Here’s the project from the class, photo courtesy of Quilter’s Paradise.

LOVE the exotic fabrics. Thanks gals for being fabulous neighbors and for using my teapots!!

Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

Teapots 2 to Appliqué!

Tea With Jane, 51 x 43

Isn’t it beautiful? I especially love how Marion mixed scale in the teapots. Dynamic!

Marion told me that the colours in the quilt were inspired by the tiles in Jane’s new kitchen.

That’s my kind of comfortable, lived-in kitchen, complete with funny kid! And does Marion’s daughter not look like Victoria Beckham??

Marion was visiting America at the time of the Lancaster show this year and bought the fabric from those vendors.

Thank you, Marion for choosing Teapots 2 for your daughter’s kitchen. It’s a beautiful project and I hope you all will enjoy it for years to come.

Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

There are a dozen dolls and cute dresses, plus instructions for a sampler quilt to show off the entire collection.

Doll Shoppe by Kay Mackenzie

Dolls & Dresses is available at By Kay Mackenzie. I’ve created a coupon just for readers of this blog and my newsletter (but feel free to tell your friends). If you’d like to appliqué some dolls, or order anything else from the website, put 2OFF in the coupon code area of the shopping cart and you’ll save $2 bucks off your next order! Plus, the current company special is a free copy of Home: A Heartfelt Nap Quilt with any book order. Such a deal!

Oh yeah… as if pushing out a new book from my company and working on a new book for Martingale weren’t enough, I decided to put out a new pattern too. Meet Sweet!

Available on the Patterns page at the website.

Until next time,
Doin’ the happy new-book dance,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

The story of this bright, beautiful quilt, which uses patterns from my Teapots to Appliqué:

My quilting bee was asked by by son’s girlfriend, Lyndsay Benson, to help her DAR chapter make a teapot quilt. The name of their chapter is the Wilmington Ladies Tea Walk Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

We began this project in October of 2008. My bee, which is part of the Quilters by the Sea Guild of Wilmington, North Carolina, attended one of the Tea Walk meetings to show them how to applique and quilt. Each person in my bee and each lady in the chapter were given a choice of the teapot patterns and then made their block from material that was chosen for the project.

The quilt will be used as a raffle to make money for the projects that the chapter does for the community. As you can see there was hand quilting, machine quilting, hand applique, and machine applique as each person did their own thing. After getting all the blocks back, I then put them together and added the teacups in the corners and the border. It was really a fun quilt to do.

Ann, this bright quilt is brightening your community in so many ways. Your bee took time to teach appliqué and quilting to the chapter, and you all collaborated to benefit the good programs of the DAR. I love the fact that all kinds of appliqué and quilting come together in this way. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for choosing my teapot patterns for this wonderful group project. I hope it raises lots of $$ for the cause. By the way, did you know that North Carolina is my home state? I grew up in Chapel Hill.

I think those are picnic ants making off with a chocolate chip cookie.

Teapots to Appliqué, which was my first collection of teapots, is now out of print, but an unbound pattern pack is available on my website. Teapots 2 to Appliqué is still in print.

Still smiling at the cheerful teapots,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

I’m so proud.

Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

Gloria gave me an order on the spot for a batch of the books and told me of her plans to make a sample to hang in her booth. Since that time she has become a wonderful friend and a mentor to me, sharing her knowledge of area quilt shows and giving me great tips. Every time I would talk to her or see her at a show she would tell me that the baskets were coming along. Last spring I saw the blocks, completed but not set together yet. They were just gorgeous… soft and rich looking.

Well, at the recent River City Quilt Guild show in Sacramento, I checked in with her during setup and there was the quilt, finished and up on the wall.

Victorian Baskets by Gloria Foley

Wow!!! Look at that red setting. Talk about punch! It looks so different from mine, I love it! Gloria used needleturn appliqué and, instead of a dogtooth border, she used prairie points in the border.

Sixteen Baskets by Kay Mackenzie

At the Sacramento show, people had fun walking back and forth between our booths to look at the two versions.

Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

Here’s the full quilt with the borders.

When the book first came out, I put up a blog post showing the quilt on the wall as it went through construction. It’s funny to see how it takes shape. Check out the My New Home post.

Over on my appliqué blog, I showed some smaller projects that I made using motifs from the book, hanging from darling little wire hangers. That’s at Little Homes.

If you’d like to win this pattern booklet for a comfy cozy nap quit, with complete construction information and full-size patterns, leave a comment before 7:00 p.m. California time on Wednesday, November 11. (U.S. and Canada only unless you’d be willing to pay the shipping.)

Until then,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

Lo and behold, there’s an absolutely beautiful teapot quilt made by Pat Besenhofer, and I recognize it as being from my Teapots 2 to Appliqué. What an internet find! Pat and Nancy both graciously agreed to let me use the photos and put up a Show & Tell of my own.

Asian Teapot quilt made by Pat Besenhofer, quilted by Nancy Gambrel.

Look at the elegant quilted frames surrounding each teapot, setting them off just so.

Pat writes,

This is so cool. My quilt is indeed based on your book Teapots to Applique 2. I would be thrilled to have my quilt shown on your website. And to think it isn’t even bound yet! I’m glad that Nancy and I spent so much time exchanging ideas about the quilting, I think the frame she did works beautifully with the teapots and the corner diamonds.

I’ve been a tea person all of my life, and I get so tired of patterns featuring coffee, espresso’s and latte’s, etc., so I snatched up this book (as well as the first one) when I saw it at the all-the-quilt-books-in-the-world vendor at the Rosemont, Illinois, Quilt Festival a a year or two ago.

This is the first quilt I’ve made with a definite location in mind; it’s going to go in my kitchen. I’ve been second-guessing myself on the pattern, wondering if I should have placed one or more teapots going the other way, or adding a teacup in one spot for a bit of whimsy. I’m happy that you like it as is.

Pat told me that the quilt was done with fusible raw-edge applique. In order to get the teapots facing the ‘correct’ way, she copied the positive images, then flipped the paper to create a reverse image to draw on the fusible web. Pat, that’s just the way I do it. Nancy stitched down the edges of the fusible applique with clear thread.

A beautiful job, both Pat and Nancy!

Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

First up is a copy of my new book Easy Appliqué Blocks: 50 Designs in 5 Sizes, generously provided by my publisher, That Patchwork Place.

Easy Appliqué Blocks by Kay Mackenzie

I’m just thrilled with how this book came out! There are 50 different designs, all different subjects, ranging from traditional-looking to fun and whimsical. I kept ‘ease of appliqué’ in mind for all of them! There’s also in-depth, fully illustrated instructions for two types of hand appliqué and an overview of machine appliqué. The thing that I love most is that there’s a CD included that enables you to print out the block you want in the size and orientation you want, right at home! No more blowing up or reversing of patterns.

So let me know if you’d like to win this book by leaving a comment before 7:00 p.m. California time on Friday, October 16, 2009. U.S. and Canada only, unless you’re willing to pay the shipping.

Cheers,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

In the spirit of Christmas in July, I’m sending Linda a copy of my book
A Merry Little Christmas to Appliqué.

(Does this mean I’m supposed to be thinking about my own Christmas list? I better add that to my list!)

Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs