Textures

I had another DREAMi moment this past week while I was waiting for my "Better At the Lake" Desire to Inspire challenge fabric to arrive....  DRop Everything And Make it...'

It's not crooked or wonky; it's perfectly square but the wild grass and weeds in the lot beside us make for a not-flat setting!

If this pattern looks a little familiar to you, hooray! You're right! It's my Blue Skies & Sunny Days pattern here or click the sidebar button in my pattern store.  Until midnight tomorrow it is on sale for just $5.

But it's a little different:  it's a mini!!  It measures just 20" square!  It was another good exercise in quilt math, reducing a larger block to half size.  You betcha, there will be a future post on how to do that correctly; I learned the hard way with the centre block for the Mini Round Robin I'm in.

Completed flimsy

Do you see a mistake in the flimsy? I didn't until I had started ditch-stitching...  Look in the lower left corner in the above photo.

On the right, you can see the lemon plaid block in the top corner should have been rotated 180 degrees. On the left is how things looked once I'd unpicked it

It's now fixed. Phew!  Had to unpick it or it would have driven me nuts.

The back - all fabric from the Textures line

It uses scraps from my Summer Breeze quilt, (ha, that post is almost exactly 2 years ago) all Angela Walters fabrics by Art Gallery Fabrics.  The majority are from her Textures line, with a couple from her Legacy line.

I experimented with using all three greys for the background and paid little attention to how they fell within each block.  Yup, that made me a little twitchy.

I did the Blue Skies pattern, as in a square quilt, but used the Sunny Days construction method.  The pattern gives you both sizes and both construction methods, one using nothing but strips, the other strips and yardage which results in less seams and therefore less thread and fabric.

Label applied using Lara's Crafted Appliqué technique - that link takes you to her current giveaway which ends tomorrow, and entails revisitng all the hops but not the CA blog hop post!  She is having you visit a new post from each of the bloggers so you see what else they get up to. Such a great, and typically sweet and generous Lara, idea.

With the variety of quilting, I thought the name Textures was à propos for this little quilt.  My good friend Tish, partner in crime, now partner in birthing a new male quilter, put me onto the idea of Plexiglas.  On one of his many trips to Lowe's, I got MacGyver to pick me up a piece of it; it measures 28X30".  I grabbed a pack of erasable markers and an eraser at Staples, and tried it out on this little quilt.  It is an awesome tool to have added to my quilting supplies!

Pre-binding, but post-quilting since I forgot to take a pic of the Plexiglas drawings before quilting

Because there were several greys and because the colours weren't all in one colour family or as much of a contrast to the background as both of the original quilts, I wanted to created that strong diagonal movement but I wanted to change it up from the feathers.  I used Angela's Signature design from her first Shape By Shape book.  I did it on the Crazy Hearts mini (see below) and loved it.  Fun to do, awesome to look at and pet ;-)

In the coloured sections I alternated between a really cool way of doing double pebbles that I saw Natalia Bonner do in a video, and back and forth lines which were inspired by the plaid fabrics in the quilt. I was going to go back and do a few random horizontal lines, but I liked the look of the back and forth, and LOVED doing it with the FMQ foot, so fast, so freeing and not perfect.

Another of Tish's influences on me: Susie's Magic Binding again

Here it is in the shade on the patio.  I did Susie's Magic Binding, here, which gives you a flanged binding entirely done most effectively by machine.  I did this one narrower than she calls for; I prefer 2.25" binding, and hers gives you a 2.75" one which is way too wide IMHO for a mini.  I cut the main one at 1.25" and the flange at 1.5" in case you want to do this too.

What in the world? you may be wondering.  After the patio shot, I turned to go back into the house, and thought you might be interested to see the pet ramp we now have off the patio doors, since Rocco is not allowed to do any stairs.  We, well, MacGyver, who am I kidding, glued pieces of an old yoga mat onto it to give it a better grip.  Notice  another fur kid peeking out the screen?!

