Quilting Hotties for Hooters

A couple of months ago, I received an email from Tracy Szanto, quilter and friend of a friend, who had seen my Quilting Hottie buttons at a show and wanted to incorporate the Quilting Hottie name into her Breast Cancer walk team's name. Was this okay, and could I get her some buttons for all of them? I could not answer yes fast enough. My first sort of corporate sponsorship, and for a great cause. I mean really, let's be honest, who doesn't like hooters?

Thank you to Tracy for being my second guest blogger in 8 days. Keep this up, hotties, and I may never have to write a blog post again!

2011 Quilting Hotties for Hooters. Tracy is third from the right, reddish hair and big smile.

On October 16th 2011 our team Quilting Hotties for Hooters joined over 5,000 others in Concord, NH to participate in The Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. My daughter Sharon Zimmermann and I started the team for my business "DREAMLAND Machine Quilting" (http://www.dreamlandmachinequilting.com/). This was my daughter's 7th year and I think my 5th year of doing the walk, but our 1st year of having our very own team.

In 2010 at our annual quilt show my daughter and I met Terri Sontra of Purple Moose Designs and who also belongs to our guild (The Belknap Mill Quilt Guild). Terri was a vendor at the show and she was selling these buttons that said,"Quilting Hottie!" It turns out that Beth Helfter of "Quilting Hottie Haven" (the blogspot for Eva Paige Quilt Designs) created these buttons. We had been planning to start our Breast Cancer Team and thought it might be fun to incorporate that into our team name and so that is how our team name came about.

Sharon and Tracy on registration day

The team enjoying some breakfast before a nice long walk.

Sharon showing support for her friend who was recently diagnosed.

Beth generously donated her buttons to our team which helped us raise money. I'm proud that our team raised around $2,400. The Concord, NH event raised a record breaking $568,089. We are proud to be a part of this very important event and thank everyone who donated and walked with us. I would like to thank my special team captain who kept us all in line to meet our goals, that would be my daughter Sharon Zimmermann, I couldn't ask for a more wonderful and giving daughter. Also our whole team would like to say thanks to Beth for her generous support.

Ladies, it was my honor.

This group just goes to prove what I have always known: Quilters as a whole are just really awesome people.

My HQ story by guest blogger and hottie extraordinaire, my friend Michelle Banton

Please join me in welcoming my very first guest blogger, my friend Michelle Banton, whom I met about 9 years ago when she became a Squanicookie. Michelle recently was a national winner in the "My HQ Story" contest (you can read her winning entry here: http://www.handiquilter.com/myhqstory/story/326/) and graciously accepted my begging her to tell us her story of the retreat weekend as a guest blogger. I know you will love it like I do!

The 14 national winners themselves

I feel like I just won a beauty pageant! After years of considering it, I finally bought a long arm quilting machine - test drove them all at MQX in Providence, RI last spring and decided on the Handi Quilter Fusion. Handi Quilter likes to use real people in their advertising, so I entered My HQ Story and was a national winner! Notice, I said "a" national winner, not "the" national winner. Fourteen total strangers were flown (ok, to be honest, the winners from Utah actually drove) to Handi Quilter's headquarters outside Salt Lake City for 4 all-expenses paid days of instruction and fun. In less than 24 hours, we felt like we'd known each other for years.

http://www.handiquilter.com/videos/my-hq-story-2011/ (--- Editor's note: This is a fabulous video that will make everyone want to enter this contest just to have silly string thrown at them. Our guest blogger Michelle appears at 3:31 in the video, as well as being that gorgeous thing in the red top in the front row in the photo at the top.)

We were treated like royalty from the moment we arrived. Every time we turned around we were given gifts. Cool gifts. Quilt-y gifts. Rulers. Gadgets. Fabric. Quilt Magazines. Batting. Instructional DVDs...even an Accuquilt Go! Baby. Things we'd buy ourselves if we hadn't already spent all our money on those really nice HQ long arm machines. It was truly better than being in Oprah's audience!

http://www.handiquilter.com/videos/my-hq-story-2011/?id=139 (--Editor's note - Seriously. Oprah's got absolutely nothing on this company.)

We each had our own Handi Quilter machine to work on as we were instructed by HQ's fine team of educators: Vicki, Mindy, Marie & Cheryl. Mark Hyland, HQ's CEO took us on a behind the scenes tour of Handi Quilter where we got to meet most of the HQ "family". He gave each of us a copy of his book, "Help! I Married a Quilter" (it should be required reading for any quilt spouse). He and his lovely wife, Suzanne Michelle Hyland, hosted us for dinner in their beautiful home. Suzanne gave us a tour of her "to-die-for" studio...maybe if I emptied the main level of my house, my studio could be as nice as hers. Then, because she knew we liked gifts (It doesn't take long at all to become accustomed to receiving gifts), she gave us her set of instructional DVDs. It's like we got to bring her home with us!

