Jan Barnett at Handi Quilter Retreat

Handi Quilter owners were invited to write their Handi Quilter Stories to try to win a free trip to Salt Lake City for a Handi Quilter Retreat.

This is the reception the winners got from the employees at Handi Quilter Headquarters. The winners had no idea what was going to happen when they walked in the door. What a great surprise this must have been.Jan Barnett, the woman who machine quilts my bigger quilts, was one of the winners.
Here she is along with the other winners. Jan is the one on the far right.

Jan is working on the HQ Sixteen while Cheryl Duncan, HQ Studio Educator, watches.
I wonder what wonderful new technique she is learning now?

As you can see, Jan is having a great time. Jan works so hard on their farm and still finds the time to quilt for others. She recently bought the HQ Fusion after many years of service from her HQ Sixteen. Her work is outstanding and I can't think of anyone who deserves this trip more. Congratulations Jan!

New Free Motion Designs Every Day!

365 Days of Free Motion Quilting Designs by Leah Day is one of the most outstanding Blogs on the Internet for Quilters! Leah Day is a beautiful young woman who has given herself the challenge of creating a new free motion filler design every single day for one year! She tells you her design inspiration and as if that wasn't enough...she shows a video of how to make the design.

Leah gives views the opportunity to ask questions like, "what causes skipped stitches?". She gives amazing tips and discusses tools that make a huge difference in making the quilting process so much easier.

Her website Day Style Designs Online also has great information and the products she uses not to mention a Gallery of her quilts.

I have been quilting for over 30 years and machine quited for most of that and I am learning so much from this talented young lady. All machine quilters, Beginners to Advanced, can learn from Leah Day. We will certainly be seeing a lot of her in the future.

Viola, Tulips, and Simply Daisies

All three of these stunning new quilts are designed by Brenda Yirsa for Bigfork Bay Cotton Company. Brenda has once again done an outstanding job creating these beautiful, fresh, and modern designs.

I am honored to have done the quilting on the cover quilt for the Viola's.

These quilts are fun to make and what I like is that they look harder than they really are so it makes the quilter look even more amazing. By using Wonder Under Fusible Web the pieces are just traced, ironed on to the fabric, cut out on the drawn lines, and fused together to the background. Using the Applique Pressing Sheet from Bear Threads makes it super fast and easy! As always they are sewn and quilted with the BEST thread, which is Aurifil.

Each one of these designs is a pattern from Bigfork Bay Cotton Company and they also have kits for each pattern with the exact fabrics shown in the original. How great it that?! Just when you thought it couldn't get any better....they also have the thread kits that you can order so you have the exact thread used in the quilt too! High quality fabric from Batik Textiles, thread from Aurifil, and designs from a leading cutting edge artist. It doesn't get any better than this.