Signed, sealed, and delivered! I've finished off the Pink Sunshine quilt, and it's officially been delivered to the munchkin's math teacher, so it's safe to share, not that I think she's a blog reader :) I think she likes it, I sure hope hope she does. This super happy, mega scrappy quilt was a lot of fun to work on, using scraps of Lorelei's baby quilt  and other various pink fabrics floating around my sewing room.

I kept the quilting fairly simple, just doing a modified stipple with pearl clamshells here and there, majorly because I don't get to free-motion as much as I'd like to these days and I wanted to keep it from being a big hairy deal...but my machine is definitely in need of a visit to the spa, so it was a little more dramatic than I would have liked. It's been almost two years since her last spa date, so it's time, I need to just get her over to the shop for her full cleaning and tune-up. It's important to do, even with a fully mechanical machine! While I can oil my machine and clean out a large part of my machine, there's still areas I can't get to and things that need maintenance that are beyond my skill set. I used Aurifil 3660, a fun variegated pink, to go with all the different shades of pink used in the quilt, and also shockingly because it's the only spool of pink Aurifil I own! I must remedy this at some point.

The binding might just be my favorite part. It's a print called Lovebug Grid in Pink, which I stumbled on at Stash Fabrics when hunting for pinks. Perfect fabric for binding this kind of adorable baby quilt.

It feels good to finish a quilt. It makes me want to sew even more. I think the next quilt I want to get back to is my Anna Maria Horner quilt for my bed or the Lizzy House book quilt that I think is also destined for my bed, or maybe the living room. My HST bed quilt desperately needs another quilt it can alternate with!!
Quilt Stats
Quilt Name: Pink Sunshine
Size: 36" x 40"
Pattern: None, improvised strip quilt using scraps and made scraps
Quilting: Modified stipple with pearl clamshells in Aurifil 2660
Binding: Lovebug Grid in Pink

Once upon a time, we bought our first house and lived in a neighborhood where we had great neighbors. And one neighbor became a good friend of mine around the time my son was born, so much so that she's had the title of auntie since he could talk. And though she moved away a few years ago, after we left that neighborhood in search of a bigger neighborhood with more kids around, we're still in touch and she recently welcomed her first child, a boy she and her husband named Henry.


Henry came a good bit early, but he's doing really well so far, which is so wonderful. I'm so excited for her to become a mom and to get to enjoy all the sweet mom/son things that I've enjoyed with my son. I know that Henry is a lucky boy to have her as a mom, and I wanted to send my love to them both the best way I know how - a quilt.


This quilt isn't super technical or super fancy, but it's meant to be loved and enjoyed, and will be a great playmat for Henry after he gets to come home from the hospital. I did some simple plus blocks using fun blues and yellows, with one of my favorite text prints as the background, Heartfelt in Snow from Littlest. I bordered the patchwork with simple improv piecing using some great shades of Kona: Alegria, Copen, and Cadet.


Quilt stats
name: Henry's quilt
size: 35 1/2" square
fabrics: assorted prints, low volume Heartfelt in Snow from Littlest, Kona Alegria, Kona Copen, and Kona Cadet.
binding: Valley in Azure by Leah Duncan
quilting: improv hills in Aurifil 50 wt 8605

When we come home from the hospital with our new little baby in tow later this week, there's quite a few handmade touches in my daughter's nursery to greet her. From a little embroidery hoop design I made...



And the baby mobile I made of fussy cut prints...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and your families! I'm excited to finally share a secret project I've been working on over the last month. See, my husband has tried for the last many years to convince our now almost eight-year-old son that he is indeed Batman - long before we heard of Batdad (who is quite hilarious in his own right), and this year, I got the crazy idea to make him a pixelated Batman quilt to go with his obsession. Naturally, the idea didn't dawn on me until just before Thanksgiving, so it's been a feverish kind of project that I've worked on in my spare moments whenever I could, and somehow I managed to pull it off.

I posted a few photos as I worked on Instagram, since my husband is one of the few people I know who isn't constantly scrolling Instagram. I chose to work in strictly white, black, and shades of gray, much like how Batman in The Lego Movie professes that he only works in "black and sometimes very dark gray."





For the quilting, I kept it super simple, sticking with a stitch I can do in my sleep, a simple stipple in lovely gray Aurifil #2615. Free-motion quilting while nine months pregnant is definitely not an enviable task, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. In fact, I was able to quilt with very few modifications to my usual work setup, so it went pretty smoothly.

I sure hope that the husband is pleased with his new quilt - I know I'm super pleased with how it turned out and the fact that I managed to keep it secret all this time, which will make the surprise when he opens it all the more special :)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays again to you all, I hope you have a wonderful day with your families!

