It’s the Quilting Gallery’s 4th birthday and to celebrate we’re having a HUGE party, with give-aways from quilters around the world!!

Normally, for my anniversary post, I’ll spend some time reflecting on the past year and sharing what the next year will bring. However, I haven’t had time to get this written yet. Look for this post next week.

If you’re new to the Quilting Gallery, Welcome! Here you can meet thousands of quilters from around the world in the quilting bloggers directory. Browse the quilt shop locator, a unique map-based directory of quilting retailers and professionals. Find connections in our world-wide directory of quilt guilds and search for the latest in quilting books, patterns and notions in the quilter’s market.

You’ll also find hundreds of free quilting projects, inspiring guest bloggers and charity quilting projects.

I host a weekly themed quilt contest. Vote this weekend for your favourite Christmas Table Runners or submit a photo for next week’s Christmas contest.

We just finished up the Celebrate Christmas Quilt-Along featuring 36 fabulous designers. I host swaps too; our next one will be in January.

Subscribe to our Newsletter or Like us on Facebook to get notified of the latest FUN!

Give-Aways!!

I have prizes to give-away from a few wonderful sponsors. There will be 13 winners selected!

Aurifil Threads

If you’re new here, you might not know that I’m a HUGE Aurifil Threads fan. I use the 50wt cotton for all of my piecing and hand appliqué work. I’ll use 50wt or 40wt for quilting and have recently fallen in love with their 12wt for machine blanket stitch appliqué.

Alex from Aurifil has donated two thread collections for the give-away. Send Aurifil some love by Liking them on Facebook. They host super fun contests and give-aways there.

Collection 1: Wild Rose by Marti Michell contains 10 small spools of 50wt thread (220 yards each).

Collection 2: Freshly Baked by Kaye England contains 10 small spools of 50wt thread (220 yards each).

Saral Wax-Free Transfer Paper

Another product I adore is Saral’s Wax-Free Transfer Paper. I use it for marking quilting and appliqué placement lines. I did a product review earlier this year. The good folks at Saral have donated 5 sampler packs.

Montana Star Quilts

Quilting friend and author Linda Parker has donated a copy of her book Montana Star Quilts. It features over 90 brilliant full-page, color photos of Indian and author-made star quilts. It also includes complete step-by-step directions for eleven original star quilts with tips to design your own.

Quilter’s Cookbook

I’ll also be donating 5 sets of the two Quilter’s Cookbooks.

Santa alert: Just $4/each! Filled with fabulous recipes, heart-warming stories and gorgeous quilts, they’d make a great gift for you and your quilting friends. Purchase them here!

How to Enter, How to Win!

Leave a comment below. One entry per person. Duplicate entries will be deleted. Winners will be chosen randomly December 18th.

Answer the following: What’s your favourite Christmas song? (Or another song, if you don’t celebrate Christmas). Bonus if you find and share a video of it!

Here’s my favourite Christmas Time by Bryan Adams.

Quilter’s Blog Hop Party

Visit the more than 240 quilters participating in the Quilter’s Blog Hop Party. Thanks to all the bloggers participating. I’m thrilled so many wanted to help us celebrate.

Comments are now closed! Winners announced here.

Please note, Facebook, email subscribers and RSS readers: You need to visit the Quilting Gallery blog to vote and view the quilt photos: CLICK HERE

It’s voting time!! The theme for this week’s quilt contest is Christmas Table Runners. We have many beautiful quilts for you to look at. Grab yourself a cup of coffee (or two!) and a pencil to make note of your faves. You can vote for FOUR table runners this weekend.

Guidelines4Quilting.com are back as this week’s sponsor and have donated two gift certificates for the winners with the most votes on the weekend.

Bonus Savings: Save $5.00 or $8.00 on the 12" or 24" Ultimate Stashbuster Set. Take advantage of special discounts by clicking: Quilting Gallery Special Purchase Page. This page will be available through Sunday, December 11, 2011.

Now it’s time for you to vote for your favourites!

• Voting is open Friday – Sunday @ 11:59 p.m.
• One vote per person (based on IP address NOT email address), so have your family and friends cast a ballot for their favourite quilt (from home if you send it to coworkers)
• Winner announced Monday!

How to Vote:

• Review the photos and stories below… there are several, so you’ll need to scroll down to see them all. You can also click the link to the slider version to review the quilts in the large format and then return to this page to vote.
• Underneath the photos, scroll down, you’ll see the names of all the quilts with a square button** beside each one. Select the buttons for the quilts you want to vote for. You can select up to FOUR quilts this week.
• Then scroll down, all the way, until you get to the bottom of the names of the quilts. Press the vote button.

