Beginner's Guide to Free Motion Quilting - Book Review and Giveaway!!

I was so excited when Natalia asked me to be a part of the blog tour for her new book, Beginner's Guide to Free Motion Quilting!!  Natalia is an amazingly talented designer and quilter.  I love her quilts for their wonderful use of applique and stunning quilting!!  I mean, just look at the cover quilt, Fabulous!!!



Natalia's theme for this book tour is "It's A Family Affair".  And I couldn't agree with her more! 

My quilting journey started when I asked my mother to teach me to quilt right before I moved across the country with my husband for school.  I knew I was about to be in for some lonely days and nights and thought it would be fun to have a hobby.  (Who knew it would grow to this :)  My mother taught me all the in's and out's of quilting and I loved that time we had quilting together.

Now I find that I have the wonderful opportunity to teach my daughter to quilt.  Jessica is 7 and she is working on her first quilt.  It is a joy to now share this skill with her!!  (And if I am being honest, occasionally it is an exercise in patience:)  The rest of the gang at home are such a huge support of my quilting journey!  They inspire me daily and love me even when I am a little bit crazy!  I couldn't ask for more!  



My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com

Natalia's book is fabulous!!  I have gone through it cover to cover and have bookmarked so many pages!!  I love that the book begins with Machine Quilting Basics.  How helpful to have a complete rundown on batting, thread selection, basting, ect. all in one place! 

The book is then broken down into 5 sections on quilting :  Allover Quilting, Background Fillers, Borders and Sashings, Custom Quilted Blocks, and finally Quilting on Applique!!  This makes it so much easier to find the type of design you are looking for, especially when you want to do some custom quilting!!  I just finished up a quilt top this week and was so excited to flip through the pages of Natalia's book for lots of quilting inspiration and guidance!
I choose the Swirls from the Background Fillers section for the bulk of the quilt and am so happy to have finally figured out how to add the little swirl tips that allow you to travel easier!!   

I went with the Single Circles and Ovals from the Borders and Sashing sections for my borders.  My ovals aren't quite oval but they got  better as I went along :) 

I have so many of the flower design's marked to try out!!  They are so adorable but this was a boy quilt and flowers just didn't go so I will have to give those designs a whirl next time :)   I will be sure to show you when I do :) 
Oh, and Natalia added a bonus section at the end of her book that includes 6 stunning quilt patterns, including the cover quilt!!  That is so on my list of things to make!!!

Beginner's Guide to Free Motion Quilting is just that!!  A fabulous guide to walk you through, give you confidence, and then expand your free motion quilting horizons!  

GIVEAWAY!!!!

Thank you so much to Natalia for including me in this blog tour!!!  And, thank you for giving me the opportunity to giveaway a copy of your book!!!  

So would you like to win a copy of Natalia's book, Beginners Guide to Free Motion Quilting?  Just leave me a comment telling me where you are in the world of Free Motion Quilting . . . Have you tried it? Do you like it? Do you have some horror story of unpicking?  Do you just love it and can't wait to try new designs??  . . . You get the idea, anything along those lines :)  

Once comment per person please and a winner will be announced on October 20th :) 

For more chances to win this excellent book be sure to enter at all the stop's along the hop!!!

A Super Surprising Sale on Schmidt!!!

**  Note - If you are looking for the Sweet Celebrations blog tour post you can find it here :)

I went to JoAnn's this morning to buy some needles (notions are all 50% off) and you could imagine how thrilled I was to find that there were several bolts of Denyse Schmidt's Daisy Mae and several bolts of  Sugar Creek and Winding Road in the clearance section.  As part of the Columbus Day sale, all of the clearance fabrics were an additional 50% off.  So these fabulous Denyse Schmidt prints were $3.00 a yard!!!   Yippee Skippee!!!   So if you have a minute today and a near by JoAnn's you might want to pop in and see if you can get your own Surprise Schmidt Sale :)

TNT Thursday with Trapunto

*** Note - If you are looking for the Sweet Celebrations Blog Hop Post you will find it here :)

So were you like me and the first time you heard someone talking about trapunto wondered what in the world it was??  (Are you still wondering what it is??)  I had heard it tossed around and finally managed to deduce that trapunto is a technique in quilting used to make parts of a quilt "puffier".  (No that isn't Webster's definition)  And so, now that I knew what it was I filed it away for another day :)

Then, about a week ago another day came.  I drew up a little design that would look oh so adorable if certain parts of it were "puffier".  And so I was off to figure out how the technique was actually done.  I found lots of different "how to's" and took bits and pieces from them for my own method.  And just FYI, the quilt I using trapunto on is for my next MBS tutorial so it will go over my little method of trapunto.

It wasn't to hard.  Basically I just added extra batting to the back of my quilt where I wanted it puffy and then secure stitched my applique on the front.  Fun huh!!!

And just to keep it real . . . I somehow managed to stitch the front corner of my quilt top to the back of my applique.  So apparently this doesn't just happen when I am quilting, I can manage to do it when appliqueing as well :)  At least I got to use my new purple seam ripper all the way from Scotland :)

So that's it for me this week.  How about you???  What have you been trying new??  Link on up!

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A Very Sweet Celebration!! And it gets Sweeter with a Giveaway!!

We'll today's the day!!!  It's my day for the Sweet Celebrations blog hop!!!  A big hello and welcome goes out to all those stopping by for the first time.  I'm so excited to get to meet new friends.   And of course, for all of my friends who stop by daily, Yippee Skippee!!!   Do you remember when I posted about this clear back in May??  (Talk about a cliff hanger :)  

I can't tell you how excited I am to be a part of this amazing group of "Chefs".  This book has been such a journey!!  It has been a long time in the making but I am sure you will find, it was well worth the wait!!  Each of the projects in the book are for an annual celebration and each of us "chefs" were assigned one of those Celebrations for the blog hop!!

