Coming Soon
Soon we will be adding our new country lane sampler pattern to our shop! This project was designed for a past retreat. We designed 2 projects and this is the one I designed. It actually tells a bit of a story. The leaf signifies my favorite season (the season I got married!), the spool is for my hobby and job, the friendship stars for my friends & family and the shoe fly block, was my first quilt block I ever made. You can change the blocks to your favorites and customize this quilt.

Now is the time to pick up a new pattern for the new year or better yet a Christmas gift!

So what have we been up to...mmm...we have been finishing projects, designing new projects and products for the new year. What have you been up to? We have been making Christmas gifts and projects. Are any of you making a bmd project to give at Christmas? I hope so and we would love to hear about it!

We had some snow today, not very much but up till now we have had some really good weather (for Manitoba that is) I really have not been in the mood to decorate for Christmas, although my Christmas shopping is just about done! horray!! And as you know, if you have younger children, that their activities keep us going.

As the year comes to an end, it is always a busy time for us. Evaluations of things that went well and things that didn't. We would love to hear what you think we have done well. Maybe your input will help us make decisions for the up and coming year!

~c

Field Trip close to home.

Do you ever visit museums in your area? Isn't is surprising that we will travel long distances to visit other interesting places, but we rarely look around at what is in our own backyard.

This summer, my son kept begging me to make the 7 mile drive, to take him to visit the dinosaur museum in Morden. For all of you who visit our great quilt show every spring, do you realize that you are standing on top of a basement full of dinosaur skeletons? This is actually the largest dino display east of Alberta, and all of the fossils are found in our area. In Alberta, all of their fossils are of land dinosaurs. In our area, all of the one's that are found are from water dinosaurs. Right now the display is housed in the basement of the Morden Rec. Center, but they do hope in the future that they will be able to build a new museum, so the dino's will be able to be brought above ground.

So I used the picture from our field trip, to introduce you to our latest project, that is on newsstands now. In the Winter 2009 issue of Quilts and More, you will find this simple and sweet project. The staff at the magazine affectionately gave it the name 'Dino might' and I can't say that name without thinking of an old TV character named Jimmy Walker. Wasn't that his favorite expression? And does anyone remember what show he was on?







Anyway, I hope that you will enjoy this latest project, and take time to discover what is in your neighbourhood.

See you soon.
myra

FREE pattern

As promised a free pattern for you to enjoy, this is one of my favorite quilts because of the fabrics. For the small squares I fussy cut out of a big floral print, it still gives it a circular feeling. Enjoy!

You can download the pattern here.

Finished Quilt Size: 38" x 50"

Sashing: 2"

1st border: 2"

2nd border: 3"

Yardages

1 1/2 yds of Fabric A for background, 2nd border & border to blocks

3/4 yd of Fabric B for sashing & 1st border

1/2 yd each of Fabric C,D,E & F for blocks

1/2 yd of Fabric B for Binding

2 yds of Fabric G for Backing

42" x 54" of Batting

Cutting instructions

From Fabric C cut:

2-4 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangles

1-4 1/2" x 4 1/2" square.

From Fabric D cut;

3-4 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangles

From Fabric E cut;

5-2 1/2" x 42 1/2" strips

2-2 1/2" x 34 1/2" strips

From Fabric F cut;

10-6 1/2" x 6 1/2" squares

From Fabric A cut:

16-1 1/2" x 10 1/2" strips

16-1 1/2" x 7 1/2" strips

4-1 1/2" x 4 1/2" strips

4-1 1/2" x 7 1/2" strips

2-3" x 46 1/2" strips

2- 3" x 38 1/2" strips

From Fabric B cut;

3-4 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangles

1-4 1/2" x 4 1/2" square

Block Assembly

Begin by framing each one of the 4 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangles and 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" squares of fabrics B, C & D.

Using the 1 1/2" x 7 1/2" as well as the 1 1/2" x 10 1/2" strips to frame each rectangle.

The plain 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" squares were fussy cut out of a large floral print, to give the illusion of circles.

Quilt Assembly

The quilt is assembled in 4 horizontal rows.

1st row; 6 1/2 square, oblong block, 6 1/2" square, oblong block, sashing strip

2nd row; oblong block, 6 1/2" square, oblong block, 6 1/2" square, square block, sashing strip

3rd row; 6 1/2" square, oblong block, 6 1/2" square, oblong block, 6 1/2" square, sashing strip

4th row; oblong block, 6 1/2" square, oblong block, 6 1/2" square, square block

Continue by adding the first border sides, followed by top and bottom. Repeat for the outer border.

