Happy Mother’s Day, Quilters!

It’s the end of the day and I realized that I did not pick winners for Gina’s patterns last night as I should have… so here we go…

The Winners are:

Roxanna Holiker, Judy Volden, Dana Floyd, Nonnie and Jamie Todhunter!

Congratulations and don’t forget to send me your mailing address.

By the time we got home from breaking down our booth and heading for home, we were DONE IN. I didn’t eat dinner, but went straight to bed… where I got my second wind and talked to WebGuy via online chat for a couple of hours.

Filled him in on all of the details of the show. Then, I got my third wind and was wide awake til 3 am.

Then was up at 7am, in anticipation of getting the all important Mother’s Day phone call from my favorite missionary…

(the Boy Wonder, pre-Mexico)

After a comedy of errors and mixed up phone numbers, I got to talk to him for almost two hours. It was glorious and MADE MY DAY.

I have to say that it’s really strange to be away from home on Mother’s Day and miss all of the pomp and celebration of that day that my family does for me. I truly am “Queen for a Day” and sometimes even a whole weekend in my home. I sorely missed that, and them, today. The talk with my Elder Smith went overtime, so by the time we were done, little Peanut:

was in bed and it was too late to do a chat with her. So we’re doing it tomorrow instead. More Mother’s Day for me!

Ok, so here is what’s for you:

Have you ever needed some inspiration to work on a quilt and didn’t know where to get it?

How about using this:

this is a Mother’s Day kind of thing, is it not?

They have the coolest thing inside this bag — besides the chocolate, of course… ; )

It’s these little personal messages, JUST FOR YOU.

I discovered these about 10 years ago, when I was working at a dead-end job (prior to the podcast and discovering that I could really follow my dream of designing quilts, making patterns and teaching). I got THIS message inside a wrapper one day:

“You are the Star for which the Night time Sky waits…”

Like, WHAT?!

I was so taken aback. It was like it was a message just for me, letting me know that I had worth — that I was special, and everything was going to be ok. To this day, I still have that wrapper in my jewelry box at home, because that’s where it belongs. Something changed in me that day.

Fast forward to the HMQS show, and the need to get treats for the booth. Chocolate to be precise. Dove “Promises” are the perfect little chocolate pick-me-up, and not to disappoint, have a whole new variety of messages — ones especially inspirational for quilters.

Ones like:

1. Get out there and make your dreams happen.

and

2. You know what? You look good in red.

and

3. Do what feels right

and

4. Make “someday” today

and

5. Remind yourself to relax

and

6. Keep the promises you make to yourself

so how do those apply to quilting, and inspiration? Do you get it yet?

Start with #1 — What are your dreams? A long-arm machine, to write a book or design fabric, create a quilt worthy of competition?

#2 — Need a color to start with? There you go. It’s already telling you that it will look good!

#3 — Listen to the quilt and do what it says. It will tell you what it wants.

#4 — So…. what are you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Probably not gonna happen. You need to make it happen for yourself.

#5 — Lower your shoulders from up around your ears, you’re just going to give yourself neck strain and need some Ibuprofen. Your stitching will be much smoother and look better if you just relax. It’s going to come out perfect!

#6 — This weekend, I spoke with so many quilters who visited my booth and actually discounted their talents and abilities in conversations with me! YOU HAVE TALENT!! Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t. Learn how to accept a compliment. If you set a date to accomplish/finish a beautiful quilt, keep the date with yourself — and persevere!

A bag of Dove Promises is like a Magic 8 ball, or a fortune cookie — sometimes eerily giving you a message that you need to hear or can use to motivate you.

Sometimes we find inspiration in the funniest or most unlikely places.

so….. for a chance to win today’s GiveAway, leave me a comment and tell me about a time that you received some unlikely inspiration. It can be from ANY source.

The prize? An Assortment of my favorite quilting notions and tools, which I will hand select for you — including a bag of Dove Promises. This GiveAway is not sponsored by anyone but little ol’ me, and I will be doing the shopping for this. It will be a pretty cool prize just for YOU – guaranteed!

I will pick the winner on Tuesday night, May 10th.

(Sorry — I’m spacing the GiveAways out to every other day — I have had some comments by those concerned that they don’t have enough time to enter… But, hey, I promise that they’ll keep on coming! I still have a great big box of prizes at home and will be hauling a huge box of new products home from Quilt Market with me — so never fear, they’ll never run out ; )

Put your thinking caps on and leave me a comment. I can hardly wait to see what you’ll say!

 

©2011  Annie Smith  All Rights Reserved

Program #198 — Chattin’ with Gina Halladay

(Right-Click or Ctrl-Click on the icon below and select “save link as…” to download the podcast to your computer)

Running time: 00:23:11 Size: 22.4 MB

I got a chance to catch Gina for a quick podcast interview while we were both between customers at the HMQS show.

She updates us on what’s been happening with her, what’s new on her horizon and what it takes to keep not one, but three businesses afloat while trying to raise a busy family. If anyone can do it, Gina can.

