Thank You!

Thank you so much for reading through my "Growing Pains" machine quilting posts.  I appreciated your comments.  They gave me a lot of perspective.

Shared courtesy of QuiltingSewingCreating.com

Thank you for your support!

-Shannon

7-Hour Layer Cake Quilt, Scrapadealy-O

Hey all!  I hope you are having a great week.

I was getting burned out from all the machine quilting for customers this week and it reminded me of a time when I was in college, studying Physics.  It was a Saturday night around 7:00 p.m. and some guys called to invite me to go swing dancing with them.   I decided not to go because I just couldn't get the Physics assignment.  It was at that point, my father came to my room and said, "Sometimes you just need to take the time to sharpen the knife."  He took my Physics book away and sent me out dancing with my group of friends.

It was some of the best advice I had ever had!  Make sure to take the time to enjoy life.

So...Friday I skipped out on my machine quilting orders (thankfully I'm ahead of my due dates), pulled out a layer cake and came up with a new pattern.

Yay!

7-hour project (no kidding!) start to finish!

I love all the fabrics designed by Bonnie and Camille.  For this project I used "Miss  Kate".

The layer cake was cut into a 6  1/2" square, a strip 3 1/2" by 6 1/2" and a strip 3 1/2" by 9 1/2".  These were then sewn together to make a 9 1/2" block.

Then, my favorite part of quilt making--playing with the colors.  Here is a random color placement.

Making a blue pinwheel.

Putting red in the corners.

Ultimately, I settled on the random color placement as there were a lot of small scale prints in this layer cake bundle.

I like how it turned out, but I wish the bundle had more large-scale prints.  The small scale prints just washed out.  As I live 30 minutes from the nearest wal-mart and an hour from a decent fabric store, I had to order the borders online and will be putting them on once the fabric arrives in the mail.

I also have another variation I am working on. I can't wait to see how it turns out as well.  By the end of next week I should have a PDF ready.

Taking time to sharpen the knife feels great!  Rejuvenate!  I am ready to get back to the long-arm.  I just needed a break.  I am finishing closing out my machine quilting business and won't take any orders in January.  I was accepted to my Master's Degree program and will work on that--and spend more time with my mini-monkies.  I love my kids.

Nordic Sweater Quilt My Newest Pattern

I love to design quilts around themes.  This quilt was designed as a snow and winter Christmas theme in mind.  It was inspired by traditional Intarsia and Nordic knitting styles.  And now it is available for instant download on my Craftsy and Etsy shops.  Enjoy!  This is by far my favorite design to date and I hope you enjoy it too!

I chose to do a curl-feather design in the outer border and did a back-fill in the red of my windblown design.

I had noticed other bloggers take a "stained-glass window" of their quilt tops.  I really liked the look of the seams against the setting sun so I took some photos of this quilt top.

The stained-glass photo shoot really makes the Nordic star pop.

Now it's your turn...what have you been working on?  It's my weekly linky party KISMIF (Keep It Simple and Make It Fun!).

An InLinkz Link-up

I'm So Excited! Another Feature on Moda Bake Shop my Jellyroll Baskets Quilt

I'm so excited to share with you another featured project on Moda Bake Shop.  It is my Jellyroll Baskets Quilt.  Head over to their blog to download a free copy of the pattern and enjoy making it yourself.  Of course I love to see how your projects turn out and for ease of sharing, have a flickr pool for you to share your photos in.

Here's a picture of the project, a generously sized queen-size quilt.

Two New Quilt Patterns Ready For Download

Hello All!  I'm excited to share with you two more quilt patterns that are ready for download on Craftsy & Etsy.

The Spinning Pinwheel Quilt is made from a Moda Layer Cake and was first featured in FatQuarterly Issue #17.

The quilting on this project was challenging with all the fabrics' different thread colors.  Fortunately, the fabric all had a white base to it so I was able to use white thread.  I used a small scale stipple in all the blocks, regardless of piecing lines.  This was my first try with that and I really liked how it turned out.  the sashing was done using a meandering leaf vine & alternating swirls.

The "Eye Spy With My Little Eye" Quilt is made using scrap novelty fabric and was first featured in FatQuarterly Issue #16. 

This quilt was quilted using an edge-to-edge lasso pattern with free-hand 5 pointed stars to add interest.

I hope you like them and would enjoy making a quilt from one of these new patterns.

Enjoy!