More Deco Gardens Bonus Blocks Available - November Half Price Sale

Just got back from Quilt Market and it was so much fun.  My brain is fried.

I need to get back into my daily rhythm of designing, sewing, and managing my media which has all taken a back seat to Market preparations for the last month.

My travel schedule for the year is nearly over and while I have a few weeks of rest and relaxation scheduled, I am also busy designing more Deco Gardens Bonus Blocks.  Sheesh, wish I could stop doing these, but each time I do a new one I get inspiration for 4 new ones.

So November is officially Half Price Sale Days

 on all Deco Garden Bonus Blocks.

Here are the newest ones:

Block 34 Dandy Lion

Block 35 Violets

Block 36 Big Blue
Let me know if you have a better name for this block and I will send you the pattern for free.

Block 37 Periwinkle

To see these and all the other Deco Garden Blocks on Sale CLICK HERE.  And Thanks to all my readers and subscribers.  You Rock!

Seminole Sample Border Blocks Setting is Free in November

Blog Post for Monday, November 7, 2016.

Have you been following the free Seminole Sampler BOM?  We are down to the last two months of this year's free BOM and it has been a lot of fun to bring this unique design to you.

This month you can get the setting for the Bonus Border Blocks (Border 1) and the Stair Step Border (Border 2) for free.

Click HERE to download the Free Pattern for Border 1 and Border 2.

If you have been collecting the free Bonus Blocks (available to subscribers) they you have 10 blocks to choose from for your Border 1 Row.  If you didn't get the Bonus Blocks you can purchase the whole set HERE.

Did you miss any of the rows?  You can still get the ones you may have missed HERE.

Next month will be the last row in this Block of the Month and it will be the final triangle border which surrounds three sides of the quilt.  With this last installment you will have the entire Seminole Sampler Pattern.

Next year will be a completely new Block of the Month.  If you have suggestions or ideas I am still happy to hear what you would like to do.

And to end the year on the right foot: 

I have a free gift for all my readers who post a picture of their progress on the Seminole Sampler in my Flickr Group Page.  

Post your picture Here.

If you are not able to post your picture please send them to my and I will post them for you.

To claim your free gift you must (1) post a picture, and (2) leave a comment here letting me know it has been posted.  You will get a free pattern of your choice!  Be sure to let me know which one you would like (excluding kits and complete BOM patterns) when you post a comment.

Have a great week!

October BOM Row 10 is here

I am rushing to get this post written while the two grand babies are napping.  I love having the two little ones here but am grateful for naptime!  haha

This is my busy time of the year with quilt shows, teaching, traveling, and preparations for Quilt Market the end of October.  So I posted the October Row of Seminole Sampler a few days early.  I know, being early is not very Reeze-like, since I am late more months than early!  But with the kids here all weekend I needed to get things done early.

Row 10 is a group of Flying Geese in alternating colors.  The technique is a classic Seminole Patchwork technique, the 10th technique we have learned this year.  I hope you have enjoyed learning this great piecing method and are  pleased with the results of your rows.

I love this mix of purple and blue violet with black.  It really makes those colors so vivid.  And this is a super easy row to make.  Download the free pattern on the 2016 BOM page HERE

If you have been following the extra Bonus Blocks from the Deco Garden series, you might be pleased to see that there are quite a few new ones since I last posted.  Again, just trying to stay ahead so watch for the release of each of these.  Just to tempt you, here they are:

Block 33 Stella D'Oro Day Lily  (released October 1)

Block 34 Dandy Lion (release October 15)

Block 35 Three Violets (released November 1)

Block 36 Big Blue (released November 15)

More Deco Garden Blocks Available

I love these Art Nouveau tile inspired blocks, and this month three more are available on my website.

Block 26 May Apple

Block 27  Frittilaria

Block 28 Wild Onion

Winner Announced 2017 Block of the Month Suggestions

2017 Block of the Month Suggestions

Last month I asked readers to post comments with ideas for next year's free block of the month.  Wow did I ever get some great suggestions!!

