Terial Magic!

So, Kathleen and I are always telling you how much we love applique, and that we're a little crazy about starch, right.. I'm sure you've heard all the reasons why we love starch so much, it washes out, you can cut behind applique, no extra product left in your quilt! Yes, we love it!

Over the last couple months we've been trying out a new product, Terial Magic! This stuff really is magic! Super easy to use, it gives some awesome stabilization to your fabric, I could go on and on!

Hop over to the Terial Arts' website to learn more about all of the Terial Arts' products!

Combining the Silhouette Cameo with Quilting

A few weeks back, the crew from Silhouette came to our studio and spent the day with us chatting about the Silhouette and the cool ways we can use it with quilting.

You all know how much Kathleen and I love embroidery applique, this nifty little device has made cutting applique pieces such a breeze!

Take a second and watch the little video where I share my thoughts about the Silhouette Cameo.

In the video I'm working on this Sail Away quilt, PDF pattern is available for purchase here.

Embroidery Applique Quilt

Last week I machine quilted this gorgeous embroidery applique quilt for the ladies at Quiltique, a fabulous quilt shop in Las Vegas, NV.

This was a fun quilt to machine quilt, I combined feathers, swirls, pebbles, arcs and a little bit of stitch-in-the-ditch (all of these patterns are taught in my book, Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting) I really wanted the applique to pop, I think I achieved that!

Thanks Quitique friends for letting me machine quilt another one of your darling quilts!

Criss-Cross - a Modern One-Block Quilt

Hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend. It's always nice to have a long weekend!

Today Kathleen and I are sharing another quilt from our new book, Modern One-Block Quilts; Criss-Cross.

I love this quilt, chevrons seem to have been pretty popular the last year or so, when we designed this quilt we were inspired by the chevron trend, but had to put our on twist on the style.

I love the way that the fabrics actually appear to be twisting through each other in this quilt.

One of these days...... we're planning to re-make this quilt using several colors, don't you think it'd be adorable with each strip a different color?

Criss-Cross is a template pieced quilt, but the pieces are large and this quilt goes together pretty easily, pattern is in our book, Modern One-Block Quilts and is available in 3 sizes; Baby, Twin & Coverlet.

Quick Quilting Tips & Tricks!

My friend Amy of Diary of a Quilter has put together a fun little blog-hop, Quick Quilting Tips & Tricks!

I am not a perfect piecer by any means, but I do believe there are a few tips and tricks that can help all of us to end up with the result we all want!

A few years back I shared a fun little tutorial, How-to: Properly Attach a Border or Sashing. I thought it'd be fun today to share that again.

Click here to see the full tutorial.

Being a long-arm machine quilter something that makes my job difficult is borders not being attached correctly. Often borders are just put on without measuring, which can result in waving borders, which makes my job very difficult, and makes it hard for a long-arm quilter to make your quilt look fabulous!

So, my little tip today, just make sure you're always attaching your borders correctly. :)

Amy- the host of this little tour is the author of a new book; Fabulously Fast Quilts. I was lucky enough to machine quilt one of the quilts in this book for her. The quilts and patterns in this book are fabulous, make sure to check it out!

Hop over to Amy's blog and check out all of the other Quick Quilting Tips & Tricks!

Have a great day!

Modern Building Blocks for Moda Fabrics

I am so excited to finally get to start sharing some of the quilts that I machine quilted for Quilt Market. This adorable quilt I machine quilted for Moda Fabrics, it's called Modern Building Blocks! I love everything about it!

When the ladies at Moda sent it to me they told me I could do whatever I wanted, just keep it modern. So, lots and lots of ruler work!

I machine quilted something different in every single block.

Check out the Moda blog for more information.

Limeade now available as a PDF

Today Kathleen and I are excited to share another one of our quilts, available for the first time as a PDF pattern. Kathleen and I designed this quilt a couple years back, it was originally published in the American Patchwork & Quilting 2013 calendar. Today, we're super excited to share it again!

Limeade is a one-block quilt, but when put together with sashing and cornerstones it appears to be two blocks! I love quilts that make you think!

This pattern is available for download on our website, check it out.

Of course a little eye-candy!

 Ever since we designed this quilt I've wanted to make the Lemonade version, or 2 versions, I've drawn them up, some-day I hope to make it in one of these versions, I just love yellow!

My week via Instagram

photo via instagram

It's been a busy week here, now that I'm done with all the quilts and big deadlines that I was working on for Quilt Market I've been able to get back to all of my super patient customers quilts. I'm trying really hard to get caught up, thank you everyone who has been so patient with me!