My Assigned Celebration is Birthdays.  I was all kinds of excited for this since two of my projects in the book are to celebrate Birthdays :)  Yup, see that table topper the cake is set upon in the bottom right hand corner and the cute banner in the background, my projects. Yippee Skippee!!!    (I also have a project for Fathers Day but you will have to get the book to see that one, only a few little sneak peeks today :)

So for the Blog Hop, Moda decided to do a little "Getting To Know You".  Oda May prepared us a list of questions.  The questions were totally random, which I loved as I tend to be random all the time.  So without further ado, a little more about the Happy Quilter.  Enjoy!!

Do your pets/kids/spouse help or hinder your creative process?

First off, we don't have any pets.  I am afraid of cats and dogs so that really narrows the field.  (silly I know, but true none the less.)

My husband supports me in this creative (and sometimes crazy) process fully with only the occasional grumbling when his shirts end up at the bottom of the ironing pile under a mountain of blocks.

My boys don't tend to hang out in my sewing room all that often but my girls love it!!  My 7 year old loves to play in my scraps and often inspires color combos I use in my quilts.  My 3 year old loves to help by handing me pins.  When she gets bored of waiting for me to need a pin, she simply pins my chair.  She has yet to stab me, but the day she does will be the day she no longer get's to pin my chair.  Lastly, my baby girl.  She just loves to roll around the room.  (And ya, she doesn't care what is in the way ;)

If you could patchwork bomb a spot in your town, where would you choose and why?

This is the Centurium on the campus of Southern Utah University here in Cedar City, Utah.  I attended SUU (a while back) and quickly found that one of the freshmen traditions is to snap your photo with these statues.  Sadly, I couldn't find any of my photo's of my roommates and I being super silly. (coincidence??)

But I can't help thinking how much more fun the freshmen would have taking their silly snapshots if Albert Einstein and his posse of thinkers were wearing patchwork pants!  Just makes me smile to think about it :)

If you could have a quilt shop spree, which items would you snag off the shelf??



Pre-cuts, Pre-cuts, Pre-cuts!!!   I love my Pre-cuts.   I love the amazing selection of prints, the perfectly coordinating colors, and the huge amount of time I save cutting!!  Easy Peazy, Lemon Squeezy!!

What is your favorite Birthday memory? 

I started looking through old photos trying to remember a favorite birthday memory.  I quickly realized, I don't have a lot of recent birthday memories of me, but I do have a ton of Birthday memories of my children.  I especially love the first birthday!!!  These little ones change so much in 1 year and on each of their first birthdays I take a minute to reflect on how they have grown, and what a special place they have in my heart.

I also love our first birthday tradition of the birthday cake!!  I mean who doesn't love pictures of icing covered kids with huge grins on their face as they stuff in every last crumb :)

 Jocelyn just turned 1 a few weeks ago and she, like her siblings, loved it to the last bite!

Do you prefer to celebrate with cupcakes, cake pops, or just plain old cake?

None of the above!!!  So this might be weird,  but I really don't like frosting.  Doesn't matter what kind, I just don't like it.  So here I am at my last birthday (surprised we took a photo) and in front of me you will see a nasty frosted cake.  This is a prop cake.  Its sole purpose is for the kids to be happy.  We sang, I blew out the candles, the kids had huge globs of icing with ice cream -  tradition complete!  And then I pulled my customary individual birthday cheesecake from the fridge ;)    Nothing say's Happy Birthday to Me like a Cheesecake!!!

And as part of this blog hop, each of the chefs are sharing their favorite recipe from their assigned Celebration.  So of course, I am sharing my favorite Snickers Cheesecake recipe!  It's so yummy and so incredibly easy to make!!

You can go here to print this recipe in either a 3 x 5 recipe card or a 4 x 6 card card or just click on the Printer Friendly Version below :)  Collect all of the recipes along the hop to keep with your book!!!



So that's a little about me.  Random for sure, but there you have it, little ol' me :)  So now, let's get to the part about little ol' you!!!!   The Giveaway!!!

GIVEAWAY!!!!

I am so excited to giveaway a copy of Sweet Celebrations plus a Moda Layer Cake to go along with it!!!  Simply leave me a comment below of a favorite birthday present to be entered to win. You have until October 14th to comment and the winner will be announced on October 19th :)

And for a complete list of all the hop stops just click on the banner!!!  Enjoy the Sweet Celebration!!!

Happy Squishy Mail!!

I love squishy mail!!  I got my mini  all the way from Scotland sent from Lochside Quilter this weekend!  It is perfect!!!  I love, love, love it!!!   I am so thankful to my wonderful partner, Lochside Quilter, who created this beautiful mini just for me :)

I got a plethora of extra goodies along with my squishy packaged.    Lochside Quilter really spoiled me.  I love that all of the goodies continue with the purple theme!!  That purple seam ripper is my new favorite!!!  (And guaranteed, it will get lots of good use. )

And here it is on my cute little wall of mini's!!   Doesn't it just fit in perfect!!!  Lochside Quilter stalked me well!!  I can't tell you how happy these make me.  My three mini's now represent 3 countries, Scotland, Australia, and Canada.  How cool is that!!

Oh, and a quick reminder.  The Sweet Celebrations Blog Hop kicks off today.  Check it out, and then come back tomorrow when it will be hoping on over here!!