Went inside, downstairs to my sewing corner and pinned the new mini to my wall, er vapour barrier of minis.  They are all right around the 20" size, and all have Susie's binding :-)  From left to right: Crazy Hearts, Swoon Mini and Textures

I love them! I purposely set Textures a little lower than Crazy Hearts, might have to make it more obviously lower...And I just noticed, when I found the post for Crazy Hearts, that I have some of the Textures grey plaid in the low volume background of it!  Cool.

Interesting:  when I wrote about Crazy Hearts, Craftsy had a classes sale on, and if you notice the sidebar button, you'll see they are doing a pretty sweet one this weekend.  All classes, yep every single one, are 50% off and some are even more, at $19.99.  This is the time to pick one up; I know that's when I got my Angela classes, and I have put them to good use over and over.  Free Motion Quilting Negative Space is a great one, as is Machine Quilting: Small Changes, Big Variety.  She uses both a domestic and a longarm in these classes.  I have done these quilting designs on my longarm as well as on my Bernina.

One last outdoor shot.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  original design, mini based on my Blue Skies & Sunny Days pattern
Size: 20" square
Fabric: scraps
Batting: franken-batted Warm 'n Natural 100% cotton
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads: pieced and quilted with Aurifil #2600 and 2123, fabulous threads, no breakage, no tension issues whatsoever; from piecing to quilting, I adjusted nothing.

Aurifil thread with what's left of the fabric; note some pieced scraps to become part of my Scrap Vortex quilt

Linking up with the three C's:
Crazy Mom Quilts
Confession of a Fabric Addict
Cooking Up Quilts

Lake Erie as seen on my walk this sweltering morning of the fishflies' arrival, ahhh and aackk-- speaking of lakes, I will be blogging less and concentrating efforts on sewing my challenge "Better At The Lake" fabric from Henry Glass Fabrics, so exciting! AND doing the first round on Cindy's centre block of course ;-)

Binding Tutorial Take 2!

Take 2:  a second look at Joining the Binding Ends and there are 2 TWO tutorials here.

When I did the binding on Uncle Frank's quilt I took pictures at each step of the process in the hopes that this will be it.  Clear!  Almost everyone, lol, said the binding tutorial on Auntie Joyce's quilt was really good.  I do think that UF's binding fabric is easier to see right and wrong side of fabric, and I broke the joining the ends part down even further here (so there are a TON of photos).  However, if you are new to binding, new to joining the ends in this fashion, or new to using the glue and pressing, this is one of those things that you must DO at the same time as you read through the tutorial.  When I was first taught this joining method many years ago, I wrote down the instructions as the teacher showed another student (she'd already showed me) so that I could refer back to it, which I did, for many many quilts.  It's not every day you bind a quilt, right?  Eventually it will become second nature to you I promise.

Notice the length of each tail of binding; there is a LOT. I've left a good 11" of each tail and I have about 18" open on the quilt. The pin is to show you that is the beginning tail end.

Overlap the end binding tail on top of the beginning. Note that pin.

Overlap the ends by the width of your binding; mine is 2 1/4".  Make a chalk mark at that 2 1/4" point on the end binding tail.

Either cut with scissors or use your 5X7 Olfa mat between the two bindings so only the top layer that you wish to cut rests on the mat, and cut on the chalk mark.

This is what you will have.

Orient the two tail ends as shown, end binding tail right side up and open, beginning binding tail also open but wrong side up.

Align those two ends as shown. You may have to scrunch up your quilt top in order to do so.  Place the 45-degree angle line on your 6X12" ruler along one straight edge so you get the cutting edge of the ruler on the diagonal oriented as I have it here.  Draw a line with your marker along that edge.

Either pin as shown here, or....

put some dots of glue on the line and press the two pieces together as I had them in the previous photo.  I have pulled back the one binding so you see the glue; you press them flat, right sides together as the previous photo.  Stitch on that line. I like to stitch one needle width to the inside of the line so the binding fits snug against the quilt top.

