7.31.2013

Memory Quilt

This darling memory quilt has some great stories behind it.
The quilt was made by one of my customers to give to the woman who tended her children as they were growing up. Each block is machine appliqued and has a memory that it represents. The children have all entered school this year so she will no longer be tending them. So as a thank you gift they made her this darling quilt.
What a treasure.
When machine quilting, generally I don't do much stippling, but, this quilt just didn't need anything else. They wanted to keep it simple and have the memories be the focal.
I love the final result.

Hope you're all having a fantastic week!

7.30.2013

How to Embroidery Applique

Embroidery applique has become one of our favorite types of applique.
Today we're excited to share a "how-to" tutorial.

7.29.2013

Mystery Quilt ~ Heber Valley Quilt Guild

Each year in our local quilt guild the president designs a quilt and the members of the guild make the quilt during the year. 
Last year Michelle was the president and she designed this beautiful quilt.  The quilt was taught as a mystery quilt and each meeting the members would receive more instruction.
Michelle was an awesome president and made two of the mystery quilt.
She asked me to custom machine quilt them for her. 
I think the quilt is beautiful in both color-ways. I custom machine quilted them almost the exact same with just a few variations.
I also machine quilted another one of Michelle's beautiful quilts and shared it last week, you can check it out here.
Have a great day!

7.27.2013

Back 2 School Drawstring Backpack Tutorial

Back 2 School Drawstring Backpack 
a free tutorial
featuring Embroidery Applique
 
 

I've never been one to get too into the whole back to school thing... but this year I have a child going to school for the first time and I don't know who's more excited, me or my daughter! Kathleen and I created this fun little drawstring backpack tutorial and my daughter LOVES them. So, why not share a tutorial.

7.26.2013

Groovy Flowers Pantograph Pattern

Paula has been making each one of her grandchildren quilts. Each quilt she makes fits the grandchild's personality.
This quilt is for one of her granddaughters who is very girly.
Paula brought me this quilt and asked me to machine quilt it with an all over patterns (pantograph pattern) something that is very girly.
I decided to go with my new digital pantograph pattern, Groovy Flowers. I love the look that this fun girly pattern created on the soft minky fabric.

Groovy Flowers digital pantograph pattern is available for purchase here.

7.25.2013

Sweet Treat ~ A Piece N Quilt original design

Today I'm excited to share with you one of our new quilt patterns, "Sweet Treat". Sweet Treat is actually a paper or template pieced quilt.
Imagine the sweet dreams you'll have nestled under a candy-color confection, by Natalia Bonner.
The diamond shapes created by the corner triangles look like artfully arranged jewels in a velvet lined box.
Sweet Treat is featured in the American Patchwork & Quilting 2014 calendar. It's featured as the quilt of the month for March.
I am so flattered to have another quilt featured in the American Patchwork & Quilt calendar.
When you purchase the calendar you will also receive a booklet containing the quilt patterns for all of the quilts featured in the calendar.

7.24.2013

Block of the Month

Michelle is an absolutely fabulous piecer, everything that she pieces is perfect. I aspire to be more like her. :)

This quilt was a mystery block of the month that Michelle made through the Utah State Quilt Guild. I love the colors that she used, the quilt is so fresh.
Michelle brought me her quilt and told me I could quilt it however I wanted, she did want custom machine quilting.
The quilt will go on her daughters bed, so I did incorporate flowers into the more modern type machine quilting.
I love the final result. I hope Michelle does too!
Thanks for letting me machine quilt your darling quilt Michelle!

7.23.2013

Wool Applique Quilt

Susan makes fabulous quilts!
This is another one of her beautiful quilts, I wish I could remember the name of this pattern because it's so pretty.
The quilt block backgrounds are all cotton and all of the applique is hand appliqued wool.
Susan brought this quilt to me for some custom machine quilting. I quilted a few feathers, some tiny stippling, tiny pebbles and some echoing, I really wanted to add to the applique.
I love the final result. 
Thanks so much for letting me machine quilt your fabulous quilt Susan!

7.22.2013

Teaching at Sew Sweet Quilt Shop in Brunswick, Missouri

This past weekend my husband and I traveled to Brunswick, Missouri to teach at Sew Sweet Quilt Shop's annual July event. 
Sew Sweet Quilt Shop is located in a small town, but that doesn't mean the shop is small. 
I was so happy when I walked inside, the store is absolutely darling, cute fabrics, quilt kits, everyone there was so friendly, they even had a darling little play area for kids!
The retreat was held just down the street from the quilt shop. I was able to teach 2 classes, Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting, a class right from my book, Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting. I also taught the quilt that's on the cover of my book, Orange Slices. Both classes were so much fun. The ladies learned a lot and I loved seeing them put their own little twists on the ideas and techniques that I had to share with them.
My husband even popped into class and captured a few pictures of me teaching. :)
The town of Brunswick is a darling town with super sweet people and yummy food! Every meal we ate was so delicious!
We stayed at the Ashlyn House, Bed & Breakfast, a charming B&B on the main road in Brunswick.
Jeanette & Jessica, the owners of Sew Sweet Quilt Shop did a wonderful job with the retreat, every little detail was covered. The theme was a tropical theme which was so fun and cheery!

Thanks so much for having me teach Jessica &  Jeanette!

Take a minute and visit Sew Sweet Quilt Shop online!

7.17.2013

Piece N Quilt's gone digital

Kathleen and I are super duper stoked today to share what we've been working on for the past half a  year or so.
Our new line of digital embroidery applique's and digital machine quilting patterns.

