Introducing the Ruffle Crush Quilt Pattern

Hi friends! I hope your Monday is going well so far. I have been out to run errands and my girl is having a rare nap so I'm enjoying a little bit of time to myself this afternoon.

I decided I'm finally ready to share something I've been working on for a while. I have been working on my first quilt pattern--for this quilt:

The pattern will be available soon, in two sizes--baby quilt (about 40" x 50") and throw (about 50" x 70"). This is the baby quilt size and it's made up in Kumari Garden fabric with charm squares from my stash and Moda grunge for the ruffle strips.

Here's a close-up:

The pattern will be available as a .pdf file--it has lots of photos and includes detailed instructions on cutting long straight strips of fabric, matching large scale fabric prints, and sewing gathers.

Here's what it looks like in the larger size:

I used Blush fabrics from Basic Grey for this one.

So here's the deal--the pattern is almost ready, but I'd like 2 or 3 quilters to proofread it for me. And if anyone wants to test the pattern and can make up a quilt top quickly that would be great, too! (I have had one friend test it so far.) Please contact me via email or leave a comment here if you're interested in proofreading or testing this pattern for me. Tell me about your quilting/sewing skill level too; I'd like to get a beginner's take on it as well as input from a more experienced quilter. I'll give a free copy of the final pattern to my proofreaders and testers.
(edited--I have enough testers now, thank you!)

Quilt Tops + a winner

I am hoping to join in on the Naked Bed Challenge, but felt like I wanted to finish up some of my other quilts first. I told myself if I finished my Goodnight Monkey quilt top for my 6-year-old, then I could go ahead and start a king size quilt top for my bed.

Well, I finished it today:

I like it! I will be sure to show some closer photos of the fabrics after I finish the whole thing. There is fabric with "zzz" in speech balloons, bunk beds with monkeys on them, fabric that looks like sock knit, and stacks of books. I'm glad I decided to add in solids. Oh yeah, my 6 yo says "cool" so I no longer have to threaten giving it away to his cousin. :)

I have a design in mind for my king size quilt, but need to do some figuring to see if I have enough fabric for 16 blocks that are 16" square, and also how much solid gray I need for sashing and borders. I'm going to make improv log cabin blocks using my flea market fancy collection and probably some other coordinating fabrics too.

I have also been working on some quilt tops for some (graduating soon) girls from church. Here's the one I sewed (I cut some other ones out but they are being sewn by someone else.)

 

These will be signed over the next week or so and then we will get started on basting and quilting!

So I picked a winner for 101 Patchwork Projects. 

It's Krista. Yeah, you, Krista.

I'll bring it when I see you next month. Congratulations!

Here's the screenshot just to prove I didn't cheat. (I figured out how to do it!)

101 Patchwork Projects + Quilts--get your own copy now!

I'm so excited! Today's the day that 101 Patchwork Projects + Quilts is available to buy at newsstands. (You can also buy it online.) I got my advance copies last week and it is an awesome, inspiring, almost 200 pages long, magazine. Here's a sneak peek of my projects that are included in the magazine:

(the dishtowels on the right)

(the doll quilt on the left)
Here's what the cover looks like, I'm sure it won't be hard to spot:

This giveaway is closed now. 
I have an extra copy that I'd like to give away to one of my blog readers. Just leave a comment here and I'll pick a winner on Friday.

Goodnight Monkey Quilt Progress

I sewed up the last 7 blocks for this today:

This (above) is just right after I laid them all out and before I moved them around for balance/evenness.

And here's what I think will be the final layout:

I'll look at this photo a bit more and see if there's any changes I think need to be made (the rows are labeled and it is picked up already). It is hard to get everything arranged all evenly and without a lot of color clumps. I think it is probably good enough though.

I'm excited. This has taken a long time, but that's ok.

Also, I exercised (I did the 30 day shred 4x this week), oh and that's all I did besides sew and feed the family. My husband made a gate with the neighbor so we can share his riding mower, he mowed and fixed the pipe coming out from our sump pump, we both visited with neighbors a bit. I did direct some morning chores being done by my boys; life is better when they do more work around here.

