Home Again, Home Again, Jiggidy Jig!

I've been on another whirlwind vending and teaching trip and it's so fun to do those things, but so nice to get back home as well. It has been so enjoyable to meet so many women and teach them a few tips and tricks in the workshops. I love sharing those tips and tricks as well as turn the light on for something new to someone. We all enjoy getting excited about doing something new and it's so fun to share that joy! Now it's time to finalize preparation and plans for Market and Festival! Will you be attending? I'm in row 7 so be sure to come see me!

One of the things that gets ladies so excited when they see it for the first time is Punchneedle! It's exciting to see many interested in this old art because I feel like it is a dying art. Not many shops carry Punchneedle and I fear it may be gone if we don't start getting new folks to enjoy the art. It is super easy to learn and so quick to finish the project. As many of you know, I have a different way of presenting the final product and love to make mini quilts from my Punchneedle projects. Here is a new version of one of my first Punchneedle projects as an adult.

A few years ago I sold my sample for the Punchneedle project titled My Primitive Baltimore. I should have never done so...I miss that special project because it was finished so uniquely. I've found time to make another one and decided to add it to my collection of mini Punchneedle Quilts. It's simple in its finish with big stitch quilting all around the design and a simple binding. Can't wait to have my mini quilt wall up in the house once the year of shows is over for a few months until they begin again! This will be a nice addition! The pattern is available for purchase on my website if you are interested HERE. (Look at the bottom of the page)

"I'm working on a Woolie version now and it's turning out nicely! It's been a while since I have been able to hand stitch and once again it's so nice to enjoy that peaceful time. It's football season so I'd better get some more stitching ready! (I stitch while my hubs is watching EVERY game! Haha! ). The fabric in this project looks like wool, right? Well it's not! It's a new Moda Line from Minick and Simpson called Cotton Works. It's thick and so nice to handle. Everyone I've shown this little project to thinks it's wool and then they get close and have to do a double take to see what the fabric is! For those of you who are allergic to wool, try to find this line at your local quilt shop and check it out! I am using Genziana wool thread and I'm taking very small stitches to cover the raw edges of the cotton Applique. I do love working with the Genziana wool thread because it is so nice to stitch with as well as it looks so nice. This wool thread also lets the beauty of the fabric show through and be the highlight of the project. Most of the time I prefer to use the whip stitch when stitching Wool Applique, but for this project I'm using a very small blanket stitch. Remember this specific project is made from cotton, so I want those edges covered well. This thread does the trick! You can find it on my website on the Notions Page HERE.

See how beautiful this fabric is up close and personal?!

This is another new pattern called Spool Candle Holder Quilt Cozy. Talk about a fast little project! It can be done in no time and the kit comes with the spool candle holder. It's about 5" tall and let me tell you these spools were hard to find. I have a limited number available while they last! You can find them HERE if interested. They would be darling in wool as well.

 

I was thrilled to see my quilt Pennies In My Garden on the cover of Simply Vintage! I never dreamed that would happen! We have a few more of these lovely magazines left if you'd like one for yourself. Inside you will find many lovely projects including one of my other small quilts, A Warm Welcome. The way the designers of this magazine present the projects is so lovely. A joy to look through again and again. You can find the order button on my home page at TraditionalPrimitives.com

New on the website along with the needles and patterns above are kits for various quilts. We are asked so often if we have kits, I've started making a few here and there when I have a moment. You will find them in the choices on the shopping buttons when they are available.

 

 

The next big project I'll be attempting is to organize my sewing room again. Remember that photo from about two years ago when we had a graduation party? We had to literally shove things back into a part of the room so we could use the basement for the party. I promised to show a photo when the room was all fixed up. If you read my blog often, you may have noticed I've not shown a photo of my nice organized room. This would be because it has NOT happened yet! I don't even know where to begin... So November is set aside for organizing my room. It will probably never be a pretty studio like I see in magazines, but my hopes are that it will be well organized. I plan to label things at least for a while so I don't have to spend a lot of time searching for specific things. Is there anyone else out there who needs a reorganization of your sewing space? Would you like to join me for a Sewing Room Oganizing Challenge to show our spaces and be inspired by organizing ideas from others? Let me know and we can link up on a certain date in November. I need some inspiration! Want to join me?