~c

Sharing
Take a look at this quilt! One of our very dear "retreater's", Laurel. She shared this photo with me yesterday and I was so excitted I just had to share it with the rest of you. She just finished this quilt for her grand daughters 2nd birthday. Isn't is gorgeous! You want to know something else that is amazing about this quilt? I thought you would...it is HAND quilted! Can you believe it. I don't know if you can enlarge the picture but I just love the vine motif in the green section. And, I think she used Ric rack for the antenna!! How cool is this quilt, lucky little lady! If this inspires you check out the Little Lady pattern in our shop.

Thanks so much Laurel for sharing, if anyone else has something to share email me.

Stay tuned to our blog and website, changes coming...again and I have a free pattern to post this week!

~c

Idea!
I hate to admit it, but I don't have a lot of quilts displayed in my house. Considering I am part owner of a collection that exceeds 100 quilts! I have a few quilts on my kids' beds and a few little things here and there but,what to do with larger quilts when I don't want to hang them on the wall or have them all over the place. Myra gave me this idea one day, out of necessity. We were packing up from a quilt show, she rolled the quilts and stuck them in a bucket (they would take up less room that way). So off to the store I went and bought this basket and rolled my quilts and change them up every now and again. I really like the way it looks, especially by my wood stove. I just thought I would share in case any of you are looking for a new way to display your projects.

On another note...the winners of the charity contest are... Diane & Mary Grace. Ladies, could you please email me your mailing info? To the rest of you, I am so sorry we couldn't send you all fabric. I know all the charity's are worthy.

~c

Dandelion

Hi there, Karen here. I have a confession to make - I'm a procrastinator. If it wasn't for the last minute, I wouldn't get anything done! Having said that, I enjoy working under pressure. Well, serious time constraints came with this quilt top! Cori may wish to tell that story another day but for the moment I'll share the inspiration for the stitching design I used for this project.

The dandelion appliqué called for echo quilting of some sort. Rather than stitch a quarter inch outside the entire shape, I copied the applique and offset it the fourth inch. This created a shadow effect. This technique is effectively used with rubber stamps.

For the remainder of the quilt, I chose a cute branch motif and flower doodle from the design elements printed in the fabric then exaggerated them to fill spaces with vertical rows of stitching.

Next time you are looking for a machine quilting design for your project, look closely at the shapes printed in the fabrics. Pick one, enlarge it and stitch it, freehand, all over your quilt connecting each motif with loopy lines or stippling.

Happy stitching!
Karen

You are not kidding, this was quite the deadline to meet and lucky for us we have a wonderful quilter who's always willing to do whatever it takes to get it done! Thanks Karen!! I think we may have had about 1 week to sew, hand applique, quilt and ship. And well the shipping is a whole other issue. We researched every possible way to get this quilt to Houston by quilt market, which was about 5 days time. From Canada that's a challenge. Again...lucky for us Karen also has some great friends and they took it with them to Wisconsin and shipped it UPS from there to the hotel where the Robert Kaufman staff were staying... ffeeww...it made it in the nick of time and it hung in their booth for International quilt market! I do think that this pattern will be available as a free download on their website. I will let you know when it's up. I hope you enjoyed Karen's quilting inspirations - we do.

~c

A BIG update

We had a great weekend...our 7th annual retreat!! Here is our group photo. We started the weekend with fashion Friday. Everyone was invited to wear there most fabulous shoes and handbag and this picture is the proof that we had a very fashionable group. We had lots of laughs on Friday that's for sure. We also had show and tell, what a creative group of quilters. I will have to share those photo's another time. They spent all day & evening Saturday as well as Sunday sewing up a storm. The food, friends and fellowship was absolutely wonderful. Thanks ladies for a GREAT weekend. (but I am still recovering from sleep deprivation :)

The next 2 photo's are some pictures from our recent photo shoots. Ric Rac and Central park. These are the patterns that RJR will be kitting using their stripes and dots collection. The patterns will be up in the shop shortly. My cousin was willing to borrow her bug for the photo shoot. Oh, that brings me to another point - OUR new home page on our web site! Have you seen it yet?

A few days ago I mentioned a new give a way coming soon. Well today's the day, I know so many of our customers make quilts for donation to many good organization/charities. that is why Myra and I have decided to give a way some fabric for you to make donation quilts. This is what you have to do.

