Dody!
I've sent you an email, Dody, so I can send off your brand-new fat quarter bundle of purple pretties! Thanks to all of you who were oh-so-kind with your comments. Happy making, and God Bless!
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
My Quilting Anniversary! With a GIVEWAWAY!
Okay, it's a few days late, but June 18th marks my quilting anniversary! Let's take a quick trip down memory lane to see what my very first quilted project was...
This super-groovy clutch! Wow, my seams don't match up the slightest bit, but who cares? It's random enough that it isn't all that noticeable from afar.
I think I've come along quite a way, don't you? Anyhow, I'll keep this one short and sweet. I wanted to do something cool to celebrate, and my husband says I have way too many projects going on at the same time, so I'm giving away a bundle of fabrics from my stash:
This super-groovy clutch! Wow, my seams don't match up the slightest bit, but who cares? It's random enough that it isn't all that noticeable from afar.
I think I've come along quite a way, don't you? Anyhow, I'll keep this one short and sweet. I wanted to do something cool to celebrate, and my husband says I have way too many projects going on at the same time, so I'm giving away a bundle of fabrics from my stash:
One randomly selected commenter will win my personal fat quarter bundle of Luminescence fabric made by Connecting Threads! When this line first came out, I was immediately smitten by the way the light seems to shine right through the fabric. It helps, of course, that it features my favorite color, purple. So, wanna win? Just leave me a comment below.
This giveaway is now closed. Thank you to all who entered and left such nice comments!
Disclaimer: One lucky winner will receive 14 random fat quarters of fabric from the Luminescence collection. This giveaway is not sponsored or endorsed by Connecting Threads.
Thanks so much for reading, and Happy Q-niversary to me! Until next time, God Bless.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
LMQG Modern Elements Challenge
Okay, I know I've been MIA lately, but I assure y'all, I'm here and I'm fine. I simply haven't been sewing in the last month or so. I've simply been too exhausted. Work has been more demanding as of late, and there's the whole I'm-growing-a-human-inside-my-belly thing going on too. So let me try to preemptively answer the usual barrage of questions:
Yes, I'm having a baby. Yes, my husband is the father. (I'm kidding, no one's really asked me that one!) It's due on November 24th. No, I don't know if it's a boy or girl yet. Yes, we are planning on finding out before it's born. No, we weren't really planning on having one right now, but yes, we're glad it's happening now.
Okay, sorry to be curt, but let's move on to the sewing, shall we? The one item I've managed to complete recently is my entry into the Lakeland Modern Quilt Guild's Modern Elements Challenge. Northcott fabrics was so kind to give us some fat quarter bundles to play with for this challenge. You can view the Modern Elements fabric line here. The rules were simple: make something quilted between 12"x12" and 24"x24" using all three fat quarters and matching Toscana blenders. Simple enough, right?
Well...I had issues. My instinct was to applique this thing and get it over with. After all, applique is my thing. I did, however, want to challenge myself. Piecing is not my strong suit, so I thought that following a pattern might help. Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine has done a mini quilt series this year featuring our local "sewlebrity" Elizabeth Dackson. I decided I just HAD to make one of her patterns. One issue: I found myself with two days left in the challenge, which is not the time to teach myself paper piecing. I ended up choosing one of her non-FPP patterns.
My hubby is a trooper. He helped me get organized so I could finish my entry in time. The hubster is extremely type-A, so here's the stacks of pieces he made for me, organized by size:
Cutting the pieces out was the most time consuming part. Afterwards, the piecing came together fairly quickly. I had some leftover fusible batting, so basting was a cinch:
I haven't finished very many projects, so I gave my free motion quilting a whirl (a design I learned from Elizabeth by the way!):
The swirly loops went very quickly and didn't turn out all that badly in my opinion.
Well, here's my finished entry:
I didn't win any prizes (not that I was expecting it to!), but it was fun to try something new without a huge time commitment. Many thanks to the LMQG, Northcott, and the prize sponsors for a fun time!
 |
| The culprit at 8 weeks. Say hello, #babyschep ! |
Yes, I'm having a baby. Yes, my husband is the father. (I'm kidding, no one's really asked me that one!) It's due on November 24th. No, I don't know if it's a boy or girl yet. Yes, we are planning on finding out before it's born. No, we weren't really planning on having one right now, but yes, we're glad it's happening now.