How is your weekend going?

Giveaway #5 Winners

Thank you to everyone for all your comments and for participating in my 5-year blog birthday celebration! I had a lot of fun and I hope you enjoyed it too. :)

The winners of Luna II fat quarter bundles from Sew Inspired of Nauvoo are Ann Marie and Caroline.

Congratulations, ladies!

p.s. I have a couple more giveaways coming soon... but hope to have a quilt top or maybe a finished quilt to show off in the meantime.

Current Projects + Winner #4

I wanted to share a couple things I've been working on over the last week or so.

I finished up this little blouse for my girl. The pattern is from Ottobre Design 1/2006, #11. I worried about the neck facing and that slit for a while... but when I sat down and got working on it, it turned out just fine. I omitted the back zipper. Now I just need to make her something to wear with it. I have lime green that will probably be a skirt and natural linen for capris.

And I got some more monkey blocks finished:

I only need to make 7 more and then I can put together the quilt top! 

And then after I get that done, I think I'm going to give the Naked Bed Challenge a shot. I have an idea in mind, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to try to use up all of my Flea Market Fancy fabric on this one. I hope it works out ok!

I need to announce the winner for my blog birthday giveaway #4. The Mendocino fabric/scraps/towels will go to Anna. Congratulations!

p.s. There's still one more day to enter giveaway #5!

Giveaway #3, 3 Winners

Congratulations to 
#9--Rainy, #15--Jo, and #18--Mickey! They each won a pdf hairbow pattern from Birdsong Bows. Thanks so much to Deanna for providing this giveaway's prizes.

Thanks to everyone for participating in my blog birthday party! Giveaways #4 and #5 are still open for 2 and 3 more days.

Today my blog turns 5 years old! Giveaway #5!

You've made it to giveaway #5 in my 5 year blog birthday party, congratulations!

To recap 2010, I started a quiltalong. (I never got all the finishing instructions for the larger quilt, and I feel badly about it. Maybe I will get to that soon.) I joined the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild and it has been so much fun. I participated in doll quilt swaps and a couple of virtual quilting bees. I made a couple of Quilts for Kids. I did some straight line quilting, and didn't really love it. (I learned how to adjust my machine for better results later on though.) I finally finished my insane quilt project, which I had started in 2002, yikes!

I made a left-handed rotary cutting tutorial. I worked on a collaborative baby quilt with some friends. :) I headed up a charity quilt project with KCMQG.

It was a great year... and I can't believe I've been keeping track of it all on my blog for 5 years now.  Thank you for reading along!

The 5th and final blog birthday giveaway is another prize from Sew Inspired of Nauvoo. Barbara is generously offering two fat quarter sets of Luna II fabric from Maywood Studios.

Two winners will each receive 16 fat quarters; each winner will receive a mix of browns, pinks, and blues. 

If you'd like to win one of these prizes, visit the Sew Inspired of Nauvoo website, and come back here and leave a comment telling me your favorite product from their store.

This giveaway is now closed!

For extra chances to win, you can do the following:

  *become a follower of my blog (or let me know if you already are)

  *blog about this giveaway or tweet about it. 

  *And then, leave an additional comment for each of these things.

Make sure you leave me a way to contact you! If you are not sure if your email address comes through with your comments (I get them emailed to me), check out this excellent explanation on the Pleasant Home blog. If you want, you can include your email address in your comment. If I draw a name that has no contact information, I will pick another winner. 

I will draw the two winners on Friday, April 8, at 12:00 p.m. central, and then I will email the winners and post their names here. 

p.s. There's still time to enter Giveaway #3 and Giveaway #4 :)

Giveaway #2 Winner

The winner of $25 of longarm quilting services from Angela is....

NutellaCrepe!

Congratulations!

Blog 5th Birthday Giveaway #4!

Sorry about the delay in posting giveaway #4! I was sidetracked by a crazy hailstorm last night and a kiddo with a sprained ankle. We had several window screens destroyed in the storm and are very thankful that no windows broke. I took kid #1 to the doctor this morning and we are pretty sure it is just a bad sprain, no broken bones. He hurt it the other day playing baseball out in the neighborhood, but is feeling a bit better with pain meds and a lidocaine patch.

