and sometimes two skinny strips), but it seems that the style needs a cute name.  Either way, I thought they looked great with this quilt and loved how she added the bats in each corner.

Yeap, Bobbie's Halloween Baltimore Album Quilt looks great on her wall.  And I'm so happy she was willing to share it with us.  I hope you liked it too!

For those that are able to make it to Quilt Market, I do hope you'll visit P3 Design's  (booth #956).

And, for those that are not able to make it to Quilt Market, I hope you'll visit all the blogs with quilts shared in Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival and have fun!  I know I'm going to enjoy visiting all the blogs and admiring all the beautiful entries.

I also hope you'll consider participating in the upcoming Christmas Quilt Show.

Christmas Quilt Show - Sponsors and Prizes

While I'll be updating the list of Sponsors and Prizes, for the upcoming Christmas Quilt Show, I could hold back any longer.  I'm just so excited to have such wonderful sponsors and great prizes for this show and hope you like them too.


QuiltBoxes.com

Is donating a beautiful handmade 6" Walnut burl Bear Paws.  Or,  the winner can visit their online store and select a different 6" design.  Definitely go check out their store as they have so many beautiful designs for their high quality handcrafted wooden boxes, made in the USA.

New Leaf Stitches

New Leaf Stitches is donating three sets of their Clearly Perfect Angles, a great product that clings to your sewing machine to help align fabric for sewing perfect angles.  Three different winners will each be receiving their own Clearly Perfect Angles template.

Fat Quarter Shop

The Fat Quarter Shop is donating a beautiful  Lumiere de Noel Moda Quilt Kit.  This kit contains fabric to make a 78" x 86" quilt top and binding (batting and backing not included).

Two Wacky Women










Two Wacky Women are donating a package of 20 beautiful fat quarters by Wyndham Fabrics.

Elisa's Backporch Design

Elisa's BackPorch Designs has many wonderful designs, books and templates.  Elisa is donating two of her spectacular patterns:

 Leaf What May pattern will go to one luck winner, and

The spectacular  Stargazer pattern will go to another lucky winner.

Udderly Smooth Udder Cream

Udderly Smooth is donating a collection of their wonderful Udder Cream to one lucky winner (est. Value $25).




Angie's Bits 'n Pieces
Angie Padilla is a talented designer, teacher, and author.  Angie is donating three copies of some of her beautiful holiday designs, for three lucky winners.  Each winner will be able to select the format of the pattern (e.g. PDF or EQ6) to be received electronically.

Her beautiful Angel Hearts finishes 28"x43".

Festive Placemats allows you to create beautiful holiday placemats, with six different designs.

And her whimsical Gingerbread House pattern finishes 29". 


FabricWorm

FabricWorm is donating an Anna Maria Horner Horner Innocent Crush (in Quilt Weight) Fat Quarter Bundle of the complete collection, 22 Fat Quarters in total.


Martingale & Company, home of That Patchwork Place

Two beautiful 2011 Calendars have been donated:

That Patchwork Place  Quilt Calendar 2011 is a lovely 12"x12" calendar, with a dozen spectacular quilts. It will go home with one lucky winner.  And,

2011 Calendar Award-Winning Quilts Featuring Quilts from the International Quilt Association is also a spectacular calendar, full of inspirational quilts. This calendar will go home with another lucky winner.  Plus,

a copy of "Candy Cane Lane: Quilts & More to Sweeten the Holidays," by Melinda Bula, will go home with another winner.


Electric Quilt Company

An inspirational book for any quilter.

a copy of "Blending Photos with Fabric 2", by Mary Ellen Kranz, for one lucky winner.  And,

a copy of Judy Martin's STARS & SETS software, will go home with another lucky winner.


Creations....Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Nina-Marie Sayre is a very talented quilter, fibre-artists and fellow blogger.  I hope you will take time to visit her delightful blog.  I've enjoyed following Nina-Marie and am always inspired by her quilting insights and more.  Nina-Marie is donating a quilt store quality Christmas fabrics, a cheater panel in the same theme, and a Christmas ornament.  {this post will be updated prior to the show to include a photo}.




Mrs. Moen Patterns
Nina Lise, a very talented quilter, fibre-artist, designer, teacher and fellow blogger, who happens to live in Norway.  I do enjoy following Nina Lise's blog very much, as she always inspires me and provides so many great tips.  Nina Lise was also a generous sponsor of the 2009 Christmas Quilt Show, and I am very happy that she volunteered, earlier this year to be a sponsor again. 

{this post will be updated prior to the show to include insights on the prize donated by Nina Lise}.


SewCalGal

Four bundles of fat quarters, each in various shades of blues, purples, greens and pinks  will go home with one winner.

A bundle of 11 hand died fat quarters will go home with another lucky winner.

Thank you to all

of the

generous

Sponsors

of the

Christmas Quilt Show 2010



There are many ways to enter quilts in this show, and many ways to win prizes. For more info, click on the page labeled "Christmas Quilt Show" to always get the most current info about this show.  You can even earn entries, to win prizes, by helping with pre-SHOW PR (e.g. post the badge on your blog and/or post about this show on your blog).

On November 14th, an post will be released with a mcklinky to officially kick off the start of the Christmas Quilt Show 2010.

The Professional Tote pattern, by Creative Thimble

The Professional Tote pattern, by Creative Thimble is an excellent design.  It creates a tote that has approximate measurements of 18"Wide X 15" Tall X 5" Deep, with a variety of zippered and non-zippered pockets.  This large tote bag works well traveling, as it is designed to easily hang on roll-able luggage, making this bag perfect for many travel situations, and other uses, such as that four letter word "work".

I've seen classes, at various quilt shops, with this design and I decided to sign up and take a class with Jan Hayman, at Cozy Quilt Shop.  Jan had made this design many times, and had many tips to share.

It was a fun class and I enjoyed seeing a variety of fabric prints and colors used to create this tote.  And everyone's tote turned out beautifully.

I used some nautical fabrics, from my stash.

And I had fun finishing it at the Mogle Mountain Quilt Retreat in Truckee (near Tahoe), California this past week.

The Professional Tote is a very durable tote, which uses Decor Bond.  This was my first time to work with Decor Bond and I really liked using it and how it gives this tote a durable feel with sufficient body to stand on its' own.  I'm already looking forward to making more of these totes and giving some away for Christmas gifts. 

The pattern contains detailed instructions with good visuals.  There are many pieces, but the pattern contains tags to mark each piece and respective stablizer.  If you are new to making bags and not able to find a class, you may want to recruit a friend and the two of you make The Professional Tote together.  And you'll have more fun  making this beautiful tote together!

http://www.thecreativethimble.com/