Okay, sorry to be curt, but let's move on to the sewing, shall we? The one item I've managed to complete recently is my entry into the Lakeland Modern Quilt Guild's Modern Elements Challenge. Northcott fabrics was so kind to give us some fat quarter bundles to play with for this challenge. You can view the Modern Elements fabric line here. The rules were simple: make something quilted between 12"x12" and 24"x24" using all three fat quarters and matching Toscana blenders. Simple enough, right?
Well...I had issues. My instinct was to applique this thing and get it over with. After all, applique is my thing. I did, however, want to challenge myself. Piecing is not my strong suit, so I thought that following a pattern might help. Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine has done a mini quilt series this year featuring our local "sewlebrity" Elizabeth Dackson. I decided I just HAD to make one of her patterns. One issue: I found myself with two days left in the challenge, which is not the time to teach myself paper piecing. I ended up choosing one of her non-FPP patterns.
My hubby is a trooper. He helped me get organized so I could finish my entry in time. The hubster is extremely type-A, so here's the stacks of pieces he made for me, organized by size:
Cutting the pieces out was the most time consuming part. Afterwards, the piecing came together fairly quickly. I had some leftover fusible batting, so basting was a cinch:
I haven't finished very many projects, so I gave my free motion quilting a whirl (a design I learned from Elizabeth by the way!):
The swirly loops went very quickly and didn't turn out all that badly in my opinion.
Well, here's my finished entry:
I didn't win any prizes (not that I was expecting it to!), but it was fun to try something new without a huge time commitment. Many thanks to the LMQG, Northcott, and the prize sponsors for a fun time!
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
More and more mug rugs!
We just can't stop swapping at the Lakeland Modern Quilt Guild! We recently turned in our mug rugs destined for the Italian Modern Quilt Guild. Check out the one I whipped up:
Recognize this block? I made it at Christy Fincher's class last month. I just haven't had the time to incorporate it into a bigger project, so at 8 inches square, I thought it might make a fine mug rug. I did some gentle curved quilting with my walking foot, which was new to me, but seemed to turn out just fine for a first attempt.
I used Elmer's glue to baste the binding in place, which made finishing the binding by machine a breeze! (Shout out to Adelle in my guild for turning me onto this method!)
The cool thing about continually having swaps is that you receive stuff at the same time you turn stuff in for the next one. Remember the mug rugs I made for the Brisbane Modern Quilt Guild? Well, check out the ones I received in exchange:
This one was made with Cotton + Steel fabrics, and looks so cool! This one is proudly displayed on my desk at work. Check out Jess's blog here.
Check out the teeny tiny piecing on this mug rug! It's super cute, and sits on my desk at home. Thank you, Myriam!
All in all, what a successful swap! Can't wait to see what I get from Italy! Until next time, God bless!
Recognize this block? I made it at Christy Fincher's class last month. I just haven't had the time to incorporate it into a bigger project, so at 8 inches square, I thought it might make a fine mug rug. I did some gentle curved quilting with my walking foot, which was new to me, but seemed to turn out just fine for a first attempt.
I used Elmer's glue to baste the binding in place, which made finishing the binding by machine a breeze! (Shout out to Adelle in my guild for turning me onto this method!)
The cool thing about continually having swaps is that you receive stuff at the same time you turn stuff in for the next one. Remember the mug rugs I made for the Brisbane Modern Quilt Guild? Well, check out the ones I received in exchange:
This one was made with Cotton + Steel fabrics, and looks so cool! This one is proudly displayed on my desk at work. Check out Jess's blog here.
Check out the teeny tiny piecing on this mug rug! It's super cute, and sits on my desk at home. Thank you, Myriam!
All in all, what a successful swap! Can't wait to see what I get from Italy! Until next time, God bless!
Monday, April 20, 2015
American Blues
Time for another quilt! Gosh, this quilting thing is really catching on! A few months ago, Love Patchwork and Quilting offered a digital back issue sale, so I snatched up every issue I was missing. Of course, I had a field day reading through them! I was very excited to find a new pattern meant specifically for my in-laws. My husband Mark had to approve the pattern, of course. He settled on this:
The pattern is titled Seaside Sketch, and is found in Issue 4 of the magazine, by Judith Dahmen. Check out Judith's blog here. Her blog has pictures of other versions of the same pattern as well. We were particularly drawn to the color scheme featured in the "seaside" version of the quilt, so I tried to replicate it the best I could. The pattern calls for colored strips of random sizes to be pieced into one long strip, which then acts as the sashing for the gray squares. Here's my version of "random:"
And it keeps growing! I ended up with such a long strip, I had to roll it up, jelly roll style:
I wanted the quilt to be something special, so I opted to use American Made Brand fabrics for most of it. These fabrics are, well, American made, from "farm to fabric." The cotton is grown and processed right here in the good ol' USA. I thought that was something my in-laws would appreciate. The backing fabric is from Robert Kaufman, printed in the USA.