Thanks to all of you who offered great ideas for next year's block of the month.  They really give me something to think about as I work out the details for next year's free project.  I chose one of the comments at random to win a free jelly roll.

This month's winner is: CathyQuilts 

Contact me by email to receive your free jelly roll!!!  Congratulations!

August Row is now Posted

August is a great month here in Kansas.  Can you spell H-O-T?  I love the dog days of summer.  The cool mornings, bright sunny afternoons, and the clear warm evenings.  I am a summer junkie!  Of course I am typing this from the comfort of my air conditioned house (ok, wimp wimp wimp), but I still love summer.

We had a big thunderstorm a few nights ago and the top of the maple tree in our back yard went crashing to the ground!  I call it our self-pruning maple tree because every year a branch comes down in one storm or another.  Pretty soon there won't be any tree left!  It is a very temperamental tree!

 It resides right where the electric and cable wires come from the pole to the house, and always drops its annual branch on the wires, testing their strength and endurance.  The wires won this time, but only by a small margin.  The tree seems determined to bring them down, just waiting for the right wind storm to come along and wrench another limb from its lofty heights to show just who is the boss of the back yard.  My husband always says, "I need to take that tree out!"  I can hear the tree quietly laughing at him.  It know he will never do it, and somehow I think in the end, the tree will rule!  "Trouble is a Tree scorned," or so goes the excellent truism which applies to maples as well as misses.  I am thinking we should do this:

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The August Seminole Sampler row is now posted on my 2016 BOM page.  You can download the pattern file for free during august.  I love this row.  I call it Floating Windows.  It looks like little black windows peeking out from the yellow and purple squares.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, you will also receive the free bonus block which accompanies this row.  No surprise to anyone, it is also called Floating Windows.

This month in my newsletter I am offering two different half price patterns and offering all 7 of the current bonus blocks for $6.00 for the set.  Check those out HERE.  If you are not a subscriber it is easy to do.  Just fill in the little form with your name and email.  You will not get any junk mail, only 2 newsletters a month, and you can do a one-click unsub anytime you no longer wish to receive it.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE

I am catching up on "stuff" now that I have a bit of down time from traveling.  I do love meeting with guild members, students, and other professionals when I teach and vend, but this month I am enjoying being home, watching the grand babies (6 months and 2-1/2 years!!!), and working on some new designs.

I have a boat load of new patterns coming out this fall and that means lots of writing.  I do enjoy that part of the design process but I sure need a good editor.  My thanks to "Threadlady" Judy who edited my Seminole Sampler pattern for me this month!  You rock!!!!

"CORRECTED" July Row Available for Seminole Sampler

Whoot whoot - hold the phone!  There was an error in the pattern and my wonderful reader Loretta discovered that something was wrong and let me know.  THANK YOU!

CLICK HERE to download the corrected pattern for free!

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Time for another row in the Seminole Sampler BOM.  Whoooo Hoooo!  These really are fun to design and sew.  Writing the patterns for them are a bit of a challenge, however.  :-)  This month you get two rows, actually, although they are essentially the same.  They are spacer rows between to bigger rows of blocks, but they are still done in the Seminole piecing technique and they are integral to the design.

Here are the two Dog Tooth Bands for Row 7.

The orange and black band with the blue top strip goes between rows 3 and 4 in the Seminole Sampler Quilt Design.

The yellow and black band with the purple bottom strip goes between rows 6 and 8.  There is actually a third dog tooth spacer, but it will be part of Row 9, along with the row 9 band.

So if you have been following the BOM and making the rows as we go along, you can now join rows 1-7.  Here is what it should look like.

Hope you are having fun with this project.  It's not too late to buy the fabric kits for this quilt from ConnectTheBlocks.com.

I am starting to think about ideas for next year's free block of the month.  Got a suggestion?  Leave a comment with your idea and you will be entered for this month's drawing for a free jelly roll!  Have a great July!

Bonus Block 24 now available.

