The project I chose to finish in January was my Little Apples quilt called “Easy As Pie.” I finished it earlier this month.
My next Lovely Year of Finishes project will be a pair of Olive the Ostrich pillows for Valentine’s Day.
I cut a bunch of 2.5” squares from some of my stash fabrics and plan to border the top with solid dark gray.
Thank you, Melissa and Shanna for hosting such a lovely party!
Three projects are at various stages of completion.
Garden Walk (actually called Pave the Way but I couldn’t remember the name of the pattern when I put it on my UFO list) is quilted and ready for binding.
My Madrona Road challenge project is almost done!
And I started a Valentine’s pillow I put on my “Just Three” list for January. It won’t be done by the 31st, but at least I have all the squares cut out.
I love checking out what everyone is working on. Linking up to WIP Wednesday.
The winner of the 1 Choice 4 Quilting Easy As Pie quilt kit is
Catskill Quilter who said, "I really like sew-alongs with a quilt to make, and it is much more fun if people post their progress in a flickr group. It always inspires me to watch others work along on the same quilt!" Congratulations, Elizabeth! Nicole has sent you an email.
The quilt along starts Monday, and there are still a few quilt kits left and plenty of time to have it delivered by the weekend. All of the fabric for the top, back, and binding is just $67.99!!! And shipping is free! Check it out here.
Have your own layer cake and want to participate? We’d love to have you join our Flickr group! All you need to make this top is a layer cake, 27 inches of border and binding fabric, 52 inches of solid, and 4 yards coordinating backing. And one winner who completes the quilt top by February 25th will get a free quilt kit for March’s quilt along! It can’t get any sweeter than that!
I also recently hosted a giveaway in conjunction with the Dare to Dresden blog hop. The winner of the Riley Blake chevron charm pack is
ga447 who said “I am a follower.”
Thanks to all my followers and thank you for taking the time to comment on my blog!
A special thanks to the head cheerleader Madame Samm and blog hop organizer Christine of Quilt Monster in my Closet for bringing a brand new Dresden blog hop to the online quilting world!
I’d never made a Dresden block before, but I have three under my belt now! They each measure 17 inches across and are headed to Oklahoma tomorrow to meet their new “mama” from Stash Bee.
I used Darlene Zimmerman’s Easy Dresden ruler and it worked like a charm. So let’s have a giveaway! I have a happy surprise for one lucky blog-hopper today! A charm pack of 25 Riley Blake small chevron prints!!! Just leave any comment to be entered and you can get an extra entry for being a follower or becoming one. The winner will be picked Sunday night.
Thanks for for visiting my blog today. I hope you can take a few seconds and check out some of my recent blog posts and projects. Be sure to stop at all the other blog hop stops on today’s schedule!
January 25th, 2013
Hello! My name is Jamie and I have designed a quilt for the fabulous fabric store 1 Choice 4 Quilting. The fabric is called “Little Apples” by Aneela Hoey and Nicole has put together some fabulous quilt kits that include all the fabric for the top, backing, and binding!
The finished quilt measures 54” x 70” and is made from one layer cake and an additional 1.5 yards of solid (I used Moda Bella Saffron), 3/4 yard for the border and binding, and exactly 4 yards for backing.
What I loved about making this quilt is how fast and easy it comes together, which is why I decided to call it “Easy As Pie.” Since it’s made with a layer cake, there is no need to spend time obsessing about fabric choices, doing any complicated cutting or trimming, and the blocks and rows come together super fast! This quilt is perfect for a new-to-quilting sewist or a seasoned pro who is looking for a quick quilt that is fun to make! I have put together easy to follow tutorials with lots of photos, and if you are a beginner, there are videos you can use to help guide you step-by-step through the process!
You can find those quilt kits here. The price is an amazing $67.99 for all the fabric you need to complete the entire quilt!!! Nicole has even given you the option of picking your own backing fabric so you can customize your kit! And while you are browsing, check out the newest Moda releases like Snap Pop, PB & J, and Spring House. 1 Choice 4 Quilting has same day shipping if you place your order before 4pm EST and all orders over $50 SHIP FOR FREE!!! Yes, you heard that right, free priority USPS shipping for orders over $50!!! It’s not that hard to spend $50 on quality quilt shop fabric, right?
The posts for each step of the quilt along will be found here on my blog:
February 4th: Cutting and piecing pinwheel and sawtooth rows
February 11th: Cutting and piecing wonky star blocks and center row
February 18th: Sewing together rows and adding borders
February 25th: Post your photo to Flickr by this day for a PRIZE!
