Welcome AccuQuilt Readers!

I'm proud to tell you that I am the Spotlight Blogger today on AccuQuilt's consumer newsletter.  YEA!  I'm not making this up to be nice to AccuQuilt..... but I really enjoy my relationship with them.  They have a strong commitment to customer service.... plus they're just plain nice folks.  As a retailer, I work with dozens of vendors, and the people at AccuQuilt are among the best.

Those of you who are long time readers of this blog have seen my Double Wedding Ring quilt.  I never could have done it without my GO!  Well.... I COULD have...... but it would have taken me eons!

Check out the AccuQuilt post..... and be sure to sign up for their consumer newsletter to receive spotlight posts from other bloggers!

Below is the post from AccuQuilt on 4/25/12

Happily Ever After

by Sue Hauser, Alderwood Quilts

My name is Sue Hauser and I have the best job in the world! I am the owner of Alderwood Quilts, an online quilt shop. I blog, teach and sell lots of great products online. I’m proud to be associated with AccuQuilt because I honestly believe their die cutting systems help quilters, and because I know that customer service is as important to them as it is to me. Read more about blogger.

When our son told us that he was getting married, I knew that I just had to make a Double Wedding Ring quilt. I started right away using plastic templates to cut the pieces. I soon realized that I would have several grandchildren before I would get the quilt finished! So I tried other approaches—paper piecing (which I love to do), foundation fabrics, as well as other templates. While all of these other approaches were fine, I was feeling very overwhelmed with this project. I then saw that AccuQuilt had a GO! Double Wedding Ring die set and thought I’d give that a try. WOW! I knew right away that THIS was how I was going to cut my quilt!
The GO!® Double Wedding Ring die set (55078) gives quilters a few different options when designing their quilts. The large shape colored in pink is the center of the block. The “football shape” (blue) is sandwiched with 2 arcs. These arc units are then nestled into each side of the center shape. You have the option of making the outer arc from one solid shape (colored orange here), or by piecing the small shapes (pink) or by using a combination of solid and pieced arcs. There are so many possibilities!
Before purchasing fabric for your quilt, you’ll need to do some planning. Decide how big you would like your finished quilt to be, and what sort of color pallet you would like to use. One finished block is 11 1/2" each direction. The last block in the row (or first block, depending on how you look at it) will need one additional arc/football unit to complete the row. This is about another 6". We’ll refer to the football shape surrounded by two arc shapes as the “arc units” here. Take your desired measurement and see how many times you can divide 11.5 (plus 6" for the extra arc unit) into that number. It might not give you your desired measurement exactly, but decide how many blocks you want to make to get as close as you can.

Each additional row will share the arc units of the previous row on one side. (If you just multiply the number of blocks you want to make by four—that will give you too many arc units). When you have calculated how many centers, and how many arc units you will need, you are ready to calculate the total number of shapes you need. You will need one center shape for each block. For each arc unit, you will need one “football” shape, two square end pieces, six of the small center shapes, and four of the small angled shapes. The directions that come with the die set assign letters to the shapes and give you some very clear diagrams to see how they all fit together.
The amount of each fabric you will need depends on how you decide to arrange your colors. Figure how many of each piece you will need of each of your fabrics. To conserve fabric, you will rough-cut pieces that are a little larger than the shapes you want to cut. You can do this easily by cutting strips of fabric just a little wider than the shape. You can “accordion fold” the strip to give you six layers of fabric. After a few cuts, you’ll get into a rhythm and the cutting will go fairly quickly. I was able to cut the shapes for a king size quilt (105" x 105" - 64 blocks) in about a week, working a few hours each day. And that includes pre-washing and pressing fabrics. I never could have done that without the GO!

The AccuQuilt GO! ® Fabric Cutter will cut your shapes with great precision. It’s very important to sew accurate 1/4" seams when assembling the pieces. When I was assembling the shapes, I used a few tricks to check myself along the way. I cut one solid arc shape. After assembling the small shapes to make an arc, I checked the pieced arc against the solid arcs to make sure my piecing was accurate.
It’s important to stay organized when piecing the arcs. If you make piles and use labels, you’ll save yourself time and frustration. Chain-piecing helps, too!

When you start assembling the units, take your time. Really pay attention to your accuracy. It helped me to take a few stitches in place, leave my needle down, lift my presser foot, and pivot the fabric when I came to the points. Press often, and do your best to press seams in opposing directions to reduce bulk on the back. If your fabric feels a little limp after pre-washing, it may help your accuracy to use spray starch or pressing spray.