Anyway, after I had my baby in 2008, my sewing mojo came back with a vengeance and I had a great time sewing baby clothes and quilts in 2009. One of my favorite posts/projects is the Charm Pack Dress tutorial. And I made my lavender scrap quilt in 2009, too. I participated in NaBloPoMo for the first time, and posted to the blog every day even while we were gone on a cruise for part of the month! (I love scheduling posts ahead of time....) Here's my year in review post for 2009. It makes me smile.

Here's today's giveaway:

I am giving away some Mendocino scraps, fabric, and dishtowels. It will all go to one winner. The scraps are leftovers from the diamond pillow shams I made last year. The towels are kitchen "bar mop" towels with Mendocino seahorses and coordinating fabrics sewn along one side. The stack of fuschia fabrics includes a full fat quarter of swim class, and smaller pieces of the underwater sisters (18" x 10.5"), dots (18" x 11.5") (they aren't from the Mendocino line but they match pretty well), and seahorses (15" x 9").

This giveaway is closed now!
 
Details:
*If you'd like to win this Mendocino package, just leave me a comment below--one comment per person.

*This giveaway will be open until April 7 at 12:00 p.m. central (or I might be a little late. It won't be earlier though).

*You must leave me a way to contact you! If you are not sure if your email address comes through with your comments (I get them emailed to me), check out this excellent explanation on the Pleasant Home blog. If you want, you can include your email address in your comment. If I draw a name that has no contact information, I will pick another winner.

*I will email the winner on April 7 and also post the winner here.

Good luck!

p.s. Giveaway 1 is over, but you can still enter Giveaway #2 and Giveaway #3.

Giveaway #1 Winner

The winner of two charm packs from Sew Inspired of Nauvoo is...

#79!
(I would love it if someone explains to me how to get the image from random.org. Until then, you just have to trust me.)

I am counting down from the comments in chronological order.
#79 is Jacque. Congratulations! And thank you to everyone who commented, I have loved reading every comment.

5 years of Sew Inspired Blog, Giveaway #3

How's the weekend going? Hey I have a song to share for you... about the weekend. Here you go.

But seriously, hope you're having a good one. Today I got the kitchen floor mopped, made banana bread, went and bought potting soil and seeds with my oldest. We are going to try growing lettuce and peas in containers on the deck. Maybe we'll be able to thwart the evil bunnies.

So... onto a review of my blogging life in 2008. Hey, here's something cute I made--why haven't I made one of those for my little girl yet? I spent the majority of that year pregnant and then dealing with a the preemie baby situation. I didn't have the energy to sew or blog very much. I'm feeling a little tender skimming over it... what a year. I'm so glad we made it through, and that everyone is happy and healthy now.

Today's giveaway is from Deanna who runs Birdsong Bows on etsy and has a blog as well. She sells super cute hairbow patterns in .pdf format, and a few other things too. (I love these bows below...so sweet.)

photo from birdsongbows on etsy

Deanna contacted me a few weeks ago and offered to give away one of her single hairbow patterns to each of three winners. Here are the details on this giveaway:

*Leave a comment on this blog post to enter.

*This giveaway will be open for 3 days. I will close comments and pick a winner on April 5 at 10:00 pm central (or I might be a little late. It won't be earlier though).

*You must leave me a way to contact you! If you are not sure if your email address comes through with your comments (I get them emailed to me), check out this excellent explanation on the Pleasant Home blog. If you want, you can include your email address in your comment. If I draw a name that has no contact information, I will pick another winner.

*I will contact the winner on April 5 and also post the winner here.

p.s. check out giveaway #1 and giveaway #2 if you haven't already!

5 Year Bloggiversary--Giveaway #2

Hi friends, welcome back, and welcome to giveaway #2!

