Quilting Gallery » Quilting Events, Guilds, Shows, Meetings

Give-Away Day!

Mishka — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:50:36 +0000

It’s Sew Mama Sew’s give-away day! Have some fun clicking around to all the fabulous blogs giving away goodies. Once you’re done entering my give-away below, visit the other blogs here.

If you’re new here to the Quilting Gallery .. welcome! I’m Michele Foster, aka Mishka. I hope you’ll spend a few minutes checking out the various sections of my site from the links above including the most popular Quilting Bloggers Directory – with more than 6,200 quilting friends from around the world.

Also, each week I host a weekly themed quilt contest too. The theme for this weeks contest is Creative Expression. Quilters are free to interpret this theme as they see fit. Any quilting style is acceptable. You can submit quilts, wall hangings, pillows, etc. as long as the item you enter is completely finished (i.e. bound and quilted). Enter here!

You can keep in touch by subscribing to my weekly newsletter or our Facebook group.

Give-Aways

I’m giving away these six gorgeous hand-dyed fabrics from my collection:

To enter the give-away, leave a comment below answering, To add some pop to a quilt, what colour would you use. One entry per person. Winner will be selected randomly May 26th. I will ship worldwide.

Also, I’m hosting a give-away for MyMemories Suite scrap booking software. This give-away is open until May 23rd, enter this give-away here.

Pat Sloan’s: Focus on the Center Blog Tour

Mishka — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:30:31 +0000

I’m thrilled to be participating in Pat Sloan’s Focus on the Center Book Tour. There are 10 quilters participating in the tour this week and we each have two copies of Focus on the Center to give-away to our lucky readers. See below to enter my give-away and for the links to the other participants.

Plus, visit Pat’s blog as she’s asked each of us some fun questions and her publisher’s blog too:

Focus on the Center features seven medallion-style quilts. Confession, I have never made a medallion-style quilt before, but I’m really tempted by this one called Lucky Charms:

I just adore the scrappy-ness of this quilt and the unique on-point borders around the center appliqué followed by rectangular borders. There’s lots of interest in this quilt! It finishes at 61″ square, but you could easily make it larger or smaller by adding more borders or removing some. I also love that it has flying geese .. I really need a quilt with lots of flying geese for myself.

I’m not really big on making Christmas quilts that only get enjoyed for a month, so I would do the alternate center that’s included in the book for this quilt, here it is:

For the center appliqué, I’d use solid white and then scraps of my other fabrics. I’ll also continue the white into the large half square triangles/flying geese units around the appliqué. Here are my fabrics:

The colourful fat quarters and yardage prints are Treasures and Tidbits by Piece O’ Cake Designs for Robert Kaufman fabrics. The black and white prints are a fat quarter bundle put together by Jodie of Fort Worth Fabric Studio.

The red yardage will be used similar to how Pat used red in her sample: inner thin border and triangles around the white appliqué, for the wider border around the entire on-point layout and for the binding.

For the green used in the sample, i.e. the setting triangles in the center and for the flying geese sky units, I’ll use the black and white prints. I’ll alternate between black on white vs. white on black prints for the flying geese sky units. It’ll still be very scrappy, but the black and white will add some calm to the wild colours in the prints… I think! The prints will be used for the flying geese body units, the two scrappy outer borders and the rectangles inside the on-point layout.

Can you picture it?? I really wish I had time right now to start something new as this quilt is calling me! Maybe later in the summer.

See that fabulous yellow flowered print beside the red one above, well I have a few yards of it and there will be enough fabrics left over from the above quilt to make a coordinating one.

I love this one from the book, Antique Mist, and would use that flowered print in place of the large blue aqua flower print that Pat used for the middle border. Black and white prints would replace the pinks and the coloured fabrics would be used in place of the off whites. Not sure if I’ll have quite enough red yardage for the pink striped borders, but if not, a solid from my stash would work well too. This medallion quilt finishes at 57″ square.

One of the things I love about Pat’s book, is that she’s included quick piecing methods such as making four flying geese units from squares of fabric.

I find when I’m browsing new books at the local quilt shop, I’m disappointed when I see authors not using the quicker methods we’ve all come to love from quilting tutorials from our blogging friends. Please tell me I’m not alone in this!

Give-Away

I have two copies of Pat’s Focus on the Center book to give-away. Leave a comment below answering:

Have you ever made a medallion-style quilt? If so, how many rounds did it have? If not, are you encouraged to do one now after seeing a few from Pat’s book?

