Thursday, April 21, 2011

And the Winner Is....



The book giveaway is over.
From my blog the winner is...

Susan said...
S is for Stitching, which all quilters love to do!

From the Quilting Gallery the winner is
Kylie from Swan Hill, Australia!
W is for wedding rings. I have to make a wedding quilt but I’m not sure a wedding ring pattern is for me

The books are in the mail.

Thanks to everyone who participated. It was fun to read all your posts. I hope you'll come by and visit my blog again.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Guest blogging and Super Modeling

Welcome to my blog to all the new visitors and old friends. I’m featuring a project I was lucky to be involved with. The illustrations below are from the new children’s book F is for Friendship: A Quilt Alphabet by Helen L. Wilbur, illustrated by Gijsbert (Nick) van Frankenhuyzen. Last summer when Nick was researching with local quilters, some of them suggested he call me. A huge THANK YOU to them.










The blue and white quilt is one I made for my book, Block By Block.













The quilt the kitty is perched on was for an article on pieced borders for the (now defunct) magazine Traditional Quilter. To see the book cover, another illustration (my favorite one) and read more about the project, go to this page where I’m the Guest Blogger!

Guest Blogger on Quilting Gallery

To celebrate the release of the book (you can find it on Amazon or your local bookstore) and being a Guest Blogger, I’m giving away two books. To enter the give-away, leave a comment below. Starting with A is for appliqué, B is for bobbin, C is for... leave a comment that follows the next available letter after the comment above yours. When you make it to the end, start over again. One book will be chosen randomly from the comments on this page, and the other will be chosen from comments left on the Guest Blogger page. If you’re new to my blog, check out my free patterns, leave a comment here, then go to the Guest Blogger page for another chance to win.

Till next time….Happy Quilting.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Victorian Trade Cards

The heyday of the advertising trade card was 1880-1900. By 1900, postal rates made mailing magazines cheap and most business people moved their ads to magazines.

When sewing machines were first on the market, they were used mostly in factories and sweat shops. Sewing machine manufacturers recognized women homemakers were a vast untapped market. Singer offered their machines on a payment plan, making them affordable. The other hurdle was to convince their customers that women could run the machine. The trade cards helped to persuade consumers (or their husbands) to purchase by putting the machines in familiar settings.
Ladies could sew together,
or with their family. This reminds me of those happy times with my girls happily playing at my feet while I sewed. LOL!
In fact sewing was so easy, even babies riding bikes could do it.
People were sewing everywhere, in the Sunny South
the Far West
in Italy
and Russian peasant households.
Even in Heaven!
And if you chose the right wedding gift
You could avoid a lot of heartache later on. The first caption reads, "I will have a 'New Home' Machine." and the second, "A 'New Home' or a divorce, Take your choice sir!"



Till next time.....Happy Quilting!