Spring Quilt Market 2015

How Exciting Spring Quilt Market was for me and my hard working helper, my sweet Hubs! I told him over and over that I could not have done it without him to lift and reach and carry and of course act as my assistant while I was busy doing the Starch Basting Demo for English Paper Piecing. I thank him for his continued support and encouragement to follow my dreams through the years! We spent a few days on vacation before Quilt Market and here's a picture of my Sweet Hubs! (I never really think of him being so tall until I see us in pictures together!)

He was able to just reach up easily to assemble the pipes and drapes and hang the quilts! It's nice to have an extra foot in height for jobs like these! It really helped the booth go together very quickly! In the photo below we still has a bit of work to do, but you can see it looks pretty much the same as when I vend at shows, but there is only patterns sitting out on the table.

After we set the booth up we went to a heavy restaurant to gain some energy before Sample Spree. As we left for dinner, the lines were already forming to get in! They had several lines forming as we returned and must have let folks into the room in an orderly fashion from all of the various waiting lines.

For a display during Sample Spree, which is very basic and not as fancy as the booth area of Quilt Market, I made poster prints of many of my patterns and hung them from a home made pipe structure. I think it showed the store owners a bit of what I offer and the display worked very well!

When Quilt Market opened, it was busy pretty early on since I was in the first row. My booth was located all the way at the end of the first row and at first I felt I would be lost in the huge room, but after being there a while, I realized that shoppers keep organized and hit all the spots at Quilt Market so they don't miss anything! I'm sure glad they found me! It was fun to show them my English Paper Piecing Basting method so they can share it with customers. So fun to see how excited people get once they see it happen so easily! I know the woman in the photo below is saying..."What is on her finger?" A common question when I demo the technique!

I met many new friends from all over the world! Some I know from Face Book and others are brand new friends in the industry who are willing to offer any advice to help a "newbie" in the industry.

And still others were Shop owners from my own state. It's nice to see friendly faces wherever they are from!

Overall, Quilt Market was a success for my little business. I gained several magazine contracts and several more types of industry activities are "in the works"! I met so many wonderful people and look forward to getting to know them better as we work together in one way or another! Now, it's back to designing and getting some new patterns ready. It's been too long since I have held a needle in hand. Prepping is happening now...stitching soon to follow! I can't wait!

I leave you with a great photo of my family together in the Florida Panhandle just a few days ago. I would sure love to live there!! It's so beautiful! First, my parents,

And my immediate family,

And all of us together! We had an awesome time together!

I'll be vending in Duluth, MN at the Minnesota Quilter's Show June 11-13. It's an awesome show with many top notch quilts on display as well as lots of vendors. If you are free, come and see me! After that I'll be at a NEW show, The Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival June 19-21. It should also be a great show so please come on out and see me there if this is close to your neck of the woods! I'd love to meet you! One other note... Have you heard about the new magazine Punch Needle and Primitive Stitchery? The 1st issue is being shipped now and it sold out so they are printing another run! Be sure to subscribe if you want to get in on this new magazine. I've got a project in the first issue...can't wait to see it in print!

Take care and thanks for stopping by today!

Missie

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

Busy Days

I know it seems like I have fallen off the planet, but I am still here plugging away at my little business. As I take a few moments this morning with my coffee and iPad, this is my view from my recliner.

It's been a big tan wall for quite a while as I've been vending and taken all my favorites to a few trunk shows and lectures. I'm retiring this pattern from my booth, so will get to enjoy Charmed Beginnings on my wall for a while! When I finish new designs something has to give in my booth, so I'll start retiring the older quilts to a warm and cozy spot in my home. You can still purchase this pattern from Blackberry Primitives if you are interested. They asked me to design a quilt using their wools and it was a great experience. This is the cotton version I made for displaying in my booth. It has a smidge of wool but is mostly cotton. The 100% wool Applique version is shown below the cotton quilt.

