Winner of Gigi’s Thimbles Prize

Oh boy the mail person was nice to me today!  I had won a little prize from Amber Johnson of A Little Bit Biased who is starting her new pattern company called Gigi’s Thimbles and today it arrived.  It was more than I thought.  She sent not one but, 4 patterns and a Bliss Layer cake!  I am so excited and can’t wait to break into them all, but first I must eat then take a shower…then the evening is mine to explore my treasures.  I love all this patterns but I think the bird house is probably my favorite at the moment and would look great done in Bliss!

I also ordered the cutest pattern from Cath’s Pennies Design.  It is a Christmas cookie pattern and hers looked so great that I ordered the whole kit.  It’ll be fun to start on something for the holidays.  These are all made from felt.  I haven’t done much with felt before so it will be fun to try something new.  Too bad I have to work the next few days at my paying job or I would just be sewing away the hours.

You must go to Cath’s blog post about this pattern to really get the true effect.  She has a plate of cookies on the mat that look so much like the real thing but are actually ornaments.  I am thinking they will be fun to put on packages.

Sew many new projects to work on…I’m a happy girl!

Ferne

Harriet Hargrave Class

Last week I took a class at my local quilt shop with Harriet Hargrave as the teacher.  Harriet has teamed up with her daughter Carrie and written a few books with more on the way.  The books are written to be use in order to teach you everything you need to know to quilt like a pro.  She starts with the very basics and teaches you to expect perfection from yourself.  Harriet believes that your seam ripper is your friend and she is right.  She had us all ripping our fabric to find the straight of grain and ironing it with lots of Faultless Spray Starch till that fabric felt almost like paper, but this lets you cut perfectly straight pieces. 

Harriet had lots of products that she highly recommends such as Faultless Spray starch (she converted a lot of us who loved Best Press), Presencia Thread - a thinner, but stronger thread than most on the market, and Perkins Dry Goods Perfect Piecing Seam Guide – to find your perfect 1/4 inch then mark it on your machine.  She also had her favorite rulers and irons to recommend and they were all available for us to use.  I can see why she recommends the products she does because they work and I will be changing over to some of them as I need to replace things I already have. 

This class was tough and maybe not as much fun as some classes, but I did get my money’s worth in knowledge.  I own 2 of Harriet and Carrie’s Quilters Academy books and Harriet’s Heirloom Quilting book and look forward to the release of her future books.  Thanks to JJ’s Log Cabin for making this class available – it seems that JJ and Harriet are personal friends.  JJ’s new partner got together with her neighbor and provided the most amazing lunches and snacks for us all complete with tabl es covered with table clothes and even recipes of our favorite snacks!  It was a great 2 day class!  Here is the resulting small quilt that I am finishing piecing.  

One thing I learned about myself taking this class is that I am a slower quilter than most in the class, but I do enjoy the process of piecing and probably do better at home without all the commotion of a classroom and waiting for irons and rulers.  I also learned that just when you thought you knew a lot you find you know not so much, but quilters love to share their tips and techniques, all you have to do is ask.

Keep learning and sharing your knowledge in all that you do!

Ferne