Author: suznquilts

My Life, New quilt pattern

Day #2, 5 New Patterns in 5 Days

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Announcing:

I, along with 99 other designers, am featuring a block in Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks Volume 2!  It contains 100, original 12″ blocks by different designers and contains full size patterns and setting ideas too. It is scheduled to be out Mid-November, but the blog hop that you’ll want to join in on starts Monday, November 8.  So, mark you calendar, because Quiltmaker is giving away lots of nice prizes.  Among the prizes will be the 100 autographed blocks featured in the issue.  You’ll have a chance to win a copy of the collector’s edition publication right here on my blog, Monday.

Now, back to my originally scheduled “5 new patterns in 5 days” blog…  This next pattern,

#169 Welcome to my Home

  It’s made using fusible applique.  The houses are two different sizes and the larger one I’ve also shown appliqued  on a tea towel.  I love making quick little projects like applique tea towels for gifts.  Like yesterday’s pattern, 3 Little Words, this quilt and towel were also featured at one of my holiday open houses.  I recently visited a friend of mine and she had one of these towels hanging in her kitchen.  I had stopped in unannounced at Vi’s house to give her some Christmas baking dishes for our upcoming smorgasbord bazaar for church. so I know she didn’t hang it on my account!  That got me thinking I needed to turn this design into a pattern too. 

If you’re so inclined, stop by my website and shop a bit.  More patterns in the next coming days. And don’t forget to drop by Quiltmaker’s Website and get ready for the blog tour!

Until next time,

Susan

New quilt pattern

Day #1, 5 New Patterns in 5 Days

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First of all I can’t believe I did not post, not once, in the month of October!  It’s no wonder though, because if you take another look at the title of this post, I’ve been designing, sewing, photographing, writing, and polishing 5 new patterns.  On top of my business tasks just listed I’m also a mom with three school kids at home, our oldest attending college as a freshman.  So, laundry, food shopping, cooking, cleaning and errand running, etc. I pretty much am never doing nothing.  Still, I’m a bit surprised at myself for not noticing this big lull in my blogging.  I certainly hope to not repeat said bad blog etiquette. 

Without further ado, here is the first of 5 new patterns,         

#168, 3 Little Words

I first started making these cute little things when I was having holiday open houses.  I crafted and sewed seasonal and holiday decorations for months and then sent out invitations to all I knew who loved my “stuff”.  I would practially kill myself   empty the first floor of my house of all it’s decoration and fill it with the holiday crafts I’d been making.  Lighted pinecone baskets, applique towels, sweatshirt jackets, wreaths, framed and quilted  items such as these, homemade chocolates and much more.  Then for one day, from 7 a.m. ’til 3 p.m. I would open my home to shoppers.  What work that was, but I loved every aspect of it.  The idea hunting, the shopping and then the creating.  Once I started vending at market, which falls the last weekend of October, I really didn’t have enough time to do all the work in time to sell before Christmas.  So, now this little idea of mine from several years ago blossomed into a pattern to send to market this year! 

You can buy it here on my website.

Hope you like it!

Until next time,

Susan

My Life

Me, a Millionaire?

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My favorite of favorite TV shows is, hands down, Antiques Roadshow.  I love watching to see if someone’s treasure is actually worth something, or if it only has personal value.  I have fun guessing out loud what the item could be worth and when I guess it right, my family swears I’ve seen that particular episode before.  OK, I’ve probably watched too many episodes when I can guess exactly how much something is worth, but really they’re just guesses.  And usually the appraisers kind of give it away. Well, it’s one thing when Great Aunt Gert’s antique turns out to be valuable, it’s not like they’re going to sell it anyway. BUT being the junker that I am, I’m a lot more excited when that $2-$10 garage/estate sale item turns out to be worth thousands or even better, tens of thousands of dollars.  That’s why last week when I helped our church sort donations for a rummage sale, and noticed the painting of a clown set amongst other priceless treasures, I decided I needed it. I first of all couldn’t believe another sorter of said treasures didn’t choose to take it home themselves instead of putting it with other like treasures, or better yet, someone else gave it away!!!   I’m sorry to admit that I know nothing about paintings.  The only thing I knew is that this was an original work of art.  The paint is a bit crackled, but if I put $1,000 into it for restoration, that could increase the value upwards of another $10,000. I couldn’t read the signature. Can You? 

Then, when I turned it over, thankfully there was a plate, and that I could read, sort of!

It says the painter’s name is Braun, I think, it’s a bit worn.  He was born in Italy, 1934.  I tried to find out something about him online, but found nothing.  I would assume he is still living.  Perhaps when I have more time, and drive, I will try again to find out more about this artist. 

