Craftsy Holiday Sale!

By now, I'm sure you've shopped for everyone else. But what about yourself? You certainly deserve something special for spreading all that joy (and I'm not just talking about a nap!). Treat yourself to the gift you've most definitely earned! All Craftsy classes are just $19.99 or less now through the 25th. Learn from the best instructors in the best online Quilting Classes of 2014! Click HERE for the special pricing!!

On the Sixth Day of Piecing....

On the sixth day of piecing, I was so glad to see:


64 finished blocks! Now I'm just waiting for Dawna to do a fly by (she's on her way to go out shopping) to make sure the colors are balanced well and then I can sew them together and get them off the bedroom floor. I trust her color sense so much more than I trust mine!

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Location:Palmdale CA

On the Fifth Day of Piecing

On the fifth day of piecing, this is what I see:


Only one block done before I got sucked into the process of daily living. Hopefully, today will be more productive on the sewing front!

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And Another Day....

That's 32, halfway there -- I need a total of 64 blocks before starting the pieced border....

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Location:Palmdale CA

Christmas Star Quilt (continued)

And yesterday, I got this far:


Destiny went home this morning, so hauled the machine back upstairs to keep sewing along on this project. I've got pretty good momentum going now!

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Location:Palmdale CA

A Couple of Days Later

Working on the star quilt.....


At the end of the first day of sewing, I had all of the star points cut and the initial units made. I did a couple of the units just to make sure that everything was going to fit. And I had one half square triangle left over. The next day I found another one on the floor so I guess I didn't count those too well -- better too many than too few!


Destiny and I sewed all day yesterday; she worked on her Turning Twenty quilt -- king size for her bed! The thing's huge! -- and I worked on this. Got the center block done and one of the others. Guess I'll just move out from here until I run out of design wall! I'm running into a bit of a problem because I don't have enough red fabric, so I'm bringing in another red, the one that's in the border around the center star. It reads quite a bit lighter, though, so I'm not sure that's what I want. Maybe a trip to Bolts in the Bathtub today?

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Location:Palmdale CA

Sometimes We're Just Ready for Something New

My friend Dawna Harrison and her sister Fay Harrison-Bergier own Bolts in the Bathtub, our local quilt store and BERNINA dealer. Among other cool things they do at the shop, Dawna hosts a bi-monthly Strip Club meeting where she teaches techniques using patterns from Cozy Quilt Designs.

This the quilt that Dawna featured in September; I bought the pattern and then borrowed the quilt so that I could figure out color placement. Dawna always changes up the patterns a LOT, so relying totally on the pattern wouldn't have worked for me.

The pattern is called "Star of the Show" and these are the fabrics I'm planning to use.

These are the fabrics I'm planning to use for the star points and background -- I'm going to start cutting them out and see how far I get. Dawna says I need 84 of them.....

Last Chance

Today is your last chance to treat yourself with a new Craftsy class at this special price! This is Craftsy’s biggest sale of the year, and it’s almost over. ALL Quilting classes are $19.99 or less, including mine. Try a new class HERE!

Really Cool Testimonial!

I received this sweet message from a gal who took my Craftsy Class! Gotta love positive feedback right!?

My class is still on special Black Friday pricing, click HERE if you want to check it out!

Craftsy Black Friday Sale!!

I'm excited to share some news with you about Craftsy's biggest event of the year! I know that this is the season to shower your loved ones with gifts, but why not invest in yourself, too? Craftsy is marking down ALL online Quilting Classes to $19.99 or less, INCLUDING MINE, through Monday! So give the gift of learning to yourself or to someone special! Click HERE for the special pricing!!

Taking a Break -- Weekend in San Luis Obispo

Dan and I went to the Paso Robles/San Luis Obispo area last weekend. We visited Justin Vineyards for a holiday party and then went to see my friend Janet Mease at SLO Creative Studio. I've known Janet for 8 or 9 years; she used to have a beautiful quilt shop, Shiisa Quilts, in Bloomington IN and I taught there once a year for about 5 years. Then she moved to California 3 years ago and opened the studio this year. Had to see what she was up to!

Janet has some fabric and notions in the store, but her real focus is lots of classes in sewing, quilting, garment making, etc., as well as getting people up to speed in their longarm quilting skills on the Handiquilter units she has set up.

