7 prepping.

Prepping for a little party with some girl friends tonight.  Pinterest is the best place to find new recipes!  Here are a few of the things I'm making.

This caramel and sea salt shortbread.  I may have taste tested a piece or two.  So delicious!

Just picked some basil from my garden to make these caprese skewers.  They're going to look so cute!

Cucumber cups with my own herbed cream cheese (seasoned salt, garlic and onion powder, dill and parsley).

Pretzel bites.  I can't stop eating these.  I swear they aren't burnt, they kind of look like they are in this picture.

Also making spinach dip, pepperoni bread, jalapeno pinwheels, and white wine sangria.

p.s. You can follow me on Pinterest here.

12 embroidery hoop wall.

I finally starting hanging some things on the walls in my sewing room, including a wall full of hoops holding my favorite fabrics.  It will look a lot more finished once I finally get the dresser that's meant to go under it in the room (it's been sitting half-painted in the basement all summer!) but either way, my wall looks pretty now!

Can we talk about the fact that my local thrift store charges 10 cents for an embroidery hoop?  I just can't stop buying them at that price.

9 august blocks.

Sorry for the silence around here last week!  Being in Boston for work and having the plague does not make for a fun week.  But I am feeling much better now and have a lot of things to write about after a weekend full of sewing.

Here are my blocks for Lydia's colorful houndstooth quilt for do.Good Stitches.

Lydia asked for monochromatic blocks in varying values.  I chose to make pink and green blocks, since I have so many different fabrics in these colors!   

I know this quilt is going to turn out wonderfully!  You can see finished quilts from our do.Good Stitches charity bee in the finished quilt flickr group!

4 GO! Baby giveaway winner.

Thank you to everyone who entered the GO! Baby fabric cutter giveaway from Accuquilt!

The winner is...

Comment #128...janeylulu!  Congratulations!  I'll be sending you an email shortly so you can collect your prize.

Don't forget to sign up for emails from Accuquilt to get 22 free quilt patterns.

10 more peeps?

Getting started on a plus quilt made with Castle Peeps by Lizzy House...

Debating whether or not I should buy a FQ bundle of 1001 Peeps to make this quilt bigger!  Thoughts?

260 GO! Baby Giveaway.

Today I get to give away a GO! Baby Fabric Cutter and 3 dies from Accuquilt!

You can read my Bejeweled block tutorial and review of this product here.  It is so quick and easy to cut irregular shapes with it.  

To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post.  Tell me what you'd use your new cutter for if you win, how your day is going today, or what you're looking forward to most about fall.  Any comment will do!   Please make sure there is a way to contact you if you win.  I'll announce a winner on Monday.

Also, if you become an Accuquilt email subscriber as well to keep up with the latest news, you'll get 22 free patterns!

9 just for kicks.

I stitched up this stuffed ball this weekend from the Just for Kicks Ball pattern in AMH's Seams to Me book.  Little Alaina turns one today so I figured she needed a new toy to match the quilt I gave her last year.

Sewing  hexagons and pentagons together into three dimensional objects was a little harder than I anticipated!  It is definitely not perfect, but I think she'll have fun playing with it anyway.  Happy birthday Ali!

1 senior pictures.

Happy Monday!  I hope you all had a nice weekend.  Mine was very busy, filled with birthday parties and get-togethers with some of my family that was in town visiting.  I spent most of the day yesterday photographing and editing senior pictures for my sister's boyfriend Austin.  Here are some of my favorites!

I've been wanting to pursue photography a little more and possibly start doing some portrait photography on the side in our area, and this was a fun way to start.  Austin was a good sport and we had a lot of fun trekking all over town for pictures.  Hopefully his parents are happy with them!

11 bejeweled block tutorial.

The first block of my Habitat quilt is finished, which means it's tutorial time!  Here's how to make your own Bejeweled block.  

I used my Accuquilt GO! Baby to cut out my tumbler blocks using the 3-1/2" tumbler die, but any size tumbler blocks will work with the general concept of this tutorial.  

