McCall's Design Start Contest 2012

Two years ago I decided to take a chance and enter a quilt in the McCall's 2010 Design Star Contest - I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained.  To my delight I made it to the final round of competition.  The three challenges were a lot of fun - yes they were a challenge at times - but a good one. They helped stretch my design sense and helped be grow a lot as a quilter. I also made a lot of friends thorugh the contest and believe it or not - those of us that made it to the final round still keep in touch with each other!

Now it's your turn. McCall's is at it again. The McCall's Quilt Design Star 2012 contest qualifying round contunues through April 29, 2012. Find a quilt form your collection, snap a good photo, and enter it in the contest. You have nothing to loose and only things to gain (SPOILER ALERT - we received all sorts of great gifts along the way from the sponsors!)

This year for the first time, the contest has two separate tracts. One for Amateurs and one for Professional Quilt Designers. Don't let the term Professional throw you - YOU are a PRO  if you have every made money by self-publishing a pattern, making a quilt for a fabrid comapny or teaching a class based on your quilt design at a local shop!

Grand prize for the Professional Group  Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0 with tookbox and for the Amateur group a Viking Sapphire 875 Quilt (By the way I love my Viking!) Plus the winner in each group gets $500! The Winning quiltns will also be feaured in an issue of McCall's Quilting Magazine.

Go the this LINK and you will find all the rules - Professionals - come on out and join the fun this year!

I hope you will take the plunge and enter the contest.  Good luck - I can't wait to see the quilts and cast my votes.

Big Rig in Print - Fons & Porter - Summer 2012

It's just received my complimentary issue of the Summer 2012 Fons & Porter Easy Quilts - why a comp - well I have a quilt in the magazine.

I had a lot of fun creating this quilt - entitled - UDDER DELIGHT!  Yes I had some fun naming the quilt - normally the magazine will come up with their own name for quilt, but I guess they liked what I had on the label.

The quilt uses the Holy Cow line of fabric from Windham Fabrics.

The fabric line has a great country feel to it.  If you subscribe to the magazine you should be receiving it in the mail shortly - and it will be on the news stands in the next few weeks.  I designed the quilt in EQ7 - can you figure out which is the actual quilt and which is the virtual quilt? Check at the end of the post for the answer

QUILT A

QUILT B

If you like what you see and can't find the fabrics in your local shop - not to fret - Fons & Porter is offering a kit! Click here for more info on the magazine and the kit!

Pop on over to the Windham Web site for another pattern I designed called - "MOO-LICIOUS" using this fabric line. (Yes, I am a frustrated "namer" -  my fantasy job would be to work for Crayola Crayons and name the new colors)

Happy Quilting - all this talk of cows and milk makes me crave an ice cream cone - what flavor??? (Hey second fantasy job - taste testing and naming the new flavors for Ben & Jerry's!)

(Answer to the question - which is the real quilt - Quilt A is the actual quilt, Quilt B is the virtual quilt from EQ7)

I've been blogged....

Well, some people don't waste any time. I hardly had time to read my issue of The Fat Quarterly when I found out someone had already gone and tried out the block I created for the issue. Yes, I haven't even had time to toot my own horn (that will come in a few days - stay tuned for what the challenge was and how I came up with this block!) Here is my virtual version of the block. It used fabric from the Spin Fabric line by Windham.

In the meantime - have a look at Debby's blog to see what she did with this block I designed.

And --- check out The Fat Quarterly now! A pattern for a quilt featuring this block is featured in the article.