Winners will be randomly chosen on May 7th.

Be sure to visit the other quilts in the tour too and enter their give-aways:

Tuesday

Our hostess: Pat Sloan
Carrie of Miss Rosie’s Quilt Co.
Vanessa Christenson of V & Co.

Wednesday

Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville
Michele Foster of the Quilting Gallery – that’s ME!

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

P.S. Here’s a flying geese tutorial from my friend Bradie. It is similar to the one Pat has in her book.

Winners:

Congratulations to #149 quiltmom anna and #138 Pam. Emails have been sent to you from Pat Sloan.

Garden Party Blog Hop: Patio Umbrella

Mishka — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 12:00:21 +0000

Today is my special day for Jennifer’s Garden Party Blog Hop. This month, 30 designers are creating 10″ paper pieced blocks. Links to download the free patterns are available here and you can see the blocks that have been created so far in the Flickr Group.

Patio Umbrella

Here’s my block: Patio Umbrella. Download it here.

My fabrics – the flower prints are from my 1930s stash of fat quarters. The two prints are from Feedsack by Sara Morgan for Blue Hill Fabrics. The blue sky fabric is from my hand dyes and the orange dot fabric is Arabella by Pat Sloan (I think!).

I prefer to measure my paper pieced segments, add 3/4″ for seam allowance and fudge room, and then pre-cut my fabrics into usable shapes in advance. I have included my measurements in the PDF file. This way, I have all of my pieces ready when I head to the sewing machine and I know that all of my pieces will fit the required sections.

Lately, I have been doing my paper pieced projects with freezer paper following the ideas presented in this tutorial: Freezer Paper Foundation Piecing.

I really like the C. Jenkins Freezer Paper Sheets that I can run through my printer. While the sheets of paper are more expensive, the leftover pieces not used in the printed diagram can then be used for appliqué.

Here is section B stitched, but not trimmed yet:

When trimming the pieces, with freezer paper foundation piecing, you need to add back the seam allowances that were cut off the paper templates. Here are the three sections:

When stitching the three sections together, I first joined sections B and C, being careful to match up the pole/trunk of the umbrella. I stitched with section B on the top, so that I didn’t accidentally cut off any of the points of the umbrella.

The completed block, unfinished it is 10.5″

Download Patio Umbrella!

If you complete the block, be sure to upload it to the Garden Party Flickr Group as Jennifer is giving away a prize each week to one lucky quilter.

Thanks so much to Jennifer for organizing this blog hop party. I have enjoyed seeing all of the blocks the talented designers have created.

Give-Away

In this week’s Learning Center post, Pat Sloan is exploring embroidery, crazy quilting and sashiko with two talented guests. Plus, Aurifil is giving away a Sashiko thread kit to one lucky reader.

Read the post and enter the give-away here!

Join the FUN: Mystery Quilt by Email

Mishka — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:00:21 +0000

Please join me in welcoming today’s guest blogger, Heather Spence. Last year, Heather hosted a Mystery Quilt By Email to raise funds for her mom’s stem cell transplant. Now, Heather’s hosting another Mystery Quilt to help another family stricken by cancer and ever-increasing medical bills. I hope you’ll join the Mystery Quilt FUN and help too.

Thank you, Michele, for having me back again! What a joy it was to be able to share my mom’s story about her cancer and my plan to help with her stem cell transplant. For those of you who don’t know the transplant took place on December 6th and was successful. Recovery from the stem cell transplant is approximately 3 months with near constant monitoring. Thankfully she returned home on St. Patrick’s Day (how’s that for the luck of the Irish?). She is now allowed to drive and has been released into the “wild” again (that is, general public) though she will not be able to pursue gardening for a year due to microscopic organisms that could harm her baby immune system. We have all greatly appreciated the love and support from around the world! Thank you all!!

But the Mystery Quilt… that’s why I’m really here. We had such success for our first Mystery Quilt! There were 81 participants which enabled me to give my mom $810!! That was so amazing to me. I truly couldn’t have done it without you. And now there’s another lady who is in serious need of help.

Just after the fall Mystery Quilt started a new client came to my house to discuss a quilt she wanted quilted for her son and daughter in law. There was a bit of urgency to the job as her daughter in law had been diagnosed with Melanoma which had spread to her brain and lungs (which Melanoma does…so be sure to have moles checked out by a doc!) from her eye. The prognosis wasn’t good.

