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Best Traditions With A Twist 2015 Blog Tour

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Skip A Beat Table Runner

Welcome to my blog and to the blog tour!  My name is Brenda Miller and I’m the designer behind  the brand Among Brenda’s Quilts & Bags.  It just occurred to me that I’ve been in business now  since 2005 which makes 2015 my 10 year anniversary.  Hosting you today is a wonderful way  to  start off the next decade.  Welcome!

I work from my home design studio located in Strathroy, Ontario, Canada. If you are a baseball  fan the little town of Strathroy is about half way between the Detroit Tigers and the Toronto Blue  Jays.   I live here with my husband Rob and my cat mascot Harry who is always ‘among  Brenda’s quilts’.

Best Traditions with a Twist

My main focus is writing bag designs for patterns but like you, I have a lot of ideas for quilts and runners floating around in my brain – these are my UFO’s, my unfinished offerings. Every once in a while some of these ideas become finished projects and today I’d like to walk you through process that brought one particular idea to print in the Winter 2015 Best Traditions with a Twist magazine by Quilters Newsletter..  Perhaps this blog will give you the push to submit your own original idea to the magazine sometime in the future!

 2015 Winter edition of the magazine

About a year ago I was asked to demonstrate paper piecing at our quilting guild, the Huron Perth Quilters Guild.  That’s what lead me to design the easy heart motif found on the table runner.  Having several finished heart blocks made, I tied them together with a simple border to make the Skip A Beat table runner.  I had a lot of fun quilting the runner on my Baby Lock Unity sewing machine.  If you go to your magazine you’ll notice I kept the style of the quilting very modern and very simple using a gray thread color.  This kind of project is great for trying out the free motion quilting foot on your machine.

At the same time I had a call out on facebook looking for interesting tips and techniques from my readers.  You’ll find an absolutely elegant mock piping technique shared with me by Bev Nehls in the article.  It’s so incredibly easy, you’ll have to give it a try! This is the interesting detail  that became my ‘Twist’ for my pattern.

 An elegant and easy binding technique

When I heard that Quilters Newsletter was looking for patterns with a twist for their Winter 2015 edition I remembered my runner.  With it’s unique binding technique and the timely heart motif for Valentines Day I figured it might be a winner.

I take notes, albeit messy ones when I create something just in case, at some point, I decide to make the project into a pattern but the nice thing about QNM is that they write their own instructions.  I’ll bet you didn’t know that did you?  So after getting acceptance it was just a matter of sending Caitlin at QNM the runner.  A few months later PRESTO –  it’s here for you to enjoy. Caitlin at QNM being the enterprising gal she is arranged this wonderful blog hop and has gathered up nifty prizes for you to win. Email me at amongbrendasquilts@gmail.com to enter the draw for this wonderful stack of Fat Quarters called Just Color from Studio E Fabrics!!!  Put the words ‘Skip A Beat’ in the subject line.    Note that this is a one day draw good for January 27th.    Good luck everyone and be sure to visit the remaining designers on the blog hop list below in the days to come for even more freebies!

January 27, Janet Jo Smith at dyesmithy.com
January 28, Twisted 9 Patch, www.jendalydesign.com
January 28, Emily’s Nonsense, https://www.rossiecrafts.com
January 29, Jennifer Parks, jennykaequilts.wordpress.com
January 29, Patti Carey, pattispatchwork.com
January 30, Nancy Mahoney, nancymahoney.com/blog/
January 30, Natalie Barnes, beyondthereefpatterns.blogspot.com/
January 30, Gigi Khalsa, www.quiltersnewsletter.com/blogs/insideqn/


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Filed Under: Pattern Musings Tagged With: Magazine Mentions

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