The Art of Quilt Design with Laureen Smith

In this episode of Quilting on the Side, host Andi and co-host Tori welcome Laureen Smith, a prolific quilt designer and former chemical engineer. Laureen shares her journey from the corporate world to quilting, detailing her early experiences with needlework and how they shaped her passion for quilting. She discusses her transition into quilt design, the challenges of working with fabric manufacturers, and her innovative approach to three-dimensional fusible applique. 

The conversation also touches on the business side of quilting, including pattern writing and the importance of community engagement. Laureen's insights into the creative process and her rapid-fire responses provide a comprehensive look at her quilting journey and the industry.

Chapters
05:48 Laureen's Journey into Quilting
11:23 The Business of Quilt Design
18:12 Navigating Fabric Manufacturer Relationships
23:53 The Art of Pattern Writing
33:18 Exploring Three-Dimensional Fusible Appliqué
34:14 The Art of Fusible Applique
39:27 Innovative Techniques in Quilting
43:13 Building a Quilting Business
49:43 Inspiration and Creative Process
54:24 Connecting with the Quilting Community

Connect with Laureen Smith

www.TourmalineThymeqQuilts.com 

IG @ttquilts

FB @tandtquilts

YouTube @tourmalinethymequilts3628

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Co-Hosts:

Tori McElwain @heytori.tech

Andi Stanfield @truebluequilts

Transcript

Andi (01:05)
Welcome to Quilting on the Side, and Tori and I are so thrilled to welcome our guest this week, Laureen Smith from Tourmaline and Time. Welcome, Laureen, tell us about your business.

Laureen Smith (01:18)
⁓

So I guess I started in 2019, so it's hard to believe it's six years now, from my professional aspect of it. I retired from corporate world and decided I was going to retire. My husband's like, well, you've got to do something. I'm like major type A personality. So me just sitting still was not an option.

do so many things to the house and the house projects were starting to add up. So he's like, you need to do something. So he's like, can you actually make a business out of quilting? I'm like, I don't know. I can try, which is kind of how I got started in the business. But it probably helps if I start with how I started quilting in the first place. So for those of you who are my age and older, and we won't tell you what that age is, but you'll know in a minute.

There was a, just like, you know, our moms had Tupperware parties and Mary Kay parties and all that fun stuff. So my mother was a creative expression salesperson. So for those who don't know what creative expressions is, it was like Tupperware or Mary Kay or any of those, except it was needlework. Okay. And my mom had severe rheumatoid arthritis. Her hands were ridiculously gnarled.

Even though she used to be able to do it, she could no longer do this stitching to do all the little samples and everything else, you know, those step outs we do for classes. ⁓ She couldn't do those. So I was all of seven years old and mom would sit down and hand me a kit and she's like, okay, I have a party coming this weekend. I'm like, okay. She goes, here, I need you to make this kit. Okay. So I'd sit down and follow the instructions really well and made the little kit. And it was always like some little square of something or whatnot. In fact, I have, hold on. I have, for those who can see this.

Andi (02:59)
you

Laureen Smith (03:09)
This was one of my mom's demos that she had me do years ago. This is all needle point for those who can't see it. It is the truly 1970s green and yellow. ⁓ But it has, it's a sampler of all the truly needle point work, right? So this is an example of one of her little projects to have me sit down and do for her for a party. So being the ultimate saleswoman, she would sit there and go, okay, you can do this and she'd have everything up. And a woman would nevertheless say, I can't.

do that. That's too complicated. And my mother would have me sitting in the corner doing my homework or working on one of her little things. goes, look, my little seven year old made this. And if my seven year old can make this, you can make this. So that was the start of my stitching career at the age of seven as the little, you know, mommy's little helper. So I was doing needlework like cruel embroidery. I was doing it.

cross stitch, was doing beading, latch hooking, you know, now I'm really aging myself. So I learned how to crochet. The one thing I still haven't been able to do is knitting. Two needles confused me apparently. ⁓ For some reason it ends up being really tight knots. Maybe that's part of the type A personality. I don't know. But I also picked up quilting along the way, but not until later. And I mean, I made my garments, you name it. I did everything with needles.

When I graduated from college, one of my office mates was like, we're going quilt shopping for the weekend. You want to come with us? I'm like, really? This is a thing to do? Like going to local quilt shops? OK, fine. I'm along. So of course, I go in and I'm like, fabric. I like fabric. So I decided to make my first quilt. ⁓ My first quilt I ever made was

I mean, truly quilt, not the one I made in Girl Scouts at the age of seven. But like my first real quilt was for my sister. It was some sort of a snowflake kind of pattern that I bought in a book, and I knew none of the shortcuts knew nothing. I didn't know that you start your fabric. I didn't know how to do half square triangles the right way. So I'm cutting everything on the bias and trying to match crap up and you name it like points are off. It's it's

It's a mess. And then I did not know you could use your sewing machine to do the quilting. So it is a king size quilt that I put a hoop on and use the blue marker on it and hand quilted the whole stinking thing, sat under it for a year. And I handed it over to my sister going, I really, really love you. Now she still has it. It's still in one piece.

And she doesn't let anybody touch it. But that was like my first real quilting experience. And after that, was like, you start making baby quilts for this one and that one. And next thing I knew, I was like, oh, I don't need a pattern. I can just do this. So that was kind of my start in quilting. I I did what every quilter does. You make, know, oh, I could make this project. And then you three quarters of the way through, you're like, OK, now to the next project. you three quarters of the way through, you go to the next project.

And I have a lot of those UFOs still sitting around. ⁓

Andi (06:43)
Sounds like me. Yeah, I'm like, I have to do something for my next YouTube project. And so I'll sew a few blocks and then I'm like, okay, what's the next thing? And then it's years later. Yeah.

Laureen Smith (07:02)
So when I started out designing quilts, ⁓ I kind of have to step back two steps, which is, first off, in my previous life, ⁓ I was a chemical engineer. ⁓ I ended up having my master's degree in natural resources with an ⁓ emphasis on adult education. Because anybody who's ever read anything out of the Federal Register, it doesn't make any sense. So you're trying to like.