Well, the long and the short of it is this: she was able to have the tumors in her lungs removed and I believe they’ve been doing radiation and a few other trial therapies for the tumor in her brain. She was meant to pass away this last November but, by the grace of God, has survived in amazing ways! She has even asked her doctors when she can go back to work!! (Her doctor asked incredulously, “Do you really have any idea what we’ve done to your brain?!?”)

But here’s the saddest part of the story. Sandee is young (mid-40′s) with three teenage children. She was working two jobs so they could make car payments and mortgage. And then she got sick. She had to quit both of her jobs. Then the medical bills start rolling in. The insurance/medical group (insurance company that has their own medical facilities and staff that is quite large here in Western Washington) didn’t do a good job with her diagnosis and treatment so she went to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance for better care. A couple of months ago the insurance company dropped her as a client. (Apparently they can do that if you go outside their system…ironically, this will be against the new health care system rules when it goes into effect January 2014.)

During some recent research I found out that a shocking 60% of cancer survivors below the retirement age end up declaring bankruptcy. It’s tragic and demoralizing when there’s all this cutting edge care for cancer patients but no real help financially for those who are struggling. The average cost of cancer treatment is in the millions. Did you know that as a normal-every-day person without health problems an average American will make over the course of their life $2 million dollars. It is unfathomable to me how these two numbers don’t add up.

Now, I’m not here to debate people’s personal financial choices, nor do I even want to talk about what the American government is or is not doing.

What I want to share is HOPE. Real live, true HOPE for Sandee and her family. To show that others do care for the struggles they find themselves in. The goal of the Mystery Quilt for Cancer Patients is to provide money to help with their medical bills.

How can you help? What can you do?? Well, there are a couple of things:

Sign up for the Mystery Quilt. You can do so at Heather Spence Designs. If you would prefer I can also send you an invoice but be aware that this will take longer to process.
You can give directly to Sandee by contacting any US Bank branch and tell them you’d like to make a contribution to the benevolence fund for Sandee Adair-Gascoigne.

What is the Mystery Quilt?

It is a quilt pattern but one to which you do not know what it will look like. Starting on April 27th at noon (Pacific Standard Time) I will send out an email once a week for seven weeks with instructions on how to make the quilt top. Each clue is easy enough that you should be able to finish it each week. Should you keep up, you should have a finished top at the end of the seven weeks! This pattern is perfect for the experienced beginner. Keep in mind you would be making your own quilt, this is not a collective project. What you do with your own quilt is up to you!

How much is it?

Just $10! And, all monies go directly to Sandee. I take nothing. :D It’s my way of helping in ways that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

How will I know how much fabric to buy?

Once we receive notice that your payment for the Mystery Quilt has come through we will send you fabric requirements with samples of the fabrics you will need for the project.

Coupons & Give-Aways!!

Yeah!! We’re having giveaways! When you purchase the pattern you will get a 20% off coupon for the Fat Quarter Shop. Isn’t that fun?!? Every single person who signs up from April 11th on will get a coupon code with the fabric requirements. Just redeem at checkout. Easy!! As well, we’ve got other fun bits and pieces we’re still finalizing but I want to throw the words ‘Aurifil’ and ‘Fat Quarters’ and ‘Olfa’ out there. Ha!

Where can I find more information?

There are several places: my web site. Also at my web site in the bottom right hand corner there is a button for my Flickr group. You can check out a few quilts from the Fall Mystery Quilt and some of the fabrics others have chosen for their Spring Mystery Quilt. I’ve got a Facebook group started as well. That too is a great location for chattering about the project. You can also email me if you have any other questions. This is also a great project for quilt groups & guilds.

As sad and horrible as cancer is I also want to say that there is always something that we can do to beat it or help others who are in need. Even ten little dollars can add up to make a huge change in someone’s life.

I look forward to meeting you…soon!! Sign up for the Mystery Quilt here!

Kindest (and healthy) regards,

~ heather spence

My Day on Pat Sloan’s Girls in the Garden Blog Hop

Mishka — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:30:07 +0000

It’s my special day for Pat Sloan’s Girls in the Garden Blog Hop. Pat asked five designers to share their fabric choices for making one of her Girls in the Garden patterns. I chose to make Pat’s Chelsea’s Summer Garden Pattern. Here’s Pat’s version:

The pattern includes a detailed list of all fabric required to complete the project. Just a note, the lighting in my apartment leaves a lot to be desired. Some photos were taken at different times of the day with natural and artificial lighting.