If you missed yesterday's post, hi! I'm having a 5 year blog birthday, and 5 days of giveaways. Today's day 2. A little review of this blog's second year, 2007--I was doing a lot of clothing sewing for my kids and other kids, with a few quilt projects here and there. Hey look, scrappy log cabins! (Kind of the beginning of me starting to improvise with quilting.) And tutorials. (Look in the tabs just under my blog header for a list of all my free tutorials.) Many of them were made in 2007. I made a few tutorials for a contest at Sewing Mamas and then decided it might be fun to start making tutorials and posting them on my blog. I'm glad I did that! I also posted my silly 100 things I have sewn post in 2007. (Lots of bloggers were posting 100 things about themselves, and I translated it to sewing. Yeah baby.)

How about we move on to the giveaway now? My friend Angela, who blogs at Quilting is My Therapy, has offered $25 of  her longarm quilting services for this giveaway. Angela's quilting is intricate and beautiful, and has been featured on Tula Pink's quilts, Julie's (from Jaybird Quilts) patterns, some of Jacque's quilts, and more. I was thrilled when she offered to quilt a few baby quilts for our guild charity project last year. She quilted this one that I made:

a couple of closeups:

I just love the attention and detail Angela puts into her quilting; her work is a big reason I am trying to branch out and improve my free motion quilting skills.

If you'd like to win $25 of quilting by Angela, here's the nitty gritty:

*Leave a comment here to enter.

*This giveaway will be open for 3 days. I will close comments and pick a winner on April 4 at 10:00 pm central (or I might be a little late. It won't be earlier though).

*You must leave me a way to contact you! If you are not sure if your email address comes through with your comments (I get them emailed to me), check out this excellent explanation on the Pleasant Home blog. If you want, you can include your email address in your comment. If I draw a name that has no contact information, I will pick another winner.

*I will contact the winner on April 4 and also post the winner here. 

Thanks again to Angela!!!

p.s. if you haven't already, check out giveaway #1 here!

Dumbing Down Quilting, My Thoughts

All right, so I just wrote out a long(ish) comment on Jacquie's blog about the great Dumbing Down Quilting debate, and it got eaten. Honestly, I don't even think it's a debate. For some reason, some quilters have set up dividing lines in their minds about "us" and "them" and people are mostly talking past each other. I hope that we are able to listen and hear each other, because seriously why should there even be a discussion like this? (Oh, if you don't know what I'm talking about? Google "dumbing down quilting" and you can find out for yourself.)

Anyway, here's what I think about what I read tonight and last night. There are a lot of women criticizing the younger/modern/contemporary quilt bloggers for "dumbing down" quilting. They are saying they keep seeing the "same 7 quilts" on quilt blogs, that people are using too much negative space or white or gray, that the new, modern quilter's aren't interested in improving their skills. The criticisms even went as far as saying that certain modern quilt styles are ugly.

I honestly don't think these people are actually spending any time actually reading any modern quilting blogs, at least not enough to get a sense of what one person's body of work or time spent on quilting is actually like. I read a lot of modern quilt blogs and I have for a few years now. People are not making the same 7 quilts. Wonky log cabins, done right, aren't easy or lazy. White and gray solids in quilts look great, and if you don't like it, why do you feel the need to cut other people down? And finally, this is the one that really rubs me wrong, is the assertion that younger/newer/modern quilters don't care about improving their skills. The quilters I know, and the ones who I know through their blogs, and myself, we are all trying to improve our quilting skills! How dare you suggest that just because we like white, or are intrigued by the look of a wonky star block, or we want to make quick projects (because sometimes these seemingly quick projects become amazingly time consuming when we have to fit them in between toddlers, school age kids, and the rest of our lives), that we don't care to improve our skills. It's just rude to say that, and it's not true.

I challenge any of the traditional quilters who commented about us lazy modern quilters to spend some time trying to get to know us, to subscribe to some of our blogs and look through our photos on flickr to see how our work has grown and changes, and try to really see the effort, care, and skill that we are using in our work. Try to appreciate a different aesthetic, and if it's still not for you, then at least have the courtesy to stop criticizing our work just because it's different from yours.

