Emerald~Pantone Color of the Year

 The Pantone color for 2013 is Emerald Green. I love greens, but very rarely choose this particular shade when I sew. The challenge calls for Emerald Green, a background fabric and one additional color~for me that was yellow! Hawthorne Threads has a great bundle specifically designed to celebrate Emerald Green, I ordered it, paired it with the yellow dot floral from Bari J's Lilly Belle collection and Robert Kaufman's Essex Yarn Dye in Black.

I decided to make a small quilt, 36" x 48" with the Flying Dutchman block. Very scrappy. I've used the Quilt In A Day Ruler before, but it had been along time since it'd been out of the ruler drawer. A quick refresher, and one miss-cut block later, I was using it like a pro. BUT, the ruler requires you cut along all 4 sides without shifting the block. I tried this with a conventional mat and it was awkward. Sooooo, I gathered up a 40% coupon for JoAnn's and purchased one of the 360° rotary mats. A quilty friend had mentioned how much she had loved hers and I thought it would be perfect for this project. And it is! Best. Mat. Ever. The mat rotates similar to a lazy susan and made cutting these blocks fast, fast, fast! The mat is a 12" square so it's a perfect size for toting along to sew days, also.

The geese stitched off perfectly. I did make a modification to the instructions for the ruler, I pressed the seams open versus pressing to the darker fabric as instructed. The blocks lay much nicer, and the seams are more evenly distributed across the block. 

 Using the ruler to make the geese, allows for 4 geese per unit. Again, making the process much quicker than the traditional method.

 Did I mention how much I loved the green and yellow with the yarn dye! The RK yarn dye fabrics give such texture to projects.

Here are the first six blocks! My goal is to have all 12 blocks stitched off, and the quilt top together by the end of February. This, leaving me just under a week to quilt and bind!

Love quilts? Love green? Head on over to the Flickr group to see everyone's amazing progress and projects. And to join in the fun!

Happy Sewing!

Lilly Belle

I'm quite simply in love. In love with Lilly Belle. The aqua~yellow~gray colorway is an absolute favorite, I had no choice but to quilt it up as the latest version of my Walk In The Park pattern.

Bari J, designer of these oh, so wonderful fabrics is now {thankfully} designing for Art Gallery Fabrics. Thus, the fabrics are soft, beautiful and printed on an amazing base cloth.

 The collection is a balanced collaboration of large and small scale prints, tone on tones and a spunky little crosshatch, which I promptly used to bind the quilt.

This quilt will be going with HRQ to the San Francisco Quilt Show in March. And the pattern is now available in my craftsy shop!

Wonky Pinwheels

I've finished this little mini quilt for my partner of Round 3 for the DS Mini Quilt Swap. I was a bit hesitant at first with the color palette, but now that it's done and has some Kona Raisin as its binding, I'm liking it! It's on its way to Florida and should be to its recipient tomorrow! Exciting!

All print fabrics for the quilt top and back are from Denyse Schmidt, a composite which include pieces from Hope Valley; Picnics and Fairgrounds; and Sugar Creek. The gray background is Manatee by Free Spirit. The project finishes as an 18" square.

In putting this together, I once again took to InDesign to create a paper pieced template. It's available here if you'd like to give it a try! The download includes four different variations of the pinwheel block~lending itself to the overall wonky design. To construct the project as shown, you'll need 36 blocks total~or  eight sheets of the printed template. Important to remember, the #1 Placement for all four templates needs to be your background fabric. You'll construct the quilt top in six rows of six blocks each. . . easy peasy! This pattern would show well as a pillow too. . .hmmmm maybe that should be next. . .

Autumn Begins

It's autumn!. . .it already feels like it. The leaves are beginning to fall, my vegetable garden has slowed in production and the swimming pool is chilly. . .and did someone mention football~love it!

The apple trees are beginning to produce, thus homemade applesauce! We stewed our first batch last weekend and filled freshly turned crepes with their sweet cinnamon-y goodness. Delish!!

With the changing of the seasons I'm shifting directions with some of my sewing, tucking away the summer palettes and turning to the warmer hues of Fall. As well as a bit of funky halloween mayhem. These pillowcases feature the Ghastlies. Cassidy loves this line. I paired it with a pale pink Kaufman Radiance and a Yarn Dye in black just for her~coordinates with absolutely NOTHING in her room, but she loves them! The pattern is Pillowcase Pizzazz, BUT this tutorial uses the same method as the pattern.

Picked up some great flannel at work. Red and Gray Woolies from Maywood Studios. These are without a doubt the BEST flannels on the market. They're thick, soft and hold their color~wash after wash. We've been updating Colby's room to reflect his transition into young adulthood~these will wind their way into a fuzzy-edged throw for him.

And who could pass up Fresh Cut flannel~certainly not me!!! It's beautiful! This bundle of pure bliss will also be a fuzzy-edged quilt. . .for yours truly.

I'm continuing to plug away at Neptune's Granny, I love making these blocks. . .here are two I've made this week. I've finally decided on a layout. . .Saints preserve us! 49 is the magic number. . . not 36. . . not 56 but, 49! There, it's written in stone~no deviating from said plan!

