Handi Quilter National Educator, Island Batik Ambassador, Certified Superior Thread Threadologist
After teaching longarm quilting all day, I grab a bite for dinner and head to my hotel room…to SEW! It’s how I relax. My trusty lightweight, dependable Singer Featherweight is my travel partner when I’m able to drive to my events. When I fly, my Kindle is my lightweight, dependable travel companion.
This Week in Studio Time –
Six fat quarters and you can have a quick baby quilt using the Yellow Brick Road quilt pattern. I added a border. I love the way this goes together. If you have a friend who is learning to quilt, this is a fantastic pattern for them, and it is so fun to put together that even experienced quilters will enjoy piecing this one! I come back to it again and again.
This week I also recovered a couple outdoor cushions. I’m happy with how they turned out.
I also made two of these quilt backing extenders. They are helpful when you are short on backing fabric so the machine carriage doesn’t run into the clamps. I took 2 fat quarters (one for each side), finished the long edges, and then folded it in half, right sides together, and stitched the end opposite the fold with a 1/4′ seam, and turned it right side out. Then I inserted a clean paint stick at the folded edge and marked the sides and the bottom of the paint stick. I stitched across the width and one side, inserted the paint stick, then stitched the other side to hold the paint stick in place. To use it, pin the end with the 1/4′ seam to your backing fabric, and use your clamps on the paint stick to stabilize your backing.
This has been on my list for quite awhile and I’m so happy I moved it to the top of my list. This was gifted to my grandson for his high school graduation. I was trying to think of a more masculine pattern to suggest to him. He liked the pattern and chose the colors. It went together so much easier than I thought. I hadn’t noticed that it’s really just two different blocks! If you’ve been considering making this one, I would encourage you to do so. I quilted this on my Handi Quilter Infinity using a design from Wasatch Quilting.
The Handi Quilter Educator Challenge for 2020 was to quilt a Debra Linker ice dyed piece of fabric to emphasize the faces or figures you see in the fabric. This is called pareidolia, but we decided to call it simply, Do You See What I See?
At our training, we accepted a Vintage Quilt Challenge. Brenda Groelz, Director of Education for Handi Quilter, has been collecting vintage quilts for years and now it’s time to get them quilted. Our directions were to quilt them in a way the original piecer would not have imaginied. You may add a border, but you are not allowed to wash them because they are fragile. We drew numbers and when our number was called, we could have our choice of around 30 quilts. There were only 11 of us. I loved the salmon color of this one. It was machine pieced and not in too bad of shape.
I added two borders and quilted it on my Handi Quilter Infinity. I think the dark teal blue border really sets it off nicely.
Close up of the quilting. I used Pro-Stitcher in the solid areas and borders and free motion on the rest.
In November , 2018, I became a Handi Quilter Educator along with these other lucky people! I could not have found a better “job” for me! We had such a fun week of training! Very proud to represent this company!!
Day two was a day of learning, rulers in the morning and stencils in the afternoon. Sprinkle in playing with different feet and other goodies. Every few hours we were gifted thread, rulers, stencils, scissors, bobbins, DVDs, you name it! Craziness!! All goodies to try out and to help up us with our quilting.
Commotion in the hallway and someone closing the classroom doors cued me that something was going to happen during lunchtime. Soon enough we were called to lunch. Jared, the photographer, was on hand, as was Darrin, the CEO. Hummm.
We were met with a beautifully decorated cake and discovered our name was going to be the Quilt Your Desire Inspiration Squad. Love that!
Placemats with our group photo shoot from 2:00 yesterday afternoon were on the tables. Marilyn, my roommate, is on the far left. We are pictured with vintage quilts the studio educators quilted.
Darrin again welcomed us to the HQ family and said we had birthdays to celebrate. Five of us (yes, I was one) have birthdays in January. The closest to that day’s date would win a prize. Becky’s was the closest and they brought out a very large white box with gorgeous purple metallic ribbon. It was a sewing machine!! But then Vicki said, “Wait, we all have birthdays!” and they wheeled out those fabulous boxes for each one of us!!
Back to the classroom for more hands on practice on the wonderful Avantes. And more swag! Did I say more swag? Yes, more swag! We learned they would be shipping it home for us!
At this time I just have to introduce you to Jace, the13th member of our squad. He is the 12 year old grandson of Helen Kay. She mentioned in her application video that she had taught him to quilt and showed a quilt he had made, so HQ invited him, too. He was a perfect addition! He carried his new sewing machine and thread home on the plane with him because he couldn’t wait for it to be shipped! Here he is hard at work micro quilting after trying his hand at couching.
At 5:00 we were taken by a luxurious shuttle bus to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for a fabulous gourmet buffet at the Roof Restaurant overlooking Temple Square. This is a view from the restaurant.
What an experience this was!
Tune in to my next post for Day 3 at Handi Quilter!
My wish for each individual is to live in harmony and be in good health. Those are the big two for me. Wouldn’t that be amazing if everyone had those two things? So I remind myself to live in the moment, be mindful, and do what I can to control my good health.
Quilting, sewing, and creating make my heart happy. Simply said, it is my thing. Now that I’m retired, I get to spend even more time doing my thing. I began sewing garments at age 12 and progressed to counted cross stitch, general crafting, and finally discovered quilting 15 years ago. I just love playing with fabric!! I have pieced many, many quilt tops and started many more (Hello, UFOs!). I discovered and fell in love with Cotton Theory, which allowed me a way to finish my own quilts (quilt first, then assemble) using my domestic machine. But I still have at least a dozen quilt tops sewn before I learned about Cotton Theory. How am I going to finish those? I just could not look forward to trying to wrestle them under my sewing machine needle. I didn’t want to send them to a longarmer to finish; I want to do it myself. I want to put my final signature on my work.
My new baby
Enter the Handi Quilter Simply Sixteen (cue singing choir of angels!). I first laid eyes on her at the Houston Quilt Show 2015 when she was introduced. A smaller 6′ frame and certainly more affordable than the larger models. I came very close to adopting her right then and there, but decided to give it some more thought. Then a couple weeks ago, my LQS, Always in Stitches, dangled a sprig of mistletoe over her and I welcomed her with open arms. Merry Christmas to me!
Beginning next week is a class featuring the Dancing Stars Cotton Theory quilt.
This is a beginner Cotton Theory quilt and uses both of the two main joining methods – the Highway and the One Way. It’s 52″ x 52″ so it would make a nice baby quilt, lap, or throw. If you live locally, and would like to join us, please email me (lanarussel@gmail.com) for current openings and project materials list. Classes are on the first Monday and Wednesday of every month in my home studio. I have room for 6 in each session. Dates for this project are June 1 and 6, July 6 and 11, August 1 and 3, and September 7 and 12. Mondays are 1:00 pm – 4 pm, Wednesdays are either 9:00 am – noon or 1:30 pm- 4:30 pm. Cost is $10 per 3 hour session. Pattern is $12.
This is an easy one to cut out; I was able to get all pieces cut out, labeled, sandwiched, and pressed in one day. Lots of same sized pieces makes it super easy. I’m ready to sew!