(Wishes all quilters could just get along and support each other in our common love for fabric/thread/design. But hey this makes life a little more interesting, right?)

Sew Inspired Blog Turns 5! -- Giveaway No. 1

Hi friends! On April 5, my blog will be having a 5th birthday! I am really excited about this and have some giveaways for a few lucky readers... make sure you stop by every day for the next 5 days, ok?

First off though I'm going to get all reminiscent... how did this thing get started? Well I had a couple of blogs before this one; one was in 2002 when we lived in Oregon for the summer for my husband's MBA internship, with the idea that family could keep track of what we were up to. And then after that I kept a personal blog for a while but I wasn't ever 100% comfortable with the idea (or the name I had chosen) and eventually I scrapped (and deleted) it.

Then I wanted to start a blog again, and decided to focus mainly on my sewing and see how it went. I just glanced through all 20 of my 2006 entries, and isn't it great that people can grow and change? My writing then reminds me of how I write in my personal journal, and I think I write differently now. I guess I had no audience at first though, and now I do, and I try to keep that in mind. I was dabbling in sewing things to sell on etsy/ebay too, which I didn't enjoy terribly much. Also, not really quilting very much.

Anyway, probably my favorite post from that first year is in April (and it doesn't have its' own permalink, how weird is that?) when I was complaining about my second child giving up naps. I'm going through that now with my third child, but she's 29 months old now and he was 21 months old when he did this. Other than that, it's pretty much the same.

So... moving on to the giveaway!
Today's giveaway is sponsored by Sew Inspired Quilts in Nauvoo, Illinois. Please visit their website and see what they have to offer! They have generously donated 2 charm packs for today's giveaway:

Modern Workshop

 and 

Sherbet Pips!

One lucky winner will receive both charm packs. To enter, all you need to do is leave one comment on this post. I'd love it if you make it a little interesting, but you can go ahead and say "pick me!" if that's all you have.

Now for the fine print:

*This giveaway will be open for 3 days. I will close comments and pick a winner on April 3 at 10:00 pm central (or I might be a little late. It won't be earlier than then).

*You must leave me a way to contact you! If you are not sure if your email address comes through with your comments (I get them emailed to me), check out this excellent explanation on the Pleasant Home blog. If you want, you can include your email address in your comment. If I draw a name that has no contact information, I will pick another winner. 

*I will contact the winner on April 3 and also post the winner here.

**Thanks again to Sew Inspired Quilts of Nauvoo!

Quilt Blocks and a Little Announcement

Here are some things I've been working on the last little while:

This is almost half of my Punctuation jelly roll, all sewn up into these super easy blocks. I like making these because there isn't a lot of thinking involved, and they are very quick to make. Especially when you cut 4 blocks at a time. I will probably finish the rest of them in the next week or so and put together the quilt top. And this will be the first time I've bought a jelly roll and used the whole thing up. So far.

I have also felt the need to make some improvised scrap blocks. I have my scraps organized by color in big ziplock bags, and I had a little baggie full of those triangles that are left over when I make quilt binding. I decided to make some stars. And one shoo-fly block.

I did something different with these--I only used scissors for any cutting that was necessary while I was making them. I have noticed a few quilts or quilt blocks made this way on flickr and have wanted to try it. These blocks aren't trimmed or squared up yet, and maybe I won't square them up, really, but I think they do have a little more organic, homemade look than blocks cut with a ruler and rotary cutter. My plan for these is to make a kind of scrappy improv quilt, maybe a row quilt. It's something I plan on taking my time with; I'm only making blocks when I want to and I have no plans for when it needs to be finished.

*******
And now for my little announcement... in the next few days, this little blog will be having its 5th birthday! As a thank you to my readers, I will be having 5 days of giveaways, starting this Friday, April 1. I think you will like them. I hope so! See you then!

Review: Miss Scarlet's School of Patternless Sewing

A couple weeks ago I found out I was a winner in the Goodreads giveaway for Miss Scarlet's School of Patternless Sewing, written by the Crafty Chica, Kathy Cano-Murillo. I've known about the Crafty Chica blog and products for a long time and I loved the title of this book so I was excited to read it. And I loved it!