What did I think about working with these fabrics? Well, they have a lower price point because they are not top quality. In my opinion, RK Kona Cotton Solids and Moda Bella Solids are top-notch, but they are a splurge for my quilting budget. I prewash all of my fabric, so these American Made Brand solids "thickened up" a bit in the wash, which I appreciated. They are by no means a low-quality fabric, just not what the more discerning quilter might choose for his or her quilt. Ultimately, I can feel good about my choice to use their fabric, and it's a bit easier on my wallet, too.
The design of the quilt is super simple--solid squares with scrappy sashing. I've never made a quilt this large, so finding ample space on my floor was a challenge:
Oh no! Guess who ran out of sashing?? This gal! No problem, I'll just make some more, right? Well, it just so happens that I donated ALL of my leftover blue fabric to my guild's opportunity quilt! Oops. So two lessons learned:
(1) When a pattern tells you to make a certain length of sashing, make sure to take your seam allowances into account! My hubby measured the length of sashing I'd need to make to compensate, and it turns out that I cut enough fabric, but forgot to figure in that each seam would remove half an inch. When making scrappy sashing, that's a lot of seams!
(2) Don't donate leftover fabric until you're finished with the project it's "leftover" from! In this instance, the fabric wasn't really leftover after all. Instead, I had to go drop another $12 on fat quarters to finish it up. Not that big of a deal, but it could have been worse. What if I was using prints that were hard to find?
So here's the new iron I used during this project. I bought this little cheapie at Wal-Mart for around $7, and guess what? It's the best freakin' iron I've ever owned. This little guy gets really hot and doesn't have an auto shut off. Sure, it tends to drip if you're trying to use it while it's heating up, but it's just water, right?
Well, there is such a thing as too hot. I was using Coats and Clark Dual Duty thread to piece this quilt, and The Little Iron That Could melted some of my seams:
Aside from that, the quilt top came together just fine. A few puckers from some inconsistent seams, but I'm not going to fuss over it.
Now for the hard part (at least for me): basting and quilting! I purchased some fusible batting from Connecting Threads, because I really have not enjoyed using basting spray, and all of my safety pins are currently in use in another quilt sandwich.
It was a bit cumbersome, but not more so than any other method I've used. Unrolling the batting was probably the biggest challenge. The adhesive made the quilt "roll" stick together, so I had to unpeel and unroll at the same time. Not something you want to do in a hurry. Basting the quilt required me to lay out my quilt sandwich on my linoleum and to crawl around on top of the quilt, super-hot iron in hand, but in the end, I think I'll stick to this method for the time being. The fusible bond formed isn't permanent--in fact, I peeled apart the layers in a few spots and re-fused them just fine.
Then I wrangled the quilt through my Singer Quantum Stylist 9960. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but now I am really itching for a custom sewing table! Now for the photo shoot:
Until next time, God bless!
Yes, that's me trying to randomize the length of each piece. Boy, do I have a problem! Piecing the strip was a lot of fun:
You start getting this pile o' strip accumulating by your machine.
And it keeps growing! I ended up with such a long strip, I had to roll it up, jelly roll style:
I wanted the quilt to be something special, so I opted to use American Made Brand fabrics for most of it. These fabrics are, well, American made, from "farm to fabric." The cotton is grown and processed right here in the good ol' USA. I thought that was something my in-laws would appreciate. The backing fabric is from Robert Kaufman, printed in the USA.
What did I think about working with these fabrics? Well, they have a lower price point because they are not top quality. In my opinion, RK Kona Cotton Solids and Moda Bella Solids are top-notch, but they are a splurge for my quilting budget. I prewash all of my fabric, so these American Made Brand solids "thickened up" a bit in the wash, which I appreciated. They are by no means a low-quality fabric, just not what the more discerning quilter might choose for his or her quilt. Ultimately, I can feel good about my choice to use their fabric, and it's a bit easier on my wallet, too.
Oh no! Guess who ran out of sashing?? This gal! No problem, I'll just make some more, right? Well, it just so happens that I donated ALL of my leftover blue fabric to my guild's opportunity quilt! Oops. So two lessons learned:
(1) When a pattern tells you to make a certain length of sashing, make sure to take your seam allowances into account! My hubby measured the length of sashing I'd need to make to compensate, and it turns out that I cut enough fabric, but forgot to figure in that each seam would remove half an inch. When making scrappy sashing, that's a lot of seams!