Before trimming the just-sewn seam, lay out the binding to be sure it is not twisted, and that it is the correct length.  THEN, trim the seams to 1/4" so you will have two little triangles of fabric left over...which can be paired with previous cut off binding triangles for use in minis, right?!

That ends the Joining the Binding Ends Tutorial.  Now follows Finishing Sewing Down the Binding.  You can do it, as I prefer to, by hand, but stitching it down by machine is just so fast, and durable, that I'm doing more and more this way.

I prefer applying my binding to the front of the quilt and stitching in the ditch on the front, catching the folded edge on the back with my stitching.  You can do it in reverse, applying the binding to the back, and topstitching it down on the front.  It's a personal preference.

Press the binding away from the quilt top

Fold it and press it again to the back of the quilt.  Let's take a closer look at mitres on the corners.

Press the binding down up to the corner and off the edge of the quilt, so binding folded on binding (this is clearer when you are doing it) and you will automatically form a 45-degree angle where it starts to go around the corner.  Fold the binding down over the next edge; you may have to finagle that fold a little so both folded edges meet as you see here.

Notice the difference from right side to the wrong side of the quilt at that corner:  the bulk of the folded corner is on the right here between my index and third fingers, and in the previous photo the bulk is to the left.  This means the corner bulk is evenly distributed and the corner will lie nice and flat.

After you've pressed the binding to the back all the way around (or you can do one side at a time), then put a tiny amount of glue on the quilt back inside the seams.  Less is more.  I find taking the time to iron first, apply glue, and then iron again, keeps my fingers cleaner!

Press that binding down, setting the glue.  Stitch by hand (see why less is more; it's hard to poke your needle through a glued fabric edge) or by machine.  I've hauled quilts around on car trips like this, binding by hand to pass the time and it is the GREATEST thing EVER! No pins, or clips get lost!

Stitch in the ditch from the front of the quilt using your walking foot.

Here you can see what the back is looking like, nicely caught by the ditch stitching.  You can also see how hand-sewn-down the front looks since the stitching disappears in that ditch.

There you have it!  I hope this helps newbies, or teaches some experienced quilters a new way of doing something or a new tip.  I started using glue not even 2 years ago, as I was pretty skeptical at first. Now I wouldn't have it any other way.

AND!!!!! Desire to Inspire Challenge Update!

The Henry Glass Fabrics fabric arrived at my daughter's house on the Michigan side of the Detroit River yesterday afternoon.  MacGyver hopped in the SUV and went over for a visit once she was home from work, and then brought it to our house on the Ontario side last night!  I waited until the sun was up this morning to take the photos to show you:

My package-eeep!

Fabric inspector, photo bomber, and quilt tester Bella takes a sniff

Lush colours, no?!  Those are fat quarters of woven plaids and two twill weaves!

 Now to put some of my ideas into fruition toute suite, or as my friend Lara, who also lives on a Great Lake, Ontario to be exact, of Buzzin'Bumble likes to write, 'toot sweet'.  :-)  Fabulous giveaway, not lake but sea-themed over on her blog until this weekend.

Remember my pattern is on sale until this weekend!  Just $5 will get you a copy here on Craftsy in my pattern store.  You can also be taken there through the My Pattern Store button on my sidebar. :-) After this weekend it will be $7.

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation.

con fuoco

Like writing blog posts, naming quilts can sometimes be quite a process for this girl.  There are times, however, when a post magically almost writes itself as I type, as do some quilts magically name themselves.  This one's name took a bit to birth, but when it did present itself, on a walk (but of course, that meditative frame of mind when so many many good ideas and thoughts come to mind), it was magical, another warm tingly (no not the precursor to a hotflash) moment for me.  Just a note, there are a hundred photos here!

Note the presence of our purple iris!

