Sunday, November 17, 2013

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?
 
 
 

Saturday, November 09, 2013

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,

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

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 
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.
 

Saturday, September 07, 2013

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.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

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.