Spellbound Quilt Along

I have been participating in quite a few quilt alongs lately.

The honest truth is that I find if I am quilting along,

I'm FAR more likely to finish the quilt top.

Now I haven't been very good about getting the tops quilted.

When I was in Ohio I had a fantastic machine quilter that was only a 20 minute drive from my house.

I haven't found a quilter here yet.

I am sure there are many... I

just haven't made time to meet any or take any quilts to them.

I NEED to soon as I am drowning in quilt tops.

This Spellbound quilt pattern is from It's Sew Emma.

2 jelly rolls and a few yards of fabric and voila...

a quilt top.

I chose Sugar Pie by Lella Boutique and Compositions by Basic Grey.

The pattern is straight forward and

using the Creative Grids 90 degree double strip ruler really makes it EASY.

I sewed this in between other projects.

I guess you could say it was my leaders and enders quilt.

It's a big quilt.

I started to lay it out on my foyer floor.

You can see how well that went....

My helpers were not going to have all that fabric laying around.

It was too much fun for them to drive into the blocks.

I finally brought my design wall upstairs and assembled it.

By the time I was ready to take pictures the sun went down :(

You can still see the secondary pattern created by careful fabric and block placement.

Now I must confess....

I thought I had purchased the coordinating yardage for this quilt...

somehow I didn't buy it with my last Fat Quarter Shop order.

First I called 5 quilt shops within driving distance.

One of them had a few bolts of Composition but it was 35 minute drive.

I decided to search my stash and I chose a melon colored fabric from the Sweet fabric line from about 2007-8?

I also found that Ella Blue Basic Grey fine lines coordinated pretty well.

I decided that if I am holding on to all this stash that I might as well start using it.

How about you? Have you been using your stash?

Scrappy Planner Sew Along Week 6 : Fat Quarter Flirt in Busy Backgrounds

Welcome to the Scrappy Project Planner sew along Week 6!

It's Fat Quarter Flirt Week.

I'm sewing along with Lori Holt and The Fat Quarter Shop.

Do you have a scrappy planner?

Have you been following along with each week showcasing the projects from the planner?

I have had my planner since October.

I have started all 6 quilts - lol seriously.

I've only finished one top ... this one :)

This week's quilt is the Fat Quarter Flirt.

When I traveled to Utah last October for a quilt retreat with Lori,

she showed us her version of the Fat Quarter Flirt in "busy backgrounds".

I immediately wanted to make it.

Unfortunately my busy backgrounds were in Minnesota.

Well fast forward to this month....

I grabbed a bunch of my 'busy backgrounds'...

you know that prints that are too colorful for a project or too light for another....

or just too busy in terms of the print itself? Those are busy backgrounds.

Can you see with the prints that I have chosen how they are light?

Yet there is quite a bit of color too...

I wasn't too sure how these would end up looking in a quilt

but I decided to mash them all together anyway for a surprise result.

I meticulously cut my blocks.

And these are the left over scraps from the fat quarters.

They multiplied like bunnies in this project.

Here's my token cat picture.

Actually she rarely left my side while I made this quilt.

I think it might end up being her favorite.

It's a rather large quilt overall and I had a tough time getting the whole top in one picture.

I love the busy background version and I can't wait to get it quilted ASAP.

If you'd like to see other versions of the Fat Quarter Flirt check out the Jolly Jabber.

Morning Glory Sew Along

Welcome to the Morning Glory Sew Along.

The original, shown below, was designed by Pat Sloan and featured in her fabric line Sunday Drive.

I am super excited to sew along make my own version of this quilt.

If you'd like to make the original The Fat Quarter Shop has kits available HERE.

 I have been sewing in our dining room lately because my sewing area has been super cold in the basement.

I didn't want to bring up my design wall due to space so I thought I could lay it out on the floor.

My 'helpers' aka cats, thought it was a new play area obviously.

  I chose a rainbow of Atsuko Matsuyama 30's Collection Yuwa fabrics

for my version of Morning Glory.

 I made the crib size and it's very pretty.

My husband says that he thinks it needs another row.

I'm debating as a crib size shouldn't be too big.

I know I need to make it lap or queen sized right?

I've seriously considered it.

If you'd like to see other versions of this quilt,

head over to the Jolly Jabber for a list of other bloggers making this cute quilt.

Block 2 Bella Skill Builder quilt along

 Yippee! I finished my Second Bella Skill builder group of blocks.

I opted to use fusible interfacing applique method for my blocks.

You can find the pattern links from the Fat Quarter Shop blog .

There is even a video to help you on You-tube.

I have the It's Sew Emma Orange Peel templates in the exact sizes I needed for these blocks.

Interfaced petals are basically done by tracing the shape on the smooth side of the interfacing.

Trim to about 1/4" from the outline.

Place the interfacing rough side down on the right side of the fabric.

Sew around the outline, make a small slit in the back of the petal interfacing and turn right side out.

Finger press the edges.

I pinned my petals to the background and then ironed them in place.

I sewed my appliques to the background squares by machine.

I learned after making 64 of the petals that using a smaller stitch length worked best.

I tried to coordinate my applique thread with the petal fabric.

When stitching the blocks together, the interfacing petals were quite a bit more bulky than I expected them to be.

A tip is to begin stitching at the beginning of the block furthest away from the where the petal tips meet.

When you stitch close to the points, slow down to make sure that you maintain the 1/4" seam allowance.

I might also suggest starting with the 4" petals first, smaller petals are definitely more challenging.

I thought it would be a great idea to show how my blocks progress each month...

The cat immediately attacked them.

My daughter lured her away with treats :)