- enter your name by leaving a comment on the blog
- tell us about your charity of choice
- if your charity has a web site please share that with us too.
- tell us why you would like to donate a quilt and why we should send you the free fabric.

I won't tell you how much fabric we are prepared to give a way or how many people will receive donation fabric. So get to it, leave a comment and just wait and see what happens.

~c

2 more sleeps!

That's it only 2 more sleeps until our 8th annual bmd retreat. I can hardly wait, I think we are mostly ready just have to move all of our stuff over to the hotel and set up. I really wanted to blog about some more of our new stuff but I can't spill any secrets before retreat. I know that they are all watching the blog.

In the next few weeks we will have an announcement to make for a give a way. It will be Charity based - so for those of you involved in a charity that makes quilts to donate...keep watching.

Talk to you next week...lots to tell you.

~c

coming soon
You may be wondering what we have been up to. Well here is one of the new patterns coming out this fall. We have been doing a lot of freelance pattern design and Spectacle is a pattern we have done for RJR fabrics using their new dots and strips collection.

We always have a hard time finding new places to shoot our covers. Thanks to Myra's neighbor and his scooter!

Also check out the new logo at the bottom. Thanks to Karen for teaching us how to use photo shop.

There will be more projects to come (4 more!!). Spectacle will be hanging in the RJR booth this weekend for Quilt Market in Houston. As well there will be one of our designs hanging in the Robert Kaufman booth as well. Can't wait to share that one....later.

Other updates include;
~Myra is back at home and doing well.
~our 8th annual retreat happening Oct. 16-18th CAN NOT WAIT. Getting lots of stuff ready for that too.
~working hard to get ALL the patterns done and in the shop.

~c

Kaboom!

THANKS EVERYONE!!!! I am sitting here in my hospitable bed reading your encouraging words. My husband - who I LOVE brought me my laptop, and my ipod. And Cori - who I like very much, brought me a stack of paper, pencils and magazines to read. And we had our first blue meadow meeting in a hospital room. Ironically, it is closer for Cori to visit me here, then when I am at home. So why is everyone bringing me stuff? Because I will be here for a little while, so I might as well get comfortable.

So what brought me to the great place? My appendix ruptured very suddenly yesterday. The doctors tell me that I was an exceptional case. Of course, why would I be typical? From the start of the pain, to the operating room was a very short time frame, but by the time they got me in, the rupture had happened, and the damage was extensive.

So I now have a very close relationship with an IV pole, which will be my close friend for the next 5 days.

And now it is time for a nap. But I will blog again soon...I've got time.

see you soon.
myra

Oh Boy!

You are probably wondering why the picture of the Fisher Price Doctors kit. Yeah it's been a while since I have played Dr. but today someone we all know and love is not playing Dr. but the real thing. Myra is having emergency surgery today! It would be really neat if you would all leave a little get well message, so when she gets home and back to the computer she will have a little surprise. Notice how I wrapped the Dr. stuff in a qult? I will let her tell you the details when she's back an well.

And it never fails, she always gets sick when we are busy working on deadlines - wish me luck!!

The next photo is an invitation we got in the mail this week and it's also a clue to what I have been frantically working on this week. It's all in the hands of our trusty quilter...maybe we should send her some good luck messages too :)
Unfortunately we can not join the staff at Robert Kaufman at Market next weekend :( oh well, the invitation was so nice to get!!

There will be a whole lot more NEW stuff coming over the next few days. Thanks for watching.

GET BETTER soon Myra!

~c

Surprises are the best!
I wanted to blog so badly this weekend but we were working from a secret location from Friday - Sunday! You know her as our guest blogger, she is an "employee", our friend Karen. This trip was a spur of the moment type trip but we just couldn't resist going to Ignace ON. We had a lovely 6hour drive, with visits to three fabric shops; Oma's in Grunthal, Cottage Country in Keewatin and AJ's is Dryden. Oh what fun! You really must take a trip to all those stores, they had great stuff.

So the best part of this trip was the surprise. Karen told no one that we were coming! There is a large group of ladies in Ignace that have supported us from our very first teaching trip. The plan was to work like crazy all day and evening on Saturday. Then on Sunday this group would be meeting to have a sewing day, that is were the biggest surprise came to be. We casually walked into the room "asking for directions" you should have seen the stunned look on their faces. "What are you doing here?", we stayed to chat and catch up and then we hopped back into the car and headed home.

