New Quilt Pattern Magazine, Quick Little Projects, Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Blog Tour

May Day, 100 Blocks Winner

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Thanks for all the wonderful comments about my block!

For me, it’s not hard to come up with new designs when I have such beautiful fabrics to work with.

I’m  impressed with all the May Day memories comments.

I really thought is was just some obscure memory that only I had…

I’m happy to report that the winner of the 100 Blocks Vol. 5 issue is

# 65 Cecilia

Cecilia, please send me your full name & address to receive your free issue.

For those of you that didn’t win, hopefully you can find the new 100 Blocks issue at your favorite newsstand.

If you have trouble finding it, you can always go to Quiltmaker’s site and buy it there.

I chose two subscribers to receive a free pattern of choice and they are,

#28 Barb N.

&

#68 Vicki T.

If you both want to let me know your choice and address, I will send you a free pattern.

Thanks for joining in on the blog hop!

Until next time,

Susan

My Life

May Day & 100 Blocks Volume 5 Blog Hop too!

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Happy May Day!

I remember as a child, making a May Day basket one year and filling it full of little wild violets for my mom.

Whatever happened to that tradition?

I don’t ever hear anyone speak of it, do you?

Well, this May Day, my flowers are sent to you in a quilt block!

My block
Spring Love is featured in the new Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks Vol. 5.

 

I used a bias bar to make the heart, then fusible applique for the flowers & leaves.

 I also designed a quilt using the block and that is featured in the gallery on page 22.

Just pick up Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks from today’s top designers (plus me!) Volume 5, and make the block found on page 29.

Add a 1″ purple border, then a 6-1/2″ outer border.

Add a bit more bias tubing and a few more flowers around the border and you’re set.

For a chance to win a free copy here

before it hits newsstands May 8th, go

UP, UP, UP, to the TOP of this page and leave a comment  to be entered to win.

Don’t forget your email address if you want me to contact you.

For a second chance to win,

this time a free pattern of your choice from my website,

(2 lucky winners for this)

subscribe to my blog.

If you’re already a subscriber, just let me know that in your commment and you’ll be entered.

I will choose the winners Saturday.

For more fun and freebies go to Quiltmaker’s blog and see all the participating designers.

Until next time,

Susan

My Life

I feel like Michael Vale…

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This time of year I always feel like Michael Vale.

I know you know who he is, but do you know, you know who he is???

Fred the baker!

“Time to make the doughnuts. I made the doughnuts.

Time to make the doughnuts, I made the doughnuts!”

The last few months before Quilt Market, Spring or Fall, I’m always working late, working early.  It’s like a revolving door around here.  I’d hate to know how many hours I’ve racked up between designing, sewing, writing, editing, photo shoots, cover designs, dreaming up ways to address booth design, etc.

I go to bed too late and wake up too early remembering something else I need or want to do.

Back in December I made hotel reservations and sent in my booth registration and proposals for schoolhouse sessions. It seemed like May 16th was a lifetime away, but slowly and surely, the time spent with my sewing machine and computer, throw in a few parties for birthdays, bridal shower, Mexico vacation, quilt retreat, business trip with DH, out-of-town lecture/workshop, daughter’s confirmation…  is now down to a few short weeks.

It’s a good thing I pushed myself way back then to work on designs, and start instructions. At this point I love seeing some of those things done.

Let’s not forget I still have a birthday/Mother’s Day/confirmation party to host!

Not to mention my family thinks they need to eat EVERY day…

Just when I think I’ve got it all under control, I remember that I need to order electricity.  Other designers that are ready to go to market start asking about dinner plans, what?

I need to finish up my layouts for a couple more patterns before I go to printing, then I will get my brochure ready.  I should have the remainder of my photos back from my photographer by Saturday…

Is it any wonder that I feel like I made the doughnuts, it’s time to make the doughnuts???

…and this is why I feel like Michael Vale.

Back to it!

Can’t wait to show you my new designs.

Until next time,

Susan

My Life, New ideas, New Pattern Sample, New quilt pattern

What am I doing now???

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Well, can you guess from this photo?

No, I’m not making a kite’s tail, although today would have beena great day to fly one!

Here they are trimmed apart.

Next, I added another line of rick rack.

and once again, trimmed them apart.

Still not clear what I’m doing?

Know what?  I’ll bet you can’t guess unless you have been testing one of my soon-to-be-patterns.

Soon enough…(not soon enough for me, I’m so far behind where I’d like to be)

Until next time,

Susan

My Life

New blade, new attitude!

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I don’t know why a blade has to cut like this before I notice,

but I changed my rotary cutter’s blade over the weekend and just started using it today.

I feel like a new woman!

Can you relate or is it just me?  I have to totally use something up to feel justified in replacing it, or just have to be hit over the head to notice that it needs replacing…

Have you seen the movie Julie & Julia?