Here’s a fun bit of news:

Gina won the Best of Show booth!! A big blue ribbon — as seen below:

and a gift certificate for a steak dinner!
Congratulations, Gina!!

Here are some additional pictures of her award winning booth display, and pictures of her whole booth — it’s a triple-wide.

I just love talking to Gina — her enthusiasm just rubs off on you, and you can’t help but think that you can do it too.

And, in traditional Gina style — she has donated not one, but FIVE of her new Cabana Quilts patterns — sooooo, there will be FIVE LUCKY winners for this giveaway — not just one!!

Leave me a comment and let me know what inspired you most about Gina’s interview, and I’ll pick the winners on Saturday night, May 7th.

BTW, if you are going to the Long Beach International Quilt Show, Gina will have a booth there and you can meet her for real. If you’re that close to Yorba Linda, you’ll have to go by and see her faboo store, Fresh Picked Fabrics. I’m voting for that shop for the next Quilt Sampler magazine ; )

Lastly… here is a picture of me and my good friend and booth mate, Valerie Burton posing in our booth.

©2011 Annie Smith All Rights Reserved

First, the winner of the Chocolate cinnamon bears and the Salt City Candle is Angie! Congratulations, Angie!! (Send me your mailing address : )

Ok, today we were dead on our feet at 8 am when we left for the convention center.

But this is what we looked like after primping our booth when the show opened at 10.

And here are pictures of the booth, finally!

And this:

This is our mockup booth in Valerie’s living room:

And this:

We’re glad that the show is finally underway and several listeners came by to say hi today — and so do you THINK I thought about taking pictures with them?! Nooooo, because our purses were put away. Lame excuse #327.
but it was sooooo fun meeting you, my friends!

Ok – i have officially turned into a pumpkin….

I did a meetup for the Utah Quilt Guild at Quilts Etc. in Sandy for the Utah Quilt Guild and the online class I’m doing for them. That too was fun, but I’m finding that after dinner, another trip to Walmart, there is such a thing as too much fun : )

I promise you a new podcast AND a faboo prize — so, forgive me, but I’m off to ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

Marg in Mirror is the lucky winner of the GiveAway for Podcast 196 — Pearl’s Applique tool, Penguin and Fish Alligator pattern and a pair of Grabaroo gloves!
Congratulations, Marg! Send me your mailing address!

Stay tuned — LOTS more the come!!

Every so often, I am cruising the web and find someone has been blogging about me. In this case, it is Leah Day of “The Free Motion Quilting Project” blog. A friend of mine, Randi, had taken my Quilter’s Palette Online Quilt Class and sought advice from Leah through her blog.

What IS This Online Class You Speak Of, Annie?
The Quilter’s Palette quilt is a sampler quilt and I teach it via online class. Each of the 13 blocks teach a different skill or technique:

• 3 different types of machine appliqué
• 5 different ways to paper-piece a block
• How to draft a block
• How to make perfectly butted seams
• Y-seam construction
• How to work with templates
• Expert fabric selection
• And much much more

This class is self-paced and provides all of the patterns, instruction, personal support (from me, of course), and opportunity to meet others working on the same project from around the world! There is plenty of space in the class, and registration is on-going. I recommend you check it out if you would like to hone your quilt-making skills. For more information about the online class, click HERE and also HERE

Enter Leah Day And Her Free Motion Quilting Blog
So Randi sent her a picture of her quilt and asked her for advice on quilting the finished work. If you would like to read the story, you can follow it HERE

Leah, maybe we can arrange a time where we can chat on my podcast! Call me!

Program #197 — Creating a Quilt Booth

(Right-Click or Ctrl-Click on the icon below and select “save link as…” to download the podcast to your computer)

Running time: 00:17:26 Size: 16.8 MB

Sometimes technology is just like thorns on roses…

In this blog, I have NO pictures. Why, you might ask? Well, it’s because I cannot post pictures on my iPad to my blog… I can do everything else about making the blog and uploading the podcast for your listening pleasure, but try as I might, I cannot physically add pictures to my blog posts.

This, I abhor.

I WANT to give you pictures.

So, I’m trying to figure out how to upload the cool pictures that I have taken on my phone’s camera to TUMBLR because heaven knows, I can’t hook my camera up to my iPad and upload pictures so I can post them ON MY BLOG. (grrrrrrrr)

So, please be patient with me… I really love my iPad. I just don’t like that there are certain things I can’t do with it yet.

On this podcast, Valerie Burton and I talk about getting ready for the HMQS show, (Home Machine Quilting Show).

They pulled a switcheroo on us today and gave us EXTRA booth space, so after we had gotten about 75% of the way done, they came over and asked us if we wanted the booth next door to us too because the people who were going to take the booth had to cancel. OH MY GOSH — are you kidding??!! Of course we do! (even though it meant an additional 6-8 hours of labor to do it…)

So an emergency trip to Walmart solved our display problem for a second booth and we were there til 8:00 when they kicked us all out for the night. Now, we’re scrambling to add more display pieces, fold more fabric and make more charms and be at the expo center two hours before the show starts so we can have everything in tip top shape when the doors open in the morning.