When it’s time to bind your quilt, use a tape measure to measure around the perimeter and add several inches to that number to determine the length of binding needed. It’s critical that you use bias binding for this quilt. I also found that it helped to use a binding that was a little thinner than I generally use. Take your time and maintain your accurate 1/4" seam when applying the binding, paying close attention to your accuracy when you reach the point where the arcs meet. It helped me to take a few stitches in place when I arrived at that point and pivot the fabric. In a few cases, I actually took my needle out and adjusted the fabric before resuming my stitching.

I’m thrilled with my finished quilt and I’m sure my son and his wife will treasure it and hand it down to the next generation. I’m so thankful that I had my GO! to cut the shapes. The accuracy I was able to achieve using the GO! helped me to create a king size quilt that hangs flat as a pancake!

My quilt won the first place Viewers’ Choice Award at our guild quilt show, and it will be shown in the International Quilt Festival of Ireland in the summer of 2012. The picture above was taken at that Westside Quilters Guild show in Hillsboro, Oregon in 2011. I’m on the left and my long-arm quilter, Sandy Pennington, is on the right.

I’m going to make another Double Wedding Ring quilt soon for my other son and his wife. I’ll be blogging about it in detail at
www.alderwoodquilts.blogspot.com.

Watch Video:
How to use the GO!® Fabric Cutter
to cut the Double Wedding Ring Die Set

Watch Video:
How to use the Studio™ Fabric Cutter
to cut the Double Wedding Ring Die Set

About Blogger:

Sue Hauser has been sewing since she was 12 years old and has been an avid quilter for the last 15 years. She is the owner of Alderwood Quilts, an online quilt shop based just outside of Portland, Oregon. She and her husband also own a small lavender farm. When she’s not sewing, you’re likely to find her in her lavender field tending the fragrant crop.
www.alderwoodquilts.com
www.sunsetlavender.com

Quick Kitchen Towels with my Accuquilt GO

 I thought you might like to see a quick project I did with my Accuquilt GO!  I made these 3 little kitchen towels for my son and daughter-in-law to use in their new kitchen.  I used the GO! Birds die (#55324).




I backed 3 pieces of fabric with Steam-a-Seam Light (you can use whatever fusible product you prefer).

Then, I cut a few of all 3 birds and wings from each of the 3 different fabrics. I mixed up the colors and laid them on the 3 towels- rearranging them until I was happy.  I followed the directions on the fusible paper to fuse the shapes to the towels.

Note:  The GO! instructions say that I should not put more than 6 layers of fabric through the machine at a time.  When the fabric is backed with fusible paper, it counts as 2 thicknesses, so I only put 3 layers at a time through the machine.  Never overload the GO!

I then used a blanket stitch on my sewing machine to go around all of the shapes.  I used a skinny satin stitch to make little legs and feet and a dot of an eye.

Voila!  A quick and fun gift!

Note that I used flat towels.  You can experiment with plush towels, but the fusible won't behave the same.

Who's playing with her new AccuQuilt GO! ???

I'm sure lots of people are!  Do you remember Teresa, who won the GO! giveaway on this blog?  She exercised impressive self control, and finished up the project she was working on before starting one with her GO!  What can I say- she's an accountant.  She probably has a tidy sewing area and knows where to find all of her patterns, too.  But I like her, anyway.  :-)

Teresa is starting on Bountiful Baskets and she says they are going together really fast.  That's how it is with the GO!  You still have to sew- the quilts don't make themselves.  But cutting takes a lot of the time when making a quilt, and the GO! slices that time way down.  We can't wait to see this when it's done, Teresa!

Teresa's blog... It's All Good.

And ME?  Well.... I've gotten back to my blogging and now I'm getting back to quilting.  I'm working on several projects right now (I'm sure I'd drive Teresa nuts).  I haven't forgotten that I promised you a detailed tutorial on the Double Wedding Ring quilt.  I was working so hard on the wedding quilt, right up to the last minute and didn't take as many photos as I would have liked.  But the good news is that i am going to make another one- for my other son and his wife.  They got married 2 1/2 years ago and I never made them a wedding quilt.  I want to get working on it and spend some dedicated time each week so it can (hopefully) be done for their anniversary this summer.  I'll blog about it as I go, and I won't be as rushed so you'll get plenty of detail.

