8 Bound Quilt.

So I haven't blogged in months, oops! This summer got away from me, I can't believe it's already September! I've spent most of the past few months taking senior portraits, but I've got some really exciting things coming up that I can't wait to share here very soon! In the meantime though, I've got a few quilts to share here, starting with this baby quilt that I just finished this week.

I was able to finally meet April Rhodes this past spring at Quilt Market, and she is just the sweetest! She asked if I'd be interested in sewing with some of her new line, Bound, and of course I said yes. Her prints just really speak to me! I mixed up the Morning palette with some prints from her last line, Wanderer and a bunch of Leah Duncan prints. Their fabrics go so well together! I had to mix in a bit of Essex yarn dyed linen in a couple colors too to give some spots for the eye to rest.

 
Anna and I narrowed down the fabrics I was going to use at our annual sewing retreat, and she suggested that I make a log cabin quilt with them. I love log cabins so I thought that was a great idea!

Since I only had FQs of some of the prints, I had to get creative with the piecing as the strips got longer, and just started adding on other random strips. I really like the easy, relaxed look it gives the quilt!

Piecing this quilt was so much fun, I want to make a million more of these. It's just so easy to cut all the strips ahead of time and add a few here and there!

I kept with the easy theme with the quilting, and just stitched in a square pattern starting from the center and through each strip. It looks nice, took no time at all and makes the quilt really soft.

It's backed in my favorite print from Bound, Painting Celebration and bound in April's Coming Home Spring print and ready to gift to it's new owner as soon as she makes her arrival!

Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful fabric with me April!

14 Fantastic Quilt Voyage: Nicke's Quilt.

Last month was the first round of working on quilt blocks for Fantastic Quilt Voyage, a traveling quilt bee that I am in with some friends. Nicke's quilt came to me first, and she was asking for quiet and calm blocks in black and white with touches of gold. She's a girl after my own heart! I was excited to get started and after looking through her pinterest board, found this pin.

I quickly drew a version of the photo up in Illustrator, made freezer paper templates and a test block, cut out my fabric and got sewing! The blocks were tiny and had y-seams so they took a few days to make, but I really enjoyed the process.

 I was excited for an excuse to add in a few gold fabrics from my stash!

I am really happy with how the finished block turned out. I'm tempted to make a whole quilt like this now for myself!

I am always reminded that y-seams really aren't that scary when I make something with them! If you haven't tried them yet, you should. 

 Nicke's quilt is going to be so pretty! I can't wait to see it finished.

You can follow along with the quilt bee by checking out the #fantasticquiltvoyage hashtag on IG!

4 A Very Belated Quiltcon Post.

Well it's only like two months later, but I wanted to share a little bit about my time at Quiltcon. I was so excited to go to Austin for the show and hang out with some of my friends! I got to spend the week with my friend Laurie and her adorable cats, which was really fun!

One thing I was most excited about was being able to see my Woodcut Quilt hanging in the show. I've never submitted a quilt to a show before so I was really happy when it was accepted. It was fun to walk the floor and see it hanging there!

I had one other quilt at the show as well, hanging in the Cotton & Steel booth!  I was able to use their new Tinsel collection coming out this summer to stitch up this Christmas quilt before I left!

Rashida kindly stood with me so I didn't have to stand by myself for a photo again :) It was so nice to see her and the rest of the C&S ladies!

I was able to take two really great classes while I was there. The first was a natural dyeing class with Maura Ambrose of Folk Fibers, who makes the most amazing quilts, all hand dyed and hand quilted! Maura explained the process of mixing up natural dye baths, and then dyed some different fabrics for us using Osage Orange tree bark and Cochineal.

 She brought her beautiful hand dyed silks as well for us to look at. The color spectrum is so pretty!

She also brought her swatch books, with lots of swatches of different fabrics and gorgeous little paintings of each plant.

 We all got to do a bit of shibori dyeing with indigo at the end of the class which is always fun!

 I was able to do a bit of yarn dyeing too so I came home with some pretty souvenirs!

The last class I took was Monoprinting with Lizzy House. I have never done any monoprinting before so I was looking forward to learning, and Lizzy is a really great teacher!  Here she is laying out all of her amazing monoprints at the beginning of class.

Monoprinting is a really fun process, but kind of messy, so I didn't get many photos! Here's one of the prints I worked on during the class.