This quilt celebrates the colors and qualities of new spring which is happening right now around here. It's amazing to wake to freezing temps one week and suddenly the next week we wake to birds singing and trees bursting with buds and blooms. My iris are shooting up inches every day and soon they will be bursting with blooms as well!

This blooming tree looks a bit small in this photo, but it is good sized and we are so happy to enjoy the blooms this year. Many years it will be hit with the last frost of the winter season and the blooms are taken before we can enjoy them. Soon, they will be blowing away in the wind, so we enjoy an evening drink on the porch to enjoy the beauty that spring brings.

My days have been spent preparing for Quilt Market, making sure I have enough patterns on hand. The pile below does not look very organized, but it is very organized in the placement of which patterns will be packaged for Sample Spree and which will be placed in the booth as we set up. There is a method to my madness! And believe me, this is a neat pile compared to a few days ago! Haha! That means I am making headway and will be ready sooner than later! I am ready to be finished so I can get back to sewing something new!

While unpacking my vending goodies, I decided to display these punched rugs on my wall in the office so I could enjoy them for a while also. It's showing me that soon the mess you see above will be packed up and I can have a nice clean space again! Those patterns above have been taking over the house the last few weeks!

Today I'll be stamping the Punchneedle Designs on the weaver's cloth, so I'll be able to finish up the pattern prep today. If you are headed to Quilt Market in Minneapolis, please look me up! I will be in booth 140 right next to the food court doing my demo on basting English Paper Piecing with Starch.

I'd like to put out a call for comments on my Starch Brush. If you've used it could you please email me at missie@traditionalprimitives (dot) com and let me know how you like it? I would like to print some comments for testimonials to post in my booth. Same request for those of you who have gotten a start on The Gardens Of A King? Since this is a new technique I would like the store owners to see how much people love this method for preparing English Paper Piecing. I won't print your email addresses or violate your privacy in any way of course! Be sure to email me as I can not print comments from the posts below.

One more shout out for a new magazine being published very soon. It's called Punch Needle and Primitive Stitchery Magazine and I'll have a new project in the premier issue! Be sure to get subscribed if you are a lover of primitive stitching and Punchneedle! Click HERE to get to the website and subscribe. This magazine will be a great addition to your current subscription of Primitive Quilts and Projects Magazine! It's so wonderful to see Punchneedle making a comeback. I am on a mission to get it exposed to as many people as possible to keep the beautiful and simple art alive and well!

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I promise it won't be too much longer and I will get back to posts about stitching! I can't wait to get at it again...my fingers are itchin' to get stitchin'!

Take care,

Missie

 

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

Get Me To The Church (Or Guild Meeting!) On Time!!

This post is not really related to Quilting directly, but it IS related to getting to our fun Monthly or weekly events like guild and small groups on time and on the right day! It seems that most everyone has an Apple Product of some sort these days whether it be a phone or an iPad or a computer or notebook. I have an iPad tablet and an Android phone so these are run differently in the guts of the computers and are not comparable with each other when it comes to using the same apps. I think everyone probably knows this, right? If you have an Apple product of some sort, perhaps this post will help you!

So many people I know struggle with the calendars on these devices and easily putting our events on our calendars. So many of the calendars on these devices come only with the option to repeat the event on the same DATE of the month and my friends and I have talked about that complaint so often! This would be handy to put in guild and small group meetings that occur on the 1st Tuesday of each month vs. the same DATE of each month which would be a different day of the month each month...got it?

Well, with the newest IOS update to my old iPad I guess the calendar had an update too! ***Please read the starred paragraph below before you do the IOS 8 update!*** Anyway, I just discovered the option to create a custom repeat In the calendar app so that my entries have now become so EASY! I am THRILLED! For so long I have chosen the option for an event repeated monthly and then I move the event by sliding the entry on the calendar. WHEN I remember to do the slide that is... BUT I have such a hard time remembering which week of the month each event falls on, it's still not easy for me. I am constantly referring to past calendars to find out exactly which week the repeating event falls in. This new update has solved that problem for me and I know it will help some of you too! The solution is a bit buried in the app.