Pattern & Fabric Giveaway Winners and No-Reply Bloggers

First of all, thank you SO MUCH to all the lovely comments about my pattern and the quilting!  Pshaw.  I truly appreciate your kind words.  So, without making you read to the end to find out, the Custom Random Number Generator picked the following three winners of the 84 comments that were there at 9 am this morning when I picked.  All three winners have been emailed.

The first pick was fabric and it went to Leanne Parsons at Devoted Quilter:

The second and third picks were for copies of my pattern Blue Skies & Sunny Days, and it has been emailed off to:

and

Congrats all three of you!

RSC and OMG

Angela said think forest when you think of the colours for May: green and a bit of brown.  Earlier this week I had that in mind when I pulled fabric and hauled my findings upstairs where I now work while Rocco heals.

This second of my two RSC 2016 projects requires six blocks which run from lights to darks.  So not only am I playing with colour, I am also playing with value.  It's been a good opportunity to experiment and learn.  The next morning I ended up at this point:

Sigh. She HAS to test out any new projects and new to her fabric, and get into a photo, any photo.  Try again:

Pay attention to the browns there for later.

A little later that morning on my pibble-less (sniff) walk, I walked along the Chrysler Canada Greenway, which is a part of the Trans Canada Trail.

 I love this trail that cuts right through my town.

You can't get any sense of the depth here at Mill Creek; it really is quite a drop down there to that massive log.  I hear John Denver's "Cool and Green and Shady" in my head when I look at this photo.  THAT was my fabric pull!  That would most likely be similar to what Angela had envisioned.

Got home and between a few (read huge) events on Thursday and Friday, mainly on Friday, (see this post for details), I sewed these:

Oh yes, Bella messed them up.  More than once.  It was only when I put my medium mint chocolate blocks beside the light ones that I immediately noticed the browns.  Do you see?  The brown in the lightest value are actually darker value than those in the medium value!  I do love the pops of kelly green in the brown of the medium blocks and I don't know that they'd have glowed as much had they been with the lightest greens.  Also the browns in relation to the medium greens could appear darker if put with the light greens...yikes did you follow that?  I did when I typed it!  Regardless, I'm learning by doing and playing with colour and value.

Wanna see them all so far?

I'm liking it!  Technically the purple should be above the orange, but I wasn't about to move everything down (none of the blocks are sewn together) in order to do that. I still have to do the January blue with a bit of purple row and the February brown with a pop of pink row.  This second project sort of happened in Florida in March...another DREAMI moment.  Drop Everything And Make It.  Do you get those?

I'm looking forward to working with June's colours: blue leaning toward aqua with a pop of lime green.

One of the huge events I referred to is that I'm also working with some very specific fabrics in June on another project, which leads nicely into my OMG goal for June.  This is going to come completely out of left field, and it is totally a DREAMI event.  If you missed yesterday's post, you won't know that EEEEEEP!!! There is a new button on my sidebar...I got chosen to be the June designer for Henry Glass Fabrics Desire to Inspire challenge!!  I am just so über-excited I can hardly stand it!  There should be some lake-themed yardage arriving shortly for me to delve into and create some fabulous stuff by the end of June.

Photo from Henry Glass Fabrics; used with permission

So I will be creating at LEAST a couple of items by the end of June; did I mention my brain is fizzing with ideas?   Don't worry; I've written them down, as we all know how on vay-cay my menopausal melon is these days...just wait, you will DIE when you hear what I did when I packaged up my Uncle Frank's and my Auntie Joyce's quilts to send to England...

Linking up with soscrappy for the RSC 2016 and with Red Letter Quilts for OMG.

Blue Skies & Sunny Days Pattern Release & A Giveaway

I am doing a happy dance extraordinaire in my corner of QBL:  today is the release of my first 'for sale' pattern!

Available for purchase on Craftsy

The Quilts

You may recall Blue Skies...

which was made from strips cut from a 10-yard fabric bundle of Michael Miller fabrics from Craftsy which I bought back in December.  Blue is my favourite colour, so the turquoises and royal blues in the bundle really attracted me.  As did the price, not gonna lie.  By now, you know how much I love good deals!  Don't we all?

