It's In The Bag Blog Hop with By Annie and Island Batik! {Giveaway and Schedule}

The September blog hop featuring the latest collections of Island Batik fabric (shipping to stores soon!) started yesterday! This month's theme is -- It's In The Bag! All of our projects use patterns and notions supplied graciously by ByAnnie!

I will be showing off my project tomorrow! Here's the full schedule and previews of the new fabrics:

September 8:

• Janet Yamamoto
• Suzy Webster

September 9:

• Michelle Roberts
• Gail Sheppard

September 10:

• Sharon Riley
• Alison Vermilya

September 11:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 1 and Giveaway

September 14:

• Sally Manke
• Gail Renna

September 15:

• Mania Hatziioannidi
• Emily Leachman

September 16:

• Connie Kauffman
• Leah Malasky

September 17:

• Vasudha Govindan
• Joanne Hart

September 18:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 2 and Giveaway

September 21:

• Carolina Asmussen
• Sandra Walker

September 22:

• Jennifer Fulton
• Pamela Boatright
• Jennifer Strauser

September 23

• Denise Looney
• Maryellen McAuliffe

September 24:

• Megan Best
• Jennifer Thomas

September 25:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 3 and Giveaway

September 28:

• Carla Henton
• Carol Moellers

September 29:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 4

To celebrate the start of It’s in the Bag Blog Hop, we are giving away two fabulous Fat Quarter bundles of Buttercup and Floralicious collections by our very own Kathy Engle!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Meet the Chefs! {Best of Moda Bake Shop Book Hop}

Today is my day to shout from the rooftops all about myself and my quilt that's featured in the Best of Moda Bake Shop book!

For the book, I made a new version of the Garden Plots quilt pattern that was originally published on Moda Bake Shop in 2018. (The pattern is now only available in the book.)

The new version of the quilt features Painted Meadow by Robin Pickens. I used the large scale prints in the line for the center of the blocks. Each block uses two jelly roll strips in similar colors and the block design gives the illusion of sashing without actually having sashing between the blocks! The pattern makes a very lovely throw, but you could easily adjust the number of blocks to make a larger or smaller quilt to your heart's desire! 

Here are some pictures of my original quilt!

A little about me too! Here are the "official questions" for our blog hop:

-Favorite Precut -- Jelly Roll

-Favorite Sewing Tool -- Creative Grids 12.5" x 3.5" ruler

-Favorite Quilt Block -- Any sort of star block

-Favorite Sewing Snack -- Kettlecorn

-If I’m not at my sewing machine, you can find me -- probably at my "real" job working in a research lab!

And now for a GIVEAWAY! I am giving away two copies of the book -- one copy here on my blog and one copy on Instagram. Click here to visit my Instagram post.

To enter to win, leave a comment telling me the following: What is your favorite project that you've ever made with a JELLY ROLL?

One comment per person, please. The giveaway will close on Thursday, August 6th at midnight and I will pick a winner on August 7th.

Christmas in July {With Island Batik and Accuquilt} and GIVEAWAY!

This month's Island Batik theme is "Christmas in July" and Accuquilt is acting as Santa!

Every IB ambassador has a regular sized GO! cutter that we were given (I got mine last year) however, this summer we were each sent one of the brand new GO! Me starter sets to make a gift using the 3" finished dies AND to give the starter set to someone who doesn't have an Accuquilt!

The GO! Me system is really fun and compact -- much more portable than the standard sized GO! cutter with the same cutting performance. It's fast, accurate, easy, and safe -- perfect for a quilters old and new alike! This set includes two dies -- a 3" square and a 3" HST, so the dies work together. 

I'll go ahead and admit here that I had to do things a *little* out of order for this challenge with how busy things have been! I got my fabrics cut for my project, gave the GO! Me set to the recipient when I saw her in person earlier this month, and now I am working on getting my project sewn.

So first up -- my project. I am making a wall hanging using some of the remaining Winter Forest fabrics I had on hand. I cut a big pile of 3.5" unfinished squares using the GO! Me cutter.

The lovely recipient of the starter set was my wonderful Mom, whose birthday happened to be this month and because she's just all around wonderful. She said she was excited to use this for some scrap cutting!

And now that the crazy of the last month has died down, I was able to pick up this project again and get the top finished!

Using 144 of my 3.5" unfinished squares, I made a really, really big postage stamp block that will be turned into the base of a wall hanging! I also have some extra squares that might get turned into coordinating table toppers. This also happens to match just perfectly with the placemats I made back in May for our blog hop!

And to spread more of the Christmas in July spirit -- I am having a giveaway of the rest of my Winter Forest fabric! I have WOF strips that are at least 5" wide (some closer to 6") in all 20 fabrics from the line, packaged and ready to ship to the winner!