Okay, I'm going to attempt to translate legalese for you and get you to understand why this is a really good idea to do, even though it sounds really stupid. So ⁓ I spent 30 years doing that. And in that, I had to do a lot of education. I mean, a lot of training, writing procedures and everything else. So quilt pattern writing came pretty simply given I spent most of my time writing procedures. ⁓ So that part came easily to me, which for a lot of

quilters is not the easiest thing. It's like the how do I write this up? I'm like, ⁓ yeah, that's no problem. Between the engineer brain and the instruction brain, I'm like, I got that part. ⁓ It was the designing part where it was like, OK, why did they use 7 eighths? That seems like a really weird number to use. I don't use 7 eighths in my patterns if I can help it. It's like, just trim the dang thing down. So I would rather do it that way.

Andi (08:26)
I don't know,

even if you write 7 eighths, everybody's gonna just go to the next line on their ruler and they're not gonna-

Laureen Smith (08:36)
so true. It's like, why am I bothering? It takes up more room on this page. ⁓ I did my first couple of patterns and I started with something simple like, can I write this and can people follow it? And my mom was my tester. And so when I started writing more patterns and I've written maybe five or six and I was like, I actually think I can do this, but how do I get my patterns out there? Cause I had friends who had quilt shops and whatnot.

And my mom said to me, she goes, well, this friend Nancy you should talk to and she might be able to help you. And that was Quilt Woman. ⁓ So my mom happened to know ⁓ Nancy and we started talking and she's like, I can help you out. Nancy was wonderful because she's like, okay, this is how you set up a pattern. This is what you have to have on your cover.

This is how you get your barcodes. This is how you number your patterns. Like she gave you the very basics that everybody struggles with when you first start this going, ⁓ how do I even start? And through her, I got my first two, they're not really contracts, but my first two opportunities with fabric manufacturers. At the time, Timeless Treasures and Northcott were both looking for new designers.

And they basically send out a design call and they send you all this stuff and they go, send us back what you think. I'm like, okay, I can do this. So I had EQ, I had EQ four just to tell you how long I had been playing with EQ stuff. So I had the new EQ eight and I was like, ooh, this is much slicker, right? I'm like, okay, cool. So I'm like, all right. So they send me all these pattern downloads and like, I didn't know how to file them or anything else. It was like,

Andi (10:14)
Yeah.

Laureen Smith (10:29)
I look back and I'm like, my God, I can't find anything from back then. ⁓ they both accepted a couple of patterns after I think it was my second or third round with them. And I still do tons of work with both of them. And I love the people at both places. ⁓ But the funny story was the first pattern I had that I will say went viral. ⁓

if you can call it that, like it sold over a thousand copies. So I think that's considered viral, right? Was one that hit during COVID, at the very beginning of COVID. And the fabric they had sent us to play with was like these mini panels, you know, so they're like, there's six of them on a panel, right? And they're like, we need you to do something with this. So I designed a log cabin quilt with these six panels in the center and then some other

fill-in blocks, right? And the design on the panels were outhouses.

Andi (11:34)
You

Perfect timing.

Laureen Smith (11:37)
So, you

know, I tried to do something really creative, but I was like, okay, we're just gonna do a log cabin around it, right? And they, I put these little strips around them and the little strips had things like wood grain and stone and lettering and toilet paper rolls. And it hit during COVID when we had no toilet paper. I called it Rustic Refuge. It was twin size. Thousands patterns sold.

One woman sends me, and I won't share her name, but I was so tickled pink. She sends me an email with a copy that she's made the quilt. She's somebody who can actually program her lovely long arm. And she had taken the little poop emojis and turned it into a quilt sign for it.

Andi (12:22)
⁓ no!

Laureen Smith (12:31)
years my husband's like I cannot believe your best-selling pattern is about an outhouse. I'm like...

Andi (12:34)
for this.

Yeah, it's quite, you know, serendipity that's just, you know, the planet's aligned, it was meant for you.

Tori (12:46)
Yeah,

Laureen Smith (12:47)
I started with being able to work with those two manufacturers. They were absolutely fantastic. ⁓ And then I had designed a quilt, which is behind me here. ⁓ For those who can't see it, it's my snowflake, Winsie, which is covered in bling because I do like shiny objects, as my kids and my husband will attest. And I made it. ⁓ It looks like there's a circle on it. There are no curved pieces in it. It's an illusion. It's all wedges.

And it's got some beautiful fusible applique around it and everything. And I did it in the Hoffman watercolors because I loved the Hoffman watercolors. Great depth and a lot to play with. And it happened to go into a, somebody asked me to submit it to a competition and I don't do competitions because I'm like, yeah, that requires me to finish it. So I don't do that.

So somebody took a picture of it, and it managed to get its way around to Hoffman. And they contacted me and said, would you mind designing for us? And I went, sure. So I got my third fabric manufacturer, and all of a sudden I got another email about three, four months later, somebody from Wyndham. And they're like, would you design for us? I'm like, oh, OK. So right now I design for the JAPTACS line. I design for the Wyndham.

family, the Benertics family. ⁓ I'm one of two designers for Elizabeth Studios. ⁓ I've done some stuff for, ⁓ goodness gracious, there's a couple others out there. I mean, I've probably about half the houses out there I've done some design work for. And I love it. I absolutely love it. ⁓

Andi (14:40)
What kind of deadlines

and timelines are you under when you work with the fabric manufacturers? Tell us about that process.

Laureen Smith (14:49)
So

they all work differently. there's one of two ways I get them. Either it's like this, look, we have two or three we want you to work on. And it's probably because most of the times they've found one of my patterns and they're like, can you try this fabric in that pattern? And probably 75 % of the time it'll work and then the other 25 % of the time I'm like, well, I'll give you that. But I really think it would look better with this.