The second and third pictures are photos from Karen's screen porch...not a bad place to work hey? What a view!! We did so much and were SO inspired I don't even know what to tell you. The things we learned and accomplished in one day was overwhelming. The last picture is of another special "surprisee". Karen's friend (and ours too) from Stonewall MB (yes she only lives 2 hours from us and we drove 6 to surprise her!) was at Karen's for the weekend. She didn't know we were coming either! We had a fabulous time of creativity, inspirations & friendship. Thanks Karen, Judy & the "Ignace sewing group" for allowing us to crash your party!!

p.s we worked on the website, so with any luck that new home page should be up and running shortly ;)



~c

Back to School


Ahhh...do you hear that....exactly, it's quiet here today. Our kids started school yesterday, grade 2 & 5. This is a snipet of our annual back to school photo. The kids were happy to go back, my daughter more so than my son, but they booth had GREAT 1st day back. So what did I do yesterday? Myra and I spent the day working. It had been a really long time since we had a day to do some errands, meetings, a photo shoot a yummy lunch and lots of talk.

We have this beautiful walk way in Winkler along 15th street. We took many photo's along the garden path. Across the street is our local park and all of a sudden a looked over at the park and there was a group of mom's watching us. I told Myra "they probably think we are crazy! "Well not two minutes later a mom walked over...it just happened to be Myra's cousin! She said she thought that had to be Myra...who else would be taking pictures of quilts? So we walked over to the park to continue our photo shoot. Next we took a photo of our pattern Crayon Box and right on cue this sweet little girl runs into the photo unknowingly of course, just playing! So we landed up chatting with some of the mom's in the group, they were very interested in our quilts, especially the baby quilts. Yes, that's right, I am not showing you ALL the pictures we took yesterday, you will have to wait on those.

In that mom's group was another young lady, whom Myra and I got re-acquainted with. Yes, she's younger than us but I knew her from our Church, so we played a short version of the Mennonite game and off we were, many connections. Then we found out what she is up to, and architect and photographer. She gave us some great photo tips and then asked to use our camera...SURE!!! The last picture is one that Tracy took. Let's just say it's a sneak peak of a new and upcoming pattern :)

Well that was our day...I hope if you have children that have gone back to school, that you too have a nice quiet day.

~c

Shaking the family tree.

(I apologize for the lack of pictures, and tons of text, but this post is still somewhat quilt related.)

I am beginning a post today, that I have thought about for a long time. Two years ago, two separate events occurred that made me stand back, and look at things in a new perspective. Since that time, I have always pondered the question. Is my creativity in fabric a talent? Or is it in me from my Heritage? Now don't doubt me for a moment when I say that I believe everyone has their own special God-given talent, but I still wonder if being artistic in fabric can be a part of our very complex DNA.

The first eye opening event that happened, was a family gathering. It was a one of those huge, extended, bringing-people-from-all-corners-of-the-earth, types of gatherings. And I didn't attend. But not to worry, my mother was there, and came home with a wonderful file of family info. Thanks to her cousin from Alberta, I now had one part of my family tree...that can be traced all the way back to 1480. My 9th Great Grandfather was Jakob Harnasveger, from Amsterdam, Netherlands. From there, his decedents are the famed, Gysbert (Geijsbert) Deveers. (They must me famous...otherwise why would you pass down that name for the next four generations?) But what caught my eye, was Gysbert Deveer III. He was born in 1600 in Amsterdam, and his listed occupation was 'fabric merchant'. WOW! My great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather sold fabric! This is where I could sit and ponder deep thoughts for hours. What did his fabric look like? Where was it made? What were the colors? What were the designs. What would he think of me, generations later, working in the same industry? So is my love of fabric a random coincidence, or is it a shared love? Whatever the answer, I suddenly felt some connection to my family tree.

Last night, I had a chance to sift through more of my family history, and I made another discovery. My family lived in Danzig Prussia for several hundred years. I had never heard of it, so I looked it up. What a fascinating story of Danzig! It was called the Free City, and I wish that I would have had a chance to visit it. It was destroyed by the Nazi's during WWII. But I did find our Prussian coat of arms. Finding our Coat of arms taught me two things about my family.
1) They must have been quilters. Look at that center crest, it is clearly a scrap quilt.
2) They had great abs...even for old guys.

So, what is your opinion? I know people who have a musical talent, and you can see that it runs in their family. So what about creating with textiles? Is that also something that can run through your blood? I will keep pondering that for a while.

