It's Been a Very Busy Fall...

My Goodness, time has passed once again and I finally have a few moments to get a blog post done.  The last I wrote we'd been to Spring Market and were enjoying lots of time with our new grandson.  He's still cute as a button of course and we are amazed at how fast he is growing.  He'll be crawling around any time now so I'd better get our living room area ready for a 9 month old by Christmas time!

I have a few new products that we introduced at Fall Quit Market ~ The first is Premium Starch!  For those of you who have the Starch Brush, this is the easy fill solution for you!  The Traditional Primitives Premium Starch is packaged in a bottle that will squirt easily right into your Starch Brush.  Voila!  Easy fills every time!  You'll find it on the Notions Page at TraditionalPrimitives.com.  It's wonderful to have on hand.

I have also written a booklet about my Starch Basting Technique for English Paper Piecing.  It answers the questions I repeatedly get when I teach workshops.  So far it has been very well received!  It has close up pictures to show you just what you need to see to answer those questions that come up as you are learning this technique.  You'll be a master before you know it!  You will find it at the bottom of the Notions Page.  Click Here.

The most EXCITING news I have to share with you from Market is the fact that I have my first line of fabric that was introduced by Blank Quilting Corporation called Ginger & Spice!!!  SO exciting!  There are 24 fabrics in the line and of course they are my favorite colors to work with.  Here's a little tease of the folder that fabric shops are seeing now.  The pattern on the front will be one of two free patterns I designed available on the Blank Quilting website.  

You can take a look at the fabrics up close on the Blank Quilting website by clicking HERE.  Please pass the news of a new Traditional yet Primitive line of fabric on to your favorite quilt shops and have them contact their Blank Quilting reps or call the company to order.  Thanks for spreading the word!  It will be available in Quilt Shops in July '18.

It was great to see some friendly faces at Market.  It's nice to see some of the same folks year after year now that I've been a few times!  And also great to meet new friends too!  I enjoyed meeting a few ladies I know here from Blogland as well.  First is Sallieanne from the UK.  We are standing in front of Dreaming of Spring because she made a similar small quilt of a pattern I'll mention a bit later.  We met last year at Festival and have kept in touch!

Next up is Paula who brought her version of The Gardens Of A King.  So pretty in brights!!  I love it when you ladies bring your quilts to show me!  In case you have not heard, I have a FB group for those who have purchased my patterns and I invite you to share your quilts there with others.  You can join it by clicking HERE and requesting to join.  Please let me know if the link does not work!

And some new friends from down under...Margaret Mews, Judy Newman and her daughter.  Such nice ladies.  We had some nice conversation!  These ladies have books published with Quiltmania titled Quilts from The Colonies and Quilts for Life Made with Love.  Such LOVELY books!

It was wonderful to meet some of the folks from Blank Quilting Corperation too.  I have really enjoyed working with Diana who is pictured on the left side of the photo.  It's always good to put a face to the voice on the other end of the phone!  Janice, Amy and Cliff are on the Sales Rep team!  Friendly folks!!

\\

Heidi is another gal who worked with me on Ginger & Spice...

It's always good to see the friendly smile of Lisa Bongean from Primitive Gatherings...So many friendly folks in this business I never would have met otherwise!

And look who is at my booth interested in what I am doing!  It was an honor to show Yoko Saito my method of basting English Paper Piecing with starch.  She purchased some of my tools and I do hope she enjoys the technique.

I thank Jeff and two of my girls, Trisha and Katie for helping out during Market and Festival.  I couldn't do it without their help!  We had such a great time working together.  I am so thankful they enjoy helping us out with our little business.  We will cherish these memories in the years to come.  Trisha loves helping us as often as possible.  She is a stay at home mom and if you've purchased a Hexie Pressing Mat from us, she most likely made it.  She does a good job and loves chatting with the customers.  It's nice to hear her talking and able to answer more and more questions properly the more she joins us!  It was Katie's first time at a retail show with us and she stepped in and gave me a break from the demo now and then and that was super helpful.  It was her First time to do the starch basting technique and she did good!  We kind of blend in with the quilts, but look close and you'll see us!  Haha!  