Here are the fabrics I’ll be using.

I knew I wanted to use the black with wild colours for my first inner border and my large outer border. This is my focus piece. From this one, I chose the background fabric, a warm sunshine yellow, and a multi-toned pink/orange for the inner border and binding.

For the vase, I chose two black and white fabrics. The black with white as the main vase and the white with black as the vase’s base.

For the stems and leaves, I wanted a green that had enough hue to stand out nicely on the yellow background but that didn’t clash with the background. Here’s what I picked:

For the coneflower petals I wanted to pick out pinks and purples from the focus fabric. Also shown is the flower center/top which was also used for the butterfly body.

Fabrics for the butterfly wings and hearts:

I chose a multi-colour batik for the other flowers scattered throughout the quilt:

So, how did it turn out? Let’s see. Background and borders pieced:

Let’s add some of the appliqué pieces:

We need the flowers! To make them easier to handle, I pre-assembled the flower pieces on a Teflon sheet so that I could fuse them to the quilt top as one unit.

And the finish:

What do you think? Like my fabric choices? What fabrics would you choose?

Give-Away

I’ll be giving away a copy of one of Pat’s patterns to a lucky blog reader. The winner gets to choose which pattern she/he wants. Here are the four patterns in the collection.

To enter: Leave a comment below answering the following: “Do you have any holiday plans this year? Where are you going and why?” One winner will be randomly chosen Sunday night (February 26th).

But that’s not all, there are MORE chances for you to win these lovely patterns. Visit each of the bloggers in the blog hop on their special day. See the fabrics they’ve chosen to use. They’ll each be giving away a pattern too.

Wednesday, Feb. 22: Heather of Olive and Ollie
Thursday, Feb. 23: Dawn of Spring Water Designs
Friday, Feb. 24: Amy of Amy’s Creative Side
Saturday, Feb. 25: Heather of {House}of A La Mode Fabric

Still more: Our friends at the Fat Quarter Shop are giving away FIVE full sets of Pat’s patterns. Visit their Jolly Jabber blog to enter.

Finally, visit Pat Sloan each day too as she shares HOW she designed “Girls in the Garden” and she’s giving away another full set of the patterns too.

Wow! Lots of chances for you to win.

Be sure to also check out Bigfork Bay Cotton Co. for all the cool designs they publish!

Updated:

The winner is #134 – Victoria Miner. Thanks everyone for your wonderful comments.

This Week: Pat Sloan’s Girls in the Garden Blog Hop

Mishka — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:09:58 +0000

Starting Tuesday, five designers will be sharing their fabric choices for making one of Pat Sloan’s Girls in the Garden patterns.

There will be give-aways from Pat and each of the designers too. Plus our friends at the Fat Quarter Shop are giving away FIVE full sets of Pat’s patterns. You can visit the Jolly Jabber blog to enter now.

Here are the participating designers:

Tuesday, Feb. 21: Michele of Quilting Gallery – that’s ME!
Wednesday, Feb. 22: Heather of Olive and Ollie
Thursday, Feb. 23: Dawn of Spring Water Designs
Friday, Feb. 24: Amy of Amy’s Creative Side
Saturday, Feb. 25: Heather of {House}of A La Mode Fabric

Visit Pat Sloan each day too as she shares HOW she designed “Girls in the Garden.”

Here’s a sneak peek at my fabric choices.

See you on Tuesday as I show what pattern I chose to make, how I used these fabrics and my give-away.

Love-ly Garden – A Free Applique Pattern

Mishka — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:50:52 +0000

Today is my special day for Melissa’s Valentine’s Day Showcase event.

I’ve made a Love-ly Garden wall hanging (or table runner) free tutorial, just for you! This project finishes at 22″ x 38″.

You can visit Melissa’s blog to see the Love-ly Garden photo tutorial or download the tutorial and pattern templates here [PDF File].

I haven’t got the quilting done yet. So far, I stitched in the ditch between the background and borders. Next, in free-motion mode, I outlined all of the applique shapes. This is the first time I’ve done this. While it’s not perfect, I think it’ll be just fine once the quilt is washed and it puckers up nicely.