And I say "first girlie quilt" because I suspect there will be more at some point. I have to say, finding out that the new baby is going to be a girl was really exciting for a number of reasons, one of which was thinking of all of the adorable fabrics that I've hoarded over the years that just haven't been right for the numerous quilts I've made for the munchkin over the years. It was fun to pull out loads of Heather Ross and Sarah Jane and Aneela Hoey fabrics to make the first girlie cutesy quilt for my daughter-to-be.

I'm pleased to finally have a summer finish to share that's fully quilted and bound and truly finished! The summer seems to be flying by, full of family time, work, trips to the pool, and very little sewing, but this project was a bit of a priority for me - because of the recipient.

We recently found out that our munchkin will no longer be a "lonely child" (as he calls an "only child") - I'm expecting a new baby early in the new year! All three of us are mighty excited, and naturally, I channeled my excitement into making a quilt for the baby. We don't know if it's a boy or girl yet, so I went with a simple bright, rainbow color scheme that will work well for either, and I picked a block that has been on my quilty bucket list for a long time - the X Plus block.

These blocks are SO addictive, and so quick to make! I dug into my scrap bins for the rainbow colors and pulled two of my favorite basics, an old out of print Lakehouse seed catalog print, and a cute tiny black heart print on white by Dear Stella, to mix them up with.

I love the simplicity of the piecing in this quilt, so I kept it super simple with the quilting and binding - just a simple stipple in my trusty white #2024 Aurifil thread and then I bound it using that same sweet heart print that I used throughout the blocks.


I adore the backing I used for this quilt, a new Cloud 9 print by Eloise Renouf called Passing Cloud from her line, First Light. This line is sooooo pretty! Navies and citrons and grays mixed with a pop of pink and a wee bit of teal, in beautifully detailed prints. Just the right amount of mellow softness compared to the bright quilt top!

Quilt Stats
name: Baby's X Plus Quilt
size: 36" square
fabrics: a wide assortment from my scrap bins, plus the Hearts print from Dear Stella and an out of print Bakehouse seed catalog print
backing: Passing Cloud by Eloise Renouf for Cloud 9
quilting: simple meandering stipple in white (#2024) Aurifil 50 wt thread

This quilt will likely make a great tummy time mat for the new baby when he or she arrives, but I suspect there will be another quilt I'll make for the baby once we find out if it will be a boy or girl. I don't think I'll be able to help myself :)

Stay tuned next week for a new block tutorial, for the Twirl block last seen in my Cotton + Steel mini swap quilt, and have a great Monday!

Good morning! Monday, Monday again. Bring on the coffee! And bring on the new issue of Quilt Now, it's so bright and cheery - just the perfect thing to accompany my morning coffee. Have you checked out Quilt Now yet? It's a lovely new publication, with uber-talented editor Katy Jones, and issue two is available now, from Pink Castle Fabrics. And I'm super excited to share with you my first quilt pattern for Quilt Now, the Whirling Dervish quilt, a paper pieced extravaganza of a quilt!


Whirling Dervish is a crazy paper-pieced wonder - one that I initially designed with both y-seams and paper piecing, but since I decided that was beyond evil, I reworked the templates to create the block using strictly paper piecing. That being said, this block isn't for the faint of heart, it's intense, but gorgeous, and giant too - the block finishes at 18",


Because the piecing is so intense, I knew the blocks needed some negative space to float on in order to really appreciate all the crazy piecing, so there's only four blocks in the quilt, floated on a boatload of negative space to yield a nice lap-sized quilt.



Issue three is coming out really soon, and I have to say, I've really enjoyed the first two thus far and can't wait to see what's in the next issue! Hope you all have a wonderful Monday :)

I didn't realize it was possible to have cold weather after June 1st, but on my trip to Minnesota last week, I was super thankful I had packed a light coat! While I was in town for the Minnesota Quilt Show, I trekked into downtown St. Cloud to find coffee. I was able to find a cute little coffee shop, Central Perk, but along the way, I found myself in windy 50 degree weather. Normally, that would be nice and refreshing, but when you've been in 90+ degree weather for many weeks, 50 feels a lot colder than it used to. After my first coffee trip, I came prepared, with my hoodie to help keep me warm, but it was awfully nice to feel the brisk Minnesota wind. I had a lovely trip to Minnesota, in spite of a couple of minor travel snafus, and I had a great time teaching there!
I wanted to share a new mini I made for my paper piecing class, Discover the Joy of Paper Piecing - this little mini uses three Lucky Stars blocks from the 2013 Block of the Month club plus a bonus block that has not been part of either the 2013 or 2014 club (pictured above). I love the look of a beautiful paper pieced block in solids, but I wanted to have fun with the background, so I snagged a fun black and white pin dot from my stash for the background. I think it gives the blocks a less serious, harsh look than they would have otherwise, while still leaving the blocks crisp and graphic. I had such a great time with this class. It was a great group of students, and I can't wait to teach it again soon. In the meantime, I can't wait to find a place to hang this little mini until the next time I teach this class!




