BLOCKHEADS 4- HEART Block by Vanessa Goertzen of Lella Boutique, Download the block pattern here!

Vanessa is featuring her newest fabric collection, Country Rose, which is headed to stores soon.

Vanessa has one of my favorite bio stories and tributes to her mother, so I just had to share it here.

It was inevitable that I should become a quilter. Addictions of this magnitude tend to be familial, and boy have I been predisposed. I’ve got my mother to blame–she shared her sewing and design knowledge with me since I was a little girl. Thanks to her, I became a full-blown quilt addict by the time I was sixteen years old. Of all my mother’s talents, however, I was most impressed by her ability to incorporate a sense of magic into all aspects of life.

Now that I am grown, I find myself revisiting my childhood quite often as a source of inspiration. Back in 2010, I quit my job to stay at home with a new baby. After a few months of adjusting to my new role as mother, I became reacquainted with my sewing machine and decided to start a blog and pattern company called Lella Boutique. When I tried to come up with a business name, I kept thinking about a sweet pink toddler dress that my mom made for me to twirl around in. I called it my “Lella” dress–“Lella” being my way of saying “Cinderella” at that age. I could think of no sweeter emblem than that beloved dress to remind me to incorporate all of those wonderful childhood elements into my creative process.

We asked Vanessa a few more questions.

Stitching with Vanessa...
• The quilting tip I wish I’d learned when I first started is... how to nest seams. Alternating pressing direction makes it an easy job to get everything to line up.
• My best advice to new quilters is to... have fun and not worry about it being perfect. Skill grows with time.
• When it comes to quilting/sewing tools, don’t get between me and my... magnetic pin cushion. What did I ever do without one?
• Don’t tell anyone, but when I’m sewing, I don’t worry about... prewashing fabric. Unless it's Moda cross-weave yardage (that stuff shrinks a lot since it is a fine woven)

Do you have a quilting tip you share with others, if so please share it with us in the comments?

Keeping up with Vanessa...
• Instagram – @lellaboutique
• Website – blog.lellaboutique.com
• Facebook – @lellaboutique

Pattern Shop: lellaboutique.com

Designers page- Lella Boutique