As a beginning to this Dear Hubs has taken the old ping pong table and attached it to a big long table frame we had on hand. So now I do have a large table to work on and hopefully I can figure out a way to keep the projects and piles below and break the habit of a multi project filled table. Recently I purchased a few plastic storage drawers to put under the table. I had visions of it looking beautiful, but for now I'll just use plastic drawers. Perhaps once I get organized I can transport the projects to something prettier. That's the first step in my reorganization plan...having space on my table to work from! Yay! It's a small thing to be excited about, but it's a beginning.

Well, back to work I go! Sorry if the blog seems to be a sales pitch today, but with so many new items on the site, I want to make sure you know where to find them! Don't forget to let me know if you want to join me in the Sewing Room Organizing Challenge! Thanks so much for stopping by today and as always,

Take Care,

Missie

#showmethemoda

 

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Glimpses Of The Past

We've taken a little time to be with my folks in Florida this week! We usually go to Destin, FL, but planning our trip at the last minute lead us to Panama City Beach this time. It's about 30 miles east of Destin but it seems like a whole new world. Here in Panama City Beach, the little beach town makes me think of old time movies that I used to love watching. I can just see some of the movie stars of yesteryear hanging out in a place like this! The building next to ours looks like it was quite something when it would have been new in the 50’s! I can just see Dean or Doris singing a little sweet song in an old movi in a setting like this!

The town is full of old tourist buildings that are fun to see. Of course the new is mixed in as well, and we are loving Starbucks right across the street! The sunsets are beautiful!

I got a few looks from folks when I was stitching on the beach yesterday! But hey, a girl's gotta stick when she has time right?! Here's a glimpse of my next quilt. I'm not quite sure what it will be when it's finished, but it sure is fun to piece these 1/2" hexes that I've Starch Basted! I've been making these as my demo in my booth while vending and I'm finally stitching them up to make a new quilt.

Speaking of Vending, I'll be heading to Houston in a few weeks for Quilt Market and also Festival. If any of you are going, please look me up! I'm in row 2400 for both events.

My new quilt, French Diamonds is completed and I'll be very excited to hang it in my booth. It's a pretty simple quilt to make and a nice take on an old Pennie Rug style quilt. You can see that the "Pennies" are Diamonds instead!

The clusters of Diamonds seem to look 3 dimensional, which was a nice surprise as I started stitching each block! Fun Surprise! The pattern is available on my website if you are interested!
Thanks for stopping by and I'll try to post again soon! Be sure to follow me on Instagram & Facebook if you can. Posting in those medias are so much quicker and I'm able to post there more often. Of course i'll be posting here when I can!
Take care,
MIssie

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Sharp Points with Blanket Stitch

Hey Everyone! I've been missing in action again with a super busy schedule of vending at quilt shows and family stuff. I just finished up my last show for a little while and I'm glad to be home to get some work done for a few weeks! The last show was right here near home and it was nice to be able to sleep in my own bed and have a friend help one day and my middle daughter home the next day. Unfortunately I didn't think to get a picture this time! And I even set up the booth a little bit differently. Oh well, I'll be sure to add TAKE PHOTOS to my to do list next time! I would have loved to have a picture of Melanie since she won't get to help again for a while as she is moving away shortly. We'll miss her being nearby.

Since having a few days at home, I've been able to do a little stitching on my next design. This quilt will be similar to Pennies In My Garden, but the "pennies" will be diamond shaped this time around.

