Fabric influx

Wow. The fabric diet is OVER. I came home to two packages on my door step - Pips have arrived from Fat Quarter Shop and I got some great goodies from Sew Fresh Fabrics too!

Yesterday a few friends from my guild and I hopped on the ferry to Bainbridge Island for a trip to Pink Chalk Fabrics!!! They don't have a store front, but we were able to visit, do some shopping, see Kathy's FABULOUS space and dig through some amazing scraps! I was in solids heaven - I wish I got a picture, but I just stared endlessly at a wall of konas and free spirit designer solids. YUM!

I love to support a local shop - so I did what I had to do... :) This yellow print from Aviary 2 is gorgeous, and I got some kona stone, buttercup, charcoal, cerise, berry and slate to go with.

And I got to take home these scraps I got from the solids pile.

No this pile is not all the new fabric I bought this week (although that does take up a considerable portion of it) but this is what I'm calling the "overstock" (i.e. fabric that will not fit in my drawers. Better get sewing! :)

And lastly a BIG thanks to Kathy for hosting our group. We all had a great time!

My bee month has arrived!

After months of agony, I decided to follow this block as inspiration for my bee month. Some may have noticed I love solids and I wanted to use the blue Erin McMorris fabric in the middle as my starting point. It is one of my favorite prints of all time and I have hardly ever even used a bit of it! I gathered some coordinating prints and a bunch of solids, cut it all up and sent it out.


Maybe this was backwards order, but I felt rushed to get the fabric out and didn't make my own version of the block until afterward. I don't LOVE my first attempt but I really like this free way of piecing. As I went along, I decided some things didn't look right, so I just sliced it apart, tested out different arrangements and kept on.



It's as pretty fun way to do it and also takes out the need to piece teeny tiny squares and get the same effect. I cannot get this last picture to upload right side up - bah! I hope my fellow bee-ers enjoy making it too!

Thanks for looking!

Project Modern challenge

Nothing like the last minute, I finished my Project Modern challenge quilt, got some rainy day pictures (what a shock) and submitted it! This round's challenge was to make a monochromatic quilt. I'm pretty happy with how this came out, and can't wait to wash and dry it.


I used a Kona fat quarter bundle I got for Christmas and added in pops of an Anna Maria Horner print from the Innocent Crush line. I also used Innocent Crush for the binding. I did my binding a little differently this time and machine stitched it on. I have mixed feelings about machine binding, but I did love how quickly it worked up! I quilted it with diagonal lines in alternating light and dark purple thread and did some hand stitching around one diamond to balance out the placement of the printed diamonds.


Thanks for looking!

Spiderweb Bee Block

I have been working on April's block for the Boston Modern Quilt Guild bee (I just need to sew these triangles together now). Next month is the last month - and is also MY month, so I'm a little stressed about getting that sorted out and sent out. I never knew how much pressure this could be, but maybe it gets better as you do more of them.

I always thought the spiderweb block was intimidating skill-wise, but Monet has an awesome tutorial on her blog that is really straightforward and her fabric choices are impeccable. They really bring this block to life! I added a few prints from my stash in and I hope she likes them! She supplied much of the fabric - including the Kona Cerise for the background - YUM!

Thanks for looking!

Butterfly bee block

I sketched this block out quite awhile ago, then realized I did the math wrong and the block was going to be too small (after cutting a bunch of the fabric out). Yesterday I went back to it after being pretty discourage, realized I had actually done the math RIGHT (ugh!), and finished it up. The finished block is 12.5" square. As I was working on this I realized I tend to do bee blocks with lots and lots of seams and little pieces!

The background is an off-white muslin.


Aimee sent really nice Art Gallery fabric for this month's bee and just requested that it be a butterfly block that is not appliqued. I hope she likes it - someone I showed this to took awhile to see the butterfly... Maybe different fabric choices, values, etc. would have been better. Next time!

Thanks for looking!

Finally - diamond quilt top done!

I was so happy to finish up my diamonds quilt top today at the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild sew-in! It's always nice to see those ladies and catch up on the past few weeks, but this time I was also pretty productive! A few other women finished up tops today too, so that was exciting!

I was trying to figure out where to trim off the tips of the diamonds on the border and it was suggested to me to leave some extra until after it's all quilted. Smart women! It measures about 46X53 and will make a great lap quilt. I still haven't decided on how I'm going to quilt it... I'll take suggestions! :)

Ara Jane finished this quilt top for her baby! I love her color choices and her random approach for piecing these half square triangles. It turned out great!

Thanks for looking!

Plus sign quilt tutorial

I made this quilt a few months back combining some of my favorite prints in a fun, large scale design. I saw a lot of tutorials/patterns for plus-sign quilts that called for cutting all the fabric into squares and sewing them back together, but I didn't want to break up these prints more than I needed to so I made the plus signs with 2 squares and a rectangle.

I would suggest sketching the quilt blocks ahead of time so that you can figure out how many different fabrics you need to use, but I put together this brief tutorial to make it easier to figure out how to cut the squares and rectangles to make whatever size plus-sign you want with every plus-sign lining up just right. You shouldn't need a pattern to make this style of quilt.


The first step is to determine how big you want the plus signs to be. If you think about the plus sign as comprised of 5 squares (1 on top, 3 in the middle layer, 1 on the bottom) decide how big you want each of those squares to be. I made mine 6.5 inches, unfinished.

To determine the length of your (middle layer) rectangle, multiply the size of your unfinished square by 3 and then subtract 1. To be nerdy and algebraic... The long side of the rectangle = 3N - 1 where N = size of unfinished square. So, 3(6.5) = 19.5; 19.5 - 1 = 18.5 My rectangles were 6.5 X 18.5.

If you want a smaller plus sign, made up of squares that are 4 inches unfinished, for example, then it would be 3(4) - 1 = 11 inches. Your rectangle would be 4 X 11.

Once you figure out all the math and have your pieces cut, lay out the blocks to form tessellating plus signs and then sew all your rows together! It works up really fast - especially when you use larger scale blocks like I did!

I even had a few extra for the back.