Here are all my prints together. One major struggle for me was the colors. We couldn't mix them just for ease of the workshop and they were all very primary, which was a bit out of my comfort zone! I had to keep reminding myself that it's just practice :)

I was very happy with my class choices this year, although I kind of wish I had taken a sewing class too! Maybe next year. I am looking forward to practicing both of these techniques a little more after taking classes on them. 

Overall, Quiltcon was really amazing! A little bit draining as I am pretty introverted, but it's nice to put myself out there sometimes. The quilt show was the most inspiring part for me, but I'll spare you the photos of everyone's quilts as I'm sure you've seen them all a million times by now. You can see them all on the Modern Quilt Guild blog if you haven't seen them yet. They are all beautiful and make me want to sew a billion new quilts!

16 Paper Pieced Home Blog Tour

Hi there! Today is my stop on The Paper Pieced Home Blog Tour. I had the pleasure of meeting the author, Penny and her husband at Quiltcon recently and they are just the nicest people! Penny is really talented and I just love the unique paper pieced patterns she comes up with!

I chose to make the Jar Block. This is one of the simpler patterns in the book, and it came together really quickly!

I wanted to make a jar full of butterflies, and I think it turned out pretty cute! I used fabric from Sarah Watson's Arcadia and Biology lines from Cloud 9, with some of an old staple, Heath for the binding. It's quilted with straight lines in the blue and swirly FMQ in the jar, to make it look like the little bugs and butterflies are flying around!

I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with the finished block, but I decided to make it into a mini to hang on the wall in my sewing room!  I don't make a ton of minis, but this one makes me smile.

The Paper Pieced Home is filled with a ton of cute patterns (40 blocks and several projects), and would be great for anyone who loves paper piecing! There are a range of different types of blocks and difficulty levels so it's perfect for all skill levels. There is also a CD of all of the block designs included for easy printing. I really want to make the alligator quilt for a little boy, its adorable!

Thank you so much to Penny and Tommy at F+W for asking me to be a part of this tour!

The Paper-Pieced Home: Quilting a Household One Block at a Time

By Penny Layman

Interweave/F+W; $26.99
You can purchase the book directly from Interweave here or on Amazon here.

Make sure to check out the rest of the stops on the blog tour for more fun paper piecing projects:

3/16       McCall’s Quilting / Sewing Machine Block

3/17       Love of Quilting / Review

3/17       Sandi Sawa Hazlewood  of Crafty Planner / Watering Can Block

3/18       Quilty Pleasure (Quiltmaker blog) / Review

3/18       Imagine Gnats / Rotary Phone Block

3/20       Verykerryberry / Lion Block

3/21       Artisania / Cast-Iron Skillet Block

3/23       Where the Orchids Grow / Lamp Block

3/24       Katie Blakesley of Swim Bike Quilt / Layer Cake Block

3/24       House on Hill Road / Oven Mitt Block

3/24       Lee Heinrich of Freshly Pieced / BBQ Grill Block

3/26       Pink Penguin / Allie-Gator Block

3/26       A Happy Stitch / Giraffe Block

3/27       Bijou Lovely / Jar Block

3/27       Two Little Banshees / Saucepan Block

3/27       Charise Creates / Espresso Mug Block

3/30       Karen Lewis Textiles / Couch Block

3/31       Poppyprint / Clawfoot Tub Block

3/31       One Shabby Chick / Stack of Books Block

3/31       During Quiet Time / Sleeveless Dress Block

4/06       Pat Sloan The Voice of Quilting / Author Podcast Interview

13 Caravan Tote & Pouch.

I've been meaning to share a post about my trip to Austin for QuiltCon, but haven't had a chance to go through all my photos yet. So in the meantime, I'll post about the bag I made to take with me!

Anna asked me to test out her new knitting bag pattern, the Caravan Tote. A cute bag with hardware and metal zippers and places to store knitting needles and notions? I said yes of course. The timing was perfect too, because it meant I'd have a new bag for QuiltCon.

Anna's patterns are always so nicely designed and easy to follow and this one is no exception. It all went together easily after cutting out all the pieces and interfacing. I had to wait until I got home to install the snaps, but they make the bag and pouch really look finished and professional.

I had several people ask me if I made my bag at the show, which is a win for me! It's always my goal to make things that don't really look handmade. The straps also held up pretty well, even after carrying about a billion pounds around on my shoulder all weekend.

The pouch is perfect for holding WIPs, it's currently holding my Fluid Beanie made with SpunRightRound's Graffiti Overlay.  Which was given to me by Heather, who also happens to have collaborated on this pattern with Anna! Meant to be I think.

You can purchase the Caravan Tote pattern here. It's awesome and I highly recommend it!