Minnesota, Here We Come!

We are beyond excited to announce that we have been invited to teach and lecture at the 2022 Minnesota Quilters Annual Quilt Show and Conference in St. Cloud, MN. Registration opens for the general public on February 1, so you have time to plan. We would love to see you at the show! Take a look at what we will be teaching. And then click the link above to see what this great show has in store for you!

Floral Elegance

Class: Wednesday, June 15, 2022; 8:30 AM–4:30 PM

This elegant vase of flowers is a wonderful introduction to basic wool appliqué and ribbonwork. Your friends will be in awe of your skill when you show them your block, but you can decide whether to tell them how easy creating these exquisite blooms really is. The class will begin with the basics of wool appliqué, as we prepare the vase and leaves. And then we will become florists: using only three new techniques, we can create all these beautiful blooms. You will be amazed how a simple running stitch can be used in different ways to create petals for our pansies and chrysanthemums, and wire-gathering does the trick for our roses. A couple of basic embroidery stitches for stems will add the finishing touches. And all the while, fun will be the focus!! 

Full kits will include all material needed to complete the block: background fabric, wool for vase and leaves, all ribbon in colors pictured, embroidery floss, and pattern.

Floral Elegance

Potstickers

Class: Thursday, June 16, 2022; 8:30 AM–11:30 AM

Potstickers are not just for dinner anymore! We designed these plant ornaments to add some fun to our potted plants, but you could just as easily create any kind of ornament with these sweet patterns. Who doesn't love having a quick and easy project to do? In this class, we will learn the basics of wool appliqué, as well as the simple embroidery stitches needed to complete your potstickers. You will have a choice of three different sets for your class project. Are you ready to add some patriotic pizzazz, fall flair, or Christmas cheer to your potted plants? They will thank you—and we will have a lot of fun in the process! Which set will you choose?

Full kits will include all material needed to complete your chosen set of potstickers: wool for background and designs, embellishments, embroidery floss, flannel backing, and pattern. You need only provide the bamboo skewers or dowels for display.

Patriotic Potstickers

Fall Fun Potstickers

Christmas Potstickers

In the Garden

Class: Thursday, June 16, 2022; 1:30 PM–4:30 PM

Join us for a walk In the Garden as we learn the basics of wool appliqué and embroidery. Again, you have a choice of which project you want to do. Whether you choose to create Cornflowers or Violets, we will begin by appliquéing the leaves with wool. Simple gathering techniques magically turn ribbon into stunning blooms, and a few basic embroidery stitches become stems, leaf veins, and flower centers. We will have a fun time discovering that there is more than one way to grow a garden! 

Full kits will include all material needed to complete your chosen block (Cornflower or Violet): flannel for background, wool for leaves, ribbon for flowers, embroidery floss, and pattern.

Violets

Cornflowers

The Stories In Our Quilts

Lecture: Friday, June 17, 2022; 10:30 AM–11:30 AM

What do quilts and stories have to do with each other? Everything, actually! Have you ever had a piece of needlework passed down through your family and wondered who made it, how they made it, and/or why? These are the stories of our families—part of our history. So often these gems are tucked away in a chest or put on a closet shelf. But there is a wealth of information within those stitches, if only we knew their stories. Our quilts give us opportunities to tell our stories. Enjoy an hour of storytelling as we share some of our favorite quilts (old and new) and the tales they tell.

🧵🧵🧵🧵🧵🧵🧵

Do you have that week in June planned yet? What a great opportunity to have some fun stitching. Vendors, a variety of talented teachers, lectures, seminars, and of course QUILTS! What more could you ask for? Hope we might meet you there!!

Minnesota Quilters, Inc. 43rd Annual Quilt Show and Conference

River’s Edge Convention Center

10 4th Street South

St. Cloud, Minnesota

www.mnquilt.org/mq2022

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And the Winner is...

We were thrilled to see so many wonderful flowers listed in our giveaway! It is great to know that so many stitchers out there love flowers as much as we do. Lilies and tulips led the way as the most popular flowers, but there were quite a few that piqued our interest since we hadn't stitched them before. Flowers have been our mainstay to stitch since we began our little business, and we thought it would be fun to show some of the ones that we have stitched—along with a few that are now on our stitching radar. And of course, we will reveal who the lucky winner of our Botanical Beauties quilt kit!