What a week!  I spent 2 weeks preparing to vend at Common Threads, the Wichita regional quilt show and teach at the Reno Quilting and Creative Expo.  Phew.  The show was great and it was so fun to see so many friends and colleagues in the quilting world.

We pulled the whale down to Wichita, and nearly floated home from all the rain!  But we got home, high and dry, and the whale has been beached until the next trip.

I had one day to unpack and repack to fly to Reno to teach quilt classes at the Quilting and Creative Arts Expo.  Wow, is it ever pretty here, at least what I can see of the city from the 26th floor of the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino!  Yesterday I taught and EQ7 Bootcamp and today I did a Merry Go Round hexagon quilt class.

My thanks to a wonderful group of ladies both days who it was a pleasure to work with.  Tomorrow I teach curved piecing without pins in the morning, and a Seminole Sampler workshop in the evening.  Phew!  Saturday morning I teach Color Confidence for Quilters, and fly out Saturday evening.

In the midst of this my website went belly up on the same day I sent out my newsletter!  Called GoDaddy and found out they had not received the payment for my domain hosting.  Yikes!!!  We tracked that down, got it all fixed (they had my email address spelled wrong and were trying to bill an expired credit card!) but it took 2 days to get my site back up.

So. . . . now my new bonus block in on my website and available.  Thanks to all of you who sent me notes about my website being haywire!  I appreciated the kind sentiments.  :-)

Bonus Block 24 Night Shade is now available for $5.50

Click Here for more information

I think when I get home Sunday morning I will burrow into my comfy bed and sleep for 48 hours!  LOL

June Seminole Sampler Row 6 available for Free

The June Row in this year's free block of the month is ready.  It was a little late getting posted since I was camping for 2 weeks and just got home!  Phew, it was fun and the weather was mostly great.

Ok, here is the new Seminole Sampler Row for June:  The Greek Key.

Some sources refer to this as a snail's trail block.  It is a bit different from a traditional snail's trail, but it is easy and fun to make.  Note that the last block in the row is reversed, just for fun.

If you subscribe to my newsletter (see subscription box in left margin) you will also get the free bonus block.

I love doing these bonus blocks.  If you are doing the layout I designed for these rows you will need a few of these bonus blocks to fill in the side of the quilt.

Tap on the 2016 BOM Tab at the top of the page to see the whole quilt and to download your free pattern.

I also have some new Deco Garden Bonus Blocks for sale this month.  If you subscribed to my newsletter you got last months block free!  Why?  I was just in a generous mood!  LOL

Here are the two new ones:  This is Blue Bells.  I like to show the blocks on both black and white backgrounds.  I prefer the black, it looks more dramatic to me, but the white ones are really sweet and would make a great quilt too.

This is the new Magnolia block.

 Here is another version of it with red petals and blue leaves.  Just thought it looked fun.

Each month I design a 24" pillow or wall hanging with 4 blocks.  I love the effect created by the rotated blocks.  The magnolia block just really came out amazing. Don't you agree?  I loved how the green and blue leaves make a cool secondary pattern which looks so typical of the nouveau style.

The patterns for these blocks are available HERE.  The wall hanging is just 4 identical blocks with a simple border!

Leave a comment and you will be entered in a drawing for a free Magnolia pattern this month.

Thanks and Happy June!

Congratulations to the Blog Hop Winners

Congratulations to the winners of free patterns and free fabric on the Vintage Shirtings and Dress Prints Blog Hop last week:

Janet T won a Fat Quarter Pack from Paintbrush Studios

Gloria C won her choice of 3 free Morning Glory Designs patterns

You can still pick up the free patterns and tutorials from the list in the previous post.  Hope you had fun following along and collecting those great free patterns and tuts from all the designer, including Barb Eikmeier, the fabric designer!!  How cool is that?

Check out my new Deco Gardens bonus block for May. 

It is a pretty Calla Lily block and is available on my website. 

Here is my idea for this month's pillow top or wall hanging using the Calla Lily Block.

 Hope you have enjoyed this new blocks.  I would love to see what you do with them.