Happy 4th of July!

Happy Fourth of July!  Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend and having a great summer!

I have been very busy since I last wrote, but will try to do a bit of catching up while I have a holiday to goof off.  I showed you this little 9-patch table topper in my last post.  

One of the ways I like to display small quilts is to hang them from a hook or peg.  However, I find using clips to hang them tends to distort the quilt and stretches the corners out of square over time.  

Instead, I added a little strip of fabric diagonally across one corner on the backside of the quilt. I top-stitched a 1 1/2"strip of fabric folded in half with raw edges to the inside.  I basted it to the edges of the quilt before sewing on the binding.  While hand sewing the binding down to the backside of the quilt, I also stitched through all layers of the strip to keep it in place and prevent it from pulling on the binding's edge.  It is similar to the hanging loops you see on beach towels and bathrobes.  You could also use a strip of ribbon.  It works great!

I had also promised the rest of the quilt photos from Paducah, so here are a few more worth sharing.  These were mostly in the wall quilt category.  Better late than never, right?

It's the Cowboy Way by Karlyn Bue Lohrenz

It's the Cowboy Way (detail)

Reborn by Molly Hamilton-McNally

 Reborn (detail)

 A Toast to Toulouse-Lautrec by Kay Donges

 A Toast to Toulouse-Lautrec (detail)

 Song of the Sea by Kathy McNeil

 Song of the Sea (detail)

 The Paisley Peacock by Bethanne Nemesh

  The Paisley Peacock (detail)

 Jester's Jolly by Margaret Solomon Gunn

 One Fine Day by Laurie Britt

And here is the cover of the July issue of American Quilter with a peek inside of my winning quilt!  It still seems a bit surreal to me that my quilt won such a huge honor.

Finally, part of my excuse for neglecting my blog is that I have been busy designing quilts for RJR Fabrics for a couple of their upcoming fabric lines.  It is very exciting to be involved and such an honor as well.  This is a peek at a quilt I am doing from one of their new lines, Garden Gate, by Robyn Pandolph, due out this September.  I will be writing the pattern for this quilt (and others) and the kits will be available in stores this fall.  I will also have patterns for sale once the kits are released.

Which leads me to answer a question so many of you have asked me, when will I have patterns available for my own quilts?  I am working on it!  I will be writing and publishing the designs I create for RJR Fabrics, which I will also be able to sell myself to anyone interested in purchasing.  As I have the time, I am going to start writing patterns for quilts I have previously made, many of those which I have shared on my blog.  This is something I am doing in between my regular job at our business, designing and sewing for RJR, and creating my own show quilts.  I am a bit slow, but it is finally happening!  I will let it be known when patterns are available once they are published and will most likely sell them on Etsy until I get comfortable with the whole process. 

On that note, I would like to thank all of you who have commented and written me with your congratulations and words of support and encouragement.  It means more to me than I can say and gives me that extra little push to keep moving ahead.  I am a pretty solitary, homebody kind of person, so receiving your lovely emails is sort of like being part of a guild, except I don't have to leave the house!  Thanks so much to all of you and I hope to be able to share more of what I have been designing in my next post.  

Enjoy your holiday!  Happy Quilting!