(2) Don't donate leftover fabric until you're finished with the project it's "leftover" from! In this instance, the fabric wasn't really leftover after all. Instead, I had to go drop another $12 on fat quarters to finish it up. Not that big of a deal, but it could have been worse. What if I was using prints that were hard to find?
So here's the new iron I used during this project. I bought this little cheapie at Wal-Mart for around $7, and guess what? It's the best freakin' iron I've ever owned. This little guy gets really hot and doesn't have an auto shut off. Sure, it tends to drip if you're trying to use it while it's heating up, but it's just water, right?
Well, there is such a thing as too hot. I was using Coats and Clark Dual Duty thread to piece this quilt, and The Little Iron That Could melted some of my seams:
Aside from that, the quilt top came together just fine. A few puckers from some inconsistent seams, but I'm not going to fuss over it.
Now for the hard part (at least for me): basting and quilting! I purchased some fusible batting from Connecting Threads, because I really have not enjoyed using basting spray, and all of my safety pins are currently in use in another quilt sandwich.
It was a bit cumbersome, but not more so than any other method I've used. Unrolling the batting was probably the biggest challenge. The adhesive made the quilt "roll" stick together, so I had to unpeel and unroll at the same time. Not something you want to do in a hurry. Basting the quilt required me to lay out my quilt sandwich on my linoleum and to crawl around on top of the quilt, super-hot iron in hand, but in the end, I think I'll stick to this method for the time being. The fusible bond formed isn't permanent--in fact, I peeled apart the layers in a few spots and re-fused them just fine.
Then I wrangled the quilt through my Singer Quantum Stylist 9960. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but now I am really itching for a custom sewing table! Now for the photo shoot:
Winner!
Terri W!
Thanks to everyone who entered, and I hope you come back and visit me soon! Until next time, God Bless!
Sunday, April 12, 2015
The New Hexagon Millefiore Quilt Along: Rosette 1 and a GIVEAWAY!
So just trolling through Facebook one day I stumbled across some stunning pictures of some English Paper Piecing in progress. Turns out there's a group of people following Katja Marek's The New Hexagon Millefiore Quilt Along.
The quilt along is based on Katja's new book, The New Hexagon:
As you can tell from the cover, she's subdivided hexagons into smaller pieces with some really stunning effects. Being the hand sewer that I am, I immediately had to join, even though I was starting off over a month behind.
I ordered the book online from Connecting Threads, but was having trouble getting my scanner to accurately copy the patterns in the book, so I purchased the digital copy of the book as well, which has printable patterns. Here's what one of them looks like:
The highlighter marks are there to help me put the blocks back together in the same orientation. I had picked out some fabric I thought would be fun to fussy cut from, but was thwarted when I discovered how large these pieces are! A great excuse to go to the fabric store, then:
I picked up this Color Theory layer cake from Gigi's Fabric in Brandon. I love it! I personally have issues combining different colors, and Vanessa does an awesome job of mixing different colors together. Now a layer cake isn't going to be nearly enough, so I bought Moda Bella Solids in matching colors from Inspire! in Plant City as well as from Fat Quarter Shop.
There's some ombre fabric in there that I am itching to use!
Well, here's the center of Rosette 1:
That's an 18x24 cutting mat, to put this in perspective. I really love how the striped fabric turned into a union jack.
I only used solids in the next round:
I then decided to tone it down on the last round by incorporating more prints:
It's taken a long time to get to this point, but it's been a lot of fun. On to Rosette two!
Wanna join in on the fun? You'll need a copy of Katja's book The New Hexagon, and I'm giving you a chance to win my personal copy of this book!
How to Enter:
Simply leave a comment at the end of this post, and make sure that I have a way to contact you if you win. One entry per person, please.
Who is Eligible to Win:
This giveaway is open worldwide to all participants with a valid email address.
What can I win?
I am giving away my personal copy of the paperback The New Hexagon by Katja Marek.
When is the Deadline to Enter?
This giveaway is open until Friday, April 17th, 5PM EDT. The winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will be contacted via email and announced on my blog shortly thereafter.
Disclaimer:
This giveaway is NOT sponsered by Katja Marek nor Katja's Quilt Shop. I am giving away my own personal copy of her book that I purchased at retail price.
I hope you win! God Bless.
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