Winner from Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

In case anyone was wondering

My favorite christmas season song is

Amy Grant's My Grown up Christmas List.

 

The winner of the low volume fat quarter bundle is

Stephanie ALvarez

and

the winner of the book is

ALison of Little bunny Quilts.

 

Congratulations!

 

 

2013 Giveaway Day Sew Mama Sew !!!

COMMENTs are now CLosed!

In case anyone was wondering

My favorite Christmas season song is

Amy Grant's My Grown up Christmas List.

 

The winner of the low volume fat quarter bundle is

Stephanie ALvarez

and

the winner of the book is

ALison of Little bunny Quilts.

 

Congratulations!

 

 

 

 

 

I'm So glad you are here.

 

For several years Sew Mama Sew has been

sponsoring the blogger's giveaway day.

My goal is to keep this simple.

 

I browsed my etsy shop to bring you a selection of

the best Low volume / low value fat quarters

 for any quilting project.

 

 

Fabrics are from Pam Kitty Picnic by Lakehouse Drygoods, Moda,

Michael Miller, Henry Glass and Dear Stella

10 fat quarters total.

~~~~~~~

Plus I am giving away a copy of my book

Large-BLock Quilts
 

To enter,

 simply

leave a comment on your favorite Christmas song :)

One book winner and one bundle winner will be chosen on

December 13th by 5pm.

I will announce winners by December 14th.

 

Psst....

 

I have been really slack on blogging.

I have a million excuses and none that are really that interesting.

So to help inspire me to start blogging again

I decided to participate in the

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway day December 9, 2013!

I will be giving a bundle away from my shop.

Here's a peak....

 

 

 

Stop back tomorrow to enter.

 

Free Layer Cake pattern?

The fat quarter shop has always been a source of inspiration for me.

I find myself checking the New section on their website everyday.

 

 

The kits and vast selection of patterns

are inspiring too.

Then It's Sew Emma arrived.

The designs knocked my socks off!

 

 

Despite my stalking of the fat quarter shop,

I was truly surprised when they

began offering You-tube videos of free quilt patterns.

 

 

Not just any free quilt patterns,

but a pattern specifically for pre-cuts.

The first pattern they offered was Jelly Roll Jam

and now they've created a

layer cake pattern too.

 

 

It's called Layer cake Lemonade.

 

 

You can imagine how excited I was when they asked me to test the pattern.

 

With the Thanksgiving Holiday coming so soon,

I wanted to make a quilt that could express that fall feeling.

3-Sisters Vin Du Jour was the perfect fabric line.

 

I divided my fabric into light and darks as suggested.

The time to piece the quilt was about 2 hours.

In quilt terms...that's FAST!!!!

 

 

I absolutely love how it turned out.

Since Vin Du Jour yardage wasn't available I used a

feedsack Yuwa print for the backing.

 

I even quilted it myself on my regular sewing machine.

It's a great size and it's not too big to manage.

 

My layer cake had a few squares left over.

So I cut them into 2 1/4" strips and sewed them to together to create binding.

 

It wasn't quite enough binding,

so I cut the extra pieced strip into 2 1/4" x 48" strips

and added that to my other binding.

it was perfect, scrappy and used almost all the fabric.

With the bit of binding that was left I used to

sew a scrappy pillow to coordinate with the quilt

(well the top is done... I got sidetracked and finished a few other things first)

 

I'd like to make a couple more of these quilts and pass them on as gifts.

Turns out the fat quarter shop is offering their layer cakes at 20% off this week.

What luck!

HAVE FUN DREAMING UP WHICH LAYER CAKE YOU WOULD USE.

I'm thinking of picking up the Honky Tonk layer cake...

guitars, mustaches and musical notes...who could ask for a better fabric combo?

 

 

 

Fall inspiration

 

This is our backyard.

an amazing fall inspiration.

 

I have been stitching, sewing and creating

but not nearly as much as usual.

I actually can't believe it's been so long since I posted on my blog.

 

I finished this little stitchery tea towel just in time for

Halloween.

 

 

I have started a few tea towels for the Christmas holiday too.

I'll post as I finish them.

In the mean time, keep stitching...

back soon,

Fat Quarter Blogger Bundle

Awhile back

 Kimberly, from the Fat Quarter Shop,

asked me to put together my favorite bundle of fabric.

The list of choices was about a mile long.

I had to narrow the options down to 12 prints and 3 solids.

Have you seen these Blogger bundles on the Fat Quarter Shop?

 

 

They have a club for an auto shipment each time a new bundle is available.

It's kind of cool to see what others will choose in their bundle.

Anyhow, back to my choices...

So I had to choose 12 prints from about 500.

There are sooo many fabrics coming out each and every month that I felt over whelmed.