The black and red DWR that I gave to my younger son and his wife for their wedding a few days after Christmas is actually not totally done.  It looked done in the pictures, but the longarm quilter wanted to do a little more on it, so I gave it back to her after the wedding photos were taken.  And of course, I don't have it bound yet.  As soon as I get it back, I'll show you close ups of the quilting and show you how to make bias binding and bind a quilt with a scalloped edge.  We'll be doing lots of DWR tutorials over the next 5 months or so.

Planned for this year with the GO! are a Dresden Plate, a Hexagon quilt, and a Chisel quilt, for starters.  I'm going on a few quilt retreats this spring so I should be able to take a good bite out of my project list.  My quilt guild has a "UFO Contest" going so I'll be doing a big push to finish things up for the next few months.

Speaking of retreats.... well.... I think I'll save that for tomorrow. :-)

Progress on the DWR

I can see light at the end of the tunnel!

I haven't been posting a lot lately because I've been SEWING!!!!  Sewing, sewing, sewing!  I had a goal to make this king size double wedding ring quilt in 4 weeks.  I'm on week number 5 and it's looking like it will take me about 6 weeks.  I'm doing 9 rings across and 9 rings down (that sounds less scary than 81 rings).  Each ring is 11 inches across.  I measure from any spot to the same spot on the next ring.  I can't bring myself to call these things "blocks".  I have all of my rings done and now I'm putting them together.  In a "normal" quilt--- putting them together is usually the easy part.  Not so with this thing!  What I wouldn't give for a straight line right now.

I've taken some pictures of the process and I promise to do a very detailed tutorial complete with tips and pitfalls.... but that takes time and I'm going to do it after I get my top done.  I'm on a deadline and... well.... you know how it goes.

Back to the sewing machine with me......

Lucky Number 1342!!!

It's gonna be a very happy Monday for Teresa!  Teresa is the very, very lucky winner of the AccuQuilt GO! Giveaway! 

I plugged the number 1408 (the number of entries) into the random number generator and it gave me number 1342. (If you're interested, you can find this tool at www.random.org)

Comment number 1342 belongs to Teresa, from Homer Glen, Il.  She also has a blog and it's called, It's All Good, which is appropriately named because I'm sure that's how she'll be feeling when she reads this!  She has some cute projects on her blog- you should check it out!  I look forward to chatting with Teresa and getting to know her.  Woo Hoo!  Another new friend!  One time, when my son was a little boy, he said, "Mommy- do you know everybody?"  I said, "Not yet, Honey, but I'm working on it!"

The fine folks at AccuQuilt (and I really do mean that- they've been wonderful to work with) only asked me to do a tutorial to participate in their program.  I'm pretty sure I've done that, but I have no intention of stopping here.  I will be finishing the Double Wedding Ring quilt and showing you my experience with the GO! along the way.  I will also be doing the Winding Ways, and Dresden Plate quilts with the GO! and I'll blog about them.  The tutorials I do with the GO! projects will be of interest to you regardless of whether or not you own one of these wonderful machines, because once the shapes are cut, you still have to do some sewing! :-)  The GO! just makes the cutting go lightening fast so you can get to the sewing part sooner.  I'm sure Teresa will be doing some projects, too, and I'll be following along and will be sure to show her creations as well.  (No pressure, Teresa.... HA!)

Thank you to all who have entered.  I especially appreciate all of the new followers to this blog.  I realize that many of you signed up to follow in order to get another entry in the contest, but I hope you find this blog interesting and that you'll stop by once in a while. I do a giveaway just about every month- not as good as this one, but still fun!

CONGRATULATIONS, TERESA!!!!!!

Giveaway update

We're getting close!  The giveaway ends On October 31st at midnight PST (Oregon time).  But I plan to be asleep, so I'll select the winner on the morning of November 1st.  I will delete any names that come in after midnight, though.  It will be a happy Monday for some lucky reader!

I'm blown away by all of the entries and all of my new followers.  I hoe you will keep reading after the giveaway is over.  I know I missed some, but I tried to click on most of your blogs.  I've totally enjoyed peeking into your crafting lives!  I'm very sad, though, that a LOT of those who have entered are "no reply" bloggers.  Some of you have asked questions or made nice comments and I can't reply to you because I don't have contact information.  I really do understand if you want to keep your email private, but I know that most of you don't know I can't contact you.  Try clicking on your own name and see what happens!  I try to reply to most comments.  If you leave comments (other than the giveaway entry) and I never reply to you- that's a big clue that your profile has you set up as "no reply".