** Note: If you don’t see the square buttons to vote, but instead see the voting results, that means someone on your IP Address already voted, or that the voting period has ended, or that you need to refresh the page to see the voting options. Shared IP Addresses are very common in home or work networks.

Slider version: To view the large photos to display all the quilts and descriptions, CLICK HERE. You’ll need to return to this page to cast your votes.

Please Note: If you are not seeing all of the photos, check your browser settings. Go to view, and text size. Make sure it’s set at medium. If you need web sites to be larger so you can read them more easily, then use the browser’s Zoom function, not the text resize. You can also use the scroll bar above, beside the photos, to scroll and see the hidden ones.

 Loading ...

Next Week’s Contest

Our last contest of the year is next week and the theme is Christmas. Please don’t enter the same quilt from the Stars or Table Runners contests. Get your cameras out!

• Rules and Guidelines
• Submit your Photo
• Upcoming Themes

New: The 2012 Themes are now available. Find out how you can be a contest sponsor.

Quilter’s Blog Hop Party!

The Blog Hop Party starts Saturday morning. There are more than 250 blogs registered to participate. You can still register on Friday if you wish to host a give-away on your blog. We’ll start blog hopping Saturday morning.

Our Guest Blogger series returns this week after a 3-month hiatus for the Celebrate Christmas Quilt-Along. I’m now booking guests for March, find out how you can be a guest blogger here. Please join me in welcoming quilter Bea Lee as today’s guest.

My name is Bea Lee and I LOVE LOVE LOVE to quilt!

I’m grateful that Michele has let me be a guest blogger here.

I’m originally from Denmark- Born and raised, moved to Florida when I was 18 to go to college then met my husband etc… that was 15 years ago (OOPS I just gave away my age, didn’t I?) Now we live in the STICKS of North Carolina and have 2 great kids.

I wanted to tell you about how I got started with this OBSESSION – quilting.

7 ½ yrs ago I was pregnant with our 2nd child – a girl, and my church had a quilting class over the summer for a few evenings, taught by a pastor’s wife, so I figured I’d try it out and see if I liked it. I actually have a degree in computer animation – my goal was to work for Disney, but while I was in college I met my husband and I also soon after that got saved, so my view on life totally changed….

So, I took this quilt class and made a little baby girl quilt for my daughter (she still has it and it’s loved to shreds!)

My daughter's quilt - first one I made.

I remember at the end of the class we were asked if we’d get into quilting and I said, NAH not really…. Oh boy, was I wrong, and I’ve apologized to her several times for saying that.

I slowly got more and more into quilting, a few years later we moved into the country and I got my own craft room, WOW!! PLUS, some of my neighbors quilted – really inspiring.

Then I started submitting a few quilts to the local county fair, I think I brought in 4 quilts and got 4 ribbons, I was thrilled. That Fall, my husband was looking at my quilting magazines and asked me if I wanted a long arm machine, because he could tell I really liked it – well SURE!! So he researched it and a month or so later I got my Hinterberg setup, a Voyager machine and a Summit frame.

A barcode quilt I'm making for my husband (got the idea from a Radio Shack ad/competition - it links to Radio Shack!).

Now I also long arm quilt for customers, I love doing that too!

I love every part of quilting: designing in EQ7, buying fabrics, cutting, piecing, applique – needle turn or machine, long arm quilting, adding on the binding and label.

My least favorite part of a quilt is maybe the border! Piecing a long strip for the border is just BORING….

I make lots of small quilts and love giving them away, either to expecting mothers or babies or others who needs them.

A bunch of owls I've made and sold/ given away.

I also make quilts that I would like (one day) to get published, where I designed the patterns and have written up patterns for a few already. If anyone would like to be a TESTER for me, let me know.

A Pink ribbon quilt for my best friend in Denmark who has breast cancer and is going thru chemo now, I'm mailing her this quilt for Christmas.

I’ve also taught a few quilt classes, some at a local quilt store and recently at the local college.

I also try to make quilts for shows, and have won a few ribbons already :-) one was at an international quilt show in Washington State a few years ago, called BARGELLO MIRAGE.

Bargello Mirage

I’ve mentioned already I won a few ribbons at the local county fair, and last month I won two ribbons at a county quilt guild show, I missed the submission date for the state fair this year, I’ll try next year.

Don’t get me wrong, of course I love to win ribbons, but it’s not my main focus in quilting. What I truly love is giving them away. I feel God gave me this gift and I want to Bless back with my quilting in different ways.

I love to BLOG about my quilting projects. And I love to get inspired by other quilters too. Until Dec 18th, there’s a great give away from Electric Quilt. Have a look. I also have a web site.
If you have any comments I’d love to hear from you via my blog or web site or email.