On our last morning there, Suzanne gave each of us a personal assessment on a quilt top we had brought - offering suggestions on how to quilt it, based on the design and colors of the top. She told me that my top would have to hang on her design wall for several weeks to inspire her. Maybe it was her polite way of telling me "It's really waaay too busy and bright. Perhaps you should keep your day job." Unfortunately, I don't have a day job that pays me money.

How should I quilt this? Or should I throw it away and try my hand at pottery?

The 14 of us will appear in Handi Quilter's print ads during 2012 in major quilting magazines. But, what's really exciting is that we'll get our picture on the side of a truck! Ok, maybe I'm a bit weird, but I think that's really awesome. I'd like to think that I am now contractually bound to appear at any and all quilt shows that the Handi Quilter truck will be driving to. At least maybe I can tell my husband that I HAVE to go - it's my duty as a HQ spokesmodel. I'll make sure to wear my tiara - look for me at MQX, Paducah, probably even in Houston next year.

Michelle Banton

mabanton@gmail.com

http://www.littlepupdesigns.com/ - longarm quilting service and retreat planning

Thank you, Michelle! I cannot wait to see your truck on the highway and scream at the top of my lungs "I KNOW THAT FAMOUS PERSON!" I am so proud of you and so glad you agreed to blog about your experience for us.

All of 2009's hot new quilting tools - now being used in my studio

If there is one thing you hotties all know, it is that I am borderline proud of my lack of technical skills on the computer, don't own a smart phone, have never texted, and (here's a new confession) two of the three phones in my home still have cords. Yep. I'm way cool. 1988 ruled.

But I always considered myself a little bit more hip and now when it came to quilting. I'd never call myself a gadget guru by any means, but I love new products that make my quilting life easier and I will happily watch demos and probably buy them. I cannot resist an embellishment, and own more Angelina fibers than I know what to do with (quite literally, too, as I have yet to use any of them). I'll try new things and if I love them, you will hear about them incessantly until you try them just to shut me up (Jewel-it, anyone?).

So imagine my surprise this week when in the midst of my pre-market sewing frenzy, from which I am currently taking a much needed 30 minute break, I discovered two fantastic new tools which are both far from new. How did I miss these gems? And how can I prevent the rest of you from missing out? Well, I can write a humorous and informative blog post about them, that is how.

The first tool is this little chalk marking doodad from Clover. I'm pretty sure it is circa 2002 or even earlier, and also that I am last person on earth to discover it, but after using it for one millisecond I was hooked. I've long been a user of those basic blue markers for marking (when I even mark, which is about one time in 25), and just last week was bragging to my friends Judy Damon and Terri Sontra that I was pretty sure my blue marker was 10 years old and was never going to dry out. Yeah, it heard me from 50 miles away, and two days later I went to use it and it was dead. Well, lucky for me I had some of Judy's notion stock in my garage from a show NEQDC had done that weekend, and I had only to walk 40 feet to replace my marker with this chalk liner. It has a tiny little wheel on the end reminiscent of those carbon paper wheelie markers from back in the day, and is just a basic tube filled with chalk dust and seriously marks like a dream. I bought mine in bright red so that I couldn't lose it and with pink chalk because hey, a girl needs things to be pretty, but they come in other colors too. Check out that mark. Smooth and perfect and GONE once you sew on it.

1. 
   
   The chalk can also be rubbed off easily so as to redraw your lines when you do them too quickly and they suck, as seen here.



2. No, my hand is not really pink.


The second tool making my life perfect right now is aptly named "The Binding Tool", which I bought immediately after Terri Sontra of Purple Moose Designs demoed it at our booth last weekend. It was copyrighted in 2009, but it's new to me. I've stolen Terri's photo off her website not only because it is better than what I could take, but also because I want you to check out her online shop because she has some fabulous wares at very reasonable prices. And she includes chocolate in every order.

www.purplemoosedesigns.com/rotary.htm

Holy revelation in continuous binding glory. No more will you make your binding just a bit too big or a bit too small at the meeting point! No more will you twist the tales and swear a blue streak! As Terri promised, I did have to look at the photo tutorial on her site the first time I used it on my own, but the bottom line is it worked and I could not be more thrilled with this purchase. I'll never be a fan of binding, but this tool may make me less inclined to dread the entire event.

Finally, I've discovered a cool new fabric this week as I have been furiously whipping up a sample of my "Winter Whites" pattern for a silk vendor. That fabric would be Teflon.

