Love of Quilting magazine – Blue Bear Quilts

Posted on July 20, 2020February 10, 2022 by Reed — Leave a comment

Patterns, Facebook Live, YouTube Channel and First Fabric Collection

We have been very busy creating many patterns, which we hope you will enjoy. We’ve done Facebook Lives with other talented designers over the summer. We created a YouTube channel. And, we have our first fabric collection.

We have been busy sewing lots of face masks. We even found a Quilt in a Day scallop ruler which helped cut out the mask shapes. Even the bears got into the act. Silly Reed thought you could wear them on top of your head but Beauregard Bear showed him the correct way.

Our Quilt Cruise to Alaska did not happen in June due to the pandemic, but it was fun thinking about the possibility and we hope to schedule another quilt cruise in the future when we can all be together.

We have two new fun summer sailing patterns we created for Accuquillt. One is called Ahoy Mate Table Runner.

You can get the free pattern here: https://www.accuquilt.com/go-ahoy-mate-table-runner-pattern.html

The other is called Let’s Go Sailing, which is a fun combination of signal codes.

Here is where you will find that free pattern: https://www.accuquilt.com/go-let-s-go-sailing-quilt-pattern.html

We have had a bunch of quilts in magazines. The first one was Firework Flowers in May/June 2020 Love of Quilting magazine.

This quilt brought some joy to my 4th of July this year.

Next was 50’s Diner in the May/June 2020 McCall’s Quilting magazine.

Can’t you just imagine drinking an ice cream soda at the soda fountain with your date?

Have you ever tried curved piecing like you would find in the Drunkard’s Path block? The Waverly Path quilt was in the July/August 2020 issue of Quiltmaker magazine.

Finally, named after a grand niece, Thoroughly Modern Vivs was in the premier issue of Fons and Porter Quick and Easy Quilts. It was such an honor to be in this magazine with so many esteemed designers.

We created several patterns for Timeless Treasures new collections. They are There’s a Bear in My Watermelon Patch 2, using their One in a Mellon collection; Patriotic Polka, using their Treats Freedom collection; Adore Him, using the Come Let Us Adore Him collection; Peaceful Valley, using the Winter Blessing collection and Cowboy Claus, which uses the Ho Ho Hoedown collection. These fabric lines are at quilt shops now and you can purchase these quilt patterns on our website.

On Facebook, we did four facebook lives covering a virtual trunk show, accurate cutting, fussy cutting tips and our top 20 favorite quilting notions. We also have a video debuting our first ever fabric collection. If you missed any of these, you can catch them all on our YouTube Channel.

You can see the videos on YouTube on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSRJrsvJV2uIdS1aquYw8JA

Speaking of a new fabric collection, our first fabric collection is with QT Fabrics and it is called Coco Chic.

It will be available in quilt shops in January 2021. This fabric collection was inspired by authentic 1920’s fabric from deep in the QT Fabrics archives. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a Great Gatsby or Roaring 20’s party using these fabrics from the time period. We see this fabric being used in quilts, bags, lady’s dresses and men’s shirts. We hope you are as excited about this collection as we are.

Be sure to ask you local quilt shop if they will be carrying Coco Chic. We have designed several quilts using the collection and will have demos on Youtube using the fabrics. Stay tuned for much more regarding this exciting fabric collection.

On August 4th, we will be participating in Quilt Block Mania, A blog hop with other designers, where they all will be giving away a free block pattern with the theme of Back to School. Watch for this coming soon! Keep on quilting. Oh, and Beauregard says Hi.

Posted on October 15, 2019 by Reed — Leave a comment

New Patterns Aplenty

It has been a busy summer at Blue Bear Quilts. We taught our Pixie Party Quilt and Quilt in a Day’s Autumn Leaves table runner, in August, at Affinity For Quilts in White Bear Lake Minnesota. Everyone had a great time and some beautiful quilts are in the making.

While we were in Minnesota, we ran into the editors from one of our favorite magazines. Quilt Folk. They were kind enough to pose for a photo. If you have not discovered this magazine, you need to. It has gorgeous pictures of quilts on premium matte paper and really interesting articles about everything Quilt Folk might be involved in. We also went to the Great Minnesota Stae Fair and I had to have photo with my favorite lumberjack, Paul Bunyan.

We had a couple more of our quilt designs show up in magazines. Canoe Junction made the cover of the September/ October issue of Love of Quilting magazine. It uses Flower Garden Gatherings Fabrics from Moda. Winter Visitor is featured in the November/ December issue of McCall’s Quilting magazine. It uses the Cardinal Woods flannel collection from Northcott Fabrics.