And they're like, yeah, we'll take that one. And I'm like, OK, I can do that. ⁓ So sometimes I'll get the, those are usually like one or two's. And then the others, they will send anywhere between four and 20 fabric lines to you and tell you that you have between a week and a month to send everything. And most of those are in a competition.

Andi (15:23)
All right.

Laureen Smith (15:48)
So it's like, know, all of you designers send us by this point in time and they'll come back and say, and there's only one that doesn't quite do it that way, and they'll come back go, okay, we want this one, this one, this one, and this one, and we need your fabric requirements within a week or within three days. I mean, you literally, you never get more than a week to do it.

Tori (16:04)
So bye.

So that is the pattern design or actually making the quilt.

Laureen Smith (16:12)
Neither. It's the fabric requirements, which means you have an idea from the rough math of I'm going to put it together, say, if I'm going to do a stitch and flip for half square triangles, or if I'm going to do four at a time flying geese, or I'm going to do some paper piecing and paper piecing are the hardest ones to do because you're going, I think it's about this big.

Andi (16:36)
Yeah.

Laureen Smith (16:38)
⁓

You flip the ruler and go, okay, well, I'm going to go this way, I'm going to go this way, and I'm adding an inch to what I think it is, right? And you're basing it upon what you think and you're hoping, you know, and I do everything in Excel where I'm like, okay, I need X number of pieces for each block and, know, so I have a spreadsheet. It does not mean I always count right. It does not mean that the sizes you want are always exactly right. And it doesn't mean that your formulas always work right. So it's your.

fast estimate at that point in time, which, you some of the shops are like, well, what do mean that's not the same? And it's like, okay, well, when we actually made it, we realized we had to do it this way instead of that way. So it's your first best estimate. whenever you see it in the catalogs, it's like, it's probably 80 to 90 % right, but it's going to wiggle a little when you have the final pattern. So

Andi (17:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, give the designers a

little bit of grace on those kind of things.

Laureen Smith (17:37)
Exactly because I mean you're talking you know sometimes I'll get back and it's like one pattern which one patterns no big deal Other times it's five or six patterns, and I'm like okay. I should do the calcs on five or six patterns in three days You know so I'm sitting there going la la la nobody talk to me. have to do math right now. Just everybody go away Which in real life doesn't work, so you're really hard to put the blinders on and focus ⁓

So once you submit all that, then they tell you, OK, I need it. I need, you know, we're going to ship, say, they're going to ship April of 2026. So we need you to submit the draft pattern for our review three months in advance. So now you're at January. And so you're like, OK, well, then I have to have my testers and editors get to it before that. So we're going to back that up a month to two months.

So if you're lucky, you you maybe have a six month runway before that pattern takes off. Sometimes you have that six month runway. Some manufacturers give me a whole year, which is really like.

Some give me two months. I had one recently. I won't tell which one. I had one recently where I submitted the design in the beginning of August. They said, yes, we love it. I said, OK, cool. And I got an email two weeks later saying, it's part of our current line. Can you have the draft to us in two weeks? And I went.

I'll restack my list. And I made it. ⁓ Had it tested and it all worked. But it was like, OK, we're going to restack it. Because I have a lot of patterns going. And so I base it off of when's the due date and sort them based on that. So sometimes there's a shuffle.

Andi (19:46)
Exciting.

Tori (19:47)
Do you have, ⁓ I'm just thinking about the piecing part of it. Do you have like tips and tricks for yourself on what you can skip when it comes to piecing? you like, I'm so curious, how do you piece quickly? Because you have to piece quickly in those situations, so how do you do that?

Laureen Smith (20:02)
So I realized that I cannot piece the quilt. There are a few exceptions. I cannot be the person who pieces it. And there's a reason I cannot be the person who pieces it. Because example, I am making a quilt right now that's going to go to market. The instructions are not written. I'm like jotting things down on a piece of paper going, OK, this size works better, that size works better.

I hope between now and next week when I actually write the pattern that I won't lose it and I won't forget what those notes meant. So I have to have somebody else actually make the block to make sure that it makes sense because I mentally sometimes can skip steps and forget to write them down. ⁓ So I had one tester come back with me, this is really funny, recently, it was to make

Andi (20:48)
Mm-hmm.

Laureen Smith (20:57)
flying geese four at a time and this woman sat down and actually read it line by line for me and she goes, you tell them to do this and this but you never tell them to sew it. I went, ⁓ yeah, that would be important, wouldn't it? They were like, edit. So when I say skip steps, that's kind of the important step to skip.

Andi (21:18)
Yeah, and that really speaks to the need for pattern testers and editors because we do we once we're experienced enough quilters that we can kind of look at units and put them together without any verbalization. You know, it does make it challenging for the beginners. So, yeah, I had I remember teaching a class on one of my patterns and I was doing a ⁓ stitch and flip corner and I

didn't say cut the extra layers away and a student asked me about that and I'm like well of course you're gonna cut you know that's assumed everybody does that right and she you know done that kind of unit so she needed the exact steps for all parts of it.

Laureen Smith (22:02)
Exactly.

It's like when you tell somebody make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And you tell them, okay, first you put on the peanut butter and then you put on the jelly. And you see people putting the jars on the bread. And you're like, okay, no, no, no, you have to open the jar and take out the peanut, right?

Andi (22:22)
You're the night,

Ethan has spread the peanut butter. Yeah. Yeah.

Laureen Smith (22:26)
Exactly. It's like, So ⁓ some of the things that I've recognized ⁓ are things like, know, when we say cut on the diagonal, might always say cut on the diagonal from corner to corner.

Because there are times you have them cut on the diagonal and it is not corner to corner. So it's, you know, I try to remember to put those things in every time so you're not assuming, right? And, you know, nest the seams or, you know, there's certain things you just, you try to give and I try and give as many little diagrams as I can. So that maybe is another important thing to share with everybody. So a lot of designers today are really adept at

Adobe Illustrator, right?