Kathleen and I have chosen to skip this Quilt Market for a few reasons, but one of those being the time away from my kids. I love my job, I love what I do, but ultimately my family is the most important thing in my life, so skipping some events is something that I have decided I will do. :) Each morning we get up bright and early to get Chesney on the bus, we drive her to her bus stop and Brayden likes to sit in the front seat with me while we wait for the bus.

photo via instagram

This darling quilt is one of the quilts that I custom machine quilted this week, this quilt belongs to Tracey Jacobsen of Traceyjay Quilts. It's going to be published in a magazine later this year, so I can't show you any more than this right now. Tracey sent it to me and told me I could do whatever I wanted to the quilt. I love when my customers give me that freedom. I feel like I can do a better job and let my creativity run. I used a double batt on this quilt and went to town with it. It's fun to see the transformation that quilting can do for a quilt.

photo via instagram

This adorable postage stamp quilt belongs to Donna. Donna asked me to machine quilt it with an all over zig-zag pattern, I think that sometimes edge to edge quilts is just what a quilt needs, and this is the perfect example of that.

photo via instagram

Last night Kathleen and I shared our quilts at a trunk show in Taylorsville, UT. I really do enjoy sharing our quilts! Thank you Tara for having us come to your guild!

photo via instagram

This was just this morning, I hadn't put away all of our quilts from the trunk show and Brayden decided to relax on them and watch his favorite movie, Frozen! Love it!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Bed of Tulips - now available as a PDF

Today I'm excited to share, Bed of Tulips is finally available as a PDF!

Kathleen originally designed this quilt when she participated in the first McCalls Quilt Design Star contest. This was her second entry, with the challenge to design a quilt using just 2 blocks. I've loved the fresh feel of this quilt ever since then. I love what the simple melon border does for it.

The quilt measures 75" square, it's a great picnic quilt, or for anywhere in your house. 

A year or so ago this pattern was published in Fons & Porter magazine, and now we've finally got the PDF pattern ready and available for purchase on our website.

Here's a little bit of eye-candy for you.

Hop over to our website to purchase and download the PDF pattern.

Have a happy Thursday!

Itsy Bitsy Log Cabin Quilt

Yesterday I spent the day machine quilting this adorable quilt for Jan! I've machine quilted a few of these, those log cabins are so tiny, the strips finish about 1/2"! AWESOME!

I machine quilted swirls in the red border, circles in the green border, clams in the background and feathers in the log cabin blocks, I teach how to quilt every one of these designs in Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting.

Love you quilt Jan! Thanks for letting me play with it! :)

You Wash - I Will Dry - Dish Towels

This morning Kathleen designed and made these adorable kitchen dish towels! You Wash & I will Dry! Love them, except I need the ones that say,  You Wash and I'll Sleep! hahaha, actually, yes we did make embroidery files that say that! :)

Do you want to make some of these for yourself?

We've got a tutorial for the towels here, you can purchase the embroidery files here, and we've got these great dish-towel blanks here.

Have a great day!

Wrapped In Red - Available in PDF

Kathleen and I designed our Wrapped in Red quilt a few years back, it was featured in American Patchwork & Quilting magazine, actually it made the cover of that magazine! What a huge honor!

Remember how I told you that a goal for 2014 was to make all of our patterns available as PDF's on our site. Well, I'm making progress! Wrapped in Red is now available as a PDF!

YIPEE!

We originally made this quilt using Christmas fabrics, but, our customers have made it in adorable scrappy reds and I've also seen it made in blues. It's adorable every way I've seen it!

You can purchase the PDF on our website.

Have a great day!

Sail Away

Kathleen and I are excited to share our newest quilt pattern, Sail Away. This fun pattern features traditional piecing along with embroidery applique. 

We love this quilt for so many reasons, love the nautical feel, and the clean look, but also what's so cool about this quilt, the quilt pattern is designed with the Silhouette Cameo in mind. 

When you purchase the PDF pattern you will receive DXF files that can be used with the Silhouette Cameo to cut the anchors. Also, the PDF file contains several types of embroidery applique files so you can use your embroidery machine to applique the anchors.

BUT!

If you don't have the Silhouette Came or an embroidery machine the pattern includes PDF anchor template for the anchor!

The pattern is now available for purchase on our website.

I had so much fun machine quilting this quilt too! I hope you like it as much as we do!

If you happen to be at Quilt Market this week, stop by and visit our friends in the Silhouette booth, they'll have this fun quilt there.

Buggy Barn Stars

This adorable quilt was made by Marna, for her granddaughter's wedding, I know I've told you this before, but I'll tell you about her again. Marna is my grandma's sister My grandma died when I was a teenager, she suffered from Rheumatoid Arthritis and was unable to be a quilter like her mother and grandmother. Even though my grandma was unable to be a quilter I feel like part of my love for quilts and quilting came from her. Since my grandma passed away when I was young I feel so honored that her sisters still live so close to me and they let me machine quilt for them. I feel like my grandma is living on through her sisters.

Anyways, I have machine quilted a few of these for Marna and she loves them all to be quilted the same. So, stippling in the background, outlining the stars, circles in the stop border and feathers in the outer border, love it!

Thanks again for letting me machine quilt for you Marna!

Over Under - Available as a PDF

Do you all remember our Over Under pattern? This quilt is one of our favorites, and it's been so inspiring. One of my goals for 2014 was to make every single quilt pattern that Kathleen and I have designed available as PDF's. It's May, and I've finally got the first one done. Now that market is almost upon us I hope to have more free-time and get the rest converted. 

But for now, Over Under is officially available for purchase on our website as a PDF! YIPEE!!!