"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!

Celebrating Five Years—With a Giveaway!

About a week ago, Kara and I (Teri) celebrated the fifth birthday of our small creative company, Through the Needle's Eye. And by celebrating, I mean we were busy working on new patterns and designs, because that's what we do! 

Since our trip to Williamsburg and Kara's return to Germany, we have both been working to complete our fourth blocks of the Woodland Reverie quilt. We are itching to get to our next blocks, but a few other projects are taking precedence.

Woodland Reverie blocks, displayed at the Academy of Appliqué

Beginning to gather materials for a new design—such yummy textures!

Around the world, as we face the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are sheltering in place, practicing social distancing, and living life at a slower-than-normal pace, being told to "stay home." Although we are stuck in our houses during this trying time, there is peace to be found in a needle and thread. We continue to create, for isn't that what we stitchers do? So many of us will look back on this challenging time of quarantine and sickness, and remember the beauty we stitched in the midst of the trials. I've heard stories of people sewing masks for healthcare workers, and of quilters who are raiding their stashes to create—some to keep busy, and some for the sheer enjoyment of having the forced at-home time to sew.

With all of that in mind, we thought the best way to celebrate our "birthday" would be to give away a big birthday gift to one of our lucky readers. Let's have a birthday party! 

This is what is in our birthday gift:

Your choice of either the spring or autumn Woodland Reverie pattern with ribbon kit, which includes all special materials to make the block 

A Violets pattern from our In the Garden series, complete with wired ribbon for the flowers.

 

Our six-skein Botanical Beauty set of Pearl 12 Valdani threads, and a package of milliners needles—perfect for making knots, bullions, or any wrapped stitch

A skein of River Silks over-dyed 4mm ribbon, a 6-inch ruler, and chenille needles—ideal for stitching with the ribbon

A lovely pair of embroidery scissors by Famoré

Two patterns with ribbon, a skein of ribbon, two packages of needles, ruler, scissors, and six balls of pearl cotton thread—happy birthday to us!

So how can you have a chance to win this birthday present? All you have to do is answer this question in the comments below: 

What stitching projects are you working on to make the best use of your time while you stay home?

Those who are reading this in email must click on this link to leave your comment on the blog. If you want to hop on over to Instagram or Facebook and leave a comment there as well, you can be entered for each comment, for multiple chances. All comments must be made by Tuesday night (3/31) at midnight. The winner will be announced next week, and we may have another surprise to announce then. 

Please join us in our virtual birthday stitching party! We would love to sew along with you!

Kara and Teri

NOTE: We would like to take this opportunity to recognize those of you who are not afforded this time to stay home and stitch: health care workers, food providers, and those with essential positions who are working tirelessly to help us through this time. If that is you, please tell us what you would like to be stitching! 

We wish you a heartfelt THANK YOU!!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Sometimes you win some, and sometimes you lose some, but during this past year, I (Kara) have actually won some! Usually when I try for raffles and giveaways, my name or number is just not called—not the case this year. 

Barbara Blanton and I with my loot!

Every year at the Academy of Appliqué in Williamsburg, Virginia, two lovely ladies donate a full quilt kit to be raffled off. One year, it was a complete Dear Jane kit, and this year it was Kim McClean's Flower Pots. The kit was full of brightly colored fabrics, and the pattern just really appealed to me. Maybe it was because it was completely different than anything we normally do, but I was determined to make a concerted effort to win this year's quilt kit (the $40 in raffle tickets may have helped). When Barbara read out my number, I know I yelled something in my excitement and immediately ran up to claim my prize. As it was a complete kit, I knew the weight of it—along with my additional fabric purchases from Huzzah quilt shop—would put my suitcase over the 50 pound limit. Barbara offers a wonderful service that allows the Academy attendees to ship their purchases for a flat fee, which was perfect for my new prize.

Sometimes our mail takes a long time, and the quilt kit was no exception. By the time it got to me it looked like it had been around the world and back.

A little worse for the wear...

...but everything inside was just fine!

One of the things I heard as I walked back to my seat after winning was, "Finish it for next year's Academy!" I'm pretty sure that is not going to happen, but I did start it and have one block finished. While the colors are beautiful and bright, I thought a little embellishment would be fun, so I dug into my pearls from Weeks Dye Works.

Some of the Week's colors and a few Painters Threads.

A Pekinese stitch with Painter's Threads shimmer

A stem stitch with #5 pearl

This is a fun stitch!

Spiral trellis circles

The almost finished block!

Finishing the quilt by this March is not very likely, but this is a fun project that I can work on every now and then—I even have the next block prepped!

Prepped and ready to go!

At our last quilt guild meeting, it seemed my winning streak was not finished! Every month we have a Block of the Month drawing for everyone who made that month's block. The block was a polaroid block and most of the members had made 5 or 6, so our total was over 125—a record for the guild. We divided the blocks into two winners, and my name was drawn! I knew this quilt would make a great baby quilt, so I got it started for a new great-niece.

All the blocks and the two winners!

A stack of my blocks and the sashing fabric.

Ready to pin baste.

Quilted and ready to cross the pond!

Hopefully, this winning streak will continue to my Fantasy Football team and the Hawthorne Threads giveaway, but for now I am grateful for my recent wins. Have you ever won a quilty giveaway? If so, we'd love to hear about it. Someday there will be a blog post about my completed Flower Pots quilt, but hopefully, nobody holds their breath on that one. 😉