                                

It was fun to hear the girls telling about ladies who would come in one side of the booth and speak with one daughter for a while, then progress on over to the other side of the booth and encounter the other daughter.  Often times they were surprised to see her on the other side only to realize that it was the other daughter!  They look so much alike!  We are constantly asked if they are twins, but they are 8 years apart in age.  I think that happened more than a few times at Festival!  We have another daughter, Melanie, and when she is with the other two they are asked if they are triplets.  We are constantly calling them by the wrong name!  Here they are together in August at Melanie's wedding. When they wear their hair long and straight is when most folks ask if they are triplets.   Anyway, I thank them all for their help!

After returning from Quilt Market I went to my first ever retreat!  My friends Julee, Karen, Chris and I went over to Shipshewanna, IN for a retreat where we took a class from Di Ford (who I also saw at Market).  It was so much fun to meet new people at the retreat and of course to take the workshop from Di!  Such a warm and friendly, talented quilter.  We had lots of giggles and got a wee bit of quilting done during the 4 day retreat.  Fun fun!

I was thrilled to have a few quilts published in my favorite magazines this fall.  First was Two Ole Crows in Quiltmania's Simply Vintage Autumn...  I am sold out of the magazines, but we do have the pattern which is called Vintage Friends.  This pattern contains two designs.  Two Ole Crows and A Pair Of Hares which is a cute little bunny runner.  Quick and easy projects!  Find the pattern or kits HERE.

                                      

The most recent quilt published in Primitive Quilts and Projects Winter issue is called Warm 'til Spring and was SO much fun to make!  I loved every exciting minute sewing it together!  It is made in an unusual way which avoids any tricky piecing of the background.  Makes this a fairly quick quilt for such a large size.  The wool applique can be done by machine or hand.  Notice the couched yarn for added accent.  SO fun!!  You can find the Magazine and the Kits HERE.  It's a large twin size and can easily be made larger for a bigger bed or smaller for a super warm lap quilt.  This is the quilt that Sallieanne (above) brought a picture of to show me.  She made it mini!  So cute!

Have I mentioned lately that I love my job?  I certainly do!  Thank you all for your continued support and kind words, which keep me inspired to make new goodies for you!  

As always,

Take care and thanks so much for taking time to stop by today!,

Missie

It's Been A Long, Long Time...

Hello Quilters!  Wow, how the time has passed since my last post.  Yowza! My blogging app I loved has been discontinued and I can't seem to find an easy one to use to create posts.  That's one reason I have been a lazy blogger recently!  It makes such a struggle to post these days.  If anyone uses an easy blogging app on the Ipad please let me know!

The other reason is that it seems I just don't have enough time in the day to get all things accomplished and the list keeps growing.  So much has happened this year so I'll fill you in!

My last post showed that we were expecting our first grandchild.  Our hearts are bursting with love and laughs for Paxton, our Grandson.  He's such a joy!

Both Hubs and I forgot how tiny a newborn is...so sweet!

He was long and lean.  Such serious expressions!

And then he started to grin...be still my heart!

And now he's a little ham all the time!  He is no longer a string bean and we can officially call him a Butterball (My nickname for my girls when they got the healthy baby pudge!)  His crazy hat hair gives us a glimpse of what he'll look like as a big boy!  We love our little Paxton!  

May took us to St. Louis for Quilt Market.  Somehow we ended up with a super crowded booth- SO many quilts to show.  I still feel like so many shop owners have not seen my quilts and Starch Basting Technique for EPP before so I feel like we have to show everything.  We have officially decided that a half booth is NOT big enough! Haha!

I introduced a few new patterns.  Of course they are on the website so take a peek if you are interested at Traditional Primitives on the Wool Page.  The top 3 are all Wool Applique and are quick to sew.  I love wool applique on cotton backgrounds which keep the cost down somewhat.

The last quilt introduced at Quilt Market as a pattern is Bunchberry Blooms.  It was originally published in Primitive Quilts and Projects Magazine and I do have a few copies left if you'd like one.  It's a great price and contains lots of other pretty patterns.  Of course you can buy just the pattern if you'd just like that option.  This can be found HERE on the website.

And recently Redware Bouquet has been released.  It does fit the oval trays that are so popular!