So here is the new solution I've just discovered. Using the iPad Calendar (I assume the iPhone calendar will work the same) create your event as you normally would. Click on the date and start filling in the form. After you've entered the title of the event, go down and click Repeat.

Then choose the frequency of the repeat...could be daily, weekly, etc. I've chosen Monthly.

Then click "on the..." And the schedule option will show up that coordinates with the option you chose above. This is the new part! You can now choose the same day of the week each month vs the same DATE. Yeah!!

Then click the repeat arrow to go back a page and you will see a custom repeat! Yeah Again!!!

I've chosen to never stop this repeat so I won't ever need to remember to make an entry for this event again!! And you can also see that the custom repeat is saved.

Then click ADD and it will be saved on your calendar on the same day of the same week forever!!!! I'm so excited! Can you tell? I will never be disappointed to miss another fun meeting because I will know it's coming without having to think about it! And an added bonus is that it will be on the correct day! LOL

There were several different options and it should fit to most any schedule that you need to put on your calendar. It's a GREAT addition!

Now the second part that is very cool is that I can download the Android calendar app on my iPad and sync this calendar with the iPad calendar. Then the Android calendar on my phone will sync with this calendar as long as I am signed in so I have all my calendar events with me where ever I go. This is nothing new, but just in case you didn't know, the option is there for you!

*****A word of warning...when I did the IOS update for my iPad 2, which is only a few years old, Apple considers this old. The new IOS update is not very compatable with these "old" models and did require that I adjust some settings and do a restore to make it work as good as it used to. I was very upset for a while but am now used to the changes that occurred due to the update. For a while I wanted to throw the iPad across the room!! But all is well now. The big thing I've noticed is that I can not have lots of browser windows open at once or the iPad freezes. And sometimes FB has trouble with the browser open at the same time. So I close a few now and then to keep the open windows to about 5 or less. Otherwise it works well now. If you have not done the update yet, do the research first to decide if you want it!!!

I hope this has helped some of you! Hopefully you don't think this is a stupid post. So many I know don't know about this option, so I just thought I'd share! It made my day once I discovered this one little option to do a custom repeat that works with my schedule!

I'm getting ready for "It's A Gatherin' " in Stover, MO this week. It's a fun shopping event in central MO at the Community Center in Stover on April 10 & 11 and opens at 9am. The shoppers are so excited and get there early to come visit us vendors. This was the first show I ever did and now here it is the third time I'm going there! Time flies when you are having fun!! If you are in the area please come see me and say hello!! I am hoping I can make the adjustment from a 20' booth to an 8' booth! Something has to give and it's always so hard to decide!! LOL

I've also started a new project for Primitive Quilts and Projects Magazine. Thanks to all of you who have ordered the kit for the little quilt in the spring issue. Look for another next spring! One other New project will be published soon in the new magazine Punch Needle and Primitive Stitchery. Kits will be available for the new magazine project also. I'll show a picture when I can!

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great week!!

Take care,

Missie

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

Back In The Saddle!

Wow! It's been a while since I've had time to blog! Wish I had some new sewing to show you, but I have not had time to do any quilty sewing. Today is English Paper Piecing club at the local quilt store, Creekside Quilting, so I will be finding a few minutes to stitch this afternoon thank goodness. Sewing at home this week has been spent on smocking 3 little dresses for some relatives. It brings back so many great memories of when I used to make most all of my girls' clothing when they were young. The picture below is a little peek as the dresses are a bit of a surprise for the girls' mom. When she receives them I will try to get a photo of the girls in the dresses. It was fun to get the pleater out again and sew these sweet little dresses! Do any of you smock ?

Last weekend I was off on another vending trip to Bloomington, IL. What a fun bunch of ladies! Everyone was very excited to be at the show and very interested in learning a little something new.

