This coming Market will be my 26th and I am alway amazed to see how it all comes together. I can tell you I could not be as successful as I have been without the wonderful people I work with! Kathy Norton, Sue Mitchell, Doris, Jerry and Matthew Pridemore round out our amazing design team. Everyone as an important part that has to be done for everything to work out. 

Quilt Market (Fall & Spring) is the busiest time of year for us at the Studio. We put out more quilts in the 12 weeks before the show than we will do at any other time of year. For the upcoming Quilt Market ,our studio has done about 30 quilts, several display pieces, booth items and lots of little items such as pillows. We have also designed tons and tons of FREE patterns for our various clients and I will post links to those as well as the fabric companies roll them out!

Above is what the shelves in my studio look like for 2 months straight, as soon as we finish a project another one appears to take its place. I have to say I feel very lucky that we have been so busy!

Below are some of the projects completed for the upcoming Market. I will post more photos from the show which is October 26-28 in Houston TX. 

Paris- Blank Quilting

Downton Abby's Violet's Quilt- Andover

Ladies and Gentlemen- David Textiles

Off Center- Princess Mirah Batiks

Box of Cards- Princess Mirah Baiks

Chevrons- David Textiles

Dancing Disks- P&B Fabrics

Garden Party-P&B Textiles

Drama Queen- Michael Miller

Spring is in the Air- Michael Miller

Sweet Tea- David Textiles

Rosey- Free Spirit Fabrics

 I am so excited to be included with this amazing group of designers! Make sure to follow my Blog all year long to see what everyone is up to! 

We are very excited to announce the 2014 Aurifil Design team!

This coming year we will have 12 fantastic blocks designed by this incredible group. Pat Sloan will be our host interviewing each designer and sharing their work with us! This year we have a special guest, quilter Natalia Bonner. Each month Natalia is going to share a machine quilting tip and at the end, she is going to quilt the finished piece!

2014 is going to be a super exciting year, please give our design team a warm welcome and visit their websites all year long!

Scott Hansen http://bluenickelstudios.com/

Camille Roskelley http://camilleroskelley.typepad.com/

Carrie Nelson http://lavieenrosie.typepad.com/

Emily Herrick http://crazyoldladiesquilts.blogspot.com/

Heidi Pridemore http://heidipridemore.blogspot.com/

Jane Davidson http://quiltjane.blogspot.com/

Pat Sloan http://blog.patsloan.com

Pat Wys http://www.silverthimblequilt.com/blog/

Natalia Bonner http://www.pieceandquilt.com/

Michele Foster http://quiltinggallery.com/blog-posts/

Brigitte Heitland http://www.farbstoff-bridge.blogspot.com/

Angela Yosten http://blog.angelayosten.com/

Amy Smart http://www.diaryofaquilter.com/

Amy Gibson http://www.stitcherydickorydock.com/ 

We have a winner for the Everything Blog contest last week! It was pretty good odds 1 in 4 chance. We entered these numbers in to the number randomizer and #1 won.
Congratulations Sally King. Please email me you mailing address for your free pattern at heidi@TheWhimsicalWorkshop.com Please contact me by 10/8/13 to claim your prize.

Everything Blue Blog Hop

Welcome to The Whimsical Workshop Blog for the Everything Blue Blog Hop with Clothworks!

For this challenge, I decided to make a fusible appliquéd Rose block. I LOVE fusible appliqué and I always jump at the chance to use this technique whenever possible.

Please leave a comment below about your favorite piecing or quilting technique  for a chance to WIN my newest pattern, "Skip to Dessert" shown below! We also have a limited number of fabric kits available, just click on the name above.

Please follow us here and on Facebook to keep up with all the projects underway at The Whimsical Workshop.

Check out all our patterns and fabric kits at our
website www.TheWhimsicalWorkshop.com. We always have free shipping in the US and discounted shipping around the world!

Thank you for visiting my blog!
Until Next time....
Heidi

How it's Made-Skip to Dessert

Original Sketch

 I love the show "How it's Made" that is on the Science Channel. I have always wanted to draw the curtain back and see what goes into making something from a pile of materials and what tools are required. So I guess it is not a surprise that I went to school for Industrial Design.

So that being said, I would like to share with you how some of the quilts are designed at our studio.....

Our example to today is my newest quilt "Skip to Dessert"

1. Which came first the fabric or the design?????

I would have to say it varies from project to project. In the case of this quilt, I have had an idea in my head for a turkey for several years now and sometimes it takes awhile to get it to the paper. 

Pieced and Appliquéd

So when I found the border fabric at Timeless Treasures last year, I knew it was time for the turkey. So which came first the design or the fabric???? 

2. The Sketch

Nothing is scarier than a blank piece of paper. I have so many ideas rolling around in my head and wish they would just flow down my hand and onto the paper the way I see it in my mind. 

Unfortunately this rarely happens. It takes a few sketches in my sketch book to get the image to look the way I imagine it. For this quilt I spent about an hour working on the original sketch. Once I have the idea down on paper, I make some notes on the drawing about changes I would make or if I have a name in mind. Then it is off to the computer, where the image is scanned in, redrawn and I make any adjustments I wanted to make from the original design. From this drawing I make a materials and cutting list for the project. 

