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Meet Our July 2026 $100 Shopping Spree Winner - Paula Dalby!
Meet Our July 2026 $100 Shopping Spree Winner - Paula Dalby!
In this blog post, we're highlighting our July $100 Shopping Spree Winner, who casually shared a great tip in her personal write-up. It's included at the bottom of this post. It caught my attention and made me wonder, "Why didn't I think of that?" Don't you love running across those ideas?
Every month, we randomly draw a name for our $100 Shopping Spree Winner. I never know whose name will be picked. Sometimes it's someone rather new to me. And sometimes, as happened this month, I recognize the name immediately.
Our July winner is Paula Dalby of Huson, Montana - and Paula and I already have a little history.
Over the past almost two years, Paula has sent me pictures of her quilts, asked questions about our stencils and videos, and occasionally dropped me a note just to tell me what she likes about something we're doing.
In fact, when I hesitantly showed some of my own less-than-perfect works in progress, Paula wrote:
“Thanks for being brave and showing your ‘works in progress!’ It helps us all!!”
I remembered that.
But there was another note from Paula that I remembered even more.
After my husband, Mike, passed and the newsletters stopped coming for a while, Paula noticed. She didn't write to ask where the newsletter was or when another one would arrive. She wrote because she remembered what had happened and wondered how I was doing.
“I just wanted to reach out and let you know I was thinking of you. Sending hugs your way.”
So when I saw Paula's name drawn as our July winner, I smiled. And it made me excited to introduce her to all of you.
We ask all winners to share a little about themselves. Here is what Paula wrote:
Thank you again for contacting me. I still can't believe I won!!! I grew up in a small town in Southern Indiana. Then married and moved to Utah. Recently, we retired to Montana, about 30 miles west of Missoula. We love it here. We were able to get a few acres up in the mountains and live rurally -- like we've wanted to for a while. I have a nice quilting studio with the smallest window in the house, but lots of BIG lights and plenty of space to cut, press, and sew!
I have been quilting for about 28 years now. My Aunt Carol taught me to sew when I was about 8, but my friend Jeanmarie in Taylorsville, Utah introduced me to quilting! She also introduced me to a few local guilds, including Quilters Holladay of Holladay, Utah, and The Utah Quilt Guild. I have learned so very much from her and all of the wonderful members of both of these groups over the years. I am forever in their debt!
My absolute, hands-down, favorite part of quilting is the machine quilting part. I started quilting using my mother-in-law's Singer 756. I loved that machine and made many a quilt on it. Then, after pushing queen-sized quilts through its entirely average harp (or throat) space for a few years, I decided I needed a new machine, and I traded up to a Bernina 820 that has a 12" harp. Wow, what a difference!! I love that machine and am still using it after about 18 years.
More than once, I have tried to convince myself to get a Longarm. Twice I have attended all-day classes learning how they work and how to use them. It's not for me. After almost 30 years of pushing thread under the needle, I don't want to spend time learning the new muscle memory required to draw the needle over and around on the fabric. To each their own, though, right?
I'm always in awe of the talent out there--no matter the machine or the method. Speaking of methods, I truly love the Full Line Stencils. I discovered them quite by accident at a local Odd-Lots kind of store in Salt Lake City. Once I took them home and tried them, I was hooked. I looked up the company and have been ordering ever since!
I love the way I can crease them to line up with seam lines, and I love how there's no part that bends back over the wrong way (like with plastic stencils). It also makes my heart really happy to know I'm supporting a small business. That's what this country was built on, and I'm really glad people are carrying on the tradition.
I've attached a picture of me at the Utah Quilt Guild's Quilt Festival, and two of my quilts that were in my Montana guild's show last week. On Anne's Reproduction Stars, I used the #30532 Sweet Wheat Stencil along with some others. On the Scrappy BOM, I used the #P30512 Spice Is Nice Stencil. Thank you sew much! and Best Stitches!!
Here are a couple more quilts made by Paula. The Elephant quilt was made for her grandson. How lucky he is. I found this link to the pattern for it.
I especially love the contrast between that wonderfully colorful elephant and all that beautiful tone-on-tone quilting.
The log cabin quilt is a donation quilt for her guild. They give them to Veterans, the Help Line in their county, and others who may have experienced a traumatic event.
The top was made by Paula's friend, Gail Lewis. She provided the batting, backing, quilting, and binding. She used the #30685 Lorin Square Stencil for the quilting. It looks great, and the quilting shows up especially well in the setting triangles along the edges.
Thank you so much for sharing your quilts, Paula. I was looking at the emails you sent in with the photos, and they all end with "I hope I win." Congratulations! You did win!
Did you catch what Paula mentioned? She creases her stencils to line them up with seams!
This especially caught my attention because just last week I showed you how I fold a stencil in both directions to find its center. Paula takes that same idea one step further, using a finger-pressed crease as a temporary registration line to position the stencil along a seam.
Of course! If we can crease a stencil to find the center, why not crease it anywhere we need a positioning guide?
That's one of those wonderfully simple ideas that was right in front of me all along. I love it! Thank you, Paula Dalby!