Southwind Inspirations

Onward to Yellowstone! Every curve in the road was another great vista and inspiration! So much to see and take in, so little time. Next we were traveling from Jackson, Wyoming through the park to Belgrade, MT, where we stayed for several days and took trips from there to Virginia City, MT the Lewis and Clark Caverns and last not least embarked on our Motorcycle trip over the Bear-tooth Pass. Making our way from the Grand Tetons to Yellowstone and stopped to take photos of these Spectacular Mountains! A River runs through it - everywhere or most everywhere we went.     Old Faithful! we waited just under half an hour to see this spectacular geyser eruption and it was so worth the wait!  The Great Prism Basin The colors are so vibrant - and hot - steam is wafting up and micro-organisms are making rust colored  carpets along the edges of the pools.

of Bear Cubs, Snake River Float and a little Hiking in the Grand Tetons continuation of my September Newsletter! Welcome to Southwind Inspirations Inspiring Today's Quilters with Dimensional Curves Traveling for fun is a special treat! Especially for a traveling teacher.  It is true - I seem to be traveling more than ever, but this trip had been a long time in the making and we planned and changed and planned for a long time. We had so much fun and it was very different traveling with my husband and going on an official vacation without care or obligations, an extra treat for both of us. We had decided to spend our 25th anniversary traveling through the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone and so I booked 7 different hotel rooms and we logged roughly 1500 miles by car and another 600 on a rented Motorcycle. Time flew by much too fast and we have been back a few weeks already.  It took all this time for me to catch up with everything around Southwind Designs and this

Inspiring Today's Quilters with Dimensional Curves Grape Jelly from my Garden! Summer is a time of exploration.  I always look forward to some extra design and quilting time to create new patterns and finish some of my many waiting projects. Sometimes I get overrun by other events such as things growing in my garden. A few years ago I received a concord grapevine from my dear friend, Louise.  I planted it along my fence and waited patiently for something more than leaves to grow.  Nothing happened the first year and I heard that concord vines don't grow well in North Carolina, the land of the scupper-not grapes.  I added another concord grape vine to move things along. Finally, this spring - much to my surprise - I saw tiny little flowers emerging from below the dense leaves.  The flowers turned into small grapes and finally turned a luscious purple color.  Since I only have two grapevines and the grapes took their time ripening, I collected as many purple

Good Morning - Today its our turn to blog about a Notion discovered at Quilt Market. My special featured tool is a ruler:    Bias Binding Simplified, designed by Janice Pope for Creative Grids . I can’t wait to show it to my students since it makes bias binding so easy .  Best of all, the ruler has all the instructions printed right on it, so there is never a question on how to use it.     It is 21” long on it’s longest side and has a 45° angle on one side, it is 2½” wide with an added 2¼” line for cutting binding in two sizes. Why even worry about Bias Binding? - Bias Binding is much stronger than straight-of-grain binding and absolutely essential to bind quilts with rounded corners or curvy edges.  Bias binding will smooth out around curves and make the binding lay flat and pucker free.  Once you use bias binding you will want to use it for most of your quilts -  I definitely do, even for small quilts and table runners. Here is another fun use for the ruler

Swirly Girls Designs are blogging about the Creative Grids Kite Plus Ruler.  Check it out.

Don't miss Laura Blanchard's blog about Red Sew Glasses!

Click on the logo for Perkins Dry Goods to find out about Corner Cutter Tool for Fast Flying Geese.

Let Brenda's blog tell you all about Sewlite Task Lighting!

Click below to hop over to Wendt Quilting and find out the latest information about a neat binding tool.

Check out Seams Like a Dream Quilt Designs and find out about this neat sewing guide!

Click on the logo to see the Fat Quarter Gypsy's blog about Binding Clips

Notion Commotion 2 Join our Notion Commotion and hop over to Janice Pope's blog to find out about a neat Mini Mug Mat http://anythingbutboring.com/blog/

Come see us at the Original Sewing and Quilting Expo , June 26, 27, 28 2014 in Raleigh, NC.  Showtimes are from 10:00am to 6:00pm! We are showing a large variety of our brand-new quilts and patterns in our first booth at the Expo.  We can't wait to see everyone and are looking forward to connecting and reconnecting with a lot of our quilting friends.  So come see us in Booth 316 ! Meet the Whoo's at the Expo!   This is just one of our brand new patterns:  Whoo's There?  This and many other patterns and fun things are ahead.  Keep tuned to the blog and our facebook page for previews and more news.  If you can't wait and want to see all the new patterns, browse our Southwind Designs website