If you're in the California central coast area, SLO Creative Studio is located at 3536 S. Higuera St., Suite 210, San Luis Obispo CA; phone 805-439-1366. You might also want to get on her e-mail list so you can keep track of all the classes and events. There's always something going on -- I'm excited that I made the event list and will be teaching there in July. To get on that e-mail list, go to Janet's website at slo-creative.com

Another good friend, Sam Hunter, had recently written this book and Janet was making some projects from it. Sam did a book signing at SLO Creative Studio a couple of weeks ago, but I was out of town so didn't get to drive up and see her. I loved what Janet was doing and really liked the book when I paged through it, so I just e-mailed Sam so I can buy my very own copy This should be fun!

We really like staying at the Embassy Suites in SLO and the really yummy breakfasts, but when we got off the elevator Sunday morning we saw the long line at the omelet station and -- not being the most patient people in the world, particularly if we're hungry -- decided to go out for breakfast. We had never been across the street to the Madonna Inn and my Open Table app said they served breakfast, so we drove over there. I know, it's about 1/4 mile, we should have walked....

The breakfast was very good, but the extra added bonus is that the cafe was all decorated for the holidays!

This was the view from our table; we were right in front of the fireplace! So pretty and romantic for a Sunday morning!

One thing that I particularly liked -- the restaurant is very PINK! Dan's holding a napkin up in front of his face...

This was sort of a restaurant week, I guess; Wednesday night we went out to Vincent Hill Station, a local railroad themed restaurant that we like a lot.

You can tell I hated the creme brulee, but I just couldn't eat two of the huge mounds of whipped cream with raspberry drizzle. Wished I had my goddaughter Destiny to help; she NEVER has any problem eating all the whipped cream on the table!

Another fireplace view (at least for me, Dan had his back to it), but he looks pretty happy after his cheesecake with even more whipped cream and raspberry sauce...

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you are all in a great mood to start your holiday shopping!

Quilt Festival 2014

Last night was the first chance I had to see the quilts -- this is a milestone anniversary for this event and they did it up right!






The highlight for me was getting to see, in person, the entire red and white quilt exhibit. I've seen pictures in magazines and blogs, but it's just not the same....





Another quilt I especially enjoyed is "Wright Iron Roses" by Jaynette Huff. That was the entire description, so I can't tell you any more about it other than how beautiful it is!







"Five Bar Blues" by Diane Loomis of Sudbury MA was inspired by the traditional Amish quilt pattern. The quilting knocked my socks off!





Another example of awesome machine quilting, "Solar Flares" by Judy Madsen of St. George UT. Judy said her design idea came from Libby Lehman's Ohio Star block.



I was able to take a stroll (it was so crowded last night, "stroll" is probably moving faster than I was really going) though part of the vendor mall. This quilt was displayed on the outside of one of the booths; the booth itself was so crowded I didn't get close enough to see the name of the vendor. I was very impressed with the quilting and how the quilter sectioned out and stitched parts of the quilt background as units. Very effective! I'll try to get back there over the next couple of days, remembering approximately what row it was in, and get the name of the booth where this was displayed.

Today classes and Festival are in full swing; I'm up in the Brother Sewing Lounge helping people with their projects. Room 361D if you want to come for a visit!

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Location:Houston TX

Now that Quilt Market is Over

Like all of the Quilt Markets that I have attended, this was hectic and busy -- I met some shop owners who were new to me and got to reconnect with lots of friends who love sewing as much as I do to see what they were impressed by and were buying for their stores.

I was hearing a lot about purses and tote bags and tea towels -- things that customers can make fairly quickly -- but you know, I'm all about the quilts!






My very favorite booth was Lunch Box Quilts and Angie Stevenson's new digitized embroidery pattern for the vintage sewing quilts. Love Angie's stuff and this one is no exception! My favorite up to now has been her Ooh La La quilt that features French motifs, including an Eiffel tower (and a poodle!), but I like this new one just as much. The smaller one will fit perfectly on an empty wall in my sewing room, so I plan to buy this collection of digitized designs as soon as it hits my local quilt shop.

Festival will start today with preview night and then opens for the full day starting tomorrow. I'm up in the classroom area -- in 361D, if you'd like to come up and visit -- but I'm going to try to make it down to Festival once in a while to see all the excitement and to get a better look at the quilts.

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Location:Houston TX

Fan Appreciation Day!

Love it when Craftsy has a sale! I just downloaded "Thread Savvy: Stitch Flawlessly With Any Thread" by Lindee Goodall, so we know what I'll be watching during halftime today and on my idle evenings this week! Here's a link to the savings: http://www.craftsy.com/ext/PaulaReid_holiday I think you have to use a link from an instructor's media to get this savings. Enjoy! P

BERNINA Sewing & Design, Las Cruces NM (Part 3)

Yesterday I taught my "Beyond the Basics" class; since a number of people in the class had taken Fluff & Stuff, but not Feather Frenzy, I did a feather review before we got into the design and background fill work.