The book centers on Scarlet Santana, who is starting a Patternless Sewing class (doesn't that sound fun?) to help pay her tuition to a prestigious fashion design program in New York City. She has some trouble along the way with work and family, and grows and changes through the story, which has a great ending. (But I want to read more about her. Will there be more?) Another character, Mary Theresa, is in the midst of a crisis in her marriage and family, and she signs up for Scarlet's class to fulfill a requirement for her marriage counseling. The sewing class is the setting for new friendships and lots of fun, too, and I really felt like I got to know the characters.

I loved the descriptions of the sewing, fashion, makeup and hair. I felt like I was able to get a clear picture of each character in my mind. Scarlet is really beautiful and people who don't know her don't see her insecurities. She has a real retro vibe and drives a cool car, too.

I got a huge kick out of the fact that blogging, the internet, video chatting, smartphones and other parts of modern life were a part of this novel. Scarlet is the author of a popular blog and has an etsy store, and they were just a natural part of the story, nothing forced or explained, which I loved.


I don't know if it was the writing or the southwest setting (Arizona in this case), but the Crafty Chica's writing reminds me of some of Barbara Kingsolver's earlier books, which are some of my all time favorites. I'm going to see if my library has Kathy Cano-Murillo's first book (Waking Up in the Land of Glitter) and read it too. She did a fabulous job with Miss Scarlet's School of Patternless Sewing and if you sew and especially if you blog about it, you should read this book!

Disclosure: I was given a free copy of the book, and not compensated for my review. Links to the book in this post are affiliate links.

9-patches from my past

Hi! Hope everybody had a great weekend! Some of the things that kept us busy over the weekend:
*Getting things ready for a kids' consignment sale (I get to go shop early, tonight!)
*A mini date with my husband (that included dropping stuff off at the sale, and dinner too.)
*Family bonding=cleaning the basement/tv room.
*Signing us up for my job chart. In just 2 days it's already made a big difference. I read about it on V and Co. a while back. Thanks, V!
*Reading a good book, one that included stuff about sewing! And blogging! I'll share more, soon!

So, since I finished up my most recent 9-patch quilt top, I've been wanting to show off some of my early quilting projects. I have been wracking my brain and can't remember exactly when I made this quilt top, but I did it on my own, with no rotary cutter and my mom's scrap stash, when I was either 14 or 16. It was after my grandma helped me make my "ugly" polyester quilt but it might have been a couple years after, not that same year. Anyway. Here it is:

I know, pretty sad, huh? I think I may have made a template out of cardboard but even then I didn't do a very good job. Oh well. So, do you think I should keep it like this for posterity, or quilt it up and let my daughter play with it? I think it would look better quilted. I do love the memories that some of these fabrics have behind them--a couple dresses mom made for me and a baby toy she also made are all represented in this little beauty. :)

Fast forward several years to when I was starting to be a real, beginning, quilter:

I've liked the 9-patch block for a long time! This is my oldest boy's baby quilt. He's almost 11 and I think I made the quilt in 2001. The pattern for this quilt is from Quilts! Quilts!! Quilts!!! : The Complete Guide to Quiltmaking (affiliate link) by McClun and Nownes, the first quilting book I bought. I quilted a star in each 9-patch:

They are a little hard to see and don't look as bad as I thought they would. They are pretty crooked and I remember being really frustrated at the time that I wasn't able to do a better job. I still feel like every single time I do free motion quilting, I get a little bit better at it, and I want to encourage anyone out there who is afraid to try free motion quilting, to just give it a shot. Make some potholders or doll quilts or just practice on muslin quilt sandwiches that you plan on throwing out later. You will get better with practice. I have a free motion quilting tutorial that I wrote up a while back that might be helpful, it might be helpful if you are new to free motion quilting. :)