As I'm stitching the cotton and wool layers together, I've figured out a better way to make sharp points when using the blanket stitch. I've prepared my cotton shapes using the starch method I use for EPP basting. Usually I prefer Needleturn for Applique, but I am learning to love the crisp sewing edges that come with basting with starch. It makes sewing the Applique down effortless for the most part! These pre set points also help make a better point, but the stitching is also important. I'm sure I will still use Needleturn Applique in the future, but for this quilt, I'm enjoying using my Starch Brush to prepare the seam allowances. Now back to the sharp points...

After reaching the point and pulling the last blanket stitch tight, I'm taking another very tiny blanket stitch right at the point. The thread I prefer using for wool Applique is Genziana so it is very thin compared to floss or pearl cotton. This may too bulky of a stitch to take at the end of a point if you use floss or pearl cotton, but it's worth a try to make a sharp point.

Next I'm using the needle to tuck under any seam allowance poking out from behind the Applique shape.

Then I'm holding the tip with the hidden seam allowance very firm so that seam allowance won't poke out again!

Then proceed with a few more stitches. New topic for a moment... Notice the blue wool point above the one I'm discussing and how it is a bit bulging out of the stitches? I'm going to trim that excess away very carefully. Notice in the next picture how much better it looks compared the the picture above.

In this pic you can see how nice the red cotton fabric point looks with this locking blanket stitch after its stitched. You can also compare this point to the yello point with no locking stitch. (Yes, I'll go back and lock that one!). And finally you can compare the blue wool point in this picture to the previous picture to compare points before and after a trim.

Just a little tid bit of info I've learned lately. Hope it helps you also!

Take care,

Missie

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

Finished Table Runners!

 

I've been working hard to finish the new Table Runners for the workshops! This one below is called Grannie's Flowers and is for the Garland Guild's Workshop on English Paper Piecing-5 Ways and More. I will teach them all sorts of hints and tidbits about English Paper Piecing, including my favorite way of basting with Starch! The center is English Paper Pieced and the outer flowers are wool and cotton appliqué.

The runner below is the Pennies In My Garden Table Runner to go along with the larger quilt called Pennies In My Garden and it is wool and cotton Appliqué with layered pennies and florals. This class is for the workshop at Happiness Is...Quilting! And they will learn the way I like to build a layered wool quilt. These cotton penny parts have a finished seam allowance.

 

It was nice to make something smaller after making The Gardens Of A King last year. Sometimes it's good to do something simple for an easy, quick project!!

Don't forget you can find me on Pinterest, Yahoo Groups, FB and Here! Pick your favorite social media and follow along and participate as I create new patterns for you!

Take care,

Missie

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

More Pennies Please!

Yep, you are seeing right! I'm making more pennies for a new Table Runner. As mentioned in an earlier post, I will be traveling to teach for the Garland Quilt Guild in Texas. While there, I will also be teaching at a few local quilt stores. One is called Happiness Is...Quilting! And the name of the store just makes you want to go right on in to check it out doesn't it! They've requested that one of the workshops will be a Table Runner based on the larger quilt, Pennies In My Garden. This one is going much quicker due to its size. The reward of a finished quilt will come pretty quickly due to it's smaller size. The other workshop will be all about Punchneedle. I'll provide tips and show how I make my mini Punchneedle Quilts! Both will be lots of fun and very educational for the students. If you are in the Dallas area, come and see me!!
Don't forget to look for my new Mini Punchneedle Quilt in the Spring 2015 issue of Primitive Quilts and Projects! Mine has still not arrived...I can't wait!!

Something else exciting is that I have started a FaceBook group for the makers of  my quilts and The Gardens of a King.  Like my business page on FB by clicking HERE and then scroll down to find the Traditional Primitives Group and request to join, then ANSWER THE QUESTIONS IN ORDER TO BE ACCEPTED INTO THE GROUP!  Then you will be accepted, if you've purchased the pattern and can join in on the fun!  You can post pictures of your progress on my designs. I hope to see pictures of many of my designs that you've made, but mostly I hope to see lots of blocks from The Gardens Of A King. I want you to find inspiration and praise from the blocks, quilts and punchneedle you've all made! You can compare colors, get ideas, see fussy cutting, etc to inspire you! We can have conversations and keep each other motivated! I'm so excited and I hope you will join me soon!! Click the link above, request to join and we'll see you there! This reminds me, I'm also now on Instagram for those of you who enjoy that. Please search for me as traditional.primitives and start following. 