And maybe sometime soon, I will share with you the other event that brought about this train of thought. And it has to do with our family treasure chest.

myra

North of the forty nine Block of the Month

Announcing another new pattern, North of the forty nine is a unique block of the month and if you are interested in joining our BOM we would love to have you. If you are looking for the perfect project to use up stash fabrics this is the project for you. If you are looking for a quilt to make for a husband, son, brother, nephew, grandson...this is the project for you. Do you like getting monthly mail, working on a project with a group of other quilters...this one...you know! This unique sampler is so easy yet, the end result looks like it was a advanced quilt. This quilt has some traditional piecing, paper piecing (flag) and applique (hand or heat and bond, you choose). All the applique shapes are all full size and the pattern instructions full color. Whether you are a beginner or advanced quilter you will enjoy this project.

We will start October 1st so if you would like to join us please email me. The cost per month is $6.00 including shipping. We will be sending a few of the months by email and the majority of them by mail. We accept Visa or MasterCard and I will mail you all the specifics when you sign up.


I am excited I hope you are too!

~c

Inspirations


Well it's been a long day and I can finally sit in silence and write you a little something. Summer is coming to a close, when in fact we haven't really had "summer" yet. This evening felt like a fall evening. Don't get me wrong fall is probably my favorite season but unfortunately it is followed by winter, and in southern Manitoba winter was about 8 months long!! yikes.

Enough about the weather....

I got an email the other day from our friend Jill. She was the young lady that was the winner of our plan B contest. Anyhow, we apparently inspired her do a project. You all must know by now that we love it when you change up one of our quilt designs and make it your own. I just wanted to share this with you because it just turned out great!

Jill took our Nantucket rose design and tweaked it to make the quilt pictured below. She kept the outer border and star border the same, picked a different applique and bordered the center square, choose a jewel toned palette and ta da, here you have a one of a kind quilt. I do believe this quilt is being donated to the red cross in her area.

Thanks so much Jill for sending us this picture. I am sure there is more to the story so If Jill wants to share it she can leave us all a comment explaining. (I know you are reading this Jill :))

If any of you have a project inspired by us, please email it to Myra. Maybe we can share your project too.

FYI #1- Myra and I counted all of our new fall release patterns (coming between now and November) and there was about 12 of them. We will let you know as the new patterns are available.

FYI#2 - For those of you who subscribe to our e-letter, we will be sending the fall edition our this week. Included in it this quarter is a new "sweet" project. You don't want to miss it.

good night,

~c

Update on Domino

I just spoke with the lovely Editors at McCall's and they tell me that it is the November issue of McCall's quick quilts which will be shipping September 1st. Hold tight...it's coming Soon.

And...Thanks to Karen for joining our blog this week! I hope you all enjoyed her quilting tips and if you could give her a "shout out" to say thanks. She will be posting more creative quilting tips in the future.

~c

Hello there! Karen Greaves here just popping in on the bmd blog to share some machine quilting ideas. Cori & Myra have been sharing some of their unconventional inspiration sources for pattern designs. They also watch for design ideas they would like in the projects they send out for quilting. I am a fortunate recipient of some of their work. When we were looking to machine quilt Domino (featured in previous post), a scrapbook page sparked an idea for in the border.

Varying sizes of light yellow circles in the pink paper under the photo create a visually interesting design element. To create this look in the border of Domino, I drew on (rather around) items I had readily available. I often use household items such as bowls, plates and cups to mark circles on my quilts. These are the items I used for the borders of Domino.

The teal coloured cup conveniently provided two sizes of circles! A silver marking pencil or chalk marker is useful to mark on dark fabrics. Once the baseline is drawn equidistant from the border edge and the outside edge, the circles are drawn at random along that line.
Working with a free-motion foot, I work around one half of each circles all the way around the quilt. Once back at the beginning, work the other half of the circles, stitching over the connecting lines between them. This technique works well with any border motif that touches the next. Give it a try!

Karen

The waiting is over!

What does this fabric and the Domino have in common? If you go back a few posts we played a little game, what in the picture inspired our upcoming quilt in McCall's. Well it was the pictures behind the table with the 2 dots - like a domino! We always say inspiration comes in mysterious ways.

The bright colors and big prints partnered with Black and white make a graphic statement. This is a picture how the lap quilt appears in the magazine. Kit's will be on sale in our shop shortly.

Does anyone have a copy of this magazine yet?

~c

One of you....

is SO right on! Way to go. The magazine is set to launch on stands on Tues Aug.11 and once I get my copy I will post the quilt.

Sorry it's so short. I will be back soon.

~c