101 Patchwork Projects + Quilts!!

I was so excited to get an email about 101 Patchwork Projects + Quilts this morning! If you haven't heard about it, it's a new magazine published by Interweave, the amazing folks behind lots of cool magazines including Quilting Arts and Stitch. I had been wondering what the cover would look like... isn't it pretty? You'll be able to get your own copy on newsstands in just a few weeks, or you can preorder it here. You can also get a sneak peek of the table of contents, and see photos of 2 of my 3 projects that are included in this issue! Ok I'm going to call my mom now, and tell her about this. Happy Thursday!

some quilt blocks and a quick project

Just because I had to start another project.... I got a Punctuation/American Jane jellyroll a couple weeks ago and saw a quilt made from these blocks and haven't been able to get them out of my mind. They go together so fast! I made 10 of these in less than an hour this morning. Each block is just three 2.5" squares and 2 strips that are 6.5" x 2.5". I love the tickets.

Also I did this yesterday:

These thrift store jeans were too long and too flared so I cut them off and hemmed them with ribbon. It only took about 20 minutes to sew the ribbon on. Do you want me to make a tutorial for how to do this?

I finally got some fusible stuff and eyelets/grommets so I can make the ABC book from Moda Bake Shop. I have the letters and batting cut, I'm ready to go!

Rainbow 9-Patch Quilt Top

I finished getting the last borders on this last night. I pieced that square border randomly, at least I tried to, and there were lots of little segments that I didn't really like during the making process. This picture gives me some distance though and I really like how the border looks! And the rest of it too. There is that dark section in the lower right hand corner that I don't totally love, but overall I am happy with the rainbow effect and the bright colors. The quilt is kind of wrinkly/ripply in this photo but that's just because I was hurrying to get the picture before the wind blew! It went together really straight and smooth, if I do say so myself.
 

I am going to take a break from 9-patches after this one for a while. But that doesn't stop me from thinking about the next one. Next time I am planning on doing some limited color palette but I don't know which colors, yet. Ooh, and maybe gray sashing fabric, too.

If anyone is interested in making a quilt like this, I followed the quiltalong on Amanda Jean's blog. But this quilt only has 48 blocks instead of the 70 she used.

I have a couple of 9-patch projects from my past that I'm going to show you in the next couple days. One of them is really bad... just wait and see.

Rainbow 9-Patch

I'm getting ready to finish up the top of my rainbow 9-patch quilt.

I have all the white sashing and border strips cut. I just measured and cut the horizontal sashing and am going to start pinning (not my favorite, but it helps everything go together right) and sewing right away. This is the part that kind of takes a long time. Then I need to determine if I have enough 2.5" squares for the border, and if not, I'll need to pick some out of the leftover pile from the last quilt.

I think for this one, I will do an allover quilting pattern with white thread. I am going to do a new design though. I'll have to spend some time doodling and see what I come up with.

No Prints Allowed/Jane Stickle 9-Patch

Last night was the big reveal of our guild's No Prints Allowed quilt challenge. Back in December we were given charm packs of Robert Kaufman's Kona solids. The challenge was to make a quilt using at least a little bit of every color and not adding any print fabric.

Here's what I made:

I had been thinking about making my own version of the Jane Stickle quilt for a while... I decided this challenge would be a good time to try some of the blocks. I made 16 blocks from the pattern book, all 9-patch variations. One of them had a little bit of hand sewing (top right block), all the rest were sewn by machine.

Here's the back:

I thought about hand quilting it at first; I have done that on a lot of the smaller quilts I've made, but in the end I decided that would be crazy and take too long this time. I had fun with the machine quilting and am really happy with how the quilt turned out!

Here's a closeup of the quilting, with a quarter to show the scale (sometimes it is hard to tell from a photo how big these kinds of things are):

I strip pieced those tiny aqua 9-patches! I strip pieced several of the blocks actually. Anina's That Quilt blog is a great resource for the Jane Stickle quilt; she has posted directions for making each and every block on the blog and I am grateful for the time and effort she has put into it!

Here are some other blog posts about last night's meeting:

Deb Rowden's report on our guild, I think it was her first time coming.
Carla talks about her quilt and has pictures of several quilts from last night.
Nikki's entry was an art bag to hold big art projects made by her kids.
Jenifer's quilt "Don't Lead Where I Won't Follow"

The quilts were all so beautiful! Thanks again to Robert Kaufman for the gift of the charm packs!