⁓ I can handle Adobe Acrobat, the writer version, so I can play with it a little bit. Illustrator and I have a love-hate relationship. It really hates me. And I would love to learn how to use it. So one of these days, I will actually take some time and immerse myself, because it's the only way I can learn. So I use EQ8. And people get frustrated, because they're like, only.

All of your, you know, when you have patterns, some of them, you have to tape them together. I'm like, yeah, EQ8 only spits out 8 1⁄2 by 11 sheets. And I am not adept enough with a computer to pull that design into Adobe, make it match up so that it will print out at something else. That is a step beyond my IT capability, right? Keep in mind.

⁓ My ex-husband is an IT guy and he swears I can break any computer in no time flat. And he's probably not kidding. My children do not let me near anything to reprogram it or whatnot. They all take it away from me and say let us do this for you. So the fact that I can do EQ8 is pretty good. So how I design, so to get all of my diagrams in there.

90 % of my work, when you see my diagrams in my ⁓ patterns, I use something called, it's called the metadata that I use. It'll take it, and you can say, look, give me this, and I'll copy it under the clipboard, and I paste it into the Word document. And I've learned how to manipulate all the drawings.

In Word, I use Word as a graphic design tool. I can modify them. You know, I can turn something from a triangle into a rectangle. I can do all of that with these meta images. Just don't ask me to do that in Illustrator because I'm not familiar. So I can go from EQ8 to Word in no time flat and I can manipulate all you want.

Tori (25:32)
You know what I hear from that? hear adapt and overcome. You've found a way that works for you and you make apparently enough patterns to please very many fabric companies. Actually, you've shared with me how many patterns you've made before. Would you mind sharing with our audience exactly how many patterns you have in your library? Because I'd love for them to hear that.

Andi (25:33)
Yeah, that's...

Laureen Smith (25:38)
You

So keep in mind a few of these are recolorations. So example, of my best sellers is San Marco, and San Marco now has been recreated for three different fabric manufacturers, and there's special instructions for each so that you can make it look just like that one, because I know a lot of quilters out there want it to look exactly like the image, and then there are those who are like, yeah, that's a nice guideline, and they kind of just run with it, right? So you've got quilters of all realms.

So including the recolorations that I've done for fabric manufacturers, I have published over 750 patterns. In fact, I had somebody send me a comment on my website the other day going, do you happen to have a filter on your site so that we don't have to doom scroll to get to the pattern we want?

Andi (26:49)
Yeah, I can imagine that it would take a while when you've got over 700 and, you know, you can only do 25 or 50 at a time on the page.

Laureen Smith (26:58)
Yeah, so I did comment that on the left hand bar there is a filter and this is, you can filter by this whether it's, know, do you want paper pacing, do you want, you know, fusible applique, do you want, you know, or do you want a specific size, are you looking for runners, are you looking for king size, are you looking for a specific manufacturer, or you can just type it in alphabetically. There is a search engine there.

Andi (27:25)
Good, good, yeah.

Laureen Smith (27:25)
You just have have an idea

of what you're looking for. Even give the levels, you know, if you're a beginner versus a, you know, intermediate. So for those who are listening, there is a filter, I swear there is. You can narrow down and do not have to doom scroll through all those patterns. Unless you want to.

Andi (27:39)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, no, that's amazing.

Tori (27:44)
Nah, thank you.

Thank you for sharing

Andi (27:45)
Yeah.

Tori (27:46)
that, Lorene. So me and Lorene have been working together for a few years now, so we've shared a lot between each other. So I just wanted her to share how vast her library of patterns are, but also I wanted you to share that because there are people in our audience who only want to design patterns. They don't want to do anything else. And hearing your journey, the way that you have created your own system where you're, you're pasting metadata into Word and kind of avoiding working with some of these

quote-unquote industry standard softwares that you have adapted, you have overcome, and you are a prolific pattern writer and it is possible to get there. And that's why I wanted you to share that. So thank you for sharing all of that. That was beautiful.

Laureen Smith (28:33)
Well, I know the other question people often ask me is they're like, how do you design? So I shared that sometimes I get the fabric stuff, and they're like, so it's kind of like the chicken or the egg. So do you have the idea for the design first, or do you take the fabric first? And I'm going to give the answer. It depends.

Andi (28:47)
Mm-hmm.

Laureen Smith (29:00)
So the prime example back here was Snowflake Wimsy. I had the idea first. So the pattern came first and the fabric filled in. So sometimes I have the distinct design idea and I fill it in with the fabric. So another example of that is I have a quilt that I've done called Forget Me Not, which is all done in classical blocks. They're either album blocks or memory blocks. And it was done as an Alzheimer's quilt.

for Alzheimer's awareness. And the center blocks are very complicated and they get simpler as you go out. The colors are very bright and vibrant in the center and they dull as you go out. And the intent behind that was to demonstrate that it's kind of like your memory at the center. You know, it's really sharp and whatnot. And as the disease progresses, things get simpler, things get duller. ⁓ So the quilt is designed like that. But when you stand back from the quilt,

It looks like a giant forget-me-not. And there are 21 different fabrics in it. So I came up with the idea first and then started plugging the fabrics in to make the design work. And those were all done in the Hoffman watercolors. So sometimes the design comes first. Usually when it comes from a fabric manufacturer though where they're like, OK, we have this. ⁓

It's based, there are lots of things that go into the decision making process. So an example is ⁓ panel quilts. And I do a lot of panel quilts. Panel quilts are really popular right now. I mean really popular right now. ⁓ So I'll get panels and everybody's like, well what do you do? And I'm like, okay. So the first thing I'm going to share with you about a panel quilt, at least mine, there is almost always a coping strip right outside of the panel.

And the reason is...

Andi (30:57)
That's a great tip.

Laureen Smith (31:01)
The when they send us this, we're basing it off of the fact that the designer said it's this. That does not mean that that's what the printer gives them. So I give that coping strip so you can wiggle it a little.

Andi (31:14)
Yeah. And for people that may

not have heard that term, I understand a coping strip as a variable border. So, you know, you're filling in with whatever size to get your starting panel up to this next perimeter measurement.