If the random number generator selects your name and I can't contact you, I'll announce it in a great big font on here and give you 24 hrs to contact me.  After that, if I don't hear from you, I'll select another name.  I'm just mentioning this again to remind you to check the blog on Nov 1st.... you never know!  Remember- I once one a cruise when I bought ONE raffle ticket!

Even after the giveaway is over, I'll be doing lots of posts with projects using the GO!  I have the fabric selected for a Dresden Plate, a Winding Ways and a Hexie quilt.  I'll be showing you the GO! and how I use it, but all of these posts are useful even if you are using traditional cutting methods. 

I wish I ha a hundred of these things to giveaway.... but I can hardly wait to announce the lucky winner!

Arcs for the Double Wedding Ring and pressing tips

I'm moving along with my arcs for the Double Wedding Ring!  I now have 200 arcs sewn together.  Here is a pile of the finished reds.  I thought I had more red and white fabric that leaned toward the white.  But most of the fabrics in my collected pile ended up being more red... so that's what I went with.

I'd like to show you how I got to this point.

After a little practice, I settled on a way to cut the pieces to place on the die.  I first I ironed the fabric.  (more about that later).    I folded my fabric in half, and then again in thirds, to get these long strips that fit one of the pieces I wanted to cut.  I wanted to allow enough fabric to completely cover the shape, yet not waste a lot of fabric.  This is something you have to practice a bit.  I haven't seen many tips about this.  It was something I just had to play with on my own.

I ended up with some pieces that were a little bigger than the shape I wanted.  I made piles of 6 pieces of fabric.  

The way I accordion folded the fabric, half of the pieces are right side up and half are upside down.  If you look at the arc, the 3 shapes in the middle are identical, and they are symmetrical, so it doesn't make any difference if the fabric is place right side or wrong side up.  But the shapes on the far left and far right are NOT symmetrical.  I cut half right side up (for the shape on the left) and half right side down (for the shape on the right).  This accordion fold took care of that.  All of my cuts were half up and half down so everything came out OK.

I place the pile on the shape I want to cut, and then run it through the machine.  I must note here that it would be a lot more efficient if I had all my piles together and cut 2 shapes with one pass under the rollers.  But I was trying to keep my colors and shapes and the correct number of each all straight- and I opted to do one pile at a time.  Maybe I'll get better at this in time.

Here's a pile of my scraps.  I think I did pretty well at keeping the waste to a minimum.  This can go either way with the GO!.  You can waste a lot if you don't plan well.  But if you think about it, you really can do very well conserving fabric.

Here's a partial pile (I cut a lot more).  I used sticky notes to keep myself organized.

  You can see the 3 in the middle are symmetrical and the shapes on the left and right lean out.  On the far right, you see a single sewn strip.  To assemble the strips, I laid out the shapes for about 10 or 20 arcs.....

.... and then piled them IN ORDER.  I put the piles in front of my sewing machine.  I strip pieced the first 2 piles, then added the third... etc.... to the 5th pile.

Then to the ironing board.  I have several irons and ironing boards.  I have fat boards and big boards- you name it.  This board belongs to a friend.  Do you know this trick?  When you're doing quilting, you need space.  You don't need the skinny end of the ironing board to the left because you aren't ironing sleeves or anything 3-dimensional.  So, flip the ironing board around with the skinny end to the right and put the iron on the skinny end and you have more area to work.  Reverse this if you are a lefty.

