Podcast #232 — A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Podcast #232 —  A little bit of this, a little bit of that
(Right-Click or Ctrl-Click on the icon below and select “save link as…” to download the podcast to your computer)
podcast
Running time: 00:39:18 Size: 56.6 MB

A picture of my handmade journals, which will be available soon on Instagram (annismithqs):

Each are handmade, each are totally unique — and affordable. Follow me on Instagram to find out when they are available.

Here is my All Hearts Come Home for Christmas row quilt. I designed this in 2003 for my son, Ryan, and retired the pattern soon after I gave the quilt to him. Now, I will offer it as a pattern again beginning in October. If you’re interested, send me an email at annie@anniesmith.net and let me know. If you need it before October (because you want to make it for Christmas), just drop me an email too.

It’s a pretty special quilt.

Here are the links to my YouTube videos for iquilt:

 

Annie Smith – Fat Quarter Magic

 

Adding Contrast to Your Quilts Tip

 

Tricks for Precise Measurements & Cuts

I’ll be teaching at Sew Yeah Quilting in Las Vegas in September 15-17th.

I’ll be at Studio Stitch in Greensboro, NC in November 17-19th.

I’ll be at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC for one week in June 11-16th, 2017.

I’ll be teaching on a Quilting Cruise to Alaska in August 26 – Sept 5th, 2017. More info to come.

Here’s what the Bubblegum Mystery Quilt looked like:

Here are the students’ first draw at the machine:

And here is a sample of one of the student’s quilts:

I’ll soon add the workshop to my teaching brochure!

The quilt that my friend, Pam — the magnificent Zentangler quilted for me:

and here are a couple photos of Robin and Samantha’s wedding quilt:

The quilt, hanging from a tree. The reception venue was a friend’s farmhouse lawn, bedecked with antiques everywhere.  A breathtaking event.

Here’s some closeups — their initials “carved” into the tree:

and some nest details. I tried my hand at some feathers here:

Christa’s book:

Both excellent books — definitely in my Top Ten!

Here’s the link to Christa’s Spray Basting tutorial.

Here is the Creativity poster quote that I shared with you:

And here is the business card that my son, Robin crafted for me recently:

Happy Quilting!

 

P.S. The wedding quilt is a pattern that I bought from Carrie Bloomston when we both taught at Celebrate Quilts retreat in Flagstaff, AZ.

 

©2016   Annie Smith    All Rights Reserved

 

This? Or This?

I’m playing around with some appliqué blocks today that actually belong to another quilt. Every once in a while, you can get inspiration for another quilt, using the pieces of a different quilt and playing with them on the design wall — like this:


Here’s the single block. It’s on the design wall on-pointe because that’s how it’s going to be in the quilt. There are four blocks, so I put them up on the wall like this:

It creates a ring or a wreath effect, if I sewed the blocks together this way.

Now, today — I’m stitching around each of the appliqué shapes (which are raw edge). When I put the block back up on the design wall, I turned it the wrong way. This is the result:

It creates a clover deign in the center, far different from the one above — even though it’s the exact same block!

Which do you like better?

I’m taking votes, so please comment below soon! I want to know what you think.

I’m seriously thinking of creating a different quilt using these blocks as the centerpiece of a new quilt, which will be a new pattern.

Now — back to stitching!

P.S. Here’s a picture of the quilt these belong to:

This is called Garden Delights, and I’m going to be teaching it at the John C. Campbell Folk School in June 2017.

©2016   Annie Smith     All Rights Reserved

Podcast 233 — It’s quilted… Now what?

Podcast 233 — It’s quilted… Now what?

(Right-Click or Ctrl-Click on the icon below and select “save link as…” to download the podcast to your computer)
podcast
Running time: 00:45:00 Size: 64.8 MB

The lovely Diane Guadynski can be found here, along with the Gallery of a-mazing quilts she has made and won ribbons for.

Here’s the link to the podcast with Diane. (Although if you scroll down a bit and look on the left, there is a banner for the podcast with Diane there, with some other pretty cool folks and podcasts.)

Christa Watson’s binding tutorial can be found on her website at ChristaQuilts.

How to Block a Quilt — Ask Kimmy

Here are the photos of the quilts with the beautiful borders designs that I didn’t want to lose:

My monochromatic quilt

The Double Churn Dash

Both borders are the same and had be trimmed away from the borders very carefully so I didn’t cut off the quilting design too close to the border edge. I love the border design. It’s a cross between a turtle shell and a paisley.

 

And here’s the quilt from the Utah Quilt Guild Museum at This Is The Place Heritage Park. It was a full-size Rose of Sharon quilt that had a wool blanket inside, used for batting. It’s now crib size. Luckily it shrunk all at the same rate. This is what happened:

and here’s a close-up detail — it looks ruched:

Pictures of Beth’s quilt blocks;

The fabric for this quilt was all bought at local quilt shops, so it was quality fabric.

Here’s the color “catchers”:

 

Retain is a color fixative.

Synthrapol is to remove remove excess dye.

PROsapol is an alternative to Synthrapol which is eco-friendly and alcohol free.

The tablets you want to use to neutralize the chlorine in your water are called Aquarium tablets.

Here are the B-words associated with quilting:

Blocks       Borders         Batting         Backing          Blocking           Binding          Basting

No wonder we get so confused! But I love every B-word in the book having to do with quilting.

until next time — and send me your requests and don’t forget to comment below!

Happy Quilting!

©2016         Annie Smith         All Rights Reserved

Public Service Announcement #528

Quilters — not everything you see on Pinterest or a blogpost is a good idea. I just found this on Pinterest:

Do Not EVER EVER EVER use a metal ruler with your rotary cutter — ever. Your rotary cuttter will jump that metal edge quicker than anything, and you can get seriously hurt.

You can acheive the same thing they are referring to by using a large square acrylic ruler. You can use a Carpenter’s square, or right angle ruler, for measuring ONLY — never cutting. It’s called a Carpenter’s square because they use it with WOOD.

that is all.

 

 

I’ve been around awhile…

Hey y’all! It’s Friday and time for a blogpost, like I promised.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about technology and how it’s changed the way we quilt, for a new lecture series. We really have come a long, long way in the last twenty years with quilting, haven’t we? Twenty years ago, there was no such thing as:

• “Approved” machine quilting. We were still hand-basting quilts and hand quilting them, because it was taboo for quilters to enter a machine quilted quilt into a quilt competition. Thank you, Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry for breaking the mold for us!

• iPods, iPads, or iPhones. There was no such thing as a podcast, blog, online fabric stores — you name it.

• The Statler stitcher hadn’t been invented yet. Any machine quilting was done on a domestic machine, or free motion on a longarm.

And that’s just to name a FEW.

WebGuy and I have been working on a new website and updating this dusty old one. In moving over to a new website, I have to take so many things into consideration that I may or may not be able to take with me over to the new website. The one thing I need to consider is that I will have an all-new Archive area. I will lose the one that is currently on this website, and all of the links to when I first began — in 2004.

My first blogpost was published on August 8th, 2004. My youngest son was 13 and I had no grandchildren then. My mom was still alive and I had accomplished not one of the things that I have done in the last ten years. She didn’t get to see one of my accomplishments — being a guest on Alex and Ricky’s The Quilt Show, publishing a book with C&T, any of it. Ah, well.

I was just thinking — you may not know how long I’ve been around either. So, I’m sharing the links to the Archives here. There’s a list for ya.

In my very first blogpost, I talked about blogging and shared a photo of a hand appliquéd quilt that I made. Two years ago, I gave that quilt to my granddaughter, Lucy.

(The girls asked me for heart quilts, “just like the one you made for mommy” for their birthdays, which are two days apart. How could I say no?)

So, the next time you’re surfing the web (is that an old term already?), check out my first B.P.* blogs (*before podcast). I also wrote a blogpost in August 2004 about the significance of the 54/40 or Fight block.

Yep, this is the 54/40 or Fight block.

Check it out!

P. S. I updated the information in the previous post that has Podcast #231 in it. If you scroll to the bottom the link for April Cornell and some news about her can be found there.

Until next time — Happy Quilting!

©2016   Annie Smith   All Rights Reserved

Podcast 231 – Getting Organized Day

Podcast 231 — Getting Organized Day

(Right-Click or Ctrl-Click on the icon below and select “save link as…” to download the podcast to your computer)
podcast
Running time: 00:42:24 Size: 20.4 MB

I hope you enjoy the interview I did with Carolyn Woods of Totally Tidy Household Organizing and Robin and Diana from Tater Patch Quilts.

Here is the book, Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter, C&T Publishing —

You may already have it in your quilting book library. I did! I’m so happy because now I can use it to really get organized this summer. I’m looking forward to going through my stash once again, to cull out things that I no longer want so I have room for new things.

Please leave a comment here. I’m going to start doing giveaways again and you’ll want to get into practice leaving a comment here ; )

Also, I’m going to do podcasts on a regular basis again — this is my commitment to you. They’ll come out on Wednesdays. I’m also going to do regular blog posts, which will be available on Fridays. Along with regular Facebook posts (follow me at Annie Smith’s Quilting Stash fan page) and Instgrams — anniesmithqs.

And here’s the link to April Cornell. WELL GUESS WHAT??!! April is designing fabric for Free Spirit!! How did I miss that?! Here’s a link to her most current line with them: Free Spirit Designers

Hope to hear from you soon — and Happy Quilting!

©2016  Annie Smith   All Rights Reserved