New quilt pattern

New Pattern, Sun Drenched 9 Patches!

suznquilts

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

suznquilts

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

suznquilts

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!

suznquilts

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

suznquilts

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

suznquilts

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…

suznquilts

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

Quilt Market

Market neighbors

suznquilts

We’ve been home from Minneapolis’ Spring Quilt Market for two weeks now, and it’s funny because it seems like market was ages ago.  There is so much work that goes into getting designs ready and put into sellable form; designing samples, sewing them, writing directions, photography, printing & bagging.  Some of these steps need to be repeated SEVERAL times before I can justify stopping and other items never really have my final seal of approval, but alas nobody and nothing is perfect and I have to stop and work on the “next” step anyway. 

Well at this market I was fortunate to have two great next door neighbors, on my right,

                          

                                    Mary Jane & Susan of The Quilt Branch 

Two wonderful ladies that also were our roommates for the week. And to the left of Suzn Quilts:

                        

                                Celine Perkins of Perkins Dry Goods

I met Celine several years ago on the Yahoo! Quiltdesigners group and then in “real life” at market one year, 2005?  Anyway at the last couple of Houston markets I’ve helped Celine out by bringing extra tables, my daughter Clare’s sewing machine for Celine to demo her Perfect Piecing Seam Guide on, and was her limo for the week last year. 

So, and this is a BIG So, Celine generously hosted not only me, but the ladies from The Quilt Branch and our market helper and fellow quilt designer Robin Koehler of Nestlings By Robin.  She picked both Robin and me up at the airport, separately mind you, and then drove us everywhere we needed to be and when.  And of course took us both back to the airport for out departure flights!  This was all in addition to her having all the stress of having her own booth, what a friend!  We ate at wonderful restaurants, and stayed at Celine’s mother’s town home while her mother was still in California for the winter. 

One evening Celine’s husband, Mark, cooked us a delicious meal that we shared with their children John, Molly and James.  I even got to ride shotgun while Celine took James to his bus stop one morning, (no, now I remember, James drove us with his learner’s permit, yikes!!! Just kidding he’s a good driver, or maybe it’s because my own son has his permit too and I felt right at home)  What a wonderful family they have!

Now, back to the after market “list”.  Even though it’s been two weeks since market I still have things that I need to finish up before Minneapolis’s Quilt Market is really “finished”.

Susan

Quilt Market

My very first blog post!

suznquilts

In effort to try to catch up with the world, I’ve decided to finally start a blog.  I know, next you’ll be expecting me to join Facebook, then twitter and who even knows what’s next?  I barely have enough hours in the day for everything now, but it’s fun to read blogs and so hopefully I will also have fun blogging. 

Here’s what I’ve been up to these past few months.  Getting ready for and attending International Quilt Market seems to be a constant.  Not back from market two weeks yet and I’d already received the contract for Fall Market.  Please just let me catch my breath!!!  So here I am in my booth, photo compliments of Robin Koehler.

                                      

My booth was full of new Christmas designs.  Soon I will have my new patterns on my website, another item on my list of to-do’s.  I’m wearing an apron with my new Ginger Bliss gingerbread kids, cute huh?  One of my favorite patterns thus far.  It was my best seller at this market, but my new book, Best Freinds was a close second. 

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon!

Susan