Many of you may already know this tip, but for those of you who don't, I want to share this great place to visit when you are in the Seattle, WA area.
Martingale Press is located about 25 minutes NE of Seattle. They give tours on Monday and Wednesday afternoons at 1:00. The tours are limited to 12 people, so you need to call about a month ahead to book your tour. Why tour a press house, you may ask? Martingale is one of the big publishers of books about quilting. At any given time, there are wonderful quilts adorning all the walls. The tour guide will take you around through the offices and tell you about the various quilts and the books they are in, or are destined for. The quilts we saw yesterday were beautiful. There was even a large purple cow that is going to be in an upcoming book. There was no photography allowed, but there is something better.
BOOKS!
At the end of the tour, you are taken into the book room. Books and patterns that are over six months old may be found in this room. Each book is five dollars, except the ones with the blue dots which are three dollars. I came home with $135.00 worth of books and patterns for $29.00.
I saw wonderful quilts from each of these two books, and was so happy to find them. They are each filled with wonderful patterns. I would like to propose one of the quilts in Twosey-Foursey Quilts for our guild raffle quilt for 2012.
I have been wanting the Rose of Sharon Block Book for a while now. I love these blocks, and have been wanting to have some applique to take as handwork when I need to wait places or watch television in the evening. Even though these patters are for machine applique, I can easily adapt them to handwork. I also found a block that I want to use for the center white blocks in the traditional quilt I am working on. There are 83 blocks in the book and template patterns to make them all.
This book combines piecework with applique. It is pretty traditional, but I really like the patterns.
There were many more books that I wanted, but I had set a limit on myself before I went in.
On top of all the wonderful books I purchased, I also won a beautiful new book called A Year in the Life of Sunbonnet Sue by Christine Porter and Darra Williamson, and was published in 2011.
This book has 12 small quilt patterns (22"x26"), each commemorating a different month of the year. There are also directions for making 12"x16" blocks to be set into a bigger quilt. The retail price on the book is $24.99, if you are into that sort of thing. This is the book I am going to give away. If you would like this book, please leave me a comment telling me your favorite quilting tip. I will draw randomly next Monday for a winner. You don't have to become a follower, but if you would like to, I would be very happy. Please make sure I can contact you if you are the winner.
Good luck to all of you who want this book.
Joyful quilting, everyone.
9 comments:
How AWESOME is that! Book tour with great books at a GREAT price!
Our son lives in Gig Harbor, Washington...I'll have to make sure I go to the publisher..when I go next time!
hugZ,
annie
rubyslipperz106.blogspot
My tip is to have fun quilting, enjoy all of the beautiful fabrics and play your favorite music as you create.
I have an empty Tic Tac container velcroed to my sewing machine. When a needle needs to be disposed of I put it in that container. When the container is full, I throw it away. This is a much safer way to get rid of needles.
Cut the corners off fabric before you wash it, and it won't unravel (or not very much).
I save the thick strong cardboard rolls in aluminum foil & use to roll on binding, bias strips, smaller pieces of freezer paper, etc & fasten w/pony tail thingys.
These rolls are not easily bent & help keep things organized & easier to take along.
That sounds like such a fun tour!!! I wish I had known about it when my son lived in Seattle. He's in California now. (too bad).
My fav tip is using used dryer sheets for appliqueing! oh i cannot spell that word LOL. Love your blog. i'm following now! thanks for this awesome chance.
Thanks for the giveaway. I am trying to think of any tips I have picked up along the way as I have only been quilting since August last year. I especially like the one from Quilter in the Gap about the needles. I do sort of the same with my rotary cutter blades, I keep one of the plastic containers they come in, write "used" on it, and put all my used cutters in there, much safer than just throwing in the bin.
Hi Miki! Wish I lived close enough to visit Martingale, sounds fantastic. My tip would be to fill a number of bobbins with your thread colour before starting a machine quilting project. That way it's a quick pop-in and off you go again. Thanks for the giveaway.
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