Upload your progress and finished quilt photos to the Flickr page and if you complete your quilt top by February 25th (it does not have to be quilted and bound) you will be entered to win a quilt kit and one lucky winner will get a quilt kit for the next project in March!!!
1 Choice 4 Quilting is offering a super giveaway today!!! One lucky winner will get an “Easy As Pie” Quilt Kit!!! Just leave any comment on this blog post, and if you are a follower of my blog, you can have an additional entry! Just leave me a comment letting me know how you follow. You can also enter on Nicole’s 1 Choice 4 Quilting blog. There are up to eight ways to win this sweet quilt kit! The winner will be chosen on Monday, January 28th at noon. Good luck and hope to have you quilting along with me in February!
It’s already January 22nd! Have you finished your bee blocks yet? Started them yet? Thought of what fabrics you want to use? I have a lot of bee block commitments this month and am happy to say I’m about halfway done.
The Make It Modern Quilting Bee is thrilled to have Southern Fabrics as one of our monthly sponsors! Southern Fabrics sells on both their own website and Etsy.
A few months ago I needed to round out my stash with some colors that were lacking, and just by chance I found Southern Fabrics on Etsy. They have many different fabric scrap packs available—I was really pleased with how many strips were included in each of the packs I purchased!
I’d love to get this V and Co Simply Color Scrap Pack.
Of course Southern Fabrics also carries tons of charms packs, jelly rolls, and layer cakes, and has an amazing selection of fat quarter bundles and yardage. One of the nice things about this shop is the daily deal. You can score a charm pack or jelly roll for way below the retail price! Like their Facebook Page to see the current giveaway and (if available) a coupon code.
Thanks to Southern Fabrics for sponsoring our Make It Modern Quilting Bee!!! This month Kelie and I will randomly pick a winner from all the people who posts a pic of their blocks by the last day of the month (which happens to be a short 2 Thursdays away). The winner this January will have her choice of any charm pack at Southern Fabrics. So get those blocks done, photographed, and in the mail to be in the running!
I didn’t get a chance to do any sewing the past week because we went on a family vacation to Disney World. I’m not complaining! Tonight is the first night since we got back that I got a chance to sit down in my sewing room. I did want to share this photo I made my husband take of the set on the ride “It’s a Small World.” I thought the resemblance to Hello Pilgrim by Lizzie House was uncanny!
So, have you ever heard of the term “goat rope?” That’s what cutting my fabric for the Starburst QAL was like. I started with the wrong size fabric, cut some pieces, then realized I didn’t have enough and had to start over picking my fabrics. It was a downer because I actually did the black-and-white photo value trick when I picked my first set of fabric.
I was pretty happy that I had a couple different values included in my selection. I tried to make the top row dark, the middle row medium, and the bottom row light.
A few fabrics even surprised me! But when I had to start over and pick new fabric, I just cut without taking the time to do the black-and-white comparison. So here are my final pieces.
And now let’s see how I did picking different values.
It looks like there’s too much dark in the second starburst, so I’ll be switching it up a little before starting to sew it together. But overall I’m happy how it turned out. Now I’m pretty much caught up to Week 2.
Have a great night!
In one of my recent blog posts a few people mentioned the Wonder Clips I used to hold my binding in place when I machine sew it on (they would be great for holding it in place if you hand stitch it as well).
I thought I’d share another recent “find” that has made my quilting life a little easier. How do you store your bobbins? Sadly, I’ve been storing mine wrapped with my daughters’ hair ties and tossed in an old cigar box.
Seriously, I had no idea what colors or how many bobbins I had jumbled in there!
While we were on vacation some new toys from Nancy’s Notions arrived and I tried out my new bobbin boxes this morning. Wow, what a difference these little cases make! I can actually tell what color thread I have on my bobbins and can tuck the little thread tails under the bobbin so I don’t get any tangles while they’re stored. I wish I had found these a few years ago!
I’ve seen a few different bobbin storage ideas but this was the first that looked like it would work for me. The two boxes were $9.99 for a set and totally worth it!
Do you like to do block of the month projects? I’ve done a few quilt alongs and they are very similar—a quilt along lasts for a few weeks or maybe months whereas a block of the month lasts for an entire year.
This year I wanted to use up some fat quarter bundles that have been sitting on my shelves for waaaaay too long, so I joined a few QALs and BOMs that started this January.
Here are my first two blocks. I am using a fat quarter bundle from Pink Chalk Fabrics called Hot Summer Nights. My original idea was to do one block in warm colors and one in cool (since you make two blocks of each design), but picking the cool fabrics was getting to be a bit overwhelming for me. Choosing color is my biggest challenge in quilting. To have enough fabric to complete the larger sized quilt, I added a few fat quarters from my stash.
