Holiday Surprise!

What a fun holiday surprise!  Without me knowing it, Craftsy featured one of my Stop 'N Go quilt pattern on their quilting blog.  Angela did a blog tutorial showing how to create the classic Snowball block and linked several of their online independent designer's patterns featuring the pattern.

Here's the link to view the article:  http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/12/snowball-quilt-block-tutorial/.

Thanks Craftsy!

Moda Bake Shop: Candy Squares Table Runner

I am so excited!  I'm honored to be the guest blogger on Moda Bake Shop today.  The post tells how to make this cute table runner from pre-cut 2 1/2 inch squares called Moda Candy Squares.

Go check it out!

Also, for those of you visiting from Moda Bake Shop--a hearty WELCOME!  I'd love to have your comments and even join as a follower.  I have written several patterns which can be viewed and downloaded (some are even FREE) on my left-hand side bar.  Also, I write a weekly post about free-motion quilting thread-paths called KISMIF (Keep it simple, make it fun)!  Feel free to browse around a while!  :)

Since it's so close to the big Christmas day, and I've got too much stuff to finish, this tutorial will have to count as my post for the week (since it really was quite a bit of work).  I'll be sharing this post with :http://conniekresin.com/, Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story, and Needle & Thread Thursday's Linky Partys.  These blogs all have buttons on my RHS button bar.

Happy Quilting!--Shannon

BTW, Diana at Sew Crafty Chick just made this table runner following my Moda post.  Check her verion out here:  http://sewcraftychick.blogspot.com/2013/12/something-to-share.html!

Flying To Paradise QAL Part 4

It's time to finish up that quilt top for the Flying To Paradise QAL.  All of the diagrams and instructions are shared previously.  Today is a WiP Wednesday which I'm sharing with Freshly Pieced,  My Quilt Infatuation  and Crazy Mom Quilts.

Without further delay, here's some action photos of piecing together all of those flying geese units.

It is important not to blunt the tops of the triangles.  To accomplish this, sew with the point on top and try to get your sewing machine needle down into the X where the previous threads have crossed.  In the photo, look for the yellow-head pin as it is jammed into the exact point we're trying for.  This will ensure a perfect seam.

Here's another photo of the alignment going into the sewing machine.

Once these are sewn, the left and right hand sides used 11 flying geese blocks while the top and bottom required 15 blocks.  After I ironed on this border, I became really excited.  Just look how well those colors pop and play with one another!  BTW, many thanks to the folks at Connecting Threads for sponsoring this QAL.  You can purchase the batiks used in this project HERE.Light & Bright Batik Fat Quarter Sampler.

My ironing board never looked so good!

Once I reached this point, I was so happy with this quilt that I considered just quilting this much and binding it.  However, Connecting Threads was so generous to me that I had plenty of the white to add the outer borders.

The Flying To Paradise quilt top without the outer white border--draped on my quilting frame.

The completed Flying To Paradise quilt top.

I love to convert pictures to gray-scale.  Here is the same quilt with the yellow filter on.  It shows lights and darks and helps you choose different fabric lines to create the Flying To Paradise quilt top from.

If you would like to purchase a down-loadable PDF of this quilt pattern in its entirety instead of scrolling through all of the posts, click HERE.

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you have enjoyed this QAL project as much as I have!  BTW, there's only two more days to enter my fabric give-away so leave me a comment HERE.



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Flying To Paradise QAL Part 3

Hello!  It's time for another installment of my Flying To Paradise Quilt-A-Long.  After much debate, I decided to skip the applique on this project.  It just seems unnecessary.  Sometimes it adds to the project and sometimes it detracts.  When I sent the fabric proposal to the folks at Connecting Threads (Batik Sampler Link) they liked it without the applique, so I think I'm going to go that route.  To purchase a printable PDF of this quilt pattern, click HERE.

This looks cleaner to me.  What do you think?

That also makes this the final instructions of this project too!  That's exciting!  To celebrate, I'm sharing this with Freshly Pieced, Needle 'N Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation, and Thursday Threads @ 627 Handworks.  Hopefully, I'll have a finished quilt top to share with Finish It Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts--but we'll see.  I also have a lot of machine quilting for customers to get done.  It's the busy season.

Here we go!  First things first, we need to add the border to the center patchwork section we've made before.  To do this, we're going to cut from the ecru colored batik fabric along the lengthwise grain.

BORDERS:

• For the outer borders, cut four strips 6 1/2" wide by 2 1/4 yards long.
• For the inner border, cut four strips 6 1/2" wide by 2 1/8 yards long.  Sew this to the already completed center panel.  There will be excess fabric on the first two sides, trim it square using a rotary cutter.

PIECING THE FLYING GEESE BORDER:

• Sort the remaining fat quarters into piles of light and dark fabrics.  Tip: to ensure contrast between fabrics, simply squint at them (or take your glasses off).  If there's contrast, then you will see the blocks clearly int he finished  quilt.
• From the dark fat quarters, cut two squares measuring 10 1/4".  Then cut these into fourths digagonally.

• From the remaining light colored fat quarters, cut strips measuring 5 1/2".  Cut these into 5 1/2" squares and then across once diagonally to yield the remaining triangle pieces.

• Sew the flying geese units together by adding two 5 1/2" triangles to one 10 1/2" triangle, matching bias edges together.  Use caution not to stretch these edges.  There will be overlap at the top of the triangle to ensure a place for adjacent rows to connect without blunting the top of the flying geese triangle.

• Sew these blocks into rows.  Notice that on the top and bottom row, the far corners rotate to make the quilt blocks march around the quilt top.

• Quilt Top Assembly Diagram:

•  Add the flying geese border to your quilt followed by the outer fabric border.

Happy Quilting!  I hope you have enjoyed this project.

Work In Progress Wednesday 10-29-13

Greetings to all your WiP Wednesday readers--especially those from freshlypieced.com.

Today I am sharing my progress on my Flying to Paradise Quilt A Long.  Scroll to the previous two posts to get directions to begin your projects.

Here is a close-up of the center panel.  I think it would be cute as a baby quilt as well.

I just love how those goldenrod batiks look next to my golden Quaking  Aspen trees.

Some close-ups of the batik blocks in the fall leaves.

And...here's how I pieced those blocks.  For complete rotary cutting and piecing directions, read the previous post.  Thanks!

My husband brought home this Architect's square ruler from work.  They were going to throw it away and he thought it would be great to cut quilt blocks with.  I agree!  Because it doesn't have registration lines, I put masking tape on the bottom to check my alignment.

You can see how each fat quarter pair yields a dark block and a light block.  Simply rotate the striped half-square triangle units so the bias edge is facing out and you get this great spinning block!

I love this batik pairing and had to show it too.