Bias silk ribbon tulips

A wired ribbon lily

And an appliquéd lily

Wired ribbon violets

Wool Hydrangeas

Sunflowers three different ways

Wired ribbon

Silk ribbon

Wool

A rose is a rose...

Seam binding rose and leaf

Poppies!

From our Hopeful Bluebird Stitching Smalls

A wool lapel pin

Cotton Appliqué

Pansies

Seam binding

Bias silk ribbon

Sweet Peas

Wool

Wired ribbon

A few of the flowers mentioned that we have in the works

And while we haven't stitched these yet, here are a few of your suggestions—we even had pictures of them already!

Hollyhock

Nasturtium

Bee Balm

Coneflower

So that is a different kind of walk in the garden than we did before and we hope that you enjoyed seeing our passion for flowers in stitching form. 

Now onto our lucky winner...

Lorianne Alvesteffer

Congratulations Lorianne! Please send us a message with your address and we will put your Botanical Beauties kit in the mail to you. 

Thank you to everyone who participated in our giveaway, and if you would like to purchase your own Botanical Beauties kit, you can find it and many other flower-themed projects available there.

Through the Needle's Eye

"In the Garden" Again: A Final Walk and a GIVEAWAY

What better way to wrap up our revisit In the Garden than with a giveaway? We have been thrilled to see some of the blocks you are creating with these patterns, and are so grateful to those who have shared their progress in our Hopeful Stitchers Facebook Group. It is never too late to join our garden visits. Printed patterns with ribbon are still available, as are digital PDF downloads, and we have shared our original post below, which includes photos of each block.

(needleseystories.com/shop.)

To celebrate our gardening, we thought we would offer a free pattern set for another of our garden quilts, Lovely Botanicals. This quilt set comes with tons of ribbon and thread—everything you need to create this little quilt except the fabric. We appliquéd it in cotton, but there are no rules saying you couldn't do it in wool. In fact, we would love to see it!

Lovely Botanicals

To enter our giveaway, leave a comment on the blog below telling us what flower you would like to stitch in a garden. It can be one you have already stitched or one that you want to try. Just tell us your flower!

For extra entries, leave a comment on our Facebook and Instagram posts (and please like our pages if you haven't!); if you tag a friend that might be interested, you'll get even another chance. That's up to five chances, if you tag different friends on FB and IG. Just remember to tell us the flower you want to stitch!

Selections will be made at random next Wednesday. The drawing is open until Wednesday at noon, EDT. Help us decide what flowers to stitch next—and share the fun! 

We will announce the winner next Thursday on our blog, as well as on our Facebook and Instagram pages. To read more about this quilt and see lots of close-up photos, check out our website by clicking here. 

Happy Garden Stitching!!

🌿🌷🌼🐞🌸🌻🌹🍂🌺🐝🍃

Friday, February 8, 2019

A Final Walk "In the Garden"

I (Teri) thought it might be fun to take a walk together In the Garden and revisit each block. Below the block is a link to the original post, so you can review any special skills covered for that block. Enjoy!

• Introducing "In the Garden," A BOM Series: Cornflowers

• "In the Garden"—Oak Leaves and Acorns

• "In the Garden"—Violets

• "In the Garden"—Cardinals and Holly

• "In the Garden"—Rose

• "In the Garden"—Robin and Forsythia

• "in the Garden"—Dragonfly and Fern

• "In the Garden"—Hummingbird and Fuschia

• "In the Garden"—Hydrangea

• "In the Garden"—Monarch and Butterfly Bush

• "In the Garden"—Garden Gate

• "In the Garden"—Wheelbarrow of Flowers

• "In the Garden"—Wisteria Border and Quilt Assembly

This quilt was such fun for us to design and stitch, and it's even more fun to teach. Happily, a new round of classes has started at the wool shop, so we will be gardening again! Last month, we started with the Cardinals and Holly block, and we'll be stitching the Rose on Saturday. 

We would love to have you join us In the Garden! If you have stitched any of the blocks, it would be a great joy to see pictures. You could share them on our Facebook page.

Patterns for In the Garden are available in our web store, both individually and as a set, so you can pick and choose if you only want a few of the blocks. 

We have really enjoyed this garden journey. Are you wondering where our next stitching adventure will lead us? We shall see!