Just kidding. It's silk, of course, and it is a bear and a half to keep from raveling, especially when you decide to ignore all advice to cut it on a dry day and instead wait for the wettest day in a week to start your project, but a little interfacing helps with that. Isn't it nice of me to have left some of the raveling in this photo so you could see for yourself? You cannot beat the richness of color and the sheen and it is making this project look like 8 million bucks. Lucky for shoppers, it's only $9. Doesn't it seem like a bargain now? Here's a sneak preview of the awesomeness of the silk colors. I'll post a photo of the finished project later this weekend.

Okay, it's back to sewing now. Please pray for me that Greta naps this afternoon so I'll have more to show for my day!

Giving back to where it all began - special lecture offer

It's October, which means it's EPQD's birthday month. I'm registered at Bunkhouse quilt shop if you care to send a gift. (Totally kidding! But I'll shamelessly plug http://www.bunkhousequiltshop.com/ because it is awesome.)

Anyway, birthdays generally do mean gifts, but in this case I'd like to give a gift if possible in memory of my next door neighbor, Kimberly Francis, who died five years ago next month at the age of 41 from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). Kim was a great neighbor, but also a great big reason that I took the plunge from hobby quilter to designer and I've really never had the ability to give back in a quilty way until now.

In the spring of 2005, Kim showed up at my door and said "I have a job for you." I wasn't looking for a job, but I trusted her and listened to her proposal. She had a friend who needed a t-shirt quilt made for her daughter, an accomplished amateur figure skater. Did I want to help out? What the heck, I figured, it'll give me something to do besides sing "The Wheels on the Bus" 56 times a day.

I made the quilt and GOT PAID for doing something I enjoy. Holy cow. It was a revelation. A few months later "Feelin' Hot Hot Pink", my first pattern and still one of my faves, was born when I decided to try my hand at designing. I had started something I never knew I was going to, and it began with a nudge from an unexpected place.

Kim was diagnosed that next winter and unfortunately succumbed very quickly to this awful disease. We miss her in the neighborhood, and on the five year anniversary of her passing, I feel strongly about doing something to honor her memory and the part she played in the birth of EPQD.

To celebrate Kim's memory, I am hoping to donate the lecture fee ($300) from any lectures booked in November and December to the ALS Association Massachusetts chapter. I know most guilds probably have plans in those months, but if yours doesn't, or you know a guild who is in need of a program, this is a great way to help both of us give back, so please spread the word!**

In addition, from now until the end of 2011, I will donate 20% of all sales of my "Sunflower and Sky" pattern and/or kits to ALS Association of Massachusetts, the sunflower being the adopted symbol of hope for ALS patients. Patterns are $9.00, kits containing all you need for the top and binding are $30. Wholesale orders (pattern only) will also apply to this donation.

Thank you as always for your support. Please spread the word if you can!

**Donation of entire lecture fee of $300 only. Guild pays for lecture, moneys are then donated by me to ALS. Copies of proof of donation will be sent to guild. Mileage, housing, per diem, product sales (other than sunflower), etc not included in donation.

Dear Mark Lipinski,

I truly love that you commandeered the pink "Quilting Hottie" button right off the person of my friend Linda Pearl at Keepsake Quilting yesterday. I can think of no hottie more deserving of his own official badge of Quilting Hottiedom than you.
Love seeing you sporting it in this photo. Love that quilt too.

Clearly it is preaching to the choir to tell you that hottiedom is a state of mind. Just remember..... with great power comes great responsibility. And the power of the hottie button is great indeed. Among the many powers I have discovered:

- Wearing of the hottie button while picking up dinner at your local Chinese place will lead you to find an extra order of crab rangoons in your bag. It's certainly possible that you actually are bringing home someone else's food, but you will prefer to believe the button made you completely irresistable to the staff.

- Wearing of the hottie button when a boy scout arrives to sell you popcorn will lead to said boy scout asking his father as he walks away "Dad, what's a Quilting Hottie?" and allow you to hear the dad say "I'll explain later." And would you ever love be invited to that conversation, but sadly the powers of the button don't seem to extend to "fly on the wall" status. Yet.

- Wearing of the hottie button will inspire real quilters to real greatness, as in the team of walkers I'm so proud have adopted my pin to wear for their breast cancer walk later this month.
-Wearing of the hottie button will periodically cause you to be irritated that the state of Massachusetts only allows 6 spaces on their license plates, so QLTN HTY is not an option for your car, even though it would be awesome. (Of course, you will have to be irritated for me in this case. I have no idea how many spaces NJ has on their plates, but I feel you've probably already got a cool CUPCAK plate anyway.)

Wear it well, sir. I know you will.

Much love from the original Quilting Hottie to a true original.