Sorry the podcast came out before the blog — two days in a row. I think I’m trying to balance too many plates. But I’m determined to keep my promise!

Ok, don’t forget to comment on the blog here to have a chance to win some native Utah goodies — a tin of Sweet’s chocolate covered Cinnamon Bears and a Salt City candle.

I’ll pick the winner tomorrow night – Thursday, May 5th. Listen to the podcast to find out who the winner is of Program 196!!

©2011 Annie Smith All Rights Reserved

Program #196 — Three rescued interviews from Houston Market

(Right-Click or Ctrl-Click on the icon below and select “save link as…” to download the podcast to your computer)

Running time: 00:29:37 Size: 28.5 MB

 

Ok, I am truly lame and I admit it!!

I prepared this podcast and wrote the copy for the blog to release yesterday (Monday) and my son calls me this afternoon and says, “hey mom, I thought you did the podcast yesterday!”

I saved the draft and thought I hit the publish button but DID NOT!
So I apologize BIG. So, the podcast says that I will pick the winner for the giveaway on Tuesday night,(tonight), but instead I will pick the winner on Wednesday night.

The giveaway is an assortment from the three interviews:

Pearl Perreira of P3Designs talks about how she gets her inspiration for her highly detailed applique quilts. Here are a few that she talked about:

Then, Alyssa Thomas of Penguin and Fish talks about how she came into the quilting industry from a different career.

Finally Miriam of Grabaroos tells us about the different uses for the Grabaroo gloves beside being the best machine quilting gloves available, and Purple too!

So the giveaway is:
One of Pearl’s Applique and Pressing Tools

A Penguin and Fish Alligator pattern

And a pair of your very own Grabaroo gloves

I will pick ONE lucky winner, again, at midnight, Wednesday night.
To enter, leave me a comment about what you enjoyed from the interviews and what you learned that you didn’t know before.

And stay tuned for more!!

©2011 Annie Smith All Rights Reserved

This Mad Tea Party tea-set was painstakingly quilted in 3D by Instructables user Technoplastique who documented the whole process in a great (if somewhat daunting) how to article. You can find the details by clicking HERE

Hi All,

This is WebGuy filling-in for Annie while she is on her way to Utah with her 8 boxes full of quilting love and goodness to show-off at Quilt Market in Salt Lake City. After the great tumult of preparing, packing, and the normal running around associated with a trip of this magnitude, the house feels a little large and quiet this morning. Just me and Piper, the wonder dog, holding down the fort.

Just when I thought I had the day to myself, Annie sends me a message to post here on the website. It appears she neglected to announce the winner of the Quilt Album Software package.

It seems that after Annie called out to you to call-in and tell her your quilt stories, she received quite a few! Thanks to all who participated. Annie is planning on including some of the stories in an upcoming podcast.

Of course, after all of the entries, there can be only one winner. I don’t have any cute photographs of bowls with names on paper slips. But I do have the winner’s name:

Diane Loomis

Diane, thanks for calling in and winning!

In case you guys don’t know, Diane won best machine quilting workmanship at the AQS show in Paducah. You can check out the quilt HERE

Sorry for late blog post today but I have been taking care of business. Precisely, housekeeping in my studio.

Needing to pack for my trip to

tomorrow…

Lots and lots and lots to do… like:

and

and

and

but I had help…

Here is Kirsten in all her loveliness — you haven’t seen her for awhile!

Oh my aching back and feet and …

well, enough of sympathy mongering…

Here’s a fun picture that I haven’t shown you yet —

My Ivar Stash cabinet, filled to the brim. Can I tell you how much I love having my stash all put away and organized so I can shop in it when I want? I do!

Ok , my friends, I have to finish packing so I can get on the train in the early a.m.  Did I tell you that there is NO WiFi on this particular train?!  Hey, this is the 21st Century for PEET’s Sake! Get with it! So I’m going to be without the internet for 16 whole hours. What ever am I going to do??

WebGuy came to my rescue and loaded books and podcasts and movies onto this lovely little device:

which will save my sanity. My best friend on this trip.

Oh — before I forget, I need to leave you with a little parting gift until tomorrow when there will be an all new podcast for you… what will I do…?

How about since I’m going to Utah, I will give you an opportunity to win something from a real Utahn. How ’bout…

something from this pretty, talented and crafty lady?

How about her new book?

It’s a great book with gifts for all ages, with nice personal stories from Marie about growing up, time spent with her Mother – who taught her how to sew and embroider, the memory quilt she made with her mother’s treasures (the only things that survived her house fire) and things she’s made for her children. Tradition. That’s what Marie is all about and she does it in a pretty clever way.

For a chance to win Marie’s book, leave me a comment and tell me any memories that you have of Marie Osmond, performing, as a teenager, etc. Be specific and creative.

I will draw the winner on Sunday night, May 1st at midnight, when I finally wake up from my travel coma.

Get ready for a Utah lalapalooza of podcasts, special guests, great Give-Aways and tons of fun. There will be something new everyday beginning on Monday, so you better keep up with me!

Toot, toot — All Aboard!!

 

©2011  Annie Smith  All Rights Reserved