In February I made the flimsy for the Craftsy Sweetens Up My Quilting Life blog hop, as I wanted to showcase the bundles available; prior to this purchase, I had had no idea you could get yardage, and fantastic deals on said yardage.  I finished it in April.  It is the first quilt for sale in my Etsy shop.

Then I made Sunny Days.

I wanted to add a row to have a rectangular quilt, and I knew I could eliminate some of the seams.  I love saving thread, fabric and time as much as I love deals, LOL.  I also loved the pink and yellow combination in another Michael Miller bundle from Craftsy, this one a fat quarter bundle, from which I made a second rendition of their Three Quarter Patch Tote.

Sunny Days is also for sale in my Etsy shop.

I seem to have developed a thing for quilts in trees...

The Pattern Tester

I was blown away the weekend that I posted the Sunny Days finish:  Tish of Tish's Adventures in Wonderland, was dead serious when she sent me a message saying that her husband, David, wanted to make my pattern.  I had, at first, thought she was joking.  Nope.  She had shown him a photo of the quilts and he really liked the design.  Thought he could maybe make it.  And wow, did he!!

David's "Hawaiian Stepping Stones" in a tree just for me!

You can read about David's first quilt, his FIRST QUILT, right here.  There is no stopping this man; before he had even got to the flimsy stage, he was planning another quilt, thinking in colours on the way to work...Tish and I are just so proud of what he has done, our little, er large, manly protégé quilt-builder!  I am pleased that my pattern is beginner-friendly!

I am just so very thankful and grateful and truly amazed at all the help Tish has given me this past month. She it is who did the block and layout diagrams in EQ7 for me from my drawings.  She even redid the layout for the background cutting in Sunny Days, not once but oh three times!!! Never one "Nope, can't do it right now, sorry," always a "Let me know if there is anything else you need."  Hugs big ones, and a 'mwah!' to you my darling friend.

This week I asked Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs if she'd be able to give the pattern the once-over with her expert eye.  I am so very very grateful for all the improvements that resulted from her wise suggestions!  It means so much that a designer at her level would do this for little ol' me and do it pronto!  Thank you Cheryl!

The backs

The Pattern

And now, to make the circle complete, you can purchase your own copy of the pattern in my Craftsy pattern store!  For the first week, that is until June 10, it will be on sale for $5.  After that it will be $7.  I've included instructions to make both sizes of quilts, as well as two methods of construction for the quilts, one with jelly roll strips and the other with strips and yardage.  But wait, there is a giveaway....

The Henry Glass Fabrics Desire to Inspire Challenge

Well I must say June 2 has been one Red Letter Day, the day that I made the final tweaks to my pattern, ready for release, and then... received an email in the later afternoon telling me that they, the Henry Glass Fabrics peeps, had chosen me, moi! to be the designer for the month of June!!  I am hap-hap-hap-HAPPY DANCING indeedy-do I AM!!!  When I saw the lake-themed fabric, I was like, PUH-LEEZE pick me, pick me, pick me...I live on Lake Erie; I see her every day....and well, they did pick me!  I hope to make them proud.  Want to throw your hat into the ring for a challenge?  Follow their blog and watch for the announcement for the July challenge, usually on the blog the 1st of the month.
Here is their announcement Friday morning about moi.

Giveaway

And now to celebrate the pattern release, I am going to give away 3 (my favourite number) prizes: 2 copies of the pattern, and a 13-strip set of 2.5" fabrics that I used in Blue Skies.  Sadly, due to the cost of postage, I will only be able to mail the strips within Canada and the US, but the pattern giveaway is open internationally.  Just leave me a comment that says in what colour or colour combination you'd make my quilt!  Followers can have a second entry, just tell me how you follow me.  New followers are always welcome!

**Please check if you are a no-reply blogger (Look below the comments! There's a great, simple fix right there.) and leave your email address in your comment so I can find you.  If you don't, I will have to draw another winner.