I’m reminded of the part when Julia (Merle Streep) is in the all-male cooking class in France and goes home to practice cutting onions after the first day of class.  She ends up cutting PILES of onions!

I’m ready to cut piles of binding strips!

Good thing too, because I just got two more quilts back from my quilter today.  On top of the two I got back Friday, that makes four.

I will be ready to watch Merle soon.  For those of you that don’t know it, my M.O. is to watch a movie(s) when I get the binding on a quilt and do the hand stitching.

Can’t wait!

Stay tuned. Hopefully soon I will have piles of quilts to share with you.

Until next time,

Susan

My Life

Quilting Friends & Old Buttons

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Our quilt guild’s biannual quilt show was last week.

It’s always fun to see what our members chose to hang and to shop the vendors!

Unfortunately, this has already been a very sad year for our guild with two of our members passing away during the month of January and two of our members’ husbands also passing away.

One of our founding members, Betty Bowker, passed away on my birthday no less.  She was very generous, kind and especially supportive of my work as a quilter and designer.  Although she had been failing in health for some time now, it’s always sad when a friend passes away.

Like most of us quilters, she had a stash!

At the advice of another of our guild members, her children decided to offer her stash for sale at our quilt show.
Before the show even opened I spotted these.
I’m a sucker for old buttons.
Perhaps it’s the old jars they tend to be collected in,
perhaps it’s all the colors of the rainbow that show up in one place,
perhaps it’s like any other addiction,
cause, unknown!
Our other member and friend that is no longer with us is Norma Highsmith.
She had a very short bout with cancer.  Norma was a very active quilter and guild member.
This is a photo of her that I took at our November night meeting, before any of us knew she was even ill.  She had just completed this quilt that she had taken as a class at our Quilt Away in June 2011.
One thing is for sure, time marches on.
I’m so glad to have known these two ladies.  If not for quilting I would never have known either of them, or been enriched by their generosity, caring and love.
By far the best by-product of quilting!
I will treasure this photo and  these buttons because they will forever remind me of my quilting friends.
Until next time,
Susan
Applique quilt projects, new fabric collection, New ideas, New Pattern Sample, Suzn Quilts Patterns

For Everything there is a Season

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Who knows what season it is outside this week?

It is Winter

It looks like Spring.

It feels like Summer!

Just the middle of March, and the extended 7 day forecast here in the lower half of Illinois is 80+ degrees EVERY DAY!

My flowers are blooming!

Inside it’s Spring Quilt Market Prep Season!

I’ve been picking and pruning my “Salt Air” and adding a few others that are acting like fertilizer, making the pretty stuff prettier!

It’s fun to FINALLY cut into this stuff.  When it’s early in the season, with a limited supply of the good stuff, I can’t bear to cut until I know for sure the design is just right!

And this is what I’m working on today.

How about you?  Are you doing your spring gardening yet?

Until next time,

Susan

fabric shopping, My Life, New Pattern Sample, New Quilt pattern sample, Suzn Quilts Patterns

Out Quilt Shoppin’

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It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it!

That’s right, buying fabric.

This is how they looked on the bolts,

and this is how they look sitting on my work table.

(next to some of my new threads)

Also shown is my Garden Trellis pattern that I’m making with these new fabrics.

I’m teaching this quilt at a workshop next month and decided I wanted another sample.

Garden Trellis has been one of my best-sellers since I dreamed it up in 2005.

That’s right, I dreamed it!

I literally woke up and came downstairs and sketched it and the next day sewed it.

David thought (& still thinks) I was crazy, but how crazy is it now that it’s one of my top-selling patterns???

Do you ever dream in quilting?

Time to sew…

Until next time,

Susan

Applique quilt projects, quilt as you go lap quilt, restocking stash

Sulky Thread Love…

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I ordered some thread last week because it had been a while and I was running low on several of my favorites.

Just a few days later and here they are!

The spools with orange labels are the 12 wt. threads and the spools with the brown labels are the 30 wt. threads.

I put my favorite at the top.

It’s my most-used, Sulky 12 wt. Black!  It’s what makes my applique “pop!”  I didn’t know my applique didn’t pop until a couple of Sulky reps wandered by my booth one year at market and introduced me to their threads. They knew my applique didn’t “pop”, but they didn’t tell me that, they just said, “Oh you do a lot of applique. Would you like to try our 12 wt. thread?”

Little did I know that thread would totally change the look of my applique!

I took that thread home with me and eventually tested it on my next applique project.

Oh, my goodness!

It’s like taking a big black crayon and outlining my applique shapes.

I guess I’m still a kindergartener at heart!

Notice how I just showed you what I’ve been working on without showing you what I’m working on?

I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned.

Until next time,

Susan