For this block, you'll need:

Tumbler blocks in various prints or solids (I used 11 different prints/solids)

Tumbler blocks for inner sashing (I used natural linen)

Strips for inner sashing (same fabric as your inner sashing tumbler blocks)

Strips for outer sashing (I used purple linen)

1.  First, we'll make our tumbler blocks.  If you're using the GO! Baby, cut your fabrics into 4-1/2" x 10-3/4" strips.

2.  Stack fabric for cutting.  I was able to stack 4 layers of fabric for each pass through the cutter.  Line up the fabric on your die, making sure the tumbler shapes are completely covered with your fabric.

3.  Place cutting mat on top and run the die through the cutter.

4.  Remove the die from the cutter and remove the cutting mat.

Now you have lots of tumbler blocks (12 of them if you used 4 layers of fabric).

5.  Repeat with all of your fabrics.  For this specific block, you will only need 20 tumbler blocks, but I made enough for my entire quilt at once.

6.  Next you'll need to make the tumblers for your sashing, repeating steps 1 - 4.  You'll need one block to add to each side of your tumbler rows, which is eight tumblers total for this block.

7.  Arrange your tumbler blocks in your desired layout.  Add sashing tumbler blocks to the left and right sides of each row.  Sew each row together using a 1/4' seam allowance, making sure to alternate the wider and shorter edges of the blocks when sewing together.

8.  When you're finished sewing all your rows together, press seams open.  You should have rows that look like these at this point.

9.  Sew the rows together, making sure to match up the seams of each tumbler.

  10.  Now your tumbler blocks should be all sewn together.  Measure 1-3/4" from the outer points of the last printed tumbler blocks on the right and left edges, and trim excess to make a rectangle.

11.  Using a 1/4' seam allowance, sew a 3" wide sashing strip onto the top and bottom of your block.

12.  Press seams open and trim top and bottom edges to 2-1/2" from edge of tumbler blocks.

13.  Now it's time to add your outer sashing (I used purple linen in this case).  I used 3" strips, and sewed them first to the right and left sides, pressing seams open, and then sewing sashing to the top and bottom of the block and pressing seams open again (all seam allowances 1/4").  Then trim outer sashing to 2"

Your bejeweled block is finished!  I'll be adding similar blocks of different sizes to my quilt, varying the width the of inner and outer sashing on each block.  This would also be a great block to use as a pillow cover! 

Just a few notes on the GO! Baby fabric cutter...

I was given a GO! Baby fabric cutter and 3 dies for review and to create a tutorial with.  For sewing blocks with odd angles such as tumblers, this product makes it so simple and fast.  All of the dies I chose (Tumblers, Circles, and Hexagons) are shapes that are kind of a pain to cut out accurately with a rotary cutter and ruler or template.  I don't think I would ever use this product to make squares/rectangles or strips though.  To me, it's just as easy to cut those with a rotary cutter and ruler.  Honestly, I'm not sure I would ever have spent the money to buy a fancy fabric cutter such as this one (I am cheap and would rather spend my money on fabric!), but now that I have one, I'm sure I will use it quite often.  Overall, I was impressed with the quality of the product and how fast, easy, and accurate it is to use!

So there you have it!  Are any of you going to try a Bejeweled block?  If you've made it this far...you know what's coming next.  I get to give away an Accuquilt GO! Baby fabric cutter and 3 dies to one of you very soon!

8 bright stripes.

Here's what I've been up to this week...a bright and simple quilt for a baby boy!  It's amazing how fast I can whip one of these up now compared to this time last year.

Made with almost all Kona solids, with just one print to make it say "baby" (Alexander Henry Teeny Tiny Zoo).

 Backed in Kona Charcoal, which contrasts nicely with the white thread I used for straight line quilting.

Bound in Alexander Henry Heath in Steel Gray, which I am now out of.  Must buy more of this print soon!

Now it's off to one of our friends who just had a baby!