I said I'd talk more about ironing.  BEFORE YOU START ANY CUTTING, you MUST iron your fabric.  I used some Best Press.  It's especially important to press if you pre-wash.  I usually pre-wash but not always.  With a black and red and white quilt, I kinda want the white to stay white, so I pre-washed.  It only takes one bleeding fabric to ruin your day.  Unwashed fabric usually looks pretty good,  but even if you think your fabric is not very wrinkled, press anyway.  I mean it.  This is not up for discussion.  And it's not just when using the GO!  Your iron is a sewing tool.  It can be your best friend if you're nice to it.  When pressing, treat it like a child or a pet.  Be firm.  Show it who is in charge.  But be kind.  Don't ever use a "scooping" motion or "dig" into the fabric with the point of the iron.  Be aware of the grain and be very gentle when pressing against the bias.  I like to use the side of my iron when pressing seams to the side.  I use the side up close to the tip, and try to get the whole seam at the same time- spreading out the pressure exerted by the iron.  This gives a gentle pressure along the seam and doesn't tend to distort the piece.  I also press both sides.  I start with the wrong side up and then I turn it over and press the right side up.  When pressing seams to the side, I tug JUST A LITTLE on the fabric to put a tiny little bit of stress on the seams and get them nice and flat.  DON'T read that as "pulling hard or yanking on the fabric".  Really.... just a tiny little bit of tension on the fabric to open it up and avoid a crease at the seam. I don't have my left hand in the picture pulling it for 2 reasons.  I didn't want anyone to see a picture of me pulling the fabric and think I want them to stretch the fabric out.  It's hard to show "gentle" in a picture.  The other reason is that I was holding the camera in my left hand. :-) 

I generally use steam.  If the iron has several steam settings, I generally use light steam.  And I like Best Press.

And we're back to my arcs.  I'm working on the black ones- almost finished.

Getting Started on my Double Wedding Ring

 

Let's start making a double wedding ring quilt.  When you open the die package, this is what you get.  This particular one is a 2-die set.  Most are one die- but the DWR has a lot of pieces. The die on the left is blade side up and the die on the right is blade side down.  the papers at the top are the packaging- includes pictures and how the pieces go together to make a little wall hanging.

When you look closely at the spongy side of the die, you see the cuts around the shapes.  In the photo above, I'm pulling back the foam with my fingernail to expose the blade.  SHARP! 

It's very hard to see where the blades are- at least on a new die.  The AccuQuilt folks encourage customers to use a permanent pen (like a Sharpie) to hi-light the blade areas.  I must say that I wish they came marked already, but it's really not hard to do.

The Double Wedding Ring die set has a lot of pieces and you need different numbers of different shapes to make the quilt.  I marked the shapes with the corresponding letter because I just know I'll get mixed up and I can use all the help I can get.  Notice, also, that the shapes even have little tabs that are used as registration marks to keep your piecing super-duper accurate.

Each die has instructions to make a project.  The DWR die package has a pattern for a small wall hanging.  It shows you how the pieces go together to make the DWR and you need to adjust it yourself to the size quilt you want.  I am making a king size quilt top.... so a little math tells me..... I need a bazillion little pieces.  :-)

I'm first cutting the little wedge pieces- D and E.  Each arc is made of 3 D's and 2 E's.... plus 2 of the little squares on the ends.  I'm working on the D's and E's.  My quilt will be black, red and white.  My background is white and the little pieces that make up the arcs will be prints with these 3 colors.  I'm alternating black and white arcs with red and white arcs.  Today I'm cutting red and white.  My plan is to make the center piece mostly white with a little red, the pieces beside it pretty much equal red and white, and the end squares mostly red.  I'll do the same progression with the black and whites- making them whiter in the middle and blacker on the ends.

I cut some long strips a little taller that the shape and then rough-cut some pieces to place over the shape that I have marked with the sharpie.  I layered 6 pieces of fabric over the shape.

With the die blade side (foam side) up, fabric on top of the shapes I want to cut, I covered the die with the cutting mat.  AccuQuilt has different sizes of mats that fit on different sizes of die.  Then through the rollers they go.... with a turn of the handle.... the die slides through.

Once in a while a thread doesn't cut, and needs to be snipped.  So far- this is rare.  I am just careful when I lift the scraps away from the cut shapes.  The foam seems to be thick enough, with the blades recessed deeply enough, that I have not felt it was dangerous to have my fingers around the blades.  So far, so good.

As I get more cut, I'll mess with the positions of the fabrics a bit more.  I won't have 2 of the same fabrics in an arc when I start sewing them.  But notice the dark reds on the sides- they are not symmetrical.  You need to cut half of them right side up and half of them upside down so you get an equal number of left and right ends of the arcs.  The 3 center pieces can all be cut right side up (or whatever).  It's amazing how fast the cutting is going!  This would have taken me forever to cut with templates.  But what's even better is the fact that they are such accurate cuts.

