What To Do? What To Do?

Do you save every last bit of your wool scraps like I do? I have pieces as small as 1/4"x1/2" and as large as an inch or so. What do you do with all of your luscious wool scraps? Sometimes I use them to stuff pincushions. It gives the pincushion a very hard finish...very antique like if you ask me. Sometimes I try to use them up for smaller projects and that works well too. But for the rest, I have something in mind...if you want to join in, send me an email and I'll send you a free download for a pattern to try to use up those lovely wool scraps! If you don't send me an email I won't send the pattern, so be sure to send the email to me to let me know you are interested!! See the left side bar for my store gadget to get to my contact link! :-}

It could be a very small project for you...

Or a bit larger project...

 

But if you have some wool scraps just waiting around...you will want to do this simple project with me! Email me and I will add your email to a list. When I have it ready, you'll get an email with the info! It will be a surprise for a little while longer, then I'll show a picture and we can get started together.

Save those wool scraps! You'll be glad you did!!

I've been stitching away on those pennies and flowers...I'm almost ready to start sewing it all together! Can't wait to show you all!!

Speaking of wool, I have added my latest design for Blackberry Primitives, Josie's Petals, onto my website, www.hallbrookdesigns.com. It is made of hand dyed wools and velvets and has the nicest feel to it. It's an easy stitching piece that's done a bit differently than the traditional way of the antique block, Joseph's Coat. Included with the quilt pattern is two sizes of patterns for a smaller quilt or a larger quilt, and directions for making an antique ball also! You'll never believe how easy it is! If you are interested in ordering a kit for this, email me and I'll get the info to you. I need to begin working on my own model of this quilt because Blackberry Primitive owns the original. My kit just came in the mail and it's all so pretty. There is not enough time for me to do all I want to do!! Again, I can't wait to get started!!

 

Take care,

Missie

 

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Josie's Petals...

Here's the dark version! This is the smaller version of Josie's Petals and antique ball. presented at Quilt Market in Oregon this week. Patterns available soon for this design made for Blackberry Primitives.

Take care,
Missie

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Josie's Petals at Quilt Market Spring 2013

 

Gotta love those hand dyed velvets and wools! Blackberry Primitives is revealing this at Spring Quilt Market today in Portland...

This design is based on the antique block Joseph's Coat or Joseph's coat of many colors. The antique ball resembles balls that were made long ago, made today with a modern twist. There is no difficult piecing on this quilt or ball...it's simple to make!

You can purchase this pattern soon from Blackberry Primitives website or from me shortly after!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Take care,

Missie

 

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Mother Nature...I Think You Are Confused!!!

We woke up to about an inch of wet slushy sleet and snow this morning! Mother Nature, don't you realize that it is May 2nd today?!?!? You can see my iris are well up. The hosta just poked their heads out about 3" in the last few days. The strawberries are growing, along with the flax and many other perennials. I think they will be a bit confused with this cold day in the mix today! I hope my crabapple tree blooms will not be stung!
My projects for market are complete and on their way to those who will be showing them in Portland. Pattern Peddlers will be showing a few of my patterns that they carry in stock and I've designed another quilt for Blackberry Primitives Wool. I can't wait to show you this new one! It will have to stay a secret until market begins... You can see my design from last year, Charmed Beginnings by clicking on the company name above. They are such sweet gals and they are so fun to work with!
Since the new design is complete now, I am safe to proceed onto other things that need to be done. As you know if you read my last post or so, I am headed to Omaha next weekend to vend and show my quilts during the Quilted Crow Girls Retreat that More Sew For You is hosting! It recently dawned on me that two of my most favorite quilts will be away at market during this time so I decided I'd try to whip up some duplicates to show in Omaha. Click on the store name above to find out information about joining the workshop. I understand classes are just about filled! If you are nearby, don't miss this opportunity to experience these fun ladies in person!! The quilts I will be making this week are Brookshire Star and A Warm Welcome, which you can purchase HERE on my wesite if you are interested. Work along with me! :-)

It was fun to dig into my plaids and traditional fabrics for a change! I've worked with Civil War Fabrics and wool so often recently , I felt like I had all new fabrics as I was looking for a selection that will work! Some of these you see are new, some are Civil War and some are my old favorites!