Laureen Smith (31:31)
Exactly, exactly. So, you know, sometimes the panel is a little smaller than you think, so you're going to have a little wider coping strip and sometimes a little wider than you thought, so you make a little narrower one. But that's why you have that like usual blank strip that it usually matches the background or it's, know, but nonetheless, you can modify that first for anybody who's frustrated with the size of the panel, modify that first strip. So the one I would say don't cut until you know what your panel looks like, right?

So with that, there are a couple deciding factors that go in. So first is the style of the, whether it be the panel or the quilt, it's the style. So I try and match the style. So if it's something that's frond, for example, frond patterns, for those who haven't seen the frond panels, these are gorgeous, very brush stroke panels, right? So for those, I don't put anything intricate around it because the panel itself is just

So massive. For those, I deconstruct a lot of them. I cut them up and make them very abstract. And they always look good that way. So because they're kind of abstract to begin with, I'll use an abstract style to go with it. So I kind of match the style. ⁓ One of my best sellers. It has now dropped to number two. Pages upon pages is number one now. Cats and Bats was number one for a long time.

And I was like, there's something with me and Halloween panels. I don't know. ⁓ But it was this big, spooky panel, right, with these bats flying on it and whatnot. So I made a border that had flying geese along the edges because they kind of look like bats. And then the corners literally had these little bats in them. Again, I designed it based upon the fact that it was kind of a Halloweeny thing. So I used kind of a Halloweeny

design around it, just like the rustic refuge with the log cabin. was very rustic for a outhouse. that's part of it, is I try and match the theme or the genre or whatever. But the color selection is a big thing. ⁓ I try to make sure that whatever colors I choose, they give you all sorts of selections for here's the accompanying fabrics to go with it.

Tori (33:37)
That's what I was thinking as well.

Laureen Smith (33:59)
try to use as many as I can from their collection because that's what they would like. ⁓ But in a fashion that augments it. if there's like this tinge of red thing on the inside, there was one I did. It's a free pattern from Timeless Treasures. ⁓ It was this big black. It looked like a chalkboard. You know how the chalkboard things were real popular? So it looks like this big chalkboard thing. And it was for a Christmas tree.

And it had this like little red star and a few little green things in it. So it's mostly black and white with this bitty, bitty little pops of green and red. So the border I did was mostly black and white with little bitty pops of green and red. So it brought your eye out from that center to the edges matching those colors. So I do take a lot of the color consideration in when I do the design work. ⁓ And obviously, I can't do that until I know what fabrics are they're giving me.

Andi (34:55)
Sure, sure. ⁓ such a fascinating process.

Laureen Smith (35:01)
But Tori knows I have a new love.

Tori (35:04)
Yes, I'm really curious to see you have started shifting your business and I'd love for you to share a little bit about that.

Laureen Smith (35:11)
So as much as I love fabric design, it isn't meaning the designing for the fabric manufacturers, that is something I'm not going to give up because I love working with them. like some quilters, I'm like, I can't do the same thing twice. So they always offer me the new opportunity to do something. It's like having a new coloring book every month. So I have started doing something called three dimensional fusible applique. ⁓

But those who can't see it, and I will send you guys a lovely little couple images if you guys throw them in on your podcast here. So I was doing these little flower things that I was doing for, it started out as a what type of quilter are you? And I matched the flower up with the type of quilter you are based on this little quiz I did, which forced me to use JotForms, which was another fun learning curve, right? So the first one I made was a daisy because I thought it was going be really, really simple. Well, I was using a white fabric.

And I have this little stem underneath it. And when you do fusible applique, if you do a light color over dark color, it's kind of like trying to paint a light color over dark color. You end up with this shadow underneath.

And it bothered me. It's like having a hangnail that you cannot leave alone or that popcorn hole in between your teeth. You just cannot leave it alone. And I could not leave alone that little bit of green under there. like, I can't live with this. So I called my mother up. This is before she's passed away since then. But I called her up and I said, mom.

Andi (36:21)
Yeah.

Tori (36:43)
Can you hold it up so we can see it on YouTube?

Laureen Smith (36:45)
So here it is,

and for those, I'm gonna pull it way in. So this is that little green thing right there, this little green spot. And I mama, but I'm like, mom.

Tori (36:49)
Au revoir.

Laureen Smith (36:59)
I have this shadowing thing going on. How do I fix this? My mother in her typical fashion says, I taught you how to fix that.

Mom, that was 40 plus years ago. Could you give me a refresher? And my mom was like, gives me a hump. I'm like, please? She's like interfacing Lorraine. I'm like, ⁓ that'll do it. It was kind like I said, you just need to give me one little direction and I will keep running with it. But I sometimes need that little hint. And you know, my mother was quite amusing. She's like, I told you how to fix that. I'm like, thank you, mom.

Andi (37:16)
Yeah

Yeah.

Laureen Smith (37:41)
So once she gave me the hint of interfacing, was like, and of course, I had tons of interfacing left from making masks and everything else. I'm like, ⁓ what can I do with this? So I was like, you fuse interfacing, can you put fusible on either side of an interfacing to do this? And I was like, ⁓ that works. Since then, I found out that there's a manufactured process out there. You do not have to make your own fusible interfacing.

The big manufacturers like Heat & Bond and Pellon and all those guys have already figured out how to do that. just, you know, I didn't know that at the time, right? We learned, right?

Andi (38:17)
Yeah, a little bit longer learning

process. It's okay. We get there in the end.

Laureen Smith (38:22)
It's okay, I made it and then they realized they already made it so, you know, oops, I was a little late to the game. But I still use their product. So with that, I decided I would make and I'm going to look for it here. So I decided if I can use the interfacing and I'm already going to make it this fusible interfacing, maybe I can do something cooler with it than just kind of like lifting it a little off the page. Maybe I can lift it a lot off the page.

