Monday, October 27, 2014

Pattern Premiere: Beau's Ties!

If you follow Honey, Bunny, and Doll designs on Facebook, you would have noticed that I've posted a few sneak peeks of a pattern I've been working on this summer. Today I finally get to share Beau's Ties with you! I've been anxiously anticipating the final version being ready for publication so I can finally share this as a finished quilt!


I love classic quilt blocks and what I love even more is putting a new twist on a classic block!


Each block in this pattern is composed of one large bowtie and two smaller bowties nestled together! While it might look complicated, the basic skills needed for this block are as follows: half-square triangles, stitch and flip corners, and making four patches. If you're a confident beginner, this is a great option for you!

I made my quilt with fabrics from the Crazy Daisy line of fabric and used black Kona as the background fabric. The binding and backing are the same fabric also from the Crazy Daisy line. I quilted it with all over loop-de-loops in black thread.


This pattern can be found on Etsy! We can't wait to see YOUR versions of this quilt, so don't forget to share them on Craftsy and on the HBD Flickr group!


Direct link to pattern:

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Saturday Snippets

Yesterday I went shopping and got the flannel that I needed for both of the twin baby girl quilts.

I started quilting the peach/mint/lavender one with loop-de-loops. For this one I found a lavender backing. I will also say that I love quilting quilts with a flannel backing because they slide around so easily, even without a slide pad on my machine!



At this point I think that I have about a third of this quilt quilted. Hopefully I can get a little bit more done this morning.

For the pink/yellow/teal quilt, I got a pink backing. I am about 99% sure that this is the exact same pink flannel that I used to back my t-shirt quilt comforter that I made when I went to college (in 2006 and that I still use to this day as my couch cuddle quilt.)


I am not going to bind these with flannel so that I can just machine bind them completely.

I also bought my yellow and orange thread for my October wall hanging! Go big (spools) or go home, right? There was a lighter shade of yellow, but I think the brighter shade will look better around all of the small squares in the border.


Happy Saturday to you!

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

WIP Wednesday: Pumpkin Carving and House Building

Not real pumpkins though.

The last time I posted about my October wall hanging it looked like this...


...and I managed to get all of the fusible applique pieces put on this week!


Now I need to get myself to Joann to buy some orange and yellow thread. That's not something a quilter says often. "I need to buy orange thread!"

I also have been making a little happy house here and there from scraps and now have a 5 house neighborhood! (Pattern is from Quiltmaker magazine!)


I've run out of this blue and grey fabric that I have been using for the sky at this point, but I found a solid blue fat quarter in my stash that I think will look good with these ones.

I think my favorite one thus far is the teal one in the center of the bottom row. I managed to fussy cut all of the pieces so that the stripes all go in the same direction -- so fancy!

If you haven't signed up for the 2015 round of the Stash Bee yet, there is still time to do so! Click here to access the sign up link!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday! Click over to see what everyone else is working on this week.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Quilts for Twins -- Tops Complete!

While I may not have mentioned it on here, I have been impatiently waiting for some work friends of Park Ranger Husband to have their twins so that I could make them quilts! They didn't find out the genders of the twins until they were born, so I couldn't work ahead and have two quilts ready to go!

They had two girls -- which I didn't expect! I was pretty sure they were going to have a boy and a girl or two boys. Guess I shouldn't try to become a professional gambler!

I decided to use my Sew Pieceful swap blocks for both quilts. Instead of making matchy-matchy quilts, I made one quilt with my peach-mint-lilac color scheme and one quilt with the pink-yellow-teal color scheme.



I sashed the first quilt with a pink tonal and teal floral cornerstones and sashed the second quilt with a white and purple medallion print with grey cornerstones. All from my stash -- wahoo!

Now I need to get flannel to back the both of these! They are narrow enough that I won't have to piece the backing -- YAY! -- and I will probably quilt both of them in white to keep them light and girly.

Linking up at the usual Tuesday places -- Fabric Tuesday and Linky Tuesday!

Don't forget to sign up for Stash Bee 2015! Click here to sign up! Click here to get the lowdown on how the Stash Bee works!

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Our Wedding Quilt -- One Year Late

In getting ready to post about Amanda and Mike's wedding quilt, I realized that I had never shared the quilt that Park Ranger Husband and I received as a wedding present made by my mom. I figured today was as good as any since it is our one year anniversary!

The backstory on this one isn't quite as elaborate because my mom was the only one involved in making this quilt rather than three of us. She did tell me that even before we got engaged she had decided that she wanted to make us a quilt for our wedding and that it should be a Civil War style quilt with Civil War fabrics because Park Ranger Husband is a Civil War historian.


(PS. I am SO happy I found this picture, because the other one I found was me holding it up with wet hair. Ew.)

The pattern for this quilt actually has some sort of floral motif in the center, but my mom decided to put a monogram there instead.

There are two of each little block (one on the outer ring and one in one of the inner rings) and every one is different! The entire quilt is hand quilted (you can see the cross hatch quilting in the medallion center) and my mom had to wait until after I came home for my cousin's wedding to put up the quilting frame to do the hand quilting. She had about 5 weeks to get the whole thing done and my dad says she disappeared every night to work on it.

So happy anniversary to us (we are going to VA to learn history and drink wine for three days! YAY!) and happy quilting to you!

Don't forget to sign up to participate in the Stash Bee for 2015!!

Friday, October 10, 2014

Sew Pieceful Block Catch Up

No finishes here today but it occurred to me that I hadn't posted anything about what Sew Pieceful blocks I had received in a long time so I figured today would be a good day to share them!

Here are all of my peach-mint-lavender blocks:


The colors on some of the blocks were kind of disappointingly off, but I can always use them in something else.

Here are the ones that are the right colors and 4 out of 9 of them I made myself. I'm going to make a wall hanging or baby quilt out of these ones.


Here are three other ones that all matched each other that I am going to make into a table runner.


For our September round, I decided to switch up my color scheme and requested cotton candy pink, turquoise, and lemon yellow blocks. Here are all of my September ones, plus the October block I made and one from another swapper.


Here's the blocks that I made for October for the bee:


Happy Friday to you!

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Stash Bee 2015 -- Come Participate!

The sign ups for the 2015 round of the Stash Bee are NOW OPEN! Click here to sign up for all of the scrappy goodness!

Stash Bee 2015

I've been participating in the Stash Bee since 2012 and I can tell you from personal experience that it is a wonderful bee to be a part of. It is a longer commitment than most bees -- 11 months rather than just a few months -- BUT you're only required to make one block per month rather than multiple blocks per month.

Stash Bee is international friendly, open to participants of all skill levels, and a great way to connect to other bloggers and quilters!

Since I am also the Bee Mama for 2015, maybe I am a little biased. Please sign up to participate -- we would love to have you!

Saturday, October 4, 2014

October Stash Bee and Wishes Blocks

I'm finally getting back into the groove after being gone for a week! My sister's wedding was wonderful and then we got to spend a few days at my mother in law's house in Ohio which was nice as well. Now, back to the sewing and job hunting!

This is our hive's last month for the Stash Bee, and Sara requested a crazy quilt block. I will fully admit that I definitely struggled with this block. Crazy quilts are just not my thing. I think it turned out ok, but I don't see myself making a crazy quilt for myself any time soon.


Here's my October Wishes block -- Idaho Beauty!


I just love a good sawtooth star and this block is no exception! It took a little bit of planning to make sure that the star points were all the right colors in the right places, but overall it was fun and easy!

Also, keep your eyes peeled because Stash Bee 2015 sign ups are less than a week away!