For now, I’m content with the idea that this is as close as I will come to owning a Rembrandt, Van Gogh, or any other valuable painting.  That’s OK with me.  He’s a cute little clown.  The true value is really what it means to the owner, right?

Until next time,

Susan

New quilt pattern

New Pattern, Sun Drenched 9 Patches!

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That’s right, now that school’s back in session, I’ve been back to my designing and sewing!  This project actually started several months back as a block swap with my guild, Heartland Quilt Guild.  I am the night meeting projects coordinator.  I had a request for a 9 patch swap, so the requirements were to sew as many or as few 9″ (finished) blocks with two contrasting floral fabrics as you wanted.  I gave instructions to make 24 blocks using two, one yard cuts of fabric.  We had one member make as many as 100 blocks!  She made more than one quilt with those.

I made 24 blocks myself, all using the same two fabrics.  We had the swap and then I had 24 different blocks.  I then organized a challenge.  The only requirements for the challenge were to use the blocks from the swap and put them into a finished quilt.  I was originally going to slice up my 9 patches and sew them back together, but when I laid the blocks all out, I fell in love with the watercolor type effect that they made.

 I decided then to applique on top of the blocks instead.  I added a busy border fabric that I thought worked great in keeping with the busy-ness of the floral blocks.

Next came time to decide what to applique on those blocks!  That was literally the hardest part of this design.  I knew a large-scale flower was needed, and it had to have a nice contrast with all of the florals in the 9 patch blocks.  So here’s my finished quilt & pattern!

It reminds me of a bright sunny day! Measuring 50″ X 68″ it will make a lovely wall or lap quilt.  You can purchase this new pattern on my website! I used quick, fusible web applique.  I also layered the top with the backing & batting and let my applique stitch be part of the quilting.  I then added more free-motion quilting to fill in.  You can make the 24 blocks yourself, or organize your own block swap!

Until next time,

Susan

Quick Little Projects

Mr. Owlsy

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Now that all the kids are back in school, full swing, I’m finally getting back to my sewing machine and actually designing new projects too.  However, I had a bit of a detour after seeing this cute little project on a blog last week. I had to stop what I was doing, grab a couple of pieces of fabric and start sewing.  OK, it took longer to remember how to enlarge the pattern 200% than it did to make the entire owl, I’m just sayin’!

Isn’t he cute?  It’s just two triangles of fabric, two buttons for eyes and a bit of polyfil.  Please note the original pattern finishes the size of a golf ball, so I enlarged the pattern 200% to make him about 3″ tall.  You could make one for each of your friends without a lot of time invested.

He looks cute sitting on my kitchen counter!

Until next time,

Susan

Uncategorized

Awesome Clips

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Yesterday I received a non-ordered package, so right away curiosity sets in.  We picked up the mail on the way out to go to evening Mass, and I was driving, so it had to wait until we got home.  I knew it would be something fun, because the return address was my good friend, Robin’s, looky here!

As soon as I saw them I knew I had the perfect container for them.  I picked this up this summer at a garage sale and it’s been waiting for it’s intended job!

Viola!

Now I have no excuse not to have things clipped together! Thanks Robin!

Until next time,

Susan

Quick Little Projects

Some wool stitching fun!

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Last week at guild, our guest speaker was Christy Starr, owner of Helen’s Hen House in Florissant, MO.  I’ve loved that shop since first finding it.  I can remember going there pretty much every time I “got leave” from my two babies on a Saturday. I wished back then that I could live there. It’s home, historic Meyers House, is a beautiful old home with very tall ceilings, perfect for a quilt shop! Christy has owned the shop for three years now and I’m happy to say has kept the original charm and feel that made me love it when Joan & Helen had the shop originally!

Christy brought samples and spoke of wool applique.  Although I love and do a lot of fusible applique, I’ve done very little wool applique.  Christy brought along beautiful samples and of course plenty to buy! I fell for these!

 And, thinking ahead to the rest of the week, I bought enough wool that Clare and my niece could make one also.  Two weeks prior to school starting, 1 to 3 of my sister’s kids spent the day with us.  I thought it would be a fun little project for a couple of teenie boppers.  Clare & Elyse got their’s cut out and assembled, starting the stitching, but I cheated used the button hole stitch on my machine and finished mine!

Isn’t it adorable?  The wool is very easy to work with and it will be cute set out at Easter time every year.  Question now is should it be stored in my cedar chest to keep the pesky moths from liking it too?

Until next time,

Susan

Quilt Shopping Out & About

Quilt Shopping In Tennessee

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As promised, I’m giving you a brief peek at the three shops I was lucky enough to visit while in Tennessee with my family.  I would have liked to visit more, but as previously stated, I was there with my family and they can only take so much!  And I can only take so much of them taking so much, vicious cycle!

