Quilt Market, Part 2

Here's some more 2013 Spring Quilt Market pictures... I'll stick with Free Spirit/Westminster this time around.

Circa...

Tula Pink's Acacia due out in September.

Joel Dewberry's Bungalow also due out in September.

And Amy Butler's Belle due out in July.

That's it for now, one more to go to include Riley Blake and Moda!

Quilt Market 2013, Part 1

While I was at home sewing up this sweet little pillow from Bari J's new Bijoux collection, Moses was at Quilt Market chatting it up with Bari J! I'll break this up into two or three posts as there is a lot to share. :)

Starting with Art Gallery, here's more from Bari J's Bijoux collection.

Reminisce by Bonnie Christine due out next month.

Nordika by Jeni Baker due out in July.

Here's Spooktacular from Blend Fabrics.

And last one for today, Hip Holiday also from Blend.

 

More pictures to come shortly!!

A Lesson in Pinwheels

As I type this Moses is in Oregon at the Spring Quilt Market, so, to distract me from my extreme jealousy I've decided to finally sit down and write up my overdue post about my lesson in pinwheels. What did I learn? Slow down and concentrate!

Here was my first attempt.

That just wasn't going to work for me. That looks like a pinwheel that's about to fall apart with the first gust of wind.

So, I did some googling and found this post that helped me out. Here's my attempt number three I think it was.

Much better, and as good as it's going to get for me. :)

Some important steps from that tutorial that really helped me ~

#6. I've learned just recently that if a pattern says to press in a particular direction, just do it. There may be a reason for it.

#13. Don't turn your piece! Rotate your mat or move your body when squaring up. I think that was part of my troubles in my first attempt.

#16 & 19. Really push those seams against each other with your fingers. You'll be able to feel this when you try it.

Something else I've discovered about my sewing style is that I tend to sew a hair over the 1/4" allowance on my seams. This leads me to have smaller pieces than what's called for. I get to the step where I need to square up say my 5" square and I'm measuring it at just 4.75". To fix this I just start off bigger! That scant little bit that the tutorial shows you need to trim? Well, here's how much I trim down.

Now, "what are you making anyway" you ask? A teddy quilt for my daughter! I saw her one day using Levi's blankie to wrap up her teddy. Now, this is the teddy she sleeps with every night, wrapped in the blankie Levi sleeps with every night. You can guess this wasn't going to end well at bed time right? I owe her one anyway since I made Gabriel a sleeping bag for his teddy a while back.

Here's the finished top. I used some Pirouette fabrics and a Northcott solid in a tan shade.

And why the tan? I wanted practical. I knew that if she actually used this, it was going to be drug around, stomped on and used as a napkin, so I didn't want to go too light for the solid. 

From the looks of it, teddy is happy.

And I think it makes a great double as a picnic blanket...

Since taking these pictures I have finished it. I used a single layer of flannel for the back, stitched right sides together then turned inside out and topstitched to close it up. There's no batting since I wanted it thin so it would wrap easier. I didn't quilt or otherwise attach the two pieces together throughout. It's a small piece and the flannel grabs on to the top enough that I don't need to do anything else to hold it together.

It's been completed for about a week and I'm happy to say she does wrap her teddy in it every night. I told her she could wrap it with the flannel side out to make it more cuddly for her. She said no because sometimes she drops her teddy on the floor at night and she didn't want it to get cold. Sweet dreams teddy...

Hexagons!

I just got my new hexagon die!! And who did I let take the first crack at it? My son Gabriel. :)  He loves art and being crafty and had just asked about doing a project. He's 9 now, so I thought it would be the perfect time to show him how to use the sewing machine to make his own garland.

The die has a 2", 3" and 5" hexagon. We chose to work with just the two smaller ones. He picked red, blue and gold for the colors. First I showed him how to die cut them then off to the machine we went!

As you can see from the wonky lines, we have some practicing to do. :) I'm so proud of him though for trying. My machine can be a little finicky, it's hard to help it get to a good pace. He told me it was awesome, then told Daddy he was scared! LOL!  His first try was petal to the metal, scared me too!

I'm letting Levi model it since Gabriel is in school at the moment. This is as far as we got before bed time. And now that he has a new book to read, I'm afraid he may have abandoned the project already. I think I'll finish it up for him as I just love the shape, perfect for a boys room, something different from the circles.

Hopefully we'll get around to listing some felt hexi's in our shop soon. Here's a tip if you'll be trying a garland of your own. Sew them off-center. You can see we've sewn toward the top, not across the middle. Doing this will let it hang straight up and down, and not flop over and hang flat. ;)

And did you notice I ran through some fabric in the 5" size? Cuts like a dream. Now I'm off to find a hexi quilt pattern.

Lemon Lime Quilt Top

I'm ready to share my second finished quilt top with you! I wanted to wait until I had the back done, but that whole "never finish what I start" thing is kicking in just a bit right now.

Something else I've learned since starting to read quilt and craft blogs is that it's okay to have many unfinished projects at any given time. It even has a name too, WIP's! I feel a little less guilty now about so much unfinished business around here. (note to self: it's good therapy, must read more blogs).

Remember I'm a big Joel Dewberry fan? This one is made in greens and yellows from his Notting Hill collection. I've started calling it my lemon lime quilt to distinguish it from my first JD quilt.

It's based on this pattern here. I'm very happy with the way it turned out. I took it slow and got everything to line up nice I think.

This pattern introduced me to the HST. I had no idea you could do so much with those! Yep, the HST and me are on good terms now, don't even need to spell it out. ;)  I found this tutorial on The Cottage Home blog and have recently tried out pinwheels. Will share soon!

Speaking of patterns, it seems I've been collecting them lately like I stash fabric. I just found one that I completely forgot I purchased! I also plan to pick up this one from Tracy Jay soon. She's offering 20% off her patterns with coupon code SpringMarket to earn a little spending cash for quilt market.

This reminded me of how soon the Spring market is coming... and that maybe she'll run in to Moses there. Yep, he'll be attending our first market ever!! We are SO excited. I won't be attending because someone has to stay back with our little ones, plus I don't fly. Shh, don't tell anyone...

Catch of the Day, a closer look

Today I thought I’d show you a closer look at Catch of the Day. We just received it in last night, so please excuse the dark pictures. I just couldn't resist opening them all up right away! I'm a sucker for the red/white/blues or nautical/ocean themes.

Even with the ruler line at the bottom of the graphics it can still be deceiving what the scale is really like.

Here’s the quilt panel. It's about 25" for the two rectangles, and on the other side of the 44" fold is the other two rectangles. It's a little lighter than what it looks here.

Here’s the lobster lovers. A great overall print! Again, much lighter on the background than I captured here.

The anchors...

The ropes...

And lastly the tonal lobsters...

All the prints coordinate so nicely together! Here's some project ideas from Windham:

 http://www.windhamfabrics.com/images/project/catch_of_the_day_accessories.pdf

http://www.windhamfabrics.com/images/project/bring_a_bib.pdf

I think it would be awesome to cut up the panel pieces and make four placemats from those with coordinating napkins! And perhaps a picnic blanket? Will have to add that to my to-make list. :)