Quilt Stats
name: Lucky Stars Jr
size: 24" square
pattern: three Lucky Stars 2013 blocks plus one bonus unreleased block
fabrics: assorted Kona solids and black on white pin dot
quilting: meandering stipple in 50 wt white (#2024) Aurifil
binding: black pin dot on white to match background of mini

Remember my Mod Nine Patch quilt from eons ago? Okay, it was two years ago, but it feels like a lifetime ago :) When my sweet friend Sara Lawson told me she had designed a fabric line for Art Gallery and showed me some swatches a while back, I was equal parts super excited for her and just itching to make something with her new prints! The prints in real life most definitely did not disappoint. Rich colors, fun prints, and I absolutely adore the black and white NeighborHoods print. I will definitely be buying some serious yardage of that one :) As soon as I saw the prints in person, this quilt is what popped into my head - it's perfect for prints like hers, prints that aren't exactly small scale, that need some size to properly shine.

The other reason I think this quilt came to mind is that I really loved the colors, and I knew that if I used the same design tactic I used with my original Mod Nine Patch quilt (solids + fun prints) that it would be really awesome, and I'm super happy with how this one turned out.

I had forgotten how quick this quilt is to put together, so the other thing I worked on with this finish is an update to the original free tutorial, adding several different size options as well as some new diagrams and such. The new free pattern is available right here.
Sara's new line hits stores any day now, so keep your eyes peeled for it - you're going to need some. Trust me on that :)

Quilt Stats
name: Jungle Ave Mod Nine Patch
size: 48" square
fabrics: Jungle Ave prints by Sara Lawson for Art Gallery Fabrics (coming out super soon!) and assorted coordinating Art Gallery Pure Elements Solids
pattern: Mod Nine Patch free pattern by yours truly
quilting: simple stipple in white 50 wt Aurifil
binding: Art Gallery Pure Elements in Caviar (black)

Happy Memorial Day to you! I hope you're having a great weekend so far, celebrating family and those who've served our country. I'm stealing a few minutes of quiet independent reading time to put together a quickie, long-overdue blog post for a recent finish - Boxed In!
Boxed In is a twist on a traditional nine-patch block applying a change in scale as well as playing around with the symmetry of the nine-patch. There's two layers of nine-patches going on here, as well - a giant nine-patch block, which is built of asymmetrical nine-patch blocks. I will be writing a pattern for the asymmetrical nine-patch block itself as well as some ways to utilize it coming up soon, so stay tuned for that.
I dug into my scrap box for this quilt, not only with the prints, but with the whites as well. I used four different shades of white, log-cabin style, around the giant nine-patch block. I so often ignore my scraps of white because it's tough to match them up, but I actually like the subtle tonal changes of white throughout the quilt, so I will definitely try that again on another quilt in the future. My favorite of the nine-patch blocks is positively the center one, with the yellows and golds. It brings a nice spot of sunshine, and attention, to the center.
I got a little crazy with the quilting on this one - with my trusty favorite shade of Aurifil white #2024, I used a different quilting style in each of the four white logs. There's some wavy lines, some zigzag, some Ls, and some boxes. In the nine-patch area, though, I went super simple, with some random straight lines. I think it gives some really interesting texture to the finished quilt. I kept the binding really minimal as well, using one of the white fabrics I used for the logs. I like the blended look that it gives to the finished quilt. I often choose a binding that's got a lot of contrast, but I'm really digging how soft a matchy-matchy binding looks. I might just do this kind of binding a bit more often :)
Quilt Stats
name: Boxed In
size: 50" square
pattern: Asymmetrical 9 Patch, coming soon
fabrics: assorted whites, assorted scraps in purple, aqua, gray, and gold
quilting: wavy lines, zigzags, L's, boxes and straight-lines, all free-motioned on my Juki with 50 wt Aurifil #2024
Now, I have to confess something: I lost this quilt for a bit of a while. About two weeks, to be exact. It traveled safely to a few lectures with me, and then when packing up for my last trunk show, I couldn't find it. If you've read my blog before, you probably know that I am really good at "putting things away" and by that I mean, putting things in places that make zero sense. I inherited that lovely trait from my dad, who we called the "Mad Mover." At first, I fretted that I left it behind at one of my lectures, but that wasn't the case. I tore my sewing room apart looking for it, as well as my guest room, where I store many of my quilts. All with no luck. It wasn't until this past weekend that I decided to unfold quilts as I looked through them to search for this quilt that I found the darned thing. It was folded with the backing side out, and I didn't remember using that particular print for the backing, so I looked right past it before. Thank goodness I found it, because I was seriously thinking I might have to remake it - which wouldn't be a tragedy, but gosh, it sure would be frustrating to have to remake something I misplaced!