We have kits for all of these as well as the patterns of course.  It's always nice to have a kit ready to go when you are ready to sew!   I'll stop there and make another post very soon!

As always, thanks for stopping by and come back again.

Take care,

Missie

More Traveling and Fun Times Ahead!

Wow, it's been a busy Spring!  We have driven from coast to coast and a little more in between.  We started at Road to California as I chatted about in the last post.  Then in February we made the trip out to Hampton, VA for the Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival.  It was another great show with beautiful quilts to see and many fun vendors to check out!  I met some of my OnLine buddies from the east and it was great to visit with them!  The customers were good to us and enjoyed shopping and laughing along with us as we got to know them.  Something fun about vending at quilt shows is getting to know your customers a little bit as they come back each day.  It's lots of fun!  We had our daughter Melanie along with us.  She had not experienced a busy show with us before so it was pretty fun for her!
                       

     

Here she is getting ready for the show on opening day.  We loved having our "techie" daughter along to give us a few suggestions for how to keep organized in a technological way.  LOL, she did teach us old foggies a few things!   And below is my hubs who is always ready with a smile!  I love having my family help out.  We have a good time together!

Next was the Dallas Quilters Guild show.  Another good time there this year!  

We brought our neice Haley along with us.  We loved having her with us!  She learned a lot about quilting and caught on quickly to be able to help the customers in the booth with ease.  

Just look at the crowd of happy ladies shopping and excited to be at the show!  Look at the aisle how crowded.  This Dallas show is always lots of fun.  It's great seeing some familiar faces each year!

 Next stop was a teaching day at the Blue Ribbon Quilt Shoppe in Wiley, TX.  These ladies were fun to get to know.  These are the owners and an employee who stopped by to say hello at the 

Dallas Show.  If you see anything new that you like we have new kits on the website if you click HERE!

Their shop is pretty cute!  Here's a few pictures to see.  Through the arched doorway is a wonderful workshop area with big tables and lots of light!  We had a good day at the workshop.  If you are ever in Wylie, check out their shop!!

This is a shot of Dallas at Night.  We love driving through Dallas at night time.  (Unless the traffic is bad that is!)  They have quite a light show on the downtown buildings.  It's a good thing my hubs does the driving or I would be distracted.  This is just a sampling...it's quite pretty to see!

Before we headed home we stopped by the Moda Warehouse to pick up some nice fabrics to make quilts and kits from for all of you quilters!  It's quite fun to walk in the door and see these beautiful quilts hanging.  What a beautiful layout this would be for a home someday to show off quilts nicely!

On the way home we visited the middle daughter in KC and she showed us around her office at Cerner.  Her job is to plan entertainment and events for the employees.  The new building has some very cool things in it and she was proud to show us some highlights of what she's been working on the past months.  Here are some highlights!

The building is designed to look like DNA since the company is medically oriented.

She helped plan a game room for employees to take a few minutes to stimulate their minds while on breaks.

Nintendo art on the walls to go along with the game room theme...

A beautiful Library or quiet room for deep concentration while working...

And who doesn't have fun in these spinning top like chairs!  Look at the big Smile on my  cute daughter's face!  Brings a smile to everyone's face while getting the brain cells going for good work!  I think I'd love to work in this place!  Just think of the cool quilts we could create if we stimulated our brains in short bursts throughout the day!  (I think we do that when we work with colors and all our fun tools and gadgets while we quilt!)

Once we got home I quick started a quilt for my new grandson who will be born any time now!  His room is painted light grey and the happy parents have chosen mint green and yellow for the decor accents.  So of course the quilt is done in those colors.  The green and yellow also works out good for his daddy as he works at John Deere!  I looked for JD tractor fabric, but could not find any.  It's on my list now! The little giraffe and elephant design on the quilt were borrowed from the artwork she is using in the room.  My daughter posted this pic on FB and I got a kick out of a few comments mentioning how interesting it was to put the quilt on the wall.  It comes natural for us to think of hanging a quilt on a wall vs. just using it as a quilt is normally used!  Around my house, we use them just as much on the walls as on the beds!  

It blends into the wall a bit in this picture, but shows up well when you are standing in front of it.

I can't wait to hold him in my arms....

Isn't she a radient Mother to Be?