I Love Notions

Paige started Ponderosa creative as a new mom, taking a break from the environmental field after being burnt out by academia during her master's degree at Evergreen. In addition to running her business, she works in the enviornmental field - specifically municipal stormwater. 

She designs her Ponderosa Creative Thread Gloss with both the environment and quilters in mind - creating scents for quilters while designing a product that has a low impact on the environment. She also creates hand-sewn goods, and has a great sense of style.

Some quick details about Paige: scorpio, neurodivergent, mother, wife, enneagram 5w6 (investigator-loyalist), and in between meyers-briggs ENTP (visionary) and INTP (logician).

Andi Stanfield is known for creating fabulous designs with easy-to-follow patterns for adventurous quilt makers. She is the self-published author of two books, and teaches classes on her techiques.

Her first career was as a high school teacher, and she now uses those skills in the quilting world. And, she didn't stop there. When creating her block of the month "A Little Bit Different" she created an acrylic template to make the process easier.

Learn more about this trailblazing quilter in this episode of I Love Notions.

Jessica and her sister Jamie are the creators of SewTites® magnetic sewing pins. One day in early 2017, while working on a bag, Jamie decided to use magnets to "pin" the leather pocket in place while piecing. She called up Jessica and told her about the simple and functional idea. Jessica, who is a career marketer and graphic designer, replied "That has to be a problem other people have – we should market it!" The idea went by the wayside, however, for about a year while we were working on another business. But Sew Tites were too good an idea! They created prototypes to use as a giveaway in their 2018 QuiltCon booth. The response was overwhelming.

Within a few months, SewTites were available through distributors and in local quilt shops, and today are availabe in the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, and worldwide through SewTites.com

Their mission is to empower themselves and others to "Live Magnetically" – as fully and intentionally as possible. As a part of that mission, they donate 5% of annual profits to FCCLA, an organization that teaches teens life skills, including sewing, on their path to adulthood. 

Patti lives in Southern Ontario, and has held many roles in the marketing department since she started with Northcott in 1986. She is currently their Vice President – Public Relations. She travels to quilt guilds and shops to inspire and educate quilters with interesting and entertaining presentations on how fabric is designed, and how to use it to our best advantage.

Her quilting journey began in 1987 when Northcott made the transition from fashion to quilting fabric. She has designed many quilts for Northcott and for numerous quilting magazines since 1995 including The Quilter magazine, Love of Quilting and Easy Quilts and continue to contribute to the Golden Peak Media group of publications including McCall’s Quilting and Quiltmaker. In 2008 she started publishing her comprehensive line of quilt patterns that utilize efficient and time-saving techniques.  She specializes in designing quilts using panels and border stripes.

Her first fabric collection released in 2019, and she is the inventor of the E-Z miter tool!

Debbie is a home economics teacher by profession. She began quilting in 1986 after taking a Continuing Education class. Growing up she was enthralled with her grandmothers and their abilities as seamstresses. When fitting clothes took the fun out of the sewing, she turned to quilting.  It was a great way to collect fabric and continue using her sewing skills. 

Her quilting passion grew when she moved to Egypt. With her friends, she began a quilting group that was later named “Quilters in deNile”.  Now a resident of Massachusetts, Debbie continues in many quilting endeavors. She designed the tool “Brilliant Bindings”.  In 1999, a dear quilting friend Lil Griffin showed her a binding ending technique so the seam was the same as all others in a continuous binding.  She made her own template to simplify the process and used it to teach others for years.  She was encouraged to put the idea into form and had Brilliant Bindings made in 2007.

Her Brilliant Bindings tool shape, a trapezoid, proved to be a great jumping off point for many unique quilt patterns.  Any of her patterns with "Brilliant" or "Tool" in the title uses Brilliant Bindings as a cutting template to make the quilt.

In 2017, Hex-a-ma-jig was created.  A 3 1/2" half hexie shape template with more lines for more cutting options - Half Hexie, Full Hexie, Partial Hexie.  The Hexie family grew in 2018 with Hex-a-ma-jig Jr. for 2 1/2" strips and Hex-a-Mini for 2" strips was introduced in 2021.

Her self-published books include:

Construction and Production – Making and Binding a Quilt on a Longarm, Midarm or Shortarm

Chenille Made Easy on a Longarm

Hexie Speak - Say it with Hexies  A Design Workbook

Jane Hauprich is an award winning quilter and quilt instructor living on Maryland's Eastern Shore. She started piecing quilts in 1998. She specializes in free motion custom quilting and believes that each quilt is special and deserves quilting that accentuates it’s beauty and uniqueness.

Jane offers free-motion quilting classes using home machines, mid-arms, or longarms.  These classes enable quilters to finish their own quilts. And offers private long arm quilting lessons. She is a Handi Quilter Ambassador, an Island Batik Ambassador and a Superior Threads Certified Threadologist.

She offers free motion quilting workbooks, wholecloth panels, and quilting rulers.

Latifah Saafir is a modern quilter known for her bold and innovative quilts. Her quilt patterns feature clean designs with a twist. She adds challenging techniques such as curves and half-rectangle-triangles to her quilt patterns which make them stand out. She also has designed notions to help quilters master these techniques. In this episode we talk about the templates she has already launched, as well as what she has coming up (spoiler alert)!

Those who have been in the modern quilting world a while may be familiar with Latifah's name because she was a co-founder of both the Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild and the worldwide Modern Quilt Guild, Latifah currently teaches workshops to guilds around the country.

Kate Colleran is a quilt pattern designer as well as a fabric and surface designer and a notion designer! She loves color and fun designs, and that is evident in all of her work! Her quilts are a mix of modern and traditional, with bright colors and simple shapes.

Seams Like a Dream Quilt Designs, started in 2003 as a collaboration between Kate Colleran and Elizabeth Balderrama. Kate did the quilt pattern designs and Elizabeth did consultations, pattern testing and was the shipping maven. They designed quilts for patterns, for quilt magazines, for fabric companies and for their book, Smash Your Precut Stash, with C&T Publishing.

When Elizabeth retired in 2015, Kate changed the name of the quilt pattern line to match the official name of the business, Kate Colleran Designs, LLC.

Kate has also designed several specialty templates... which we talk about in this interview. 

Heather Snow is the mastermind behind Purple Hobbies, family owned and operated business.  You're probably familiar with some of their fabulous notions, like the BladeSaver Thread Cutter and Magnetic Pin Cup. Heather creates all of their innovative designs with her sons.

Purple Hobbies has embraced 3D printing to make fabulous quilting notions! They have an entire "farm" of 3D printers that make their products, and the most popular products become 3D injection molded overseas to keep up with demand.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Heather as we learn about so many of her fantastic notions!

A creative lifetime quilter, Annie Unrein of ByAnnie.com and Patterns by Annie has been designing patterns and teaching since 2000. Her easy-to-understand patterns include complete instructions to guide makers every step of the way.

With a focus on practical and useful projects, Annie's patterns appeal to sewists of all ages and levels and serve as a great base for classes. Annie is the creator of ByAnnie's Soft and Stable, an innovative product she designed to add body, stability, and a professional finish to purses, bags, home dec items, and more.

A popular Bluprint/Craftsy instructor and BERNINA Ambassador, Annie has a broad range of information to share from using the proper supplies and equipment to easy techniques that give professional results.