Affordable Longarm Sale, New Quilting Short Videos and All Heart Designs on Sale too
Hi ,
I have a fun-filled newsletter for you this week with heart
blocks to piece and a great sale on heart designs to machine quilt using stencils and pantographs!
❤️ I love Valentine's Day and look for any excuse to piece with red, white, and pink fabrics so be looking forward to a few love-filled newsletters over the next few
weeks.
But first, I wanted to give you a heads up about price increases coming soon for Grace Company products.
If you have been thinking about switching longarms, giving frame quilting a try, or adding QCT 6 Automation, I recommend checking out our Qnique Longarms and Little Rebel sewing
machine this month.
This month we have an awesome 10% off sale on Qnique 16X and Qnique 16 Elite, plus I'm including a free accessory kit including the new Super Glide Quilting Foot!
Currently, we offer three quilting frames you can bundle with these longarm machines for free! Choose from the Cutie Breeze, Q-Zone Hoop, or Q-Zone Queen Frame and
get both a longarm machine and an awesome quilting frame at no additional cost.
We actually ran out of stock on Q-Zone Queen Frames over Christmas 😬 Don't worry, they are back in stock now and shipping quickly.
Personally I love this frame and machine combination because it's so fast and easy
to load and the Qnique 16X Elite has the speed, space, and easy controls that make it effortless to operate.
Are you curious about longarm machines, but unsure of which quilting frame to bundle? Reply to this email and ask for help. I'm happy to share my experience, and even talk you out of it if I don't think it's a good
fit.
Faster Loading with Magnum Magnets
Linda left a 5 star ⭐ review for Magnum Magnets this week:
The magnets work great loading a quilt on
my new Cutie Breeze Frame. Also very handy for helping to hold the quilt when advancing the quilt.
I've been using these
magnets to load my Q-Zone Queen and all of my hoop frames much faster. You can see how this works in this quilting video:
We are almost out of stock of the 5-packs of Magnum Magnets, and these will not be back in stock until March. We have plenty of big boxes of 20 magnets and the magnet back packs which are used for inserting into leader cloth.
I love some no-think-just-stitch patchwork and these heart quilt blocks are so easy and fast to piece. The
best part - you get 2 blocks at a time!
In the quilting video above, you'll learn how to piece a super cute mini 3-inch heart quilt block.
Cut the following pieces to make 3-inch - 2 at a Time Heart Blocks
Cut these squares for both Fabric A and Fabric B:
Cut 1 - 3-inch square
Cut 3 - 2 1/2-inch squares
But what if you want to make this Heart Quilt Block bigger? Making a whole quilt with 3-inch blocks would be a bit... tedious.
Let's piece this block again, using the exact same steps in the video, but with bigger pieces:
Cut the following pieces to make 8-inch - 2 at a Time Heart Blocks
Cut these squares for both Fabric A and Fabric B:
Cut 1 - 5 1/2-inch square
Cut 3 - 5-inch squares
How to Piece Heart Quilt Blocks Step-By-Step
Stack the Fabric A and Fabric B 5 1/2-inch squares and the 2 Fabric A and Fabric B 5-inch squares right sides together and follow the instructions in this quilting tutorial to make 2 at a Time Half Square Triangles.
Press the pieced units flat, and trim only the 4 smaller HSTs to measure 4 1/2 inches square. Set these aside for now.
Don't trim the bigger half square triangles. Top one HST with a Fabric A 5-inch square and top one HST with a Fabric B 5-inch square. Mark another diagonal line, making sure it runs in the opposite direction as the diagonal seam on the HST below. Just in case you'd like to see these steps, Click Here to find our Quarter Square Triangle Tutorial.
Cut along the marked line to create a total of 4 Quarter Square Triangles (QST). Trim these to measure 4 1/2 inches square and your units
are ready for piecing!
Arrange two QST so the small triangle faces down and match it with two HST with the same color lining up in the middle.
You'll have two opposing color heart blocks - so if you piece yours like mine, you'll have one with red on the outside and a white heart, and one with white on the outside and a red heart:
Piece the units together in sets of 2, then piece the two halves together to finish your 8-inch Heart Quilt Blocks.
I hope you'll piece up lots of these quilt blocks for Valentine's Day. Wouldn't it be cool to piece these in rows to make a chain of hearts? It's definitely got me thinking...
Heart Quilting Design Sale
To add a little more love to your quilts, I've just launched a Heart Quilting Sale until February 15th on all of our heart themed quilting designs and workshop.
Whether you're quilting on a home sewing machine in a table or a longarm on a frame, you've gotta try quilting with paper stencils.This doesn't require any additional accessories because you stitch through the paper stencil and quilt at the same time.
I love quilting with these paper stencils because they are fast and help me efficiently quilt edge-to-edge across my quilt. This past year, I also came out with Mini Paper Stencils which work great on smaller home sewing machines:
The one downside of stencils is you have to rip the paper away from the quilt surface after quilting. If that's not your thing, you may want to try pantographs:
Pantograph designs require your machine (home sewing
machine or longarm) to be on a quilting frame with a back table to support the design. The pantograph design is taped to the back table, then you use a laser light to trace the design. For home sewing
machines, you'll need this Gracie Laser Light.
Quilting a quilt with either the stencils or pantographs will leave your quilt feeling soft and cuddly. These are designed on a soft, bed quilting scale.
Are you looking for more of a challenge this winter? You can also join me for the Heart & Feather Wholecloth Workshopand make
this beautiful quilt:
This workshop covers all the steps to wholecloth quilting from marking your quilt top, trapunto, and dense filler quilting to make the motifs stand out.
This is definitely NOT a bed quilting scale. Wholecloth quilts like this are meant for decoration and delight.
Last but not least, our Love Stitch n' Paint Embroidery design is on sale for $4.99. If you have an embroidery machine with hoops to fit a 5 x 7 inch design, this will stitch out beautifully every time. I'd love to see the creative ways you paint this little embroidery
design:
That is a lot of quilting love and great deals on quilting stencils and pantographs you could use to quilt dozens of quilts. I can't wait to see how you use these designs to add a little love to your next project!
Two New Short Quilting Videos
I'm delighted to announce I'm now working with two amazing women - Sara and Lacy. While most of their work will be behind the scenes, this week I lost my voice and Sara bravely stepped in to narrate this video. I think she did a great job!
The alternative was for me to whisper the instructions... which I tried... and Sara almost fell off her chair laughing at me because it was so weird!
It is SO nice to have support and help making videos now. Lacy was
holding the camera and got really creative capturing how to tie off and bury thread tails after a thread break:
Be looking forward to new videos, possibly featuring Sara and Lacy as I teach them both more about patchwork and quilting.
I hope you enjoy piecing your 3-inch and 8-inch Heart Quilt Blocks and will enjoy our lovely sale on heart quilting designs. I know what I'll be doing for the rest of the day - piecing heart blocks cause the idea of a Chain of Hearts Quilt is now filling my heart with joy.
