2019 Gypsy Wife QAL - Introduction

Welcome everyone, especially those who have come over here from facebook to see my tutorials for the 2019 Gypsy Wife Quilt Along.

First, let me tell you a bit about myself.
My name is HelenMarie or you can call me HM (BUT.. not Helen).
I was born in NYC and raised about an hour outside the city in the burbs. I am a wife, mother of 3 and grandmother of 4.   After marrying and having my son, my husbands job transferred us to northwestern Virginia.  Several years later the job had us relocate again, this time to middle TN where my quilting career began with a class.  I  met lots of new friends and with their encouragement, I bought my Pfaff Grandquilter in 2006 and had a blast!  I upgraded to a Nolting Funquilter 20 in 2010 and just recently, in December 2018, I upgraded again to the Nolting Funquilter 23 to make working on those king size quilts my customer's love, easier.  

Enough about me.... lets get started by telling you how this will work....

Each Admin member will be taking turns as lead demonstarator for  the blocks in each section.  At the moment, I am scheduled to be the lead demonstrator for Sections 4 and 5.  

However, I (and other Admins) plan to make demos throughout this adventure for our personal blogs to share with you and our followers.  People learn in different ways, therefore, if you see a variety of demos of techniques used, you have the opportunity to choose the technique that best suits you.


Because my demos will have directions and photos for each individual block, I will write separate posts for each.  Making one long post for all the blocks will be too cumbersome and difficult to follow.  You have time to work on each block and ask questions as they come up.

Remember, this isn't a race.  We have a month to complete each section.  Work slowly and as accurately as possible to insure success.  

In summary,  my next 5 posts beginning at 8am Feb 2, will demonstrate how to make the individual blocks for each section.... followed by a post dealing with the background strips.

You can leave comments below each post and I will reply to any questions ASAP.

You can advance through my tutorials by clicking on "newer post" or click on the link that will be posted on the facebook page as soon as they go live here.


PDF files of the demos will also be uploaded to the facebook page under the "Files" tab for you to download after they go live here.

I would love to see you join my followers by clicking on the follow button on the top right of this page.