This was my whiteboard drawing showing all the various things we were dong in class. And these are what everyone came up with, or at least the ones that I got photos of:


Carol -- This is only part of her piece, but I like what's going on there as a decorative fill between the circle and the outer points. It's going to look very Southwest. She's going to draw in all of the straight lines between the points and the circle, but use them as pivot points so that the center zigzag will be open, but the lines on either side, up and down, will be stitched. I want to play with this because I really like the look!




Maridee (not sure of spelling, but I've got the pronunciation down), started with squiggly lines and then started filling in areas. Liking the detail work here. Amazing how great muslin can look!




Terry used a pretty pink Floriani metallic thread in her bobbin and was working from the reverse side of the piece. Once we talked about tension settings as they related to metallic thread and she made the appropriate adjustments, her work just coasted right along. A little harder to see because of the strong shading in this batik, but worth taking a close look at.




Mary -- Playing with background fills and various threads to see how they look.




Vivien wanted to learn pebbles and feathers and once she was shown how, she just went for it! She was one of three ladies who were with me the whole three days -- brave souls!

Sometimes as I wander around this shop, I flatter myself that Marsha buys just for me. That's how much I like everything. It's just because she and I like a lot of the very same things....Now -- what I bought:



A pattern that I thought was really cute for holiday time; I think it would be really pretty using green scraps (maybe some with gold metallic in them?) on a white background.





The book has a lot of great ideas for using panels in cute ways; like the panel, but don't know if it's destined for a quilt or maybe placemats. I got enough to make 8 in case I decide to go that route.


I have a few of the books using jelly rolls, charm packs and other pre-cuts written by the Lintott's. They always have fresh, new ideas -- even when the patterns are very traditional, like in this book, Pam & Nicky seem to just spice them up and make the quilts more modern and appealing.





This is the pattern I chose for all those yellow & grey prints. I got a fat quarter of each and then Marsha pulled the perfect background fabric. I love this pattern because it will give me lots of negative space to practice what I learned from Angela Walters' Craftsy class "Quilting Negative Space".

That emptied out the box that's following me home! Now to put it all back in so that it will be on its merry way to me next week.

Not that I'll be home to open it! I'm leaving for Phoenix tomorrow to teach at Mulqueen's Sewing Center in Mesa AZ. Teaching Fluff & Stuff on Tuesday and Wednesday and Feather Frenzy on Thursday and then flying out to Houston for Market and Festival. Will I see you there?

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Location:Las Cruces NM

BERNINA Sewing & Design, Las Cruces NM (Part 2)

In the last post, I told you that the larger quilts were on the walls of the classroom. I would be remiss if I didn't show some of them to you!

















And here's Jill at the cutting table and behind her all the luscious fabric that I'm trying to keep my hands off of....not really, as you'll see in the next pic....





I am really liking modern quilts with lots of space for quilting, particularly since I viewed Craftsy's "Quilting Negative Space" with Angela Walters. These grey and yellow prints just intrigue me -- think I could make a modern quilt using shapes of all of these prints on a neutral background, leaving me lots of space for quilting:





I didn't think that grey and yellow would be my thing, but I love these!

What do you think?

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Location:Las Cruces NM

BERNINA Sewing & Design

I love, love, love this shop! I think this is the fifth time I have taught here and every time I start shopping and end up with a box to follow me home with all kinds of good stuff! Feasting my eyes on all the samples and color while shopping is an extra added bonus.

Of course, the Halloween block of the month quilt on the classroom wall immediately caught my eye. As I'm teaching my Fluff & Stuff class, my mind keeps straying to this quilt and how I might quilt it.





The owner of BERNINA Sewing & Design, Marsha Cowan, said to me that if she had a bigger store she would carry more thread....????? Look at all the thread she has in THIS one!





It's fun to look at all the samples on the walls. Larger quilts are displayed in the classroom, but above the fixtures are a lot of smaller, quick projects. Perfect when you need a gift right away or if you feel like starting something new that you'll actually finish! LOL....ummm, that probably means that I have a lot of UFO's. Maybe I'm revealing too much personal information here!

Yesterday was Day 1 of Fluff & Stuff, today is Day 2. I have 9 students in my class spanning varying levels of machine quilting experience from beginner who has never quilted to people who have done a lot of straight stitch quilting and a bit of free motion. They had good questions and they all did great work yesterday -- looking forward to today!

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Location:Las Cruces NM