Entries are as follows, leave a comment for each entry:

1. Tell me what you'd make with the Winter Forest fabric.

2. Tell me which of the other Island Batik Ambassadors you follow -- if you follow me, that counts too!

The giveaway will only be open for a short amount of time -- next Tuesday, July 28th will be the last day to enter and I will announce the winner on the 29th.

Update: The giveaway is now closed and the winner is Kat!

Hip To Be Square -- Times Two {A Piece Of Blog Hop}

Today is my day on the A Piece Of blog hop with Island Batik, showing off their new fabric lines, shipping to stores now!

The line of fabric I was assigned was "Little Sir, Little Miss"! This fabric line has a whopping 40 different prints!

Instead of trying to squeeze all 40 prints into a single quilt, I decided to split the prints up into two quilts! I used our fast-and-fun pattern Hip To Be Square for these quilts!

For the first quilt, I used the black and tan numbers print for the background with the neutral and warm colored prints. I used a peach Aurifil thread to free motion quilt meanders all over this quilt. For the binding, I used two tan prints from the line.

For the second quilt, I used a cream triangle print for the background with the cool colored prints. I used a purple Aurifil thread to free motion quilt meanders for this quilt. I used two different purple prints for the binding for this quilt.

The big piecing of this pattern shows off the beautiful prints in this line!

And now, to go with my two quilts, TWO GIVEAWAYS!

I have trimmed up the remainders of my Little Sir, Little Miss collection into two sets:

First, 14 quarter yard cuts of the "cool" side of the collection:

Second: the rest of the fabrics trimmed up into 5" strips and 10" squares:

To enter, please leave me comments below, up to three entries per person. Giveaway will close on 11/22/19.
1. Easy entry for everyone! Leave any comment.
2. Bonus entry for my followers -- leave me a comment telling you how you follow my blog.
3. Bonus entry for everyone -- Visit the Island Batik website and tell me which of the new collections is your favorite. Click here to visit!

Update: These giveaways are now closed and the winners are...

My fellow Ambassador Suzy also made a quilt with this line -- she was much more creative than I and managed to fit all 40 fabrics into one quilt!

These fabrics were graciously given to me by Island Batik -- I am so happy to share them with you! The batting was provided by Hobbs and the thread was provided by Aurifil --- thank you!

Get your own copy of our Hip To Be Square pattern:
Etsy -- digital download
Payhip -- digital download

Quilt Stats:
Name: Warm/Cool Hip To Be Square
Pattern: Hip To Be Square (link above)
Fabrics: Little Sir, Little Miss from Island Batik
Techniques: free motion quilting, machine binding
Quilting: Free motion meanders
Size: 60" x 78"
Batting: Hobbs 80/20 batting 
Started: August 2019
Finished: November 2019
Future: These have been sold to a family friend for her grandkids!

Sharing at Finished or Not Friday and Peacock Party!

Halloween Spooks in Faboolous Fun {Autumn in the Air Hop + Giveaway}

Today I'm the hostess for the Autumn in the Air blog hop!

I'm more of a summer girl myself, but I love sewing for fall! This time around, I picked the Faboolous Fun line to sew up a new version of our Halloween Spooks pattern, which can be used to make a table runner or a wall hanging.

I really loved the green prints in this collection, so I decided to use that as the main background fabric. Oh, and guess what! This fabric GLOWS! (I'm not a photography wizard, but I did figure out a way to show the fabrics glowing in the dark!)

The pattern itself has options for scrappy piecing or strip piecing, and I chose the strip piecing methods. I used my own solid scraps to do the applique sections. I picked the cat, two bats, and the witch hat. I chose these because the black solid shows up so nicely against the lime green star print. I used black thread to do all of the machine applique stitching using a blanket stitch.

This is actually the first time I've made this pattern, despite it being one of our "original" Honey, Bunny, and Doll patterns.

A general applique block top: if you struggle with applique distorting your base fabric, cut your base fabric pieces a 1/2" or 1" larger than necessary and then trim down before assembly. This also can help you should your appliques shift and end up off-center!

I used black thread to do the quilting; I did squiggly lines interspersed with stars. The backing and the binding uses a web print and I used orange thread to top stitch the binding.

Get your own copy of this pattern here!

Now onto the giveaway!

Benartex will be giving away a bundle of 8 fat quarters from this collection to one lucky winner!

To enter, leave me a comment telling me all of your feelings about machine applique -- do you prefer traditional applique? What's your favorite fusible? What's your favorite stitch to use?

I'll close the giveaway on Monday at midnight and pick the winner Tuesday morning!

The giveaway is now closed and the winner is ShirleyC!

Don't forget to also check out the other stops on this week's hops!

Autumn in the Air Hop Schedule

Lisa @ Love to Color My World using Harvest Berry by Cheryl Haynes

Debby @ Debby Kratovil Quilts using Harvest Gold 

Sandra @ Mmm! Quilts using Thankful by Amanda Murphy

Alison @ Little Bunny Quilts using Faboolous Fun