quilts – 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 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.

Quilt Cruise project- Northern Star Garden

Posted on September 21, 2017September 22, 2017 by Reed — 14 Comments

Greek Isles Modern Quilt

For the 2017 Blogger’s Quilt Festival, I thought I would share Blue Bear’s most popular pattern, Greek Isles Modern.

This pattern is much easier than it looks. It is made with 2.5″ strips of white and 2.5″ strips of light, medium and dark batiks, that you may obtain from jelly rolls, or cut on your 2.5″ strip die with your Accuquilt Go! Cutter. The blocks are all constructed the same way, and placement is what determines the pattern. At 70 x 90,” it is the perfect quilt to curl up with on the couch for binge watching your favorite Netflix shows.

Here is a picture of Kim at Keep Me in Stitches in Largo, Florida, quilting this beauty; followed by a close up of her fantastic quilting.

Here are several more photos of the quilt out and about.

I have taught this class several times and here are some of my students interpretations of the quilt. Click on the links for short videos. They did a fantastic job!

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If you would like to purchase this pattern, it is available on our website here, www.bluebearquilts.com, or on Craftsy here- https://www.craftsy.com/quilting/patterns/greek-isles-modern-quilt/490532

Sharing at the Blogger’s Quilt Festival hosted by Amy’s Creative Side.

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Reed — Leave a comment

Week 7- September 26, 2016- Block of the Week- Log Cabin- Part 2

As we discussed in Part 1 last week, this is a excellent block for beginning quilters to learn how to quilt. It is the pattern that I used when I was first learning to quilt. The most recommended book to make this pattern is “Make a Quilt in a Day- Log Cabin Pattern” by Eleanor Burns. So many people, including me, have used this book to make their first quilt. Thus, Quilt in a Day and Eleanor Burns are endeared to many quilter’s. Eleanor was a school teacher and her patterns are clearly written and easy to follow. The book is pictured in the photo below.

Quilt in a Day Log Cabin Pattern — Log Cabin Pattern

One helpful tool that the book contains is a paste-up sheet, where you lay out all of your fabric samples to see if you have a good mixture of lights and darks. An additional trick that I learned was to photocopy this sheet with the fabrics on it as it will highlight the contrasting tonal values for you. Here is a photo of the paste-up sheet that I did for my first quilt and a photo of it photocopied. To obtain the desired pattern effects, you want a strong contrast between the lights and darks. Remember this was my first quilt and I now see that I could have done a better job of making a stronger contrast between the lights and darks. Today, I would have made the pink center square darker and the two outer light colors lighter. This palette with the floral fabrics created a very country look and today I would most likely shy away from that as well. This quilt pattern is also good for a beginner as you can quilt it yourself by quilting straight stitches in the ditch.

This pattern is very versatile and can result is many different looks, depending on how you rotate the blocks. Let’s take a look at the traditional quilt from last week laid out 8 different ways. Depending on the fabrics you use and the layout, this traditional pattern can take on a modern look. I think that Whirligig and Navajo have a more modern spin to them.

My favorite is “Positive/Negative” as I love how the lights and darks create a a dimensional feel to the pattern. Which one is your favorite?

Next week, we will look at the Wild Geese Block which can create some fun modern patterns.

Posted on July 27, 2016August 23, 2016 by Reed — Leave a comment

New easy pattern for your holiday and Christmas gift giving

New Easy Pattern just in time for the holidays.

The Bear has just released a new pattern called, “Snow Angels.” It is part of their BB Sew Easy Series of patterns that are designed for beginners. The pattern involves a center panel that is surrounded by half square triangles. This would be a great gift to give someone that is new to quilting and just getting started. It is also great for more experienced quilters to have a quick project that they can sew up as gifts for someone special on their holiday gift giving list.

Here is a link where you can download this adorable pattern for just $7.95:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/468515609/snow-angels-quilt-pattern-baby-quilt?ref=shop_home_feat_4

During the Dog Days of the summer, this pattern looks very refreshing!

Posted on April 28, 2016August 23, 2016 by Reed — Leave a comment

When Doves Fly- Tribute to Prince Blue Bear’s latest quilt pattern.

Blue Bear was busy creating blocks for a contest, when he created this purple one that looks like birds flying. With Prince’s passing, he thought it would be a nice tribute to Prince, so he named it, “When Doves Fly.” It has 6 alternative layouts in the pattern; some are more organized and some are disorganized. This would be a great wall hanging for a modern loft or apartment. It would also look great in a student’s dorm room. The link to purchase this pattern is at the bottom of this post.

One of Many Possible Layouts
http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/quilting/home-decor/when-doves-fly/203859

Posted on April 28, 2016September 5, 2016 by Reed — Leave a comment

Box of Chocolate Covered Cherries pattern is now available on Craftsy

Box of Chocolate Covered Cherries Quilt Pattern

Continue reading Box of Chocolate Covered Cherries pattern is now available on Craftsy

Posted on April 12, 2016August 23, 2016 by Reed — Leave a comment

Blue Bear’s Accuquilt Contest Block

Grandma's Nectie Garden — Grandma’s Nectie Garden

The bear has entered a quilt block design contest and would love to win for the exposure that it would give him as a new quilt designer. He would love it is you would help him by clicking on the link below and voting for his block. He tells me that you can vote every 24 hours until 4/22. Silly bear. Even though, he does seem to be a pretty good designer.

http://www.accuquilt.com/shop/contest?confirmed=vote&entry_id=92192705

You need to confirm your email once, but you will not be put on their email list unless you check the box to opt into their emails. He wants me to ask you to ask your friends to help as well. Pesky bear, but it is a pretty quilt block and we would like for him to design some more.

Blue Bear and his friends thank you so much for your assistance!

Update: Blue Bear won the Fan’s Choice Award. Thank you everyone for all your help and your votes!

Posted on April 6, 2016September 6, 2016 by Reed — Leave a comment

Blue Blear Quilt Kits & More’s first pattern

Blue Bear Quilt Kits & More’s first pattern has gone live on Craftsy. It is a perfect quilt for a newborn baby or a young toddler. Children will be so excited to show everyone the teddy bears dancing around the blue stars on their very own quilt. This is a beginner quilt project and if you can sew a 1/4″ seam and a blanket stitch, you can make this quilt in a weekend. Blue Bear will have the kits available for this quilt pattern in their Etsy store very soon.