I spent about 3 hours choosing.

I toyed with theme after theme, including a bundle of All

 low value/ low volume prints.

Then the new Andover line "WashDay" really caught my eye.

The vintage Irons, clothes pins and laundry knick knacks were super cute.

 

I went with picking a couple of the fabrics from "Washday" and built from there,

especially the Clothespin print.

The color selections I made mimicked those found in the clothespin fabric.

 

 

Once my bundle was available I dove right into making projects with it.

I started with Marti Michell's Template set B to make a Lemoyne Star block.

I sewed y-seams!!

I didn't faint.

I only made one block before I went on to my next idea.

I started to make a block from my book quilt

Good and Plenty.

It is so pretty with the red and yellow.

 

But I still wasn't satisfied with what I'd chosen

so I started to sew some random scrap squares together and

Voila.

A Sew Simple Table Runner was created.

 

 

I machine quilted it with 1/4' straight lines.

I did buy my backing fabric but the  entire top and binding was from my blogger bundle.

Plus I made the other 2 blocks!

And I am not close to running out of fabric yet.

I forget how much fabric there is in a fat quarter.

Anyhow,

I decided to write up the instructions to this Sew SImple Table Runner in PDF form.

It is available for instant download 

on the fat quarter shop's website and my etsy shop 

for $3.00

 

 

 

If you'd like to read more about the blogger bundle

head on over to the fat quarter shop's blog where

they are talking about it today

And

they are giving away one bundle!

Good luck.

 

Baby's Breath

 

Baby's Breath is my newest sew simple quilt pattern.

It's available in PDF form on my etsy site and craftsy.

 

 

it's a generous 40" X 46" WHEN FINISHED.

I HAVE LISTED SOME COMPANION SCRAP PACKS WITH mINNY mUU,

nEW oLD 30'S BY lECIEN AND 1930'S REPRODUCTION PRINTS

THAT ARE SIMILAR TO WHAT I USED IN THIS QUILT.

 

 

 

 

I USED OVER 200 LOW VALUE, LOW VOLUME PRINTS TO ADD INTEREST TOO.

wHEN I FINISHED IT, I WISHED I HAD MADE IT A queen SIZE!

I MIGHT MAKE ANOTHER ONE TO FIT MY BED.

SERIOUSLY.

last weekend

 

 

Last weekend I cut more 1930's scraps into 2 1/2" squares!

 

I collected up another group of 25 prints for more 5" and 7" low volume squares.

 

Here's a pile of them :)

 

 

I appliqued a 5" tart to a 7" low volume square.

Now I have one 5" and one 7" block done.

I'm not sure what I will do with these...still a work in progress!

With Labor day coming and a 4 day weekend,

I am hoping for a super productive weekend.

I have been working on a couple of secret-like projects

 and hope to be able to share them soon.

Bagettes...

no no not French Baguettes...

 

 

Bridget's Bagettes by Atkinson Designs

 

 

I whipped up 3 of these bags this weekend.

One of each size.

Large for my 12 year old in purple Suzuko Koseki.

Medium for me with a ruler print for the interior.

And the small for my 6 year old in her favorite color - pink.

 

I have a few suggestions.

One, don't cut 3 sizes at once like I did.

Overall I confused myself.

Next time, I'm making all the same size!

 

Two, look at the diagrams VERY carefully or your zippers

 will zip in the opposite direction of what is "normal".

Ask me how I know...

I made all 3 zip the same - wrong way.

and

Three, make some of these!!

They are quick and easy

and I was pleasantly surprised despite my goofs.

p.s. I was not sponsored to say anything about this pattern.

I purchased it just to try it out and I hope you do too.

 

hand sewing.

Hand Sewing seems to be about all I can accomplish lately.

 

 

there was a bit of machine sewing in July but that was a project

 that can't be shown just yet.

I have done quite a bit of English paper piecing while

on road trips this summer.

Some of you follow me on Instagram

and have probably seen some these pictures so bare with me.

 

 

I tend to travel with about 5-6 English paper piecing projects.

I like variety plus there have been a few

occasions that I didn't bring enough hexies!

Oh the horror couldn't be repeated.

I mean running out of sewing projects?

That makes for a very uncomfortable road trip for me!!

 

 

One of the new to me English paper pieces are

pie tarts also known as pieced circles.

I purchased both the papers and the acrylic templates for

the 3 1/2" pie and the 5" .

 

 

I let me 'wings fly" and this is what the back looks like.

 

 

Here is first tart

appliqued on a low volume / low value background grey stripe.

I don't completely have a plan for these.

I wish I did and yet I see this project taking shape as I make more pies.

Since I couldn't find these in a local quilt shop,

or online except paperpieces.com

I decided to offer them on my etsy.

If you want to try your hand at a tart,

I have a set of each size available HERE.