Swap projects have been whirling around in my head~these are the final swaps I'll be involved with before the holidays so I'm taking extra special care in deciding what to make for my partners. . .more to come as I finish those.

Enjoy your weekend. Happy Autumn 1st everyone!

Something To Sew Sunday

 Today I'm starting some swap projects! For my DS Quilts swap partner, I've selected a collaborative of Denyse Schmidt fabrics along with a Kona Coal solid. My plan is to do some wonky pinwheel blocks. Because the perimeter edges are bias, I once again took to In Design to create a paper piecing template. I drew four templates just slightly different from one another~giving it just the right amount of wonkiness.  I'll leave the paper on until just before joining the blocks, allowing the edges to remain straight, thus a square quilt top!

My Neptune's Granny quilt is one of the long-term projects I have in progress. Here are 16 blocks I've made over the past week, with 3 made just this morning. My original plan was to do a 4x6 block layout with sashing. But. . . .I have enough Neptune and FS Arctic White to go much bigger. . .thus it's destined to be a bed size quilt. I love black and white photography; I often find it an important tool when selecting a fabric palette and with block placement.  This photo in particular shows me I need to add blocks with some darker color to that bottom row to achieve a more balanced look.

Mini Trajectory Pillow

Where in the world did the summer go! I had lots planned for the never-ending "To Do" list~it just all scoots by so very fast. Something very exciting~a trip to Sisters, OR for an ENTIRE week with some of the best gals I know. We took classes, drooled over fabric and wool, rode bikes, drank margaritas and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

As for the sewing, this is what's happening in my sewing room this week. . .

While at Sisters, I saw this quilt, I loved it! I thought it would be great scaled down with blocks small enough to make a pillow.

So, I took to InDesign and drew up a 3" finished paper pieced pattern. Choosing fabrics was easy, I knew I wanted to use solids and I had my Michael Miller Cotton Couture QuiltCon bundle warming on the cutting table (I had a 1/2 yard of white fabric to work with).  I cut the white, background squares at 4 1/2" x 4 1/2"; the colored solids at 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" rectangles and ten setting squares cut at 3 1/2" x 3 1/2". I made 26 trajectory blocks.

Layered with fusible fleece and muslin I quilted a simple crosshatch design~I didn't want to take away from the blocks themselves. . .I just love them!

You can see where the setting squares are used. . .

Installed a 14" zipper to the pillow back. Featured fabric is from the La Dee Da line by Erin McMorris. It's a perfect match for the solids of QuiltCon!

Made some binding with some of the leftover Turquoise fabric; stitched it all together and

BAM! A pillow! It measures as an 18" square. I used a 20" square pillow form to give it a full, plump look. Want to make one for yourself? Click here and download the PDF template I've created for Craftsy!

Thanks must go to Megan, as the author and inspiration behind this block!

Springtime Swaps

Oh, how I suck at this blog posting thing! I sew, sew, sew and then neglect to post pics here. So I'll try to redeem myself, and post a bit of what's been going on in the sewing room since March! Because I know you're not all that interested in how EXTREMELY glad I am school is out for the summer! I'm so tired of homework (my kids homework). . .tangent. . .sorry. . .

I've participated in a number of swaps this Spring, and it was totally fun! Some of my secret swap partners are overseas and it has been a bucket of sneaky goodness stalking them. . .

To Give. . .

This mini quilt was made for my partner in the DS Mini Quilt Swap.  I love the prints Denyse Schmidt has released for Fabric Traditions. The aqua/blue/green colorway are my favorite~and my partner's too. This mini is on it's way to England!

Sewing machine cover, a catch-all basket and some favorite Amy Butler fabrics are my swap collaberative for Modern She Made. Scraps from my bin, a new favorite~Essex Yarn-Dyed in Flax, and a text print for Timeless Treasure made this project super fun! Part of the swap guidelines were to include something circular in the project~thus the pebble quilting. This is also on it's way to the UK.

I also participated in the Potholder Pass! This was so, so fun! My partner, loves Red and Aqua~what a coincidence, me too! So these were especially fun to make. Some applique, some embroidery~sweet! And with text print fabrics being all the rage, I used it for the background. These went to Peggy!

To Receive. . .

I've also received some REALLY great swaps. This is the min quilt I received from Charlotte. It is adorable, and I'm in love with the little tin of mints she sent along with. There is also a great little sewing kit, fun selvedge, the double decker bus magnet (which the kids fight over to hold their picture up on the fridge) and a postcard which I promptly added to my design wall~they're coming in from all over the world! Run on over and check out Charlotte's Flickr page, she's just made these AWESOME pillows from shot cottons~amazing!

These are the goodies I received from Colby in the Potholder Pass. The potholders are perfect for my kitchen! I love them! They match my cookie jar and canisters! But, I'm not using them~they are just for show. My "used" potholders look like they've been to hell and back! These are too pretty to dirty up!

A Tidbit From The Garden. . . 

I do have to share some delicious goodness from our garden. We planted a great, big bunch of strawberry plants this spring and we're already picking berries! This is a favorite right around dessert time.

Well, my summer plan is to get all caught up with my bloggy friends (Dee, Terri, etc.,) I heart you all! And some catch up time is definitely needed!