See you soon in one or all of these fun places listed above!!
Take Care,
Missie

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

A Little More Rug Love!

I've been working on another punched rug with the Oxford Punch (available HERE) for the Hook In I will be vending at next weekend, Sept. 6th in Warsaw, MO. This one will go along with Pennies In My Garden wool and cotton quilt! The Hook In is sponsored by Saltbox Primitives and sounds like it will be a blast! I'm really excited!

 

I've had a few questions about what type of frame I use when doing rug punching. This is an antique Edmund's Rug Frame that my husband clamped some legs to, so the frame is held up off the table. It is working great! One important thing to remember when punching vs. hooking rugs is that you can not use a hooking frame for punching. The sharp needles on the hooking frame will snag the loops. When hooking, you work from the front and the needles grab ahold of the back of the rug. When punching, you work from the back, so the needles grab ahold of the loops and you don't want that! This is why I use a different frame when punching.

You can see that we also added some nails to 2 sides of the frame to hold the munks cloth in place. These old frames were made to use thumbtacks to hold the backing fabric in place. But that's too much work for me. These nails are working great to pull the backing fabric nice and tight while I punch.

This picture shows the nails much better! Plus, you can see the rug a bit better too! So far, I have not been able to hang my quilt, Pennies In My Garden ( available HERE), in my home but a few weeks. Once it finishes traveling the country to hang in stores and my vending booth, I will really enjoy hanging the quilt and displaying the matching rug together! It has been such fun creating these rugs with elements of my quilt designs!

The picture above shows my quilting hoop with fabric wrapped around the inner hoop. This is what I used for the smaller designs. Worked great!

Rug Punching is so easy and quick. I am thrilled to have finally jumped in and accomplished something that's been on my bucket list for quite a while!

I will be selling the monks cloth with the designs drawn for rug hooking and rug punching. If you are interested, please leave a reply or send an email and I will custom draw one for YOU! If any of you live near Warsaw, MO, I would love to meet you next Saturday, the 6th...come see me at the Hook In!

 

Take Care,

Missie

 

 

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"Grow Your Blog!!!" Welcome To My Blog! And...The Winner Is....

Hello to all the new visitors who are stopping by my blog for the first time! Welcome! My name is Missie and I am so glad you have come by today. I love Quilting, doing Punchneedle Embroidery, Wool Appliqué and English Paper Piecing...these are my favorite hobbies! I have turned my hobbies into a business most of my days since I became a mother in order to stay home with the kids.

And here they are, all grown up for the most part...and I am still doing the small hobby business! I love it! That's Hubs and I in the center, surrounded by our three daughters and our son-in-law. I thought once the kids were grown I would have so much time on my hands, but you all know how that goes! Seems there is never enough time to do all the stitching that I want to do...so the list keeps growing and growing! How about you? How long is your list?

I thought I would take a moment to write a bit about my window coverings today. I have had so many questions about them recently! We moved into this house in August and it was so sunny in the mornings...we could hardly keep our eyes open! Haha! We needed something to keep the sun out and these coverings came to mind. I used to sew window treatments for the decorating store for about 9 years, but I never made curtains for circular windows. Yes, they are quilts...machine appliqué and quilted. I was really into quilts when we moved here ( and still am!) and that was the first thing that came to mind. I made the quilted panel a bit larger than the window, which is huge for a window, I might add. Each of these is 58" wide at the bottom. They are much larger than they look way up there! The quilt design was made specifically for these windows and I expanded it into a full sized quilt a few months later. That quilt is now the logo for my business and is one of my favorites. I think it's the red background I like so much! Then again, I do like stars too!