I drew some random heart shapes in the white background using a Crayola washable marker. These shapes were stitched as I got to them while doing a close stipple in the background. There are two at the bottom that I changed my mind about and didn’t stitch out. While I didn’t have to draw the heart shapes in advance, I could have just stitched them, by drawing them first, it’s helping me to focus on the stitching and not worry if I have enough space or good balance to do the hearts.

I’m not sure yet what I’ll do for the border. It will finish at 4″ wide. I’m thinking something geometric, a diamond shape perhaps, that doesn’t take away from the fabric or centre panel. Any ideas?

If you make the Love-ly wall hanging, please share the photo in my Flickr group or on Facebook. I’d love to see it.

Download the tutorial and pattern templates [PDF File].

Valentine’s Day Showcase

Check out the other free Valentine’s tutorials at Melissa’s site. This one is my favourite made by Kris. Isn’t it just adorable?

Click on the date link to go directly to each post.

February 1st – Sharon from Craizee Corners
February 2nd – Connie from Quilting by the River
February 3rd – Vicki from Sassy Blog
February 6th – Kris from I don’t have a problem, I have a well-rounded fabric stash!
February 7th – Lisa – Cupcakes, Hair Bows and Kiddos
February 8th – Debbe from Pieces to Love
February 9th – Lyanna from Purple Panda Quilts
February 10th – Jenna from SewHappyGeek
February 13th – Brandy from When Life Hand You Fabric…Make a Quilt

Starting tomorrow, Melissa will also be having a Valentine’s-themed link party on her site. She has some awesome prizes to give away too!

Valentine’s Day Parties

I’m linking up my free tutorial at some fun Valentine’s Day parties from other quilting friends. Be inspired by these gorgeous projects shown. Who knows, maybe I’ll even win!

Be My Valentine – Weekly Quilt Contest

Don’t forget to enter this week’s Be My Valentine quilt contest. For this contest, you can also enter other items made with fabric that fit the theme… and quilts too, of course. The Fat Quarter Shop are giving away this beautiful jelly roll of Always & Forever by Deb Strain for this week’s winner.

Enter the contest here!

Valentine’s Day Showcase

Mishka — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:00:59 +0000

Love is in the air … over at Melissa’s blog starting this week. She’s hosting a Valentine’s Day Showcase party featuring 10 talented designers making something lovely for you and sharing how you can make it too.

Here’s the list of participating bloggers … you’ll see me on the 14th with a super cute doll quilt.

February 1st – Sharon from Craizee Corners
February 2nd – Connie from Quilting by the River
February 3rd – Vicki from Sassy Blog
February 6th – Kris from I don’t have a problem, I have a well-rounded fabric stash!
February 7th – Melissa from Sew BitterSweet Designs
February 8th – Debbe from Pieces to Love
February 9th – Lyanna from Purple Panda Quilts
February 10th – Jenna from SewHappyGeek
February 13th – Lisa – future food and craft blogger
February 14th – Michele from Quilting Gallery – that’s ME!

All projects will be featured on Melissa’s blog starting Wednesday. If you make one of the projects, you can link up on her site on the 15th to be eligible to win a fabulous prize from one of the generous sponsors.

Call for Paper-Pieced Designers

Mishka — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:07:48 +0000

Jennifer over at SewHooked is organizing a super fun Paper Pieced Pattern-a-Day Garden Party Blog Hop starting April 1st. She’s looking for paper-piecing designers that want to create a 10″ block and participate in the fun.

Head over to Jennifer’s site for the details and to see what dates are still available. Sign up to be a designer if you’re interested on her site.

I’ll be doing a block April 11th… need to decide what to make.

A New Swap and Quilter’s Super Deals

Mishka — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:06:24 +0000

New Beginnings Mini Quilt Swap

Registration is now open for the New Beginnings Mini Quilt Swap.

Registration for this swap closes February 1st. Partner information will be sent by February 5th. The deadline to mail your mini quilt is March 12th for international shipments (including Canada/USA) and March 19th for domestic shipments. All mini quilts should arrive at their destination no later than March 30th.

Quilter’s Super Deals

Based on the popular Daily Deals concept in most communities, Quilter’s Super Deals is an opportunity for online quilt shops, designers and authors to offer a unique discount on their products for quilters. Advertisers: Contact me for an information package.

Starting Wednesday, January 18th, a new Quilter’s Super Deal from a favourite online quilting retailer will be featured. The Deal will be valid for one week.