Well, and mean fabric, but you know what I mean. A lot off the background. So I decided I would make things three dimensional. And so for those of you who can see this on the YouTube, the petals are now really three dimensional. And they're all fused. This is all fusible applique. And you fasten it onto the background. Well, I learned one other thing when I did this was that to make it three dimensional, there was one other trick.

Tori (39:11)
It's really creepy.

Laureen Smith (39:20)
Anytime you send something to a long armor, they're like, yeah, you cannot do any beading, no tremoto, none of that stuff. It gets in the way of the long arm, right? So I realized you had to quilt it first, and then you add your applique to it.

So it completely turns everything upside down, because usually we quilt last. But when I make all these, I quilt first.

Andi (39:44)
⁓ that's so fun. Because I was looking at some of your photos and I was thinking, you know, how careful is she going around all of that 3D stuff? And you just turned the process, reordered the steps. Yeah, fun.

Laureen Smith (39:46)
and then I add all the applique.

Thank

down. Yeah,

I quilt it first and then I applique, which gives you a little more wiggle room too because you know I don't know about you guys but ⁓ I absolutely love Hollyann Knight and the fact that well you know one of her taglines is you know ⁓ quilt is desired were like some of the worst words ever put into a pattern and I do put it into every pattern because you don't know

what level everybody's quilting is, right? So is the designer, you're like, OK, I don't know if you're going to send it to a long armor or you're doing it on your domestic machine.

Andi (40:39)
Yeah. Do you like custom? you want a little bit of

Laureen Smith (40:41)
I don't know what you're comfortable with,

right? Yeah. So when I did these patterns, I realized I could not do the same thing to people because they would never get past step one. So when I do these patterns, I actually give them all the quilting diagrams. And in the videos I give them, I tell them, look, here's how to quilt it. And you can do it a little more. You can do it a little less. But here's the minimum quilting I recommend.

And the quilting always has a purpose. It tells you where to put your applique. ⁓ So it takes away a lot of the guesswork when people are going, OK, I don't even know where to start. I tell them where to start.

Andi (41:21)
Yeah.

Tori (41:21)
So

you're mentioning videos and you're talking about your applique. So how did this, what offer are you building around this 3D applique?

Laureen Smith (41:32)
So I have several out there. The easiest one I have out there for anybody who's really interested in just dipping your toes into it to see if you're even interested in doing this. I started small. when I say I started small, Tori, I had to rip this out of her hands at H &H. She was having too much fun playing with it. ⁓

So I have something, I call it the dimensional dogwood. It's a little bitty, and when I say little bitty, it's like five inches by five inches. It's a little pin cushion that tells you how to do the three dimensional design. And it gives you, it's kind of like the, we'll call it the sampler that you don't have to overly commit to. You can get it done in an afternoon and decide, okay, I like this or.

Yeah, too much work for me, not for me, whatever. But at least you have a finished product when you get done. So I turn it into a pin cushion. You can turn it into a coaster or a nice little door hanging or whatever. ⁓ But I do make it so that, and for those who can see behind me, ⁓ this create thing is actually made from the same pattern that you can do other things with it. if you get into it, you can do that. But that's how I start everybody off.

is with this little bitty thing just to go, OK, do you like it or not? It's your taster. But I do have a full line of ⁓ projects that I have that are lined up behind it. I'm working on a book thing with Tori ⁓ where we're going to kind of blow this up a little bit more for those who are interested. And there's always videos to go along with this because some of us are visual learners and some can read it and get it. So you have to hit both.

Andi (43:16)
Yeah.

So you've got all these patterns out there and you mentioned you have a YouTube channel that has the tutorials on it. Are you also teaching in person as part of your business?

Laureen Smith (43:28)
Right, so let me clarify on the YouTube channel. So the YouTube channel has all of my stuff like freezer paper, foundations, and all that fun stuff. To do the three dimensional, because it's very special, I actually have it so that the only way you can get to those videos is to actually sign up for the class, which it's an inexpensive one, and I have it on my own platform. But.

Andi (43:46)
Okay.

Laureen Smith (43:52)
do teach at guilds. I do teach in person. If the group wants to say, hey, look, you want to have a Zoom meeting? Can we do this? I do that as well. In fact, I had one guild ask me. They loved the daisy that I did, but they wanted it a little bigger. So I kind of blew the daisy up and showed them how to put borders on it. And so I'm kind of doing that for their guild. And so I add different.

things into it so that you can do lots of little projects. One of my favorites is I did a journal cover. ⁓ So you just take a composition notebook, and you can throw the composition notebook in it. So keep notes of how you're doing your little projects. And it has a little pocket you can stick things in. ⁓ But I used the pansy on it. So all of the designs I do, you can kind of mix and match the flowers to match whatever project you want. So I kind of pair the two up together.

So that's kind some of the fun I've been having.

Tori (44:53)
So just to reiterate for our audience, I love how you built this out. So you've developed your own technique, ⁓ flowers, as far as an accident, which I love that story about your mom. I love it. It's so much fun, but I love that you, you took this technique. You created a introductory course to teach technique. Then you built on top of that, a class with other flowers. And then doesn't that lead to a membership as well?

Laureen Smith (44:59)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It does. It does lead to a membership and I was looking for it and it's apparently sitting in a

Laureen Smith (45:27)
Okay, so I have put together the flowers and everything else, but I also put together, ⁓ I've used the technique on other things and I was looking for him. I actually have done like a crab in the three-dimensional. So it's not just limited to flowers, you can do other things with it. ⁓ But I took a new technique. I've several patterns written with it for each of the patterns.

There are videos to go with it. And the videos are housed separately so that, no offense to YouTube, but it is a special technique. It's not broad enough yet that I'm going to put it out there for everybody to just grab. ⁓ And now I'm going to be working on a book. I have a membership that it goes with it. ⁓ So my members, I've got a group that we work together every month. And we pull up together a different flower or a different technique.