On the Long Arm for Quilting

3. Fabric Selection

Now that I have an idea of what the quilt will look like, I select the fabrics for the design. In this case I had the border and inner fabrics selected and I just needed the coordinates for Tom.

4. Off the the Studio

With my fabrics and design in hand, it is off to the studio and time to cut and sew. This is also another chance to make sure I love the fabrics for the project. I can sometime switch fabric 3 or 4 times before I am happy with the final selection. This is also when I check my measurements and make sure I have all the information written down for the pattern. We make the quilt top and then it off to be quilted.

5. Instructions

While the quilt is being quilted, we start on the instructions, they are written by my partner and then sent back to me to edit and  add the illustrations and templates.

6. All comes together

Once the quilt is quilted and bound, I photograph the quilt for the pattern cover. We put all the components of the pattern together and it is edited one more time. Then it is off to the printer.

Once the pattern is printed we package the patterns and we then start cutting the fabric kit. 

Now that everything on this list is finished, I add the new product to our website and share it with all of you. 

Hope you have enjoyed this peek inside "How Its Made" at The Whimsical Workshop.

Until Next Time.....

Our Winner is....."Woolensails". Congratulations and thank you for following us. I have sent you an email with the details.

Thank you for everyone who joined in.

until next time.....

Heidi

New Fabric Kit and FREE Pattern

Under The Sea Panel Quilt-Free Pattern

Under The Sea Panel

We have finished a free pattern to go along with our new "Under The Sea" fabric. This is the first chance I have had to sew with our new fabric and it made me sooooo happy.

I don't know why bright fabrics make me so happy, but when I work with bright fabric it is like going on a mini vacation.

Here are the two main panels in the group. We also have scales, bubbles, stripes and several tossed character prints as well. Click here to see the Under The Sea Fabrics.

We are also offering a fabric kit to go along with the free pattern which includes the pattern and fabrics for the quilt top and binding as shown here.   Click here to order the fabric kit.

Well until next time......

Portholes Panel

Everything Blue!!!

We are excited to announce we are participating in the "Everything Blue" Block Hop with Clothworks.  I am working on my block this week and if you would like to know more about this hop on over the Clothwork's Blog The Works Blog for more details. I cannot wait to see everyone else's Blocks as well.


Happy Sewing.
Until Next time........

Fall is on its way!

Fall is right around the corner. Here in AZ, kids are starting back to school this week and believe it or not pre-season football started yesterday! this means Fall is coming and with (hopefully) cooler weather for us. I have been busy this summer planning up all kinds of fun and easy projects for the months to come and our first new pattern and fabric kit is "Harvest Leaves Wreath" shown here.

Indian Summer Pattern

To kick off the the coming of Fall, I am giving away a free Fabric Kit with pattern for this project. All you have to do is head over to Facebook and Like our page! If you already like us, just add a comment under the post to enter (one entry per person please). Contest ends Wednesday 8/7/13 at midnight and the winner will be announced on Thursday 8/8/13.

I thought I would also share with two other patterns we have for fall (sorry no fabric kits on these at this time). Indian Summer and Pine Tree Lodge, these quilts just make you wish it was cool outside!

Harvest Leaves Wreath Fabric Kit 

Pine Tree Lodge Pattern

Busy couple of weeks at Mulqueens

Mulqueen's Sewing Center is a local business that has carried my patterns for several years now. Every July, they do Christmas in July all month long. This year I did a trunk show, demos and Make & Takes for them. Last week where we unveiled our newest pattern and fabric kit, Harvest Leaves Wreath , which I am holding in the photo above and I did demos on using our Binding Ruler  and Value Tool

I had a nice turn out of people and the last visitor of the day brought me her quilt finished using our One Lump or Two pattern . It was so exciting to see it all finished along with the lovely young lady she made it for.

 This week I spent Thursday doing Make & Take Gift Tag labels at Mulqueens that I designed especially for these classes. I had so much fun with this that I will be adding the free pattern for these guys to our website soon. So stay tune......

Until next time.....

Happy Go Lucky

Click Here to download the pattern

I have been going through some of the projects I have done over the years and want share some of them with you. These are older patterns and the fabrics are no longer available, but most of the would look great out other fabrics! So here is the first one..

Happy Go Lucky was designed for P&B Textiles several years ago using this stunning red/black/white collection. The quilt is pretty simple to make and though it is hard to see in this small photo, I cut the blocks with a wavy edge to add more interest to the design. 

The tote bag is so quick and easy to make, that I have made several of these to use for just about anything. I did't put batting in the bag, making it ideal to fold up and throw in my luggage for an extra tote on my many trips. 

The pattern also includes easy instructions to assemble the flower! These can become addicting to make so just remember I warned you about them. 

Enjoy and happy quilting!

Until next time.....

Heidi

Guess what is finally here!!!

These lovely boxes arrived yesterday and finally.............

Our newest line of fabric "Under The Sea" has arrived. This is my first line since 2009 and I am very excited to get back to designing fabric again. We will get these posted on our website, so you can have some too!

We have lots of projects already in the works using this group. So keep an eye out for them!

In case you were wondering about the inspiration behind the group. Here is one of our three very popular patterns we have done over the years. One Fish, Two Fish.... The pattern and fabric kits are a staple on our website!

Until next time....
Heidi