Speaking of accurate cuts.... there is a tip offered by AccuQuilt to cut more accurate shapes.  When referring to the "straight of grain" on fabric- there are 2 ways that are straight- from selvage to selvage, and the long way as wrapped on the bolt.  The grain line that runs from selvage to selvage is the crosswise grain (weft threads) and the grain line that runs the length of the bolt is the lengthwise grain (warp threads).  If you tug both ways, you will find a little bit of give in the crosswise grain but the lengthwise grain is very stable.  Of course, the bias (running diagonally) has a lot of give.  Whenever possible, it's best to place fabric on the die shapes so that the fabric will cut (run through the rollers) as if going through WITH the lengthwise grain.  Think of it as feeding the fabric through the rollers as if it were coming off the bolt that way.  I'm not sure it makes that much difference.  These things look pretty darned accurate to me.  But it's good to develop good habits from the start.

Well.... more cutting for me.... lots and lots and lots of cutting......

AccuQuilt Resources

I've been getting to know my new AccuQuilt GO! this week.  It's one of those things that's super simple and you can learn how to use it in 2 minutes.  But you can also look at the resources and read and browse through the free patterns and spend some time learning how to make the most of it.

The website if very informative and it seems like there's something new on there every time I log on.  My big discovery this week was the GO! Reference Charts.  On the AccuQuilt home page, on the left side, there is a box that reads, "Free Stuff".  Under that, one of the choices is "GO! Reference Charts".  In my opinion, these charts are what make this machine really useful. 

The first is the Cutting Equivalents chart.  One of the reasons I resisted looking into the GO! initially is that I though you were limited to the GO! pattern resources.  I thought that I couldn't use it to make commercial patterns not marketed through AccuQuilt (or that it would be difficult to do so).  WRONG!  With this chart, you look for the shape and size you want (for instance, a 3" x 1" rectangle) and it tells you the actual cutting size for that finished shape and the die that have that shape.  Very cool!

The second chart is exciting for people like me who forget what I have.  (Please tell me I'm not the only one!)  It's called the GO! Fabric Reference Chart.  This one tells you all of the shapes on all of the die.  For instance... it has a list of all the sizes of circles and what die they are on.  After you get several die, it can get confusing.  You have lots of different sizes of circles on different die.  Let's say you're doing an applique quilt and you need to cut a bazillion 2 inch circles.  Which die is it on?  You can spend 20 minutes searching through all of your die to see if you have something that will work, and looking through all of the die on the website to figure out what you want to buy, or you can just look at this chart and see what your options are for that size of circle.

I have a pattern that my friend, Julie, gave me.  She made an amazing quilt from an old magazine.  I fell in love with it and she shared the magazine with me.

I then realized that I needed to cut a gazillion leaves, not to mention all those skinny little strips for the vines.  Fun quilt.  Not so fun cutting all the leaves.

SO!  Looking at my handy dandy charts, I see that the GO! has shapes for the squares, the half square triangles, AND the leaves AND the vines!  Woo Hoo!!!!

Now get this--- I can cut the leaves and applique them on by hand or machine.  OR... I can iron on fusible web to the back of the fabric, cut it with the go, peel off the backing paper, and just iron those puppies on!  (Yes, yes- I'll stitch them down.... but the fusible gives me good placement).

 This is the Rose of Sharon die.  The pieces go together to make pretty flowers and leaves by Sharon Pederson.  But this is an example of you you can use one piece in the die to incorporate into a pattern that is not from the AccuQuilt website.

Here's one called, "Stems & Leaves".  I'll have to look at both of these die to see what leaves are the right size. 

Several people have asked me how you can cut just one shape and minimize waste.  No problem!  You don't have to cut all of the shapes on the die.  You can (and will often) cut just a few shapes.  When you see me working on my Double Wedding Ring, you'll see how I do that.

Yes- this means you would need to invest in several die.  But it's pretty obvious to me that after you get a few, they start to become more and more useful as you can mix and match the shapes.  Besides- you can tell everyone in your family that they never have to figure out what to give you for a gift again.  Make a wish list and tell them where to find it.  And they can even order off the AccuQuilt website.  Of course, they COULD contact me and order through Alderwood Quilts, (shameless plug for my website :-)

I've been organizing and ironing all of my fabrics and lining them up to start cutting the pieces for the Double Wedding Ring.  I'm amazed at how many of you would select the DWR as one of your 3 die choices should you win the giveaway.  I'm excited to get GO-ing on it!