A skirt I made and some other stuff

So I made this skirt for my girl; it's the On the Border skirt from Little Girls, Big Style: Sew a Boutique Wardrobe from 4 Easy Patterns (affiliate link). It's really cute and it was easy too. A couple of things--it's very wide and a tad shorter than I like on her. I had a mistake while cutting so the lower tier is basically the width of my fabric, and I made the yoke pieces about 1.5" narrower than the pattern recommended as well. I am probably making it again--well, the apron skirt version first--and I will keep the width the same and make the lower panel an inch longer. Oh yeah, also wanted to mention I gathered the lower panel and the ruffle at the same time. It worked ok but probably wouldn't be a good idea on heavier fabrics.

I need to get or make leggings for her to wear under it for now, and then maybe bike shorts or something like that for summer. 

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In other news... who knows about Pinterest? It was really confusing to me at first, but I figured it out. It's basically an online bulletin board for keeping track of cool things in various categories. I'm going to use it to keep track of all the quilts I want to make, all the cool shoes and bags, and probably other stuff too. After I signed up, I had to wait a few days for an invite, just so you know. You can follow my boards here, ok?

Other than that, I hope you're having a good Monday and I gotta go get the boys from school! We started watching The Fellowship of the Ring as a family last night and I think we're going to watch the rest of it tonight. 

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

I was helping out at my boys' school this morning and got to take a peek at the Seuss Cafe. This thing sounded cute when I first read the information sheet my 5th grader brought home. But it was even better than I expected--totally stinking adorable, and fun, and just so sweet to see in person.

This is the entry arch, photo taken from the inside. (It's really small.) They had the main library lights off and this sheer fabric hung from the ceiling around a center "cafe" area. Twinkle lights and bobbly Seuss-like things were hanging down too. Tables were set up with tablecloths, centerpieces, and menus. 

The fifth graders wore white shirts and dark pants and were given Dr. Seuss hats and bow ties to wear when they worked their shifts at the Cafe. They presented the kids with the menu and while the kids who were being read to picked out their choice of story, the 5th grader went and got them a cookie. Then the 5th grader got the book and read out loud. All the kindergarten through 4th grade students got to participate in this over 4 days this week.

This is my 5th grader reading Arnie, the Doughnut to a first-grader.

I love that my kids' school encourages reading the way they do (we keep track of minutes read, and they can read anything they want, for a fun yearly challenge) and that this event was part of their commitment to making reading fun!

What I'm working on this week

I'm so glad it's March! This has been a challenging winter with more snow than usual and lots of kid illnesses as well. I really need spring to come soon; I'm glad it's sunny and warming up a bit today!

I've been working on a couple projects, one with a deadline:

This is for the KCMQG "no prints allowed" challenge--it needs to be finished next week!
Here's another peek at what I'm doing:

(These are some of the sewable scraps and will be part of the back.) I'll reveal the whole quilt after our meeting next week (crossing my fingers that I get it done, I'm afraid I'm hand quilting again!)

I've also been working on this blouse for my girl:

I need to get buttons and ribbon for the front still but decided to get started. The bottom ruffle is ready to attach, and the gathering stitches are sewn in the sleeves too. It was a bit tedious marking and making all the pintucks, so I stopped after finishing them on the back. They aren't pressed yet because I want to remove the water soluble marker first.

My computer speakers bit the dust so I was listening to Pandora on my phone while I sewed. :) Makes it a little more fun, I think.

And these books came in the mail today:

I've looked through them both and there are some great projects in them. I am looking forward to making the little knotted jumper top or dress and probably a skirt from Little Girls, Big Style. Also I think I'm finally going to dive into shirring; I've only tried it a couple times before. I have a huge cone of elastic thread and I love the shirred look on some of the blouses in this book. And Amy's done a great job with Modern Basics; maybe I'll use one of her patterns for my sister's new baby who's arriving at the end of summer.  

How about you? What are you working on? Are there any signs of spring where you are yet?