So, the holiday season has come to a close again...and sadly this wasn't the holiday season where I finished my Kawaii holiday cross stitch sampler :( I did make a good bit of progress, though! Check it out...



I've got just two squares remaining in the sampler, so I feel pretty sure that I will be able to finish it before next Christmas comes and goes. It was awfully enjoyable to work on it during the holidays, so I might just save working on it for the next holiday season. Maybe I'll start up a new hand sewing project in the meantime to tote around with me on my various outings.


Or maybe I'll work on some quilt math... I'm thinking of doing a quilt along later this spring, I've got a fun, simple block that can create several different fun geometric repeats, so stay tuned for more info on this in February! Have a great day :)

Welcome to my little corner of blogland for my block in the 12 Days of Christmas Sampler Quilt Along!  Thanks, Sara, for asking me to contribute!  Today, we'll be making a cute present block, which I've called It's All About the Presents.  I can remember, as a little kid, obsessing about presents at Christmastime.  Despite our often bumpy family finances growing up, my parents always managed to make Christmas memorable.  In our house, Christmas meant a lot of things - it meant making Christmas cookies with my mother, attempting to Christmas shop with my father who despised shopping, wrapping presents in a way that would make Martha Stewart proud with my mother, waking my dad up on Christmas morning when I inevitably, as the baby of the family, woke up at 6am.  Christmas really isn't all about the presents, it's about family...but it sure is fun to wrap up some pretty presents, especially with fabric!!  Let's get to some sewing, shall we?

It's time to wrap up the Kaleidoscope Quilt Along this week!  I'll be wrapping things up in two posts - this one here, with your instructions for finishing up your quilt, and a second post with my finished quilt and a place to link up your finished quilts momentarily.  If you haven't stopped by the Flickr group yet, you absolutely should.  There is some serious eye candy to be seen over there!!  I love how different each quilter is making their Kaleidoscope, this is precisely what makes quilt-alongs so much fun.


When it comes to finishing your quilt, there's four basic steps: making/purchasing a quilt back, basting your quilt sandwich, quilting, and binding.

I'm a fan of pieced backs.  I know, it can be tedious to piece a quilt back, after piecing a top, but think about it this way - it's a great way to use some scraps you've created in cutting fabrics for your quilt top, and it's also  a way to exercise your creativity.  See what you've got and make it work!  For my quilt, I took 3 yds of a coordinating print for my quilt, and added a 16" strip of scraps from the front of my quilt.  I'm really happy with how the back turned out on this one.  If you're thinking about trying a pieced back, here's a little mosaic of some of my favorite recent quilt backs...


Now that you've made a quilt back and cut a piece of batting to go with, it's time to make your quilt sandwich.  I'm a big fan of spray basting.  My knees just don't like pin basting, nor does my back.  Spray basting saves me not only time but some sanity, too.  It's really quite simple to do, but if you've never done it before, check out my bloggy buddy Kristie's fantastic spray basting tutorial - the only thing I do differently is that I add a few pins around the outside edges of my quilt sandwich, just to be on the safe side.

Once you've basted, it's time to start quilting.  I'm a free-motion quilter most of the time, especially for large projects.  While I love how straight-line quilting looks, I get bored when I quilt that way, so I like how free-motion quilting keeps me moving constantly.  Usually, I go for a meandering stipple, which is like an "S" turned and twisted throughout the quilt, but for this one, I went with little loops - though my toddler says that the quilting is a bee's path.  If you're interested in trying free motion quilting for the first time, or you are still fairly new at it, you might want to pop over to read a few tips for FMQ'ing that I wrote a while back.   If you're more interested in straight line quilting, Amy wrote a great tutorial that should help you get started.


Binding is kind of a personal choice.  I tend to stick with 2.5" strips for my binding, and I machine them on to the back of the quilt first, then flip it over and machine it on to the front as well.  I do occasionally do the reverse, and machine to the front and hand-stitch to the back for a cleaner finish, but I never trust the security of my hand-stitching, so I prefer the machining method.  Emily wrote a fantastic tute for finishing your binding 100% by machine, I highly recommend it.

I can't wait to start seeing finished quilts appearing in the Kaleidoscope Quilt Along gallery!  You can link up your finished quilt here, and I will be drawing a random quilt finisher to win these fantastic Anthology fat quarters.

Block #1: Attic Windows

I think I'm going to take a totally scrappy approach to these blocks.  The color palette for these two blocks was totally inspired by one of my favorite Anna Maria Horner prints that happened to be in my scrap bin - Small Gathering in Sea.

Block #2: Autumn Tints

Doing two of these little blocks a week feels totally do-able, so I'm actually happy to have caved in to join this quilt-along.  I haven't done many traditional blocks in my quilting life, so I think it will be good practice for me and I'm sure I will learn a lot in the process of working on these blocks.

OK, so this month's Friday Night Sew In didn't exactly go as well as last month.  In fact, I didn't manage to sew a single stitch.  But, I did get a lot done, believe it or not!!


I spent a lot of time preparing for sewing.  I cut all of my fabric for the pieced backing that I have planned for the back of my Supernova quilt, totally based on Jeni's amazing Plus quilt from last year.  That was one of my first favorites when I started using Flickr last year, and it's been on my To Make list since then.  I had so much It's a Hoot leftover after the Supernova quilt that I wanted to make another quilt top basically for the back of this quilt.  Here's hoping I can pull off making the seams line up.


My dog was positively freaked out about all of the fabric all over the floor.  He sat in front of me, shaking, pretty much the entire time that I was working on laying out the squares.  Now that I'm all done, he's calmed down, chilling out on the couch, but he was just so bothered by how busy I was tonight.  It was so strange!  He's always been neurotic, but this was a new level of neuroses.