I will draw on Sunday evening and winners will be notified by email and on my post, Monday, June 6.  I hope you understand that due to the volume of comments I won't be responding to them on this post.  I faithfully do otherwise, as that is the way I have met such wonderful souls in QBL.  :-)

Winners have no been chosen and notified by email. Thanks so much for the lovely comments everyone!  :-)
 
Linking up with
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Crazy Mom Quilts
TGIFF this week at Devoted Quilter

May Wrap-Up

I did a little more shopping, Indie style over the past week.  This was in support of some wonderful designers who, like those I already purchased from in a previous post, give a lot of free stuff to QBL in the form of tips and tutorials, patterns, quilt-alongs, and so on.

May is for Makers is the initiative of Lindsey of LRStitched. You can read her post there, where she talks about the philosophy behind her mandate.

The pattern I purchased first in the last week of May is by a lovely Canadian quilter, who lives about 3.5 hours north of me: Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts.  Lorna hosts one of my favourite linky parties each Wednesday, Let's Bee Social.  It's a great place to find some new blogs, maybe make some new friends and oh, you betcha, find some new distractions, er, inspirations!

I plan to make her free QAL Doggone Cute quilt yet, just couldn't stuff it into the projects list when it was going on, but oh did it look fun.  And IMHO, the 'poster dog' for the quilt is a pibble!  Um yeah?!  After much thought (she has some fabulous designs), I decided to buy her Black Birds Quilt pattern.  I have a lovely neighbour down the street who is an avid bird guy, raises them, and has forgotten more about birds than I will ever know.  He knows a ton about trees and plants around here too, has taught this Alberta-girl much about the Carolinian forest where I now reside.  So this quilt will eventually go to him.

I also (finally) ordered some "mmm! quilts" labels to sew into my quilts that I list for sale on Etsy.  I followed Lorna's link on her blog to Ikaprint so she should get a little commission off my order.  More than one way to support a blogger/designer. ;-)

Second on the purchase list was from Cindy of Stitchin' At Home, also another Canadian quilter and now good friend of mine.  She lives even closer to me than Lorna does, just 'up the lake' a ways, maybe a couple hours?  For Buzzin Bumble Lara's Crafted Appliqué blog hop, Cindy designed her own pattern and did such a sweet little quilt.  Then she decided to offer her design for sale on her Craftsy pattern store!  This is her first 'for bucks' pattern. And uh, it's just over one buck you guys!

Love her fabric choices - used with permission

Third is my friend Beth, at Cooking Up Quilts, who is, like my good friend Tish, a West Virginia gal.  We met during the New Bloggers Group last summer, and got to know each other better through a mutual friend, Julie at Pink Doxies.  We got to know each other even better through the Craftsy blog hop that Julie and I hosted in February, as well as through some email conversations that occurred following her wonderful linky, Main Crush Monday.  See how linking up, or joining in a hop can bring you new friendships?  Love that.  Beth has some lovely patterns.  It was a hard decision!  I chose Floating.

My favourite colour combination - used with permission

I've bought patterns over the years from independent designers; I am a firm believer in supporting them.  However, having this gentle reminder and encouraging others to remember to support designers and bloggers was a terrific idea.  Buying something through a blogger's Craftsy affiliate link is another way to show someone a little love....which brings me to this:  can I ask each of you a favour?  Because I've had more than a couple of orders from friends and even a family member NOT get credited or tracked to me, can you shoot me an email if you do order through my Craftsy link?  I don't need specifics, just an order # and then I can be sure that it went through me.  This has been going on now for nearly 6 months, so I'm concerned, since these are only the orders I know about; how many will I never know about?

Speaking of Craftsy, who I do love, despite this glitch, which I hope will be figured out asap, the pattern for Blue Skies & Sunny Days is about to launch through my Pattern Store!  You can bet I will have it on sale for the launch, and you can also bet there will be a giveaway or three.  Should be this Friday.  Eeep!

Linking up with Let's Bee Social.