Isn't it great to have a STASH to go to when you need it! I hope I make a little dent in my stash with this project, but between you and me...I doubt that I will !! Let's just keep that between ourselves ok!!

Many of you have asked about the stitch I learned in the Pat Sloan Workshop last week. We worked on a good shape for appliqué class, the heart. She uses the running stitch for her appliqué stitch. It is a great stitch for a change of pace compared to the needleturn that I normally use.

The shapes in her patterns are large and simple which makes this stitch a great one to use! You can see above that the shapes keep their shape with this stitch.

I hope you can zoom in and see the little running stitch in this picture. It looked especially nice in her samples with a contrasting thread! It was a great class and as I said before, she has such a fun, sweet personality! I was so excited when she contacted me a few days after the class and asked if I would be a guest on her radio show!!

June 10, 2013!

I am thrilled and honored to get to experience this interview with her! If you have not listened to these interviews yet, it's time to give it a try! It's great to have them on while you are doing things around the house. Makes the time pass quickly when doing chores and it's very good to have it turned on while you are sewing. It's very interesting to hear how designers and other folks in the industry get those great items out there for us quilters. Give it a try! You will like it! Put June 10th on your calendar for my interview please!
Below are the links to get access to the radio shows...
All the American Patchwork & Quilting shows are at http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/radio/index.html where you can listen live, or get the podcasts
First 2 season of Podcasts at - http://toginet.com/shows/creativetalkradio
Show website - http://www.creativetalknetwork.com/
Thanks for stopping by today!
Take care,
Missie

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Luscious Wools!

The designing bug has hit again and have a nice small quilt and pincushion ready for the Girls at Blackberry Primitives. They will be heading to market soon and it will be in their booth showing off their lovely wools! I'll show a picture of it when I can...can't wait to have show and tell and show you. I'm making a smaller version in a different color way also. Here's a sample of the wools they chose. They are so luscious!

Just what I need to get inspired...beautiful wools!

Well, today is the day for choosing the name for the winner of the pincushion pattern...and the winner is...

Ljeanne! Who answered my question of what type of quilting or handwork she likes to do.

"The pincushion pattern is lovely. I have done a few stitcheries, I think it's time to do a pincushion. I also quilt and knit."

Congratulations LJeanne! I'll get the pattern off to you as soon as I get your address. I hope you enjoy the little pincushion pattern! Thanks to Michelle May of the Raspberry Rabbits for coming up with this fun idea for our own little blog hop!

Take care and thanks so much for stopping by!

Missie

 

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Odd place to quilt!!

Can you guess where I am?

 

I have deadlines to fulfill and no spare time...soooo, I found myself doing some stitching at a Track Meet this morning! A Track Meet?! It was 32* and sunny with a light breeze at 9am this morning...I really need to finish the little quilt I am working on for Market, so what's a girl to do? We have to squeeze in stitching time WHENEVER AND WHEREVER we can find some time! I got a few pieces sewn on while watching Katie do the High Jump event. No time to waste! I'm sure I got a few odd looks stitching at a track meet!

Where is the oddest place you have stitched before? Most of us have stitched a bit in the car, at sporting events, in airports...I'd love to hear about where you've done some quick stitching!

 

This is a sneak peak of some of the pieces I am using for the quilt I am designing for Blackberry Primitives. I'll show you more when I can...

Thanks for stopping by today!

Take care,

Missie

 

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Fastest Finish Ever! Charmed Beginnings

Less than a week and this baby is finished and ready for the show! A week and a half is a record for me!

I am a good last minute worker. Every year I seem to do this to myself...I sign up quilts for our quilt show that are not quite done. Usually they have been started when I enter them...but this one was not even started! I've done so much traveling this summer, it kept getting put on the back burner. It was a thrill to get 'er done so quickly. I felt like I was at a quilting retreat for a few days!

This is the quilt that I designed for Blackberry Primitives using 100% wool fabrics. They got to keep the original, so I needed to make one for me to keep. I used cotton and wool in my version. (The pic above is a horrid picture, but the camera batteries are dead, so iPad pic it is for today!). I used Steam A Seam 2 and did machine appliqué.

Below, you can see the wool version that Blackberry owns.

And this is how my new version looks when it was stuffed in the quilting machine. Small enough to be easy to quilt at 45" square.

This quilt is machine quilted on my Sunshine 16 longarm. It's a great little machine and I was glad to have something to quilt on! This machine fits in my room without taking over my sewing room. It was very economical in price and I'm so glad I made the decision to purchase it! You can find info about it here.

The problem I have is deciding what designs to quilt in the empty areas. I hope to make better decisions as I do more quilting. This one was challenging as there were some areas that were very empty and some that were not so empty, but still needed filling. I didn't want to do very small quilting in these areas because the charm center had not so small quilting. See where my mind goes?!? Around in circles! My goal is to get to the point where I just KNOW what each quilt needs, rather than spend days and days thinking about it! Am I alone with this? Do you have problems deciding what designs to quilt?

Take Care,

Missie

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A Warm Welcome is done!

Here it is...all finished. Quilted and bound! Whew. For a little quilt at 24" square, it sure was a challenge! but it's good to have a challenge now and then.

I hope you can see the quilting if you are able to zoom in on the picture. It is not perfect, but I am learning new things on my quilting machine each time I quilt another quilt. If you have ideas of something else I could have quilted into the border area, I would love to hear about them. I was stumped and all I could think of was feathers...
VOTE FOR THIS QUILT HERE FOR THE SCRAP QUILT CATEGORY IN THE 5th BLOGGERS FESTIVAL!!

This is the backside. Again, not perfect, but if I squint, it looks good! LOL. I may consider no sleeve on this one for displaying both sides.

If you notice, I finished the back side the same as the front for the binding. Since I was using the english paper piecing method, I wanted to bind it as I have seen antique quilts bound with this shape. It was difficult at first, but ended up getting easier as I went around.
I started by sewing on a matching color paper piece (thanks to Mary Helen for that color suggestion). I stitched two sides of the piece. This pic below is from my phone, so it is a bit blurry, but I think you can see the new paper piece I am stitching on to the border. 

Then after an entire side of pieces were sewn on, I flipped them to the backside of the quilt.

The backing fabric was trimmed and folded under so that no raw edges showed at the intersection area that is very narrow. (See that right under my thumb.) Then I pinned the piece in place at the point and the narrow intersection where both sides are touching.

The edges were stitched in place as shown above and I took an extra stitch at the narrow area as seen below.

I used wool batting and it was quite puffy until I gave it a good steamy press. Now that it is completed, I think I like the look. It's a different way to bind and I do have great appreciation for our grandmothers of the past who used this method to finish their quilts. This was a common way to finish a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. Many times they would just fold the backing under instead of adding the colored piece like I did.
This quilt will hang in the Des Moines show the first weekend in October. I just got started on another quilt for the show! Yes, I am doing this at the last minute, but I do this every year to myself! I have posted Charmed Beginnings that I designed as a pattern for Blackberry Primitives. It looks quite different in cotton fabric this time around! The stems and grass are wool.

Now I am trying to decide on the border color...have to think on it for a while. Not too long though! It needs to be completed by Sept 21st!!
Thanks for stopping by today, take care,
Missie

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Happy Belated Holiday and thank goodness for cooler weather!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July! This is an antique quilt I saved a picture of long ago. It's one of my favorite patriotic quilts of yesteryear.

We just got home from a trip to see family and attend a wedding in hot hot Indiana! My goodness it was HOT and humid. I feel for all the folks stuck in the heat wave with no power all these days. So glad cooler and less humid weather arrived today! We attended a wedding Saturday and we were sure glad the church and reception were nice and cool! Always fun to see a new couple in love getting married!

I finally have time to post a good pic of my wool Quilt, Charmed Beginnings, made from Blackberry Primitives wool. It's lovely wool to work with.  All pieces are appliquéd. No piecing except for putting the blocks together. This is a pretty quick quilt to put together as wool appliqué is so easy since there are no seams to turn under. It is hand quilted in primitive stitches with Valdani 12 pearle cotton. Hmmm...gives me the itch for another wool project!

We came home to blooming hydrangeas...the only thing that was not burned up in the heat! I'm glad to have enjoyed these a few days.

I hope your weather is pleasant where ever you are...we are pleasant in Iowa the last few days! Take care!

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