From Nursing to Longarm Quilting: Welcoming Sandra Smith of Ginger Bloom Quilts Back to The Handmade Collective 🌸🧵
Sandra Smith has been part of The Handmade Collective family before, and this September she's back with a whole new technique up her sleeve: trapunto, made simple with a lightboard.
Who Is Sandra Smith?
Sandra is the founder of Ginger Bloom Quilts. Inspired by her mother's quilting and sewing, she learned the craft while raising her children, and after retiring from nursing, quilting became her creative outlet. Over the past year she's expanded into home décor, sewing custom pillow covers and planning custom drapes next.
Sandra became a longarm quilter three years ago, starting on a sit-down model where she learned free-motion quilting, ruler quilting, trapunto, and thread painting. Last year she upgraded to a Bernina Q24 Longarm with Q-matic, opening the door to computerized whole cloth quilts, free-motion, ruler, edge-to-edge, and custom computerized quilting.
For the past two years, Sandra has worked in the Bernina of Chattanooga Longarm Booth in Paducah, Kentucky, where she's met quilters including Ricky Tims, who signed her first Bernina machine. Those conversations showed her that confidence, not skill, is often the biggest barrier keeping people from trying longarm quilting, which inspired her to start a YouTube channel sharing tutorials, skill-building tips, and troubleshooting guidance.
What Is Trapunto?
Trapunto is a quilting technique that adds raised, sculptural dimension to a design by stuffing or padding specific areas from behind, making motifs pop off the surface of the quilt. It's traditionally a fussy, multi-step process involving extra tracing and cutting, which is exactly what Sandra set out to simplify.
What Sandra Is Bringing to The Handmade Collective 🌸
Sandra is joining us live to share the trapunto technique she developed using the CutterPillar Glow Lightboard, using it throughout the quilting process to align directional backing fabric and create trapunto effects without extra tracing or cutting. She'll also show how thread painting and micro quilting around a design can make the focal area stand out, and the best part: you don't need a longarm. It works on a domestic machine too.
Sandra loves working with panels because they feel like art, and she'll share how a single panel can become a tote, table runner, pillow cover, Christmas stocking, placemat, and more, including how she turned a Lotus Panel into a tote using the very panel featured in this lesson.
An Exclusive Discount from Ginger Bloom Quilts 🌟
She's currently building her Etsy shop with items she's made. Use code
GINGER for a 15% discount on any item.
Follow Sandra Smith & Ginger Bloom Quilts
Join Us at The Handmade Collective
Sandra's session is part of our free 3-day virtual event, September 17 to 19. Register for the free Essentials Pass for live access, or grab the free VIP Pass for on-demand replays, exclusive giveaways, downloadable guides, and 15% off CutterPillar products.
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