"The Quilt Ninja"

Hello Quilters Dream extended "Dream Team" family members! We are always thrilled when someone uses and promotes our batting AND even better, includes tutorials for your (okay, our) enjoyment. Well, today is a bonus day for all of us!

Jackie O'Brien, affectionately known as "The Quilt Ninja" to those of us in the Virginia Beach, VA area, is a master quilter. Her specialty is the "One Block Wonder" quilt and her classes on this quilt sell out locally. We were fortunate to have Jackie as part of our working "Dream Team" at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton, VA a few weeks ago.

Jackie has her own blog titled; "If These Threads Could Talk" and we are sharing a link to her blog below. Why? Well, two reasons. Jackie has created mini You Tube videos of the process of making a One Block Wonder. (CLICK HERE TO SEE YOUTUBE TURTORIALS)

 If that isn’t fabulous on its own – Jackie’s latest One Block Wonder she is currently working on (pictured below) will be graciously donated to the Hopes & Dreams Quilt Challenge for ALS!

OBW “Soho Sunflowers”.

We are way beyond thrilled to receive this beauty and equally thrilled that Jackie is a friend of Quilters Dream Batting. You might want to become a follower of Jackie's blog as she always surprises us with happiness. THANKS, JACKIE!

Happy Quilting!

~The Dream Team

 

QuiltCon & Mid-Atlantic Festivals.

February is a busy month for us here at Quilters Dream Batting.  We are hitting the road and bringing our batting to Austin, Texas and Hampton, Virginia for two big quilts shows.

Join Kathy and Neva at booth # 410 in Austin, Texas as we help celebrate the excitement of the Modern Quilt Guild at their first Quilt Con Quilt Festival at the Austin Convention Center the weekend of February 21 – 24, 2013 http://www.quiltcon.com/ .We are excited to showcase our extremely soft and drapeable batting at this show and are equally excited to see YOU and some of the best Modern Quilters in the country, like Angela Walters, Material Girls, Swirly Girls and many others – all of whom either use or sell our batting.

 

That same weekend, February 21 – 24, we will have a very special exhibit at the 24^th Annual Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival at the Hampton Roads Convention Center in Hampton, Virginia http://www.quiltfest.com/activities.asp?id=8 .We are thrilled to be able to showcase quilts donated to the Hopes & Dreams Quilt Challenge for ALS.  This is a wonderful opportunity for us to share with the 10,000+ people anticipated to attend this quilt show just how your love of fabric turned into quilts has truly provided warmth to the laps and hearts of people diagnosed with ALS, and how your quilts are helping to raise much needed funds for ALS Research.  Join Jane and Jennifer at Booth #1015 where you can look at and purchase additional Hopes & Dreams quilts, with 100% of the proceeds going to ALS Research.  http://www.quiltersdreambatting.com/HD/ALS.htm

We’re on the road in February and look forward to seeing you in Austin and Hampton during this month of love. Stayed tuned for pictures and video of all our adventures!!

Happy Quilting!

~The Dream Team

 

Batting made from recycled bottles??!!

 Have you heard of Quilters Dream Green batting?  If not, you won’t believe that is being made from plastic bottles!  Dream Green batting is soft, cozy, and cuddly and is 100% made from recycled bottles – which is why it has such an unusual green color (there must be a lot of Mt. Dew drinkers out there).  You wouldn’t think anything this soft could come from those stiff plastic bottles, but it is true!

 

The plastic bottles are washed and cut into chips, then melted and extruded into fine denier poly microfibers.  Other than the color, these fibers are indistinguishable from virgin polyester fibers.  It is wonderful any time we have the opportunity to recycle and reuse plastic, and this use is just amazing.  Each pound of Dream Green rescues 10 bottles that could be added to the landfills.

 

But why would someone want to use polyester batting?  Dream Green and Dream Poly battings are not the same polyester as you may remember from years ago – the new microfibers mimic the cotton fibers in being breathable, soft and drapeable.  The fibers are so fine that they bend when coming in contact with the fabrics so, like cotton fibers, they also resist bearding.  There is no scrim, glues, or binders that cause resistance to the needle, and the fibers are long enough to provide enough structure for easy machine quilting.

 




Gidget lounging in the Dream Green fibers before it is processed!

Dream Green and Dream Poly battings are becoming more popular with modern quilters for a number of reasons:

·         The poly fibers do not hold moisture so it washes and dries very quickly in the machine or on the line

·         There is no shrinkage, so the quilt will have the same look after washing a hundred times as it did when it was first quilted

·         Dream Poly and Dream Green do not hold a crease – fold and store the quilt (or ship it to a show) and shake it out flat with no worries of fold lines or wrinkles.

·         The fibers are needle-punched so you get the right amount of loft – not too puffy and just lofty enough to show off the stitches

 

Give the friendly “Dream Team” at Quilters Dream Batting a call (888-268-8664) or email quiltersdreambatting@juno.comfor a free sample square of the Dream Green, and a mini sample of all the lovely battings made by Quilters Dream!  (We’ve stocked up on samples so there are plenty to go around!)

 

Happy Quilting!

 ~The Dream Team

 

 

Keep Calm and Let It Snow.



The heart of the oceanfront in Virginia Beach, Va

 

We speak to so many customers’ everyday and hear about the weather from all over the country. After hearing what some people tell us, some of us in the office want to move to Florida to bask in the warm sun while others prefer to visit the mountains to breathe in the fresh cold air.

This past weekend Virginia Beach got some snow. It wasn’t much maybe a GOOD inch or so. We never get much snow here so the whole town usually freaks out and the grocery stores are packed with people fighting over cases and cases of water and canned goods! It’s kind of funny to be honest. My preparation was a pot roast and a few bottles of wine. It was so nice to be cozy with a full belly lounging in my pajamas on the couch by 5pm but by 5:30 I started to go a little stir crazy. I had cabin fever within an hour?!  What do you do to entertain yourself when you are cooped up in the house?

 

Happy Quilting!

 ~The Dream Team

Getting Back To Basics

This past weekend my family hatched two tiny fuzzy chicks in an incubator in our spare bedroom. I am a logic-minded person, and hatching eggs and raising chickens is not a logical thing to do. The cost of the incubator, feeder, waterer, & special food, let alone chicken coop, run, etc. is nowhere near worth the return of the few fresh free range eggs I will get! However, as a quilter, I am certain you know and appreciate the true value of this project. It seems that over the years we have become an over processed country. The pre-packackaged, perfectly made, beautiful goods we buy and use are cheaper and more convenient than what we can possibly make ourselves. Happily, there is a movement that is slowly taking hold. This is a shift in values from what is perfectly manufactured toward the handmade, handgrown, handraised & more personal. In appreciation for the time, skill, effort and love that is sewn into every stitch, a handmade quilt is far more valuable than any blanket purchased from a store. This is an age when time is more valuable than money. Anyone can go out and buy a mass produced bauble, but it is extra special for someone to take the time make a unique creation. Each personal gift is truly a treasure! Each minute and hour spent working on a project, or raising homegrown goods, is a gift to the person engaged in the effort. In some ways, the journey is even more valuable than the destination.

This is why I know that the first tiny egg I find from one of these new chickens my family is having so much fun raising will be more precious to me than all the perfectly sized, cleaned, stark white, prepackaged eggs in the supermarket! (Let’s just hope they turn out to be chickens and not roosters!)  

Happy Quilting!

 ~The Dream Team