Life's been busy lately. Not in a bad way, just busy...to the point where when my son's kindergarten teacher sent home a note about how her last day of school is approaching quickly before she goes on maternity leave, and it dawned on me that I had not made a baby quilt for her. Eek! It was on my To Do list, I had managed that much, but it just hadn't made it to the top yet, so this weekend I bumped it to the top of the list.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, and this week is looking like it will be nothing short of crazy, as I plan out and prep far too many projects for my yearly journey up to Atlanta for The Stash Bash. It's always better to have too many projects to pick from to work on than not enough, right? For the last week, I've been trying to recover from the fun I had at SewDown Nashville - it was such a great time, I can hardly even describe it in words. One thing I can do, though, is show you one of my recent finishes that I shared for the first time in Nashville, at my lecture, Shadow Sawtooth.

The lecture I gave in Nashville was about applying modern aesthetics to traditional, classic quilt blocks to yield modern traditional quilts. Everything from applying interesting, alternate grid work to a classic block to adding asymmetry to a block, to unexpected uses of color. This quilt is by far and away one of my favorite class/lecture samples I've made to date, and it could be the color combinations, it could be the quilting, or it could be the way that your eye can often "lose" the grayscale sawtooth stars as you take in the center star in all its glory, but all in all, I adore this quilt.

It's sewn up in Kona solids, in Kona Ash, Medium Gray, Charcoal, Curry, Cerise, and Pool. The quilting is another part of this quilt that really grabs me. I used several different shades of Aurifil, from a variegated gray (#4670) to a fuchsia (#2588), yellow (#2135), and aqua (#2835) to match the center star.


It's a super simple quilt that totally goes to show you how the use of color can absolutely change a quilt - and I can't wait to find the perfect place to hang it up at home! Happy Monday everyone :)

Quilt Stats
name: Shadow Sawtooth
size: 36" square
pattern: none - just used a classic Sawtooth Star block throughout
fabrics: Kona Ash, Medium Gray, Charcoal, Curry, Cerise, and Pool
quilting: L's in 40 wt Aurifil variegated gray (#4670), L's in 50 wt Aurifil yellow (#2135), fat L's in 50 wt Aurifil fuchsia (#2588), and zig zag in 50 wt Aurifil aqua (#2835)

Late last month, I shared a super fun quilt top all in solids, and hooray, it's all done! It's time to join the Rainbow Dance Party! It's finally finished and bound, and holy wow, do I love this quilt!


It all started with some beautiful RJR Supreme Cotton Solids, and some very simple piecing to yield a really striking quilt top. Then, I decided to do some super fun, super varied free-motion quilting, inspired by my just-about-to-be-released Craftsy class (somebody pinch me!!!!), and this quilt became something beyond special.

The back of the quilt is especially dazzling, thanks to the dense quilting in six different styles. Lately, I've noticed I've been gravitating toward solid fabric quilt backs, even scrappy ones like this one, so I can really enjoy my free-motion quilting stitches. I kept the binding super simple for this quilt, using some leftover strips of fabric from the front of the quilt for a real scrappy binding.

These photos were taken at the Plant City Railroad Museum and Union Depot, which is a pretty cool place, if you're ever in the area. There was a group of older men there touring the museum, who seemed to be thoroughly amused by my quilty photoshoot and the way I was running around trying to get good pictures in between crazy gusts of wind. I'm glad I could make them smile :)

Quilt Stats
name: Rainbow Dance Party
size: 51" x 68"
pattern: none yet, but maybe I'll write one up?
fabrics: RJR Supreme Cotton Solids in 49 - Chili Pepper, 140 - Ochre, 182 - Lemon Chiffon, 249 - Sprout, 251 - Anemone, 331 - Pink Orchid, 110 - Red Wagon, 276 - Tangerine Dream, 92 - Goldenrod, 349 - Aloe Verde, 296 - Electric Blue, 286 - Ruby Slippers, 34 - Black
quilting: six different quilting stitches in six different shades of Aurifil 50 wt to coordinate with my fabrics, navy (#2735), orange (#2214), green (#5017), fuchsia (#2588), yellow (#2105), and red (#2250)
binding: assorted leftover fabrics from the quilt top for a scrappy binding

In other news, I've pulled a winner for my Aurifil giveaway from last week, and the winner is Joanne Gentile. Congrats! I'll be emailing you shortly to get your new spool of thread on its way to you :)

Have a wonderful day today everyone!