After the quilted panels were made they were ready to be mounted on something....that something took a while to figure out, but eventually we decided to see if PVC pipe would bend well enough. We got two elbow joints and flexible PVC along with some stiffer PVC. It took a while to cut the two pieces the correct length in order to bend in the shape of the window, but we started with the bendable PVC cut a bit larger than we needed and trimmed an eighth of an inch away until it bent and fit in the window just right! Basically, the PVC is joined and bent to look like a capitol "D" if it were turned on it's side. It was very simple!

Then it was time to attach the quilt to the frame that would fit into the window. I decided to cover the PVC with foam insulation built for these pipes. This allowed the frame to fit snug in the window frame and they fit perfectly after a bit more trimming. Then the quilts were trimmed the shape of the frame with about 4" extra in size. To attach the quilt to the frame, I just rolled the quilts to the backside and pinned them in place with a straight pin! Voila'! They are still keeping the sun out of our eyes just fine! We had plans of taking them down now and then to let the sunlight in. We did this for a while, but had to stand on a chair to reach them and eventually we just left them up all the time. I should also say that we added a large piece of cardboard to keep the sun from shining through the needle holes from the quilting. If I were to make another set someday, I might try it without quilting to see if this fixed the problem. That was quite the long story I just wrote! So sorry about that, but as I said, so many have been asking about them recently. Since a few have asked, I will let you know you can buy this quilt pattern on my website if you are interested. Now everyone can get some PVC and make their own! If you do, be sure to send a picture! I'd love to see your version!

 

For the first time visitors, these two mini quilts were just published in the current issue of Primitive Quilts and Projects Magazine. Bluebirds and Berries arrived home safe and sound this week from the offices of Primitive Quilts and Projects! It was so nice to have them both in my hands again. The needlepunched version is the dark one and the light version is the wool and cotton version. I will have to get them up on a wall soon so I can enjoy them! Now that they are back home, It is time to draw the name of the winner of the year subscription that Primitive Quilts and Projects has so graciously donated for the drawing!

The winner is... Ronnie! Congratulations and thanks so much for following along with my blog Ronnie! Look for an email from me so I can get your information!

I truely appreciate all of my followers and wish I could give you each a year's subscription to the magazine. Since Ronnie is the only winner of the subscription, why don't the rest of you newcomers please find your way to my website if you wish, and find two free patterns on the Wool Pattern Page that you can download. The link to my website is just under the button for this Blog Hop on the right side bar. (While you are at the sidebar, notice I have a former blog...be sure to check that one out. It has many more posts!) For those of you who have followed for a while now, look for a new freebie pincushion on the wool page next week! I will be posting about it next.

 

One of the freebie patterns is a Valentine Pincushion that you can see peeking from inside the basket above. The other freebie is a block called Woolie Tree. I have challenged my blogging buddies, and that includes those who don't blog but like to follow along, to make this block using up those tiny wool scraps we all seem to have a bag of laying around. I have been so busy I've hardly started mine, but it is on my list I mentioned earlier. Have any of you long time followers started this yet? Let's keep it on our lists and see what we can get done in the coming weeks.

Thanks so much for stopping to read the blog today. If you are here with the hop, I'd love to have you join my site as a follower. After all we are trying to grow our blogs! If you sign up to follow, please let me know you've done so and by which method you will be following. It's hard to tell how many followers we really have these days since Google has changed the reader. I like to use my dashboard to keep updated, as I have always done...keeps it simple for me. My preferred way to follow is by clicking "join this site". Then I can keep up on things by accessing my dashboard. How about you?

The organizer of this blog hop will have a list of the blogs joining in posted on her own blog, 2 Bags Full. Thank you Vicki! Be sure to stop by her blog to find a few more blogs to follow. Again, Welcome and Thanks for stopping by today! I hope to see you all here again soon!

Take Care,

Missie

 

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Happy New Year!