First I went to The Cherry Pit in Sevierville. 

What a nice shop. The owner, Jane Washington and her staff are so friendly. Jane told me her husband, George Washington, gets told all the time that he looks like the George Washington, hence the name, The Cherry Pit.  

I next visited Machine Quiltin’ by Iva also in Sevierville. (No photo available, & I wasn’t thinking about that at the time.)  Iva has the largest selection of pre-cuts that I’ve ever seen in one shop! 

Thirdly, I visited Mountain Stitches By Susan (love that name!) in Gatlinburg.

Susan’s shop is part of the Great Smoky Mountains Arts & Crafts Community.  So, not only does she sell fabrics, patterns & the like, but 52% of her sales have to be made by her own hands. She has a quilting machine in another shop across the boardwalk where she machine quilts the quilts she sells in her shop.

What a neat place to visit.  While I was in Susan’s shop, my family found a great little ice cream shop across the way from Susan and we had some fantastic hot fudge malts made with locally made ice cream, yum!! 

Also as previously stated, we used the GPS my brother, David, bought me for Christmas.  Thank goodness for that!  Not only did it simplify things A LOT, for instance it also took us around Gatlinburg to get to Susan’s shop.  That’s a cool little town, but the traffic is really heavy with walking traffic constantly crossing the street.  We ate there one night, went putt putt golfing one night and shopped there several times during the week we were in Tennessee.  Cool place to visit and people watch! 

If you get the chance to go to the area do it.  There are even more quilt shops really close by. Maybe next time!

Susan

 

Family Time

Time in Tennessee

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My family & I traveled to Tennessee.  It was an active week, 

 Biking at Cades Cove,

 Settlement, Cades Cove,

 If she only had antlers…

 Notice the downhill smile!

 …of course lots of eating!

We all like to go, go, go…but with 9 hrs. on the road to get there who would think we’d all want to drive some more when we finally arrived?

 Speed, a  favorite…

    Just a bit of bumping and T-boning was involved, but we won’t say by whom.

 Driving Miss Chloe!

 Definitely Clare’s favorite!

 Dollywood is a very nicely kept theme park.  We learned about wood carving, candle making, Glass Blowing, The Smoky Mountains, and lots more.  It’s our second trip to Tennessee with our first trip being just three years ago.  Lots to see and do!

 Splash Country, part of Dollywood, was a nice place to cool down in the 100 degree weather.

 Laurel Falls was a several mile hike into The Smoky Mountains.  Fortunately it was uphill to get there and downhill on the way back.

 White Water Rafting was another welcome wet day.  We’re getting so experienced at it, this being our 4th rafting trip, that this one seemed a bit too easy & slow.

 Relaxing at the end of each day was nice.  David grilled on the “world’s smallest” grill, but it sure tasted good.

 This is the entrance into our gated cabin community (those are man-made trees).  All of us are curious as to why ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’ would be a good theme to an entrance for mountain cabins, but later decided the incredible climb to the cabins that seemed almost 90 degrees was pretty darn scary!!!  I tried to get that with my camera, but just couldn’t capture the true incline.  If you’ve ever had the recurring nightmare of driving up an incredibly steep hill and tumbling over backwards…that’s it! 

It was a fun trip making lots of memories. 

Later I’ll post my quilt shop experiences.  Thank goodness for GPS.  My brother David gifted me one last year for Christmas.  I finally traveled to an unknown area to use it and it was great.  It was especially nice in a tourist area with so much traffic that it’s hard to navigate and watch where you’re going at the same time.

Susan

Quilting Accessories I Love

A Sulky Thread Loving Moment…

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Today I received these lovelies from Sulky of America!

I am currently using Sulky’s 12 wt. cotton thread to make some of these, ain’t she cute?  You should see her brothers!  They’re both from my new Ginger Bliss pattern.  They are part of several projects; a 56″ square tree skirt, a 24″ round tree skirt shown here appliqued on wool, and a table runner.  Visit my website to see/purchase them. 

using 12 wt. Sulky cotton threads 

I absolutely L-O-V-E the way this thread makes my applique POP!

Sulky’s 30 wt. cotton threads I use to make my quilting stand out.  Now that I’ve become a better machine quilter, that’s a good thing!

This sample is a table runner from my Wheels & Dashes pattern, also available on my website.

The package pictured with the threads is Sulky’s Stabilizer Sampler.  It contains four different stabilizers; Sulky Cut-Away, Sulky Tear-Away, Sulky Wash-Away & Sulky Heat-Away.  I don’t use a lot of stabilizers even though I applique a LOT, but there are times it’s absolutely necessary. I’m going to try these out, hopefully soon, so stay tuned.

Susan