My set up was a wee bit different this time. It was so nice to have enough room to lay things out instead of on top of each other! There was actually room to have all the items separated into 'departments' and actually see all the items!! The booth was 20' long which was a treat! What you see above is not the entire space allowed. Next weekend I will be in Stover, MO at "It's A Gatherin'" and I will have to squeeze back into an 8' x 8' space. Now how will I do that?! LOL. I'm sure I will figure it out! And the shopping will be just as exciting!!

We actually had enough space to display the Punchneedle quilts all on their own. So nice to let them show off for once!!

My helper and I got to sit next to each other and visit easily now and then, which was pretty nice also!! I did the demos on the left side of the brown table and she ran the register on the right.

While doing the English Paper Piecing Basting with Starch demo, I usually work on 3/4" hexies. But this time I decided to work on hexies that I will actually use for my next little quilt. So the size this time is 1/2". Usually folks think the 3/4" is small, but this time I really heard that comment often! You can see the 3/4" hexies below on the bottom left of the picture. The 1/2" hexies are the others.

I just want to throw out a reminder that any time we are stitching by hand, smaller pieces are easier because all we want to be concerned with is the next stitch ahead of our needle, right?! If we have a large piece of paper with fabric basted around it in our hands a larger piece won't fit easily, right? So smaller is simpler in this case Vs a 2" or larger piece. Just focus on the next stitch ahead of your needle and take a deep breath! Don't forget to enjoy the process!

See that cutter up in the picture? That is a Fiskars Cutter. I have cut my little hexies out of a single layer of the C. jenkins Freezer paper. (If you cut a double layer of this strong freezer paper it will break the punch) Then I line up two hexies with shiny sides facing downward and then iron them together as I iron them to the wrong side of the fabric all in one step. It works great! These cutters are available in 1/2", 3/4" and 1" size. They are now listed on my website (Click Here) if you are interested! It is a fast and accurate way to cut hexies!

Here is my little box filled with cute little hexies that were SO easy to baste using my starch method! That pile of finished hexies is about 2" deep, All done while doing the demo in the booth!! It's so fun to make these!

Have a great day and thanks so much for stopping by today!!

Take Care,

Missie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

Hexies Are EVERYWHERE!

Have you noticed that Hexies are found everywhere these days?!? We bought a new (to us) car last spring and believe it or not, the seats have a Hexie texture to them! I drive a Nissan Juke if any of you want a Hexie car too! Haha! it is not the reason we bought the car, but it sure was a fun little perk for me!

And here is a close up view!

Since then, I've started noticing Hexies EVERYWHERE !!! Here are a few pictures I've collected. These are from TV- weather reports, auto commercials, news reports, TV shows, football; Product Packaging- toothpaste, TVs, advertising, clothing, non quilting magazines, Auto grills, shopping carts and MORE!! That snowflake is a photo of a real snowflake! Look at that Hexie in the middle!

 

As I'm typing this post in the living room, a news story has come on the TV and I just had to pause it and snap a nice picture of a few more Hexies! This is a 3D food printer...WOW! And see the beautiful Hexie shapes it's using to build sugar decorations?! WOW! Wouldn't we love to build candy Hexies in our own kitchen to serve our quilty friends a special treat!

 

As you are out and about, start looking...Hexies are EVERYWHERE!! So fun! We Quilter's are not the only ones Hooked On Hexies!! Have these shapes always been used in marketing and TV or am I just now noticing??

I'm sewing on some Hexies today trying to finish up the little Candy Stripes small quilt I started a while back. (Like a YEAR ago!) This little quilt keeps getting pushed to the back of the line when it comes to stitching order. But it's so cute, I thought I'd bring it front and center in stitching order to get this little gem done.

I have made up kits for the Dallas Show in a few weeks. Some are red and ivory and some a blue and ivory. If you happen to fall in love with this little gem, send me a note and I'll give you pricing info. This little Candy Stripes Quilt is about 12" Square. Just big enough for a little mini quilt or table topper! Of course, you could always add more to it and make it any size you want.