Ever since purchasing my long-arm machine six years ago I've dreamed of creating my own long-arm patterns. My journey into this began a few years back when I signed a contract with C&T Publishing/Stash Books to write my first book, Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting (pinch me, I still can't believe I wrote a book, or 2). I've been so pleased with how my book is doing, so over the past year Kathleen and I knew that we had to pursue the dream of designing long-arm machine quilting patterns.

Along this crazy journey, my mom, Kathleen fell in love with Embroidery Applique. She does all of her embroidery on her Bernina and if you haven't noticed we love to make burp cloths with embroidery on them. We've got a free tutorial here. While making all of these burp cloths Kathleen decided to start putting her creative mind to work and start designing digital embroidery appliques. 

So, with all that said I'm so excited to share our new website with you today!
This is the home page, the website has 2 sides to it, Embroidery Applique's & Machine Quilting Patterns.
The machine quilting side of the site currently features digital machine quilting patterns that I've designed. Maybe down the road we will also have paper pantograph patterns.
Over on the Embroidery side of the website there are several fun embroidery appliques. Ranging from food, to kitchen to sports.
Both sides of the website will continue to grow, we will be adding new machine quilting patterns and embroidery applique's weekly.

Kathleen and I are both super excited about this journey and are very thankful for all of you that have supported us over the past several years!

Hope you all have a fantastic day!

7.16.2013

Back to School With Pam Kitty Love & Fat Quarter Shop

A few weeks back I machine quilted some darling quilts for my friends, Debbie & Kimberly from Fat Quarter Shop. Debbie & Kimberly made these quilts from Barbara Brackman's civil war sampler in bright and cheery Pam Kitty Love fabrics, it's fun to see how traditional blocks can seem so different with these bright cheery fabrics.

(photo via Fat Quarter Shop)
This first quilt belongs to Debbie, I love how she added in the black, I just love what it did for her quilt.
(photo via Fat Quarter Shop)
This is a close up of the custom machine quilting I did on Debbie's, it was fun to quilt, I always have fun machine quilting sampler type quilts. 
(photo via Fat Quarter Shop)
This version is Kimberly's it's so pretty and soft. Love how this one turned out as well.
(photo via Fat Quarter Shop)
Here is a fun close up of the machine quilting on Kimberly's quilt, I kept it to a larger scale on her quilt to keep the quilt really soft.

If you missed out on Fat Quarter Shop's post yesterday you may just want to hop on over to their blog, I heard there is a give away going on, that has something to do with these darling quilts!

Have a great day!

7.14.2013

Disney's new movie Planes & $100 Fandango Gift Card Give-Away


A couple months back my husband and I took our kids to California to go to Disneyland and California Adventure!
We loved all of both parks but I'm pretty sure Chesney's favorite was Radiator Springs Racers! She LOVED it, along with everyone else there! :)
While we were visiting Disneyland we heard about the new Disney movie Planes. We loved Cars so I'm sure we're going to love Planes!
Today I have the opportunity to tell you a little about some of the characters in the new movie Planes, I've taken some time over the last few days and read all about the characters, it's fun to read about them and relate them to people I know, like my children!
One of the characters in Planes is Roper, Roper reminds me of my daughter Chesney. Roper is funny but firm in his dealings with the race and racers. This totally fits Chesney, she likes to go have fun with her friends but boy oh boy if someone does something she thinks isn't right, watch out! This can be a challenging personality to deal with, but maybe I have a little bit of that in myself so we seem to get along...okay. :)
Chug is another one of the characters in the movie, his characteristics remind me of my baby Brayden. He's a guys guy who plays hard and has a big personality. As I type this post Brayden is on the floor playing hard. He's a fun little guy but wow, he's so much different than a little girl! He's been a challenge for me because he's so rough but I think we'll keep him!
We are so excited to see the new Disney movie Planes, and maybe someday we'll be taking our kids back to Disneyland and visiting the Planes characters.
GIVEAWAY!
Want to win a $100 Fandago Gift Card? Leave a comment below answering the question: "How do you challenge your children to follow their dreams?"

Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b) Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the
following unique term in your tweet message: ""#SweepstakesEntry""; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post"
c) Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 7/15 - 8/12.
Be sure to visit the Disney Planes page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win!

GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!

7.12.2013

Coordinating Little Girl Quilts

Becky made some darling little quilts for her first granddaughter! I think she's pretty excited about this little girl. :)
Becky asked me to custom machine quilt these little quilts for her. They were a lot of fun, the flowers on this quilt are pre-printed so I outlined them to make them appear to be applique'd.
These next two quilts are made from a Moda Bake Shop tutorial, not sure the name of the pattern, if you know I'd love to know. :)
They are the same pattern, just put together a little differently.
 Thanks for letting me machine quilt your darling quilts Becky!


7.10.2013

Adding Machine Quilting

This is the very first quilt that Mary made, she not only did a fantastic job piecing this quilt she also did a fantastic job of machine quilting it. She quilting some simple straight line, "stitch-in-the ditch" type quilting.
It looked great but Mary decided that she wanted a little more machine quilting added to it.
So, she sent it to me and asked me to add to her quilting.
So, I did, it was fun to add a little detail.
Thanks for letting me machine quilt another darling quilt Mary.

Click here to see another one of Mary's darling quilts. 

7.09.2013

Little Girl Quilt

Mary made this darling quilt as a gift for her niece. 
I love how happy and cherry this quilt is!
Mary sent me her quilt and asked me to custom machine quilt it for her, something fun to make the pattern 
pop!
I had fun with it, making the quilt pop!
Thanks for letting me machine quilt your darling quilt Mary!