The background fabric is a new Kona color called Biscuit.
Are you doing any BOMs this year?
I just finished up my first bee block of 2013. Only 5 more to go! I may go a little overboard with signing up for these things and also volunteering to make angel blocks. This block is called “birch trees.”
It was fun to pick the scraps to create the tree trunks and I loved working with Connecting Threads solid in persimmon—it’s such a pretty color.
I love to swap charms too! So before Christmas I signed up for the Low Volume Charm Swap and just got my fabric ready to mail out today. It was a great activity for my 4 year old to help with.
All the prints are Dear Stella. The butterflies are my favorite.
Working on a few projects right now before I fly off to the Happiest Place in the World to enjoy some time with my family.
I am linking up the first of my Just Three goals to the Flickr group “A Lovely Year of Finishes.” I just finished sewing the binding on this morning and am picking up my oldest from school a little early to head to the park for a photo shoot this afternoon (don’t tell her teacher!).
I thought I’d show a few photos of my machine binding process. The first few I bound by machine didn’t come out perfect, but just like with fmq, my machine binding skills get better and better with practice.
I start by just stitching all the way around the perimeter of the quilt about 1/8 from the edge. It is important to do this while your extra batting and batting are still intact!!!!!!!! If you try to stitch after you’ve cut it off, you’ll get all kinds of puckers and pulls. I learned this the hard way.
This little one helped with the binding process. Just so you know, I cut my binding 2.75” wide. I can’t seem to get things to line up properly when it’s 2.5”.
Love those Wonder Clips! I like to just clip the binding onto the back and then mark my 1/4 inch stopping point with a straight pin. I just sew right up to it and then backstitch.
Here’s what the back looks like after I use a zig-zag stitch to attach the binding on the front.
The zig-zag stitch is nearly perfectly straight along the edge of the binding. I find that as long as I don’t stop and start stitching too much or pull on the binding as I wrap it over, the stitches don’t arc.
Here’s what a corner looks like. These stitches are not coming out in the wash!
My first finish of 2013 is this quilt I designed for a Quilt Along that will start later this month. It’s called “Easy as Pie” and the name says it all! The pattern uses exactly every piece of a layer cake, has relatively little cutting, and comes together fast!
I’m so glad TraceyJay Quilts is hosting her monthly Just Three linky party in 2013! Last year I tried to play along, but I wasn’t always able to do a post in a timely manner. I’m going to give it another try this year and see if I can keep up! Here are this month’s goals.
1. The local quilt shop has a “PhD” (projects half done) program. You can win a gift certificate by sending in a photo of your quilt or stopping by for a show and tell. I sent in 10 projects and the first one picked is #6. I’m sad to say that although I’ve cut out all the fabric, I’ve never sewn one block together. This quilt is called “Pave the Way” and it’s from a magazine.
The fabric I chose for this quilt is Kona sand and some fabric by Carolyn Gavin.
2. My second goal is to finish a quilt I’m calling “Easy As Pie” since it’s made with a layer cake of Aneela Hoey’s Little Apples line.
It’s pieced and I just picked up the thread to quilt it this weekend. Only problem is I had a shot this morning in my arm and I can barely move it now. I get shots pretty often and never had this happen. Here’s hoping some Motrin relieves the pain!
3. My last official goal for this month is to make a Valentine’s pillow or something sweet with these beautiful Pam Kitty fabrics.
They are from the Pam Kitty Love fabric line (except the red pindots and linen floral print) and all of them come from the Etsy store Donna’s Lavender Nest. Donna is the sweetest lady and got my order mailed out on the same day. She has some beautiful Lecien prints in her shop, too.
Now for two “unofficial” goals for this month.
4. I also have a super-secret project in the works making something with an Aurifil thread pack that will be revealed in the middle of this month on Lily’s Quilts. Yay!
5. I may be spending an entire weekend making bee blocks this month. I am signed up for Beejeebers and Stash Bee again this year, doing an angel block this month, and helping lead Make It Modern. I am excited about all the blocks picked by the Queen Bees this month (read: no paper piecing or crazy complicated blocks) so that is half the battle!
Finally I wanted to share one of my Christmas presents to myself.
You may recognize the style of these little girls as Tasha Horsley’s designs (she just recently had her first fabric line out—The Simple Life). When I saw this print in her shop I knew I had to have it! She personalized the girls’ nameplates with my own daughters’ names and even matched up their hair colors! I got it framed and it’s hanging in our guest bedroom (which is painted pink and makes the frame look pink—but it’s white).
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