This little quilt pattern explains my starch basting process and is a good starter if you want to learn my way using the Finger Stiletto and Starch Brush found on my website. It's just another little addition to my starter kits to learn the method. Quick and simple, not counting all the time it sat in my "to do" pile! Haha!

Notice I don't keep the papers in while sewing Hexies together. I keep my finger nail very close to the edges and this helps me to take tiny bites in the fabric, keeping the stitches hidden from the front.

This picture shows how I "bind" the edges, which really isn't a binding, but just a pretty old fashioned finish. After the top is completed, I lay more Hexies around the edges, right sides together and sew all around the edges, attaching the new pieces together at their side seams so they will lay flat. When they are sewn all around the edges, I'll just flip them to the back side. You can see those pieces lifted slightly in the picture below. While looking at the backside, see how wonderful those seams look? That Starch keeps things nice and neat!

 

When all of the "binding" pieces are sewn in and flipped to the back, I'll slip in the batting and backing, appliqué the edges of that binding down and quilt a simple design!

I wanted to say a quick thank you to all of you who have been purchasing the kits for Colors Of Coxcomb which is in the current Spring 2015 issue of Primitive Quilts and Projects Magazine. It's been overwhelming and I'm so grateful that so many of you like this little wool or punched design! Thank you, thank you!

 

Thanks for stopping by today!

Take Care,

Missie, PS- I've added a new tip to the Gardens Of A King Tab

 

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com

Back Home!

The trip to Garland was wonderful! The Garland Guild has a great thing going with a full room of quilt loving women chatting, laughing and enjoying the fellowship that comes with a guild. If you are a resident of North Dallas, be sure to check out this guild. They really have a good time together. The workshops went well at the two stores I visited, Sew Let's Quilt It and Happiness Is Quilting. Such sweet ladies all around!

 

Patty at Sew Let's Quilt It gave me a demo of her computerized quilting machine. Wow! Are those nice! It was very cool to see how it works and how they get each block measured and quilted. She has some beautiful samples hanging in her store and has custom quilted them using her fancy machine. I was a bit jealous! The workshop for the Zebra Wallhanging was great. So fun to see students squeal with delight as they sew those first two blocks together and they discover the process really is worry free!

Happiness Is Quilting had me for two days and I so enjoyed watching them work and interact with customers. The store is beautiful with lots of samples and a little bit of something for everyone from modern to reproduction, Dutch florals, Punchneedle, machines And just about any notion you could want!

 

Darling pink walls with beautiful samples!

One of my hostesses for an evening showed me her lovely seeing studio! Oh, to have a place as beautiful as this room would be so wonderful...maybe some day....

First of all...it was Clean and Organized, secondly it was a perfect size, and lastly it was decorated perfectly with many of her favorite things! This is just one corner of this great space.

And here' s a nice close up of some of her lovely trinkets!

Now that I'm home, I'm doing my best to get my room organized. No space for many trinkets and pretties, but at least I do have my own space to be creative in and that I'm grateful for.

Once I got my sewing room a bit cleaned up, I had to mess it up again with a little wool. Can't stay clean for long, I must admit! Since about half way through making "George"...the Gardens Of A King, I wanted to try it in wool. Well...it worked just great! Below you can see my first block with wool appliqué on cottons...went together in an afternoon full of visiting and stitching! Very quick and easy!

I also did a little rug punching...so relaxing and rewarding because it's so quick to do! I'm in search of a new background color. This one isn't quite right....uh oh! Another reason to buy wool! Recently, I made a purchase of a new blade for my rusty old cutter. It should cut like butter the next time I need to cut strips. Should be exciting!! ( Why is it so exciting to cut wool strips? Am I crazy?!? LOL!).

Have a wonderful week!

Take care,

Missie

 

Visit my web store www.TraditionalPrimitives.com