It's that time when we ring out the old and ring in the new year! It has been a whirlwind of a year for me and I sort of hate to see 2013 go, but I know exciting things are coming for 2014 so I will go with the flow!

As I think about my goals for next year, I have pondered on my goals for this past year and all that I got accomplished. The year was filled with teaching and vending...two things I have not done for quite a while, nor had I done in the quilting industry. I have learned that I do enjoy these activities very much as I get to share the fun things I love about quilting, stitching and punching! These activities have taken me to Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and in between a few places. I plan on spreading my wings a bit more this year to build my little business. It is such fun to spread the Joy of Quilting to others! Once again, I thank all of you who inspire me to continue with this journey!

Winter 2013 brought a change in our lives as we moved our oldest DD and SIL far away from home to Augusta, GA. We had a great week together painting and decorating their new home so they would feel right at home quickly! It involved a modern touch, which was new for me to help with, but I really enjoyed making their new quilt in that style for them.

 

Winter also brought lots of work designing small sized projects for my pattern business. I tend to love working on large quilts and the plan to make small quilts was a nice challenge. They were made of Cottons and Wools, along with a few Punchneedle Mini Quilts! I made patterns for a total of 15 smaller projects in 2013! There are a few of them pictured below. You can see all of my patterns on my website at TraditionalPrimitives.com.

 

Spring 2013 brought work on Josie's Petals, a design for Blackberry Primitives Wool Company. Cindi and Tanja took her to Market in Portland to hang in their booth. It will be in a French Magazine this coming year!

Spring also brought work on the English Paper Piecing Workshops and Pincushions. It was exciting to get these ready so that I could begin teaching and sharing about English Paper Piecing in my unique method as well as the traditional method.

The weekend in Nebraska with The Quilted Crow Girls was in the Spring as well...Leonie, Deardre, Julie (Me and My Stitches), Lynn ( More Sew For You) and I shared many giggles and fun along with learning the Crow Girls way of doing wool appliqué.

Summer 2013 brought work on Pennies In My Garden wool appliqué quilt. It was so fun to find out how quickly this quilt goes when sewing it. Even though it is made by hand, the buttonhole stitching on the circles in 12" blocks went super fast!

 

Summer also brought the interview with Pat Sloan Radio! It was a great experience to be part of! You can listen to it if you wish...just find my name in June's listings on her radio website.

Much of my spare time was spent helping hand quilt the DMAQG Show Quilt!

Summer was the time that I decided to change my company name from Hallbrook Designs to Traditional Primitives and when I got the new website and blog switched over and running. (Take notice, my old email will be going away in a few days! Be sure to save my new contact info if you have not done so already! I look forward to making the new blog just as informative as the old blog. You can still access any old posts by the way...just click on the right sidebar for the link.)

Fall 2014 brought teaching and road trips for Vending and Trunk Shows in a few stores:

Eastern Iowa at Inspirations, a great little quilt store in Hills, IA; The Rabbit's Lair, a great store in Rogers, AR; Pierre, SD for teaching at a wonderful weekend retreat; Lees Summit, MO for a great quilt show and more. I hope to add more pinpoints to this map in 2014! It will begin in only a few days with my trip to Oklahoma City to vend in the Winter Quilt Show...let the adventure Begin!

Winter 2013 brought some catch up time and basic sewing I needed to complete. I have been working on my own Josie's Petals since Blackberry Primitives owns the original.

And I've also begun work on the next big quilt I plan on making! It has been a challenge so far...can't wait to show you more!

My sewing room is just about in order...the wall of little quilts is up, the new quilting machine is up and running well and my sewing space is slowly coming together. It sure has taken me a while to get things in order, but I am working on it when I can. Only a few more days and I can show you... I know it's taking forever! Perhaps the organization of my sewing room will be the last sewing related thing I complete in 2013!

It was a great year of blogging fun and pattern designing fun for me. I certainly hope your 2013 was as much fun as my year. Cheers to a wonderful 2014!!! Let's make it great!

Take Care,

Missie

 

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