Andi (46:02)
you

Laureen Smith (46:25)
And each flower that we do has a very different technique with it. an example is I did the Cherrywood Festival, and I did an entire collage in that. But example, we did like the sunflower here, and we did woven centers. So we do different techniques with each flower. So it's not just the same flower with the same technique. We really play with almost like a fabric origami type thing when we do it.

which is kind of the fun. if you're somebody who gets bored with the same old technique all the time, we do not do the same old technique every time. I am always throwing something new and different in because I'm like, I wonder if, ⁓ and then I play with something and I'm like, cool, that works. And then I incorporate it into a flower. So it's always something new and different. So those who like puzzles, it is it.

Andi (47:24)
Yeah, it sounds like you've got a lot going on, but you're making it all work. So that's fantastic. Well, we need to get into our rapid fire questions, which are not necessarily fast. You can, you know, talk as long as you want, but we have our set questions for every guest. And the first one is what color do you struggle to use in your designs? Is there something you avoid? Poor orange.

Tori (47:25)
I'm sorry.

Laureen Smith (47:50)
Orange.

I discovered that when I actually looked at my stash which ⁓ I do have my I do have like almost all the Hoffman watercolors in the other room, but In my stash that I had that you know I play with I look and I'm looking at I'm like I've got pink. I've got purple. I've got blue. I've got green I'm like dang. I have no orange in fact. I still have no orange It's like I buy it just to use it for the project, and it's like done not my favorite color

Andi (48:12)
Yeah.

Tori (48:21)
Now think we can guess the answer to this, but the next question is do you prefer yardage or pre-cuts?

Laureen Smith (48:28)
So it depends on the product, on the project. I primarily like yardage because I like to do things that are different. But I have some of my better selling ⁓ projects actually are pre-cuts and several I've done recently are pre-cuts. And those are kind of fun because I don't do traditional ⁓ patterns with them. So example, there's one coming out right now from Northcott, which I call Rainbow Sherbert, which is all 2 and 1 inch strips.

in a very, very funky design. And I did another one. ⁓ It's called Spice Mill. it's all, technically it would be a beginner quilt because it's all pre-cuts. It's all 2 and 1 inch strips. But you have to like jigsaw puzzles to do it because they're all mixed up together. So it's not like just rip it out. You actually have to plan it.

Andi (49:15)
Hahaha!

Tori (49:22)
Can I throw another question to her real quick? I know we're in middle of rapid fire, but I'm so curious. You mentioned naming patterns and you have so many. Do you have a way to figure how to name a pattern?

Laureen Smith (49:34)
Sometimes it's whatever mood strikes me. I love alliteration. ⁓ Sometimes it's based upon a place, something that strikes me as the place. Sometimes it's, especially with the fabric manufacturers, it's a riff off of the fabric, the original fabric line I designed it for. ⁓ So sometimes that'll, example, the one that when I said cats and bats, it was a big spooky house with cats. It was like, okay, I'm gonna call it cats and bats, because, ⁓ it's got bats on it and there's cats in it. Call it cats and bats.

So sometimes it's best to...

Andi (50:07)
Yeah, that's a fun process.

Laureen Smith (50:10)
So I do not use GPT to help me name them. I will tell you that. ⁓

Andi (50:15)
Gotta be original on some of those things. So, tell us your favorite or most used notion in your sewing process.

Laureen Smith (50:33)
hard. I have to pick one. Okay, so, okay, so one of one of one of my favorites.

Andi (50:36)
or, you know, let's keep it a relative short list.

Yeah

Laureen Smith (50:43)
Reynolds freezer paper!

I love freezer paper. I use it for all sorts of things, from fusible applique to foundation piecing. ⁓ I love my rotary cutters. ⁓ If I had to, and I do love fusible. But if there's a specific thing that I love, it's beads. I love adding bling. When I actually finish a quilt, I love to add bling to it. So the snowflake whimsy that's behind me, I know I've mentioned a couple times.

And even several of, ⁓ so example here. Let's see if I can pull it out here. So this was ⁓ the Aster that's in the 3D. The whole center here is all, that's all beads in the center. And then I used my normal stitching on my, fancy stitching on my sewing machine and then added beads to it all along it. So wherever I can incorporate beads, I tend to do that. Because I like to play.

Andi (51:41)
Very cool.

Laureen Smith (51:44)
I think that's the embroidery in me coming out.

Andi (51:46)
Sure.

Tori (51:47)
Sure.

Next question is who, and they don't have be in the quilting world, but who is inspiring you right now?

Laureen Smith (51:56)
⁓ who is inspiring me right now? So there are several. ⁓ Two of them are named Bethann. So Bethann Demesh and Bethann Williams. ⁓ Both are people who inspire me ⁓ just because I've watched their teaching techniques and other things. I just love the work that they do. So those are two people who definitely influence me right now. ⁓ And I do have. ⁓

from a business standpoint, a couple of that inspire me and one of those is Amber Housley. ⁓ She's actually helped a couple other quilters but she is great for helping with business models and stuff like that. So from a business perspective she's really been inspiring me lately.

Andi (52:41)
⁓ thank you for those recommendations. What is the favorite part of your business?

Laureen Smith (52:49)
Okay, so my favorite part is when the design, when the fabric houses send me the fabrics. It is like, I am like a kid with a new coloring book and I will sit down, I will turn on something mundane in the background and literally on the TV, it's like I'll binge watch something that's really not worth binge watching. And I will sit there and spend hours upon hours manipulating the fabric into designs and you could lose me there forever and I could.

I would gladly just hand it over to somebody and say, here, you can write it up now. I've designed it here. It's pretty. Go with it. ⁓ That is my favorite part is actually sitting there in EQA, I could lose myself for days just designing with the fabrics. It's my favorite part.

Andi (53:23)
You

Yeah, yeah, that is very fun.

Tori (53:35)
I love that.

Laureen Smith (53:38)
Maybe

that's why I have so many designs, is because that is my favorite part.

Tori (53:43)
And our last question for you is how many quilts are in the room with you right now? And you can kind of ballpark it.

Laureen Smith (53:50)
Are these finished quilts or in progress?