Speaking of lumberjacks, don’t forget about our Quilt Cruise to Alaska’s Inside Passage June 6-13, 2020 aboard the Holland America Eurodam. We will be making the beautiful Northern Star Garden Quilt, a pattern that was designed exclusively for this cruise. It involves shapes that have been precut for you with Accuquilt, a no tear-out the paper, paper pieced center star and Hawaiian (should be called Alaskan) appliqué snowflakes in the border. A different technique for each day were are quilting, while the ship is at sea. When the ship is at sea, it is up to you as to how much time you want to spend sewing. When the ship is in port, you will be able to go into the the ports of Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka and Victoria, BC with your family and friends. This is a trip of a lifetime to one of the most beautiful places on Earth. The trip is over half full, so don’t miss out and sign up today. Here is the link if you are interested in joining us on this cruise. https://quiltretreatatsea.com/quiltinginthewild/

We have created some wonderful free patterns for Accuquilt, which we hope you will enjoy making. They all were designed with Timeless Treasures Fabrics. Speaking of which, we have several new patterns, which will be making their debut at Fall Quilt Market for Timeless Treasures Fabrics. More to come on these patterns at a later date. A couple of them do involve panels, however. The first Accuquilt pattern is Antique Americana, which involves the use of the Hattie’s Choice die. Here is the link for the pattern. https://www.accuquilt.com/go-antique-americana-throw-quilt-pattern.html Then, we have Orange Cream Soda which involved the use of the Studio 6″ setting triangles. Here is the link for that pattern. https://www.accuquilt.com/studio-orange-cream-soda-throw-quilt-pattern.html Sherbet Dreams involves the use of the Glorified Nine Patch die. Here is the link. https://www.accuquilt.com/go-sherbet-dreams-throw-quilt-pattern.html Love Letters uses the Studio 8″ setting triangles. Here is the link for Love Letters. https://www.accuquilt.com/studio-love-letters-throw-quilt-pattern.html And finally, Fall is Coming, which uses the Studio 8″ setting triangles. The link to Fall is Coming. https://www.accuquilt.com/studio-fall-is-coming-throw-quilt-pattern.html

Last, but certainly not least, we have two new patterns making their debut with QT Fabrics at Quilt Market, In Houston, October 2019. They are Fit For a King, which utilizes the Accuquilt Hattie’s Choice die and Kings and Queens. You will be able to purchase these patterns from QT Fabrics, if you are a quilt shop and also from our website, very soon. Fit for a King uses QT Fabrics basic lines, Quilting Illusions and Color Blends. Kings and Queens uses a fat quarter bundle from QT Fabrics Illuminations collection, which will be arriving in shops around April 2020. Kings and Queens pattern is perfect for those fat quarter bundles you would love to turn into a beautiful quilt.

Well, that’s it for now. Happy Quilting till we come back and share more of what’s happening at Blue Bear Quilts.

Posted on July 12, 2019July 12, 2019 by Reed — Leave a comment

Magazine Quilts Galore

Before we get to the magazine quilts, I have to tell you about an exciting discovery that I found. I was perusing the WWW.Accuquilt.com website and i did a search for embroidery patterns. What I discovered was that they have added many new free embroidery downloads for their older dies. We have two patterns that utilize Accuquilt appliqué shapes and now you can download the embroidery files for free, which will make doing the appliqué on these quilts so much easier. This is so exciting! They now have embroidery files for GO! Baby Baby, which has the bear and a duck and GO! Lullaby, which contains the sheep. Here is what they look like all stitched out in the satin stitch. The embroidery files also contain the blanket stitch and a motif stitch.

Here are the two Blue Bear Quilt patterns that use these Accuquilt dies: Dancing with Bears and Where R Ewe?, which are available on our website.

We have had several of our quilts appear in magazines recently. The first was Grandmother’s Garden, made with McKenna Ryan’s batiks in her Seed to Blossom line for Hoffman. This quilt appeared in the May/June 2019 issue of Love of Quilting magazine. The beautiful quilting was done at the Florida Quilting Center and I have included a close up photo of the quilting.

quilting on Mother's Garden — quilting on Mother’s Garden

The next quilt was Addie’s Garden, named after my great niece, appearing in the July/August 2019 issue of McCall’s Quilting magazine. It was made with gorgeous fabrics from the QT Fabrics Adeline line.

The third quilt was called Grandmother’s Garden, appearing in the July/ August 2019 issue of Love of Quilting. It featured fabric from Moda’s Morris Garden line.

We have been very busy creating new quilt designs for Accuquilt and these patterns are available as free downloads on their website. They have a die for making the Cleopatra’s Fan and our quilt pattern is called Cleo’s Garden Gate.

We also created cute mug rug rugs called Spring Medley Mug Rugs.

Finally, for Accuquilt, we created the packaging pattern for their Sea Life Medley die. The pattern included on the package is Fun at Sea Life Medley. We created a second pattern for that die called Storm at Sea Life Medley.

We have some beautiful wooden and acrylic seam rippers for sale on our website. These were created by the husband of one of our students and they are a delight to look at and hold. They take the drudgery out of ripping.

One last thing, we are leading a quilting cruise to Alaska’s Inside Passage on June 6-13, 2020. It is aboard the Holland America Eurodam and departs and returns to that great city in the Pacific Northwest of Seattle. There are quilt shops in every port and we quilt while the ship is at sea so you don’t miss out on any of the fun in the ports. Our sponsor for the cruise is Happy Apple Quilts. Their website is located at www.happyapplequilts.com Please mention that they referred you when registering. The project that we will be working on is called Northern Star Garden. It will involve 3 different techniques: piecing with Accuquilt cut shapes, no fear paper piecing and Hawaiian appliqué. Janome sewing machines and kits will be provided with fantastic fabrics from QT Fabrics.