Merry Grinchmas!

Late last fall my cousin Susan sent me a photo of a Grinch quilt she had seen online somewhere and asked if I could make this for her and she would pay me. She watches my Etsy shop and has bought a makeup bag from me, and I sent her a mug cosy as a surprise a while back. I said I believed I could but it would take a bit of time… Christmas was coming and all that that involves.

Well, I’m very happy to have finally fulfilled this request!

About as Christmassy a picture I can get in front of our cedar tree!

Heading North in Make Modern Issue 39 and TGIFF

The hardest part of having designs published in magazines is the waiting. The quilt has to be done months ahead of the issue's publication date, and it is so hard not to show the quilt when you've finished it. However, the day is now here, and, because the editors couldn't decide which quilt should be on the cover, they asked for readers' help, and so you've seen a little glimpse of it. Well, allow me to give you a much larger look!

Apparently it was down to the final day for voting when the winning cover quilt (and I quote), 'just squeezed by yours'. Sigh. Ah well, the one that squeezed by is beautiful, and 'in the wild' too! Knowing that my quilt came so close makes me happy, and having heard from so many of you that you'd voted for it warms my heart. I worked my heart out on the quilting of this baby.

And, a warm welcome to TGIFF, where we celebrate fully finally finished quilts! This isn't for UFOs or in-process quilts; it's a finish party, so let's par-tay and I'll show you mine if you show me yours. 😉

Bear Paw Progress

With seven days left in the month, I thought I should give you an update on my Island Batik challenge quilt for September. We are to create a juvenile-inspired quilt, minimum 45X60" using the die we were sent in Box #2. I got the Bear Paw die, which, you may recall from my box opening video, was the very first quilt block I ever made, and which is responsible for the utter obsession with all things quilts!

So why have I been stalling on this month's project? Two reasons: one is that I couldn't come up with a design that grabbed me, and two is that I was nervous about the die. I know! I've used the AccuQuilt dies several times, and they are slick, but this one made me 'concerned' because I knew I wanted to do multi-coloured bear paw blocks and the die is such that you cut one block at a pass...or two... or three! Took me a bit but a little reading of instructions (I'm good at that, always have been) and then thinking about said instructions, and then putting them into practice, with my own spin on things, and we are off!

Parts cut for four blocks

Modern by the Yard New Issue and I'm in it!

And it's not a quilt of the fabric kind but a block of the digital kind!

MbyY, in case you are not familiar with it, is the ezine put out quarterly, for free, by Benartex Fabrics. You can get your copy by going to their blog, Sew in Love With Fabric, where you will find the link to the ezine on the sidebar. When they contacted me to ask if I would like to design a digital block, the assignment being a modern twist on the Log Cabin block, I jumped at the chance for several reasons. First, I love a good challenge to my creativity and second, it was another opportunity to work with EQ8, and third, well, being published is always a thrill that never gets old. Fourth, I'd just played with a log cabin challenge for November's Island Batik challenge, so log cabins were still bouncing around in my head. You can see that quilt top here.