Andi (53:54)
We may need to limit you to finished.

Tori (53:54)
It's up to you. ⁓

Laureen Smith (53:58)
Okay, if it's finished, ⁓ lord, I've got the mini-quilt. But I would say...

Andi (54:02)
You've got the whole stack of

flowers right behind you too.

Laureen Smith (54:07)
including the mini quilts, I probably have 15 finished quilts here in the room with me. If I walked into the other room where all my fabric sits, there's probably about another 25 sitting in there.

Andi (54:21)
Yeah. Not bad, you know. I was thinking with 700 patterns you might have, you know, triple digits in. What would you with the triple digits there?

Laureen Smith (54:33)
So that's why I asked specifically

finished or unfinished? Because if we're talking just, if I can include just the tops, we're well over 100. I just said, finishing is the problem?

Andi (54:42)
Yeah.

What do you do with it, and this is totally tangent on our previous conversation, what do you do with all the samples from all these patterns, or have you not made samples for every pattern you sell?

Laureen Smith (55:00)
So we were talking about this beforehand. I don't necessarily make ⁓ every sample. ⁓ I often farm that out to others who do some testing for me. Because I can't test my own patterns because mentally I skip steps and I know what I meant. So because I know what I meant, I won't catch it in the instructions, which is why somebody else has to read it. And editors aren't perfect either.

So I try and have everything go through two or three hands and you'd be surprised. it could have gone through six different people and somebody out there will find out that I screwed up a fraction somewhere and I'm always like, thank you, and then I put the correction out. So ⁓ for testing the blocks, it depends. My testers test everything because I can't. ⁓ If it's something really complicated and I'm not sure how I'm going to make it, like I'm really not sure on the measurements or whatnot, I will

actually make the block first and then make something else because I'm like, okay, I know it worked when I did it. I just have to make sure it'll work when something else does it. So yeah, so I mean, I have a minimum of test blocks on everything that I've made the first time and some of my quilts contain the same blocks, you know, so you kind of mix and match type thing. So if I've made the block once for one quilt, I don't make the same block for the other seven or eight quilts that may be in because I've already made it once and I know where it

Andi (56:05)
Yeah. Right.

Sounds good. Sounds good. Well, this has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much, Lorene, for spending time with us. Tell people where they can find you.

Laureen Smith (56:39)
So hopefully this, if you're watching this in the podcast, you'll have it written down because it's a long thing. It's www.termalintimequilts.com. There's no ampersand or and in the middle. It's just termalintimequilts.com. I am on YouTube. I'm on Pinterest. I have an Etsy shop as well as my regular shop and Instagram and Facebook. So you can find me lots of places.

Andi (57:05)
Yeah, and we'll definitely.

Laureen Smith (57:06)
And any

of the fabric manufacturers, you'll find me in their catalogs.

Andi (57:09)
Okay, cool.

Tori (57:10)
I will say every

local shop, every quilt shop I've walked into, look for her purple covers and you'll probably find at least one or two patterns in your local shop.

Laureen Smith (57:21)
And I absolutely, if you've done one of my patterns and finished it, please send me pictures. I love getting pictures of the quilts finished. I really, really do. Because like I said, I see a lot of them. for those who don't know, oftentimes we get the same time the shops get it is the same time we get it to make the samples. Because we can't always get the pre-cut yardage from them before publication.

So we'd love seeing what you've finished, because sometimes you guys actually finish it before we do. Everything we do is on test fabric. So we love seeing it actually done.

Andi (57:51)
Yeah.

That is a great reminder to reach out to those designers you love. Thanks again, Loreen. Thanks for being here. Great to talk to you. We just hope everybody has a lot of fun quilting and building their businesses.

Laureen Smith (58:13)
It is. And anybody, if anybody ever wants to know how to do the metadata to the word, just let me know. I'll give tutorials.

Andi (58:23)
Thanks so much.

Laureen Smith (58:25)
Thanks everybody.

Andi (58:28)
my gosh, that was so interesting hearing from Loreen about all of her pattern design, her 3D applique. She's doing such fun stuff. What are some of your takeaways, Tori? ⁓

Tori (58:41)
Let's see, definitely I love that she has adjusted her...

around tech. she doesn't, she didn't dive into Adobe. She found it really, really hard, but she found a, well, I I don't remember if she said really, really hard, but she did find a way to create her diagrams that she needed to with tech, with tech that she understood. So she, she uses what she knows to create these amazing patterns. Like they're still professional. They're still valuable. They're still able to be read and, and you know,

Andi (58:56)
Yeah.

Tori (59:16)
used, of course she shared what 750, was that it? 750 patterns that she's created using the tech that she's been able to learn and develop and she has her own workflow. And it's not perfect as in our industry standard would deem it perfect, but she's been able to create these professional patterns using the tech that she knows. Does that make sense? That makes sense.

Andi (59:41)
Yeah, yeah, no, I totally get it. you know, you just

kind of that scrappy nature of quilters. You make do with what you have and you figure it out. And so that just ⁓ is a really great example for people that you can forge your own path to success. that was really, really great. I was struck by the fact that Lorene was able to ⁓ network, use the people.

in her life to make connections and get connected to the fabric companies and keep designing for them. just the way she was describing, you know, being introduced to the first company and then.

meeting another company and then this company reached out to her and it just you know it really felt like organic growth that she wasn't ⁓ you know desperately sending out all of these cold emails and trying to you know make make up the connection it just evolved from her natural quilting life and her interests so that was really inspiring to me. ⁓

Tori (1:01:02)
It shows her quality, right? Like if other people are reaching out to find her, they see the quality in her work and they see her ability to create designs out of what she's been given. And that was probably another takeaway I had was her design process. Like that was fascinating to hear. Like sometimes the fabric speaks to her. Sometimes she just already has an idea based off of whatever, whatever's influencing her at the moment. And I love her positivity and her resilience. Like she...

She's just a light and she was so positive and a great ball of energy that just I think is very much needed in the quilting space and I love it.