I know I am!  Since I finished my Sliced Coins quilt along, I've been itching for another quilt along.  Why?  It's just a lot of fun to tackle a quilt with another group of people - that's one of the things that has made the Single Girl quilt a lot more enjoyable to work on.

One of my favorite bloggers and dear friend, Lee, is hosting her own quilt along, based on her gorgeous Hope Valley quilt.  I'm so excited about this quilt along!  I love that quilt and I can't wait to quilt along with her.  Hop on over to her blog and join in the fun, she'll be announcing the fabric requirements tomorrow.  :)

Sliced Coins Quilt Along
Week One: Introduction & Materials
Week Two: Cutting Instructions
Week Three: Assembly
Week Three point five: Sashing
Week Four: Quilt Backs, Quilting, and Binding
Week Five: Gallery of Finishes

First off, can I just say a big thank you to all of you who have participated in the Sliced Coins Quilt Along so far??  This quilt along has been so much fun, and I hope you've enjoyed quilting along with me, too.  I am so excited to see your finished quilts!

Do you have a finished quilt yet?  You do?  High five!  Link it up below for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate from Sew Fresh Fabrics as a special thank you for participating in my first ever quilt along.

If you're not all finished just yet, that's A-OK, this drawing will be open until 2/27, so you've still got some time to wrap it up.  Come on back over and link up as soon as you're done, and I'll announce a winner first thing on 2/28.  Good luck!

This is the final week in the Sliced Coins Quilt Along.  Have you had fun?  I sure hope so, I know I have.  I'm so proud of all the amazing finished quilt tops I'm seeing for the quilt along!  It makes me so happy to see how many people are participating and how much they're enjoying this quilt pattern.

A part of me really likes making quilt backs, trying to use up scraps from the quilt top and making them work in a new way.  Another part of me dreads making quilt backs, because sometimes it feels a little bit tedious to me.  I've done a lot of different things for quilt backs in the last year and I've also seen a ton of awesome ones on Flickr - here's some of my favorites for inspiration.

Since you more than likely have extra coins, I went ahead and did some math for you all for a quilt back, to use up those excess coins and make a scrappylicious kind of quilt back.  I've also PDF'd the instructions for you, to make things even easier, just click on the picture below to access the PDF.





Now that you've got a quilt back, it's time to baste and quilt!  Basting is my least favorite part of quilting!    Jennifer wrote a really comprehensive basting tutorial during her quilt-along last year - That Girl...That Quilt's Basting tutorial - and I highly recommend it.

As for quilting, I'm more of a free-motion kind of girl.  Don't get me wrong, I like straight-line quilting, but free-motion quilting is relaxing to me.  I would be perfectly happy putting my earbuds in, turning on my iPod, and free motion quilting all day.  That sounds quite awesome, actually.  I learned to free-motion quilt from Elizabeth Hartman's quilt patterns, they're very thorough, but the basic gist is this - practice the motif you want to quilt (i.e. loopy, stipple, circles, etc.) on paper first.  Practicing on paper is really helpful, even if it feels a little silly.  Randi wrote a fantastic free-motion quilting tutorial last year that will really help you free-motion, if it's your first time.

If you're interested in straight line quilting, there's two great tutorials to see - Amy's simple straight-line quilting tutorial and Katy's wavy quilting tutorial.  Both are very beginner-friendly.

I can't wait to see how these quilts turn out!  In fact, I'm so excited to see these quilts finished up that I'm going to hold a giveaway for those of you who finish your quilts!  You'll be able to enter in the giveaway linky starting next Friday 2/18 and ending on Friday 2/28.  I'll be giving away a gift certificate to Sew Fresh Fabrics for $25 to a lucky random winner.  Thank you, Peg & Becca!


Need some fabric now?  They're running an awesome free domestic shipping special for orders over $35 right now until 2/14 to share the Valentine's love!

P.S. - I entered my finished Sliced Coins quilts in the awesome Love Nest quilt show over at Gen X Quilters - go check it out and vote!  If you want to vote for me, I'm #11, but there are a ton of awesome quilts to see, so hop on over and see for yourself :)

I'm so excited to share these quilts with you.  Why am I excited?  Other than the obvious super fun sensation of finishing off a new quilt, there's several reasons...

1. These quilts are going to my newest cousins, Kayla and Tristan, who were born in December (so I'm a bit behind!).
2. My first quilt finish for 2011 is a two-fer!
3. I'm actually checking something off my list of lofty quilty goals for this year.
4. I really loved working on these quilts.  These fabrics are so fun to play with; just seeing them every day made me smile.



Don't ask me to pick a favorite, it's just not possible.   I really love both of these quilts.  It was a lot of fun to get to play with lots of pink fabrics in Kayla's quilt for once, but I also really love all of the gorgeous blues in Tristan's quilt.  My son really covets that quilt; fortunately, there's a new quilt in the works for him, so I don't think he'll be too upset to see me ship this one off.

I had so much fun making these quilts that I am seriously considering making one more, so I can have something around my house to remind me of this super fun quilt-along.  And I definitely need to get my hands on more of Laurie Wisbrun's fabrics, they're just so much fun!

Quilt Stats
Size: approx. 54" x 57"
Pattern: Sliced Coins Quilt by me
Fabrics: Laurie Wisbrun's Urban Circus, Ann Kelle's Remix, Alexander Henry's 2D Zoo, Joel Dewberry;s Aviary and various Kona solids

I'm linking up this week with a few different things...{Sew} Modern Monday and Gen X Quilters' Love Nest quilt show.

A table top can work well as a design space too!

• Baby - 42 1/2"
• Crib - 52"
• Lap - 66"

A sheet can make a great little "design floor"