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!

Jelly Turnover Quilt Pattern Correction

How embarrassing!   My apologies, there was one typo in the Jelly Turnover Quilt feature I wrote for Moda Bake Shop.   I typed 16 when I mean 8!  Oui!  That's what happens when you cut two strips at a time then forgot you cut 2 instead of one!  At any rate, here is the pattern correction.  You have my apologies:

The sashing section should read to take 23 jelly roll strips and sub cut them into widths of 4 1/2" inches to yield 8 rectangles per strip measuring 2 1/2" by 4 1/2". You will need 178 total (you will have 6 extra). (The pattern has 16 per strip written there which not only is impossible from a 40 inch length of fabric, but if you were to cut that many it would yield twice as many as needed.)


I hope this clarifies things for everyone making this project.  Also, I would love to see your completed projects.  Please share it with my flickr pool--a button is on my right hand side bar.

Happy Quilting Everyone!

KISMIF 23-Punky Wunking Quilt A Long-Piecing Pumpkins

Well, lets continue with the Punky-Wunkin Quilt A Long.

I admit that I am ahead of the game on this one.  This pattern has been fully tested prior to posting (isn't that a relief for those of you following along?).  Here is a photo of my completed throw.

I just love using my Sepia filter!  Such an antique look.

I would like to thank Connecting Threads for sponsoring this year's Quilt-A-Long on my blog.  Last week, on their blog Notions they featured my wall-hanging version of this project as lucky #13 of the Gifty Galore features.  I am thrilled to be a part of this program.  You can down-load your copy of this pattern exclusively from Connecting Threads HERE.  Also, all of the awesome fabrics shown you can purchase from my blog sponsor at Connecting Threads.

Today's post is all about creating the Pumpkin Blocks.

CUTTING DIRECTIONS:

Wall Hanging	Strips from WOF	Sub-cut into:
Medium Orange	1 strip 6 ½” wide	2 rectangles 7” by 6 ½”
Light Orange	1 strip 4 ½” wide	2 rectangles 4 ½” by 6 ½”
Dark Orange	1 strip 4 ½” wide	2 rectangles 4 ½” by 6 ½”

White
·         For Stems	2 strips 2 ¾” wide	Reserve for Strip Piecing

·         For Small Pumpkins

1 strip 1 ½” wide

4 rectangles 1 ½” by 6 ½”

·         For Large Pumpkin Setting

1 strips 2 ½” wide

4 rectangles 6 ½” by 2 ½”

Throw Quilt	Strips from WOF	Sub-cut into:
Medium Orange	2 strips 6 ½” wide	8 rectangles 7” by 6 ½”
Light Orange	2 strips 4 ½” wide	8 rectangles 4 ½” by 6 ½”
Dark Orange	2 strips 4 ½” wide	8 rectangles 4 ½” by 6 ½”

White
·         For Stems	4 strips 2 ¾” wide	Reserve for Strip Piecing

·         For Small Pumpkins

3 strips 1 ½” wide

16 rectangles 1 ½” by 6 ½”

·         For Large Pumpkin Setting

3 strips 2 ½” wide

16 rectangles 6 ½” by 2 ½”

Strip-piece the pumpkin stems:

·         Select two 2” wide strips of cream fabric and one brown 1 ½” strip of fabric. 

·         Sew the cream strips to each side of the brown print.

 

·         Press seams towards the brown fabric.

·         Cut these into strips for the pumpkin stems:

  2 ½” wide by 6 ½” for the large pumpkin.

 1 ½” wide by 6 ½” for the two small pumpkins.

You will need 2 large pumpkin stems and 4 small pumpkin stems for the wall hanging.  The throw requires 8 large pumpkin stems and 16 small pumpkin stems.

To Piece the Large Pumpkin:

·         Select the medium-orange print rectangles measuring 7” by 6 ½”.

·     Select four 2” squares and draw a diagonal line from corner to corner on the wrong side of these pieces.

·         Layer a 2” square on top of an orange rectangle corner.

·         Sew down the drawn line.

·         Trim the fabric to create a ¼” seam allowance and discard the excess.

·         Press seam towards the orange pumpkin.

·         Repeat for the remaining 4 corners.

·         Add the stem to the elongated pumpkin. Press away from the stem to reduce bulk.

·         Add the two remaining white 2 ½” by 6 ½” strips to the top and bottom of the pumpkin.

·         Create 2 large pumpkins for the wall hanging and 8 for the throw quilt.

To Piece the Small Pumpkins: Refer to the above photo, the process is the same but with different sized pieces.

·         Select the light-orange print rectangles measuring 4 ½ ” by 6 ½”.

·     Select four 2” squares and draw a diagonal line from corner to corner on the wrong side of these pieces.

·         Layer a 2” square on top of an orange rectangle corner.

·         Sew down the drawn line.

·         Trim the fabric to create a ¼” seam allowance and discard the excess.

·         Press seam towards the orange pumpkin.

·         Repeat for the remaining 4 corners.

·         Add the stem to the elongated pumpkin.  Press away from the stem to reduce bulk.

·         Add the one remaining white 1 ½” by 6 ½” strips to the top of the pumpkin.

·    Create two light and two dark small pumpkins for the wall hanging or eight light and eight dark pumpkins for the throw quilt.

Layout the pieces for the block settings.

  Assemble your blocks.  For the wall-hanging you will need 2 pumpkin blocks.  For the throw you will need 8.

Now...for "Keep It Simple & Make It Fun!"--or KISMIF my weekly linky-party.  Please share your links of projects you have been working on.  It can be anything in quilting, sewing, cooking, writing or any other home arts!  I'd love to hear from you and share your comments around.  Thanks!

An InLinkz Link-up