Brutal Honesty {April 2018}

It is finally April! For me, that means sewing and listening to baseball games! Or pressing and trimming and listening to baseball games. Basically from now until October my life is evenly split between work, quilting, and baseball.

Being long arm quilted:
1. Summer on the Coast Quilt -- I sent this with my mom for her to quilt and it's already done! Leaving it on the list until I can do an official finish post, though!
2. On Ringo Lake Mystery QAL -- I also sent this one off for quilting, return date TBA since it went to the long arm quilter.

Finished tops ready to be quilted:
3. Traveling Quilt Bee (2016) -- Ready to be layered, pinned, and quilted - this is on my list to start this coming weekend!
4. Magnolia Mystery QAL -- Have a backing picked out, just need to order it!

Tops partially finished:
5. Bonnie and Camille C2C Bee Quilt -- No progress
6. Romantic Garden Quilt -- No progress
7. Monthly Wall Hangings -- No progress

Just blocks:
8. Pineapple Stash Bee Blocks -- No progress
9. Sew Kitschy Blocks -- No progress
10. Cubicle Quilts -- I made my mini for April and I actually started my mini for May, too!

11. Happy Houses blocks -- No progress
12. Birthstone blocks -- No progress
13. Donuts quilt -- No progress

Quilt alongs and long term projects:
14. Monthly Island Batik Ambassador projects -- My March project was to try a new-to-us technique and I tried bias tape applique! Our April theme is "vintage inspired" and I can't wait to show you what I've been working on later this week!

15. Breezy Blooms C2C Bee -- I have Chelsea's quilt this month and I'll be posting about that next week!
16. Top Secret Sewing -- This has slowed down significantly (HOORAY!) and I have one project for May to finish!

17. Blocked Rainbow Quilt -- This week kicked off the first block tutorial for this quilt! Click here to see the Red Pinhweels tutorial and click here to get the directions from Craftsy.

New Project:

18. Double Delight -- This is my new scrappy side project! I'm still plugging away on my second set of square in a square units and will show those off once they are finished!

My goal for April is to finish the Secret Sewing project that'll be shown off in May and to finally start quilting my TQB quilt now that I have my new sewing machine! 

I'd also like to pat myself on the back for some serious WIP busting. During all of 2017, I finished five projects that were on my WIP list at the beginning of the year. During the first three months of 2018, I have already finished six projects that were on my WIP list at the beginning of this year -- three of which were on my WIP list at the beginning of 2017! I definitely have started plenty of new things, but I'm at least finishing up *some* of the long-languishing projects on my list.

Don't forget to join the HBD Facebook Group -- it's not too late to join in the Blocked Rainbow QAL!

Summer Patio Pattern Premiere {Giveaway and Sale!}

I'm excited to share our newest Honey, Bunny, and Doll pattern -- Summer Patio!

This pattern is perfect for the jelly rolls you've been hoarding in your stash! This pattern includes a twin size option (68" x 91") and a full size option (77" x 91"). Rather than using a background fabric for the sashing, this pattern uses a single fabric for the borders and the sashing to make the blocks float like tiles! You can get the pattern on Etsy or Craftsy.

We've also reached a huge milestone -- over 900 likes on our HBD Facebook page! Thank you for showing such support for us over the last few years! We love designing patterns and selling fabric. As a little thank you to all of our friends and followers, our Christine's Kitchen and Starburst patterns are $9 on Etsy for a short time only! (Regularly $12!!)

So let's also do a Summer Patio pattern giveaway! As is our normal MO, leave comments to enter!

1. Leave a comment with what fabric line you'd use to make your own Summer Patio quilt. I think it would be great in any Bonnie and Camille line!

2. Leave a second comment if you are a follower of Little Bunny Quilts (blog, Instagram) or Honey, Bunny, and Doll (FB page, FB group, Instagram)! We couldn't have gotten to where we are without you!

I'll pick winners (YES WINNERS!) next Monday and update this post when I do!

Here are our winners!

Happy Tuesday!

Blocked Rainbow QAL {Week #1 - Red Pinwheels}

The 2018 quilt along is now over and the entire pattern is available as a single PDF pattern on Etsy and Craftsy.

Hats off to our first official week of the quilt along! Today we are making red pinwheels.

Obviously this week's technique is half square triangles (HSTs)!

Here are all of my blocks:

If you want to go scrappy here are some suggestions:
- If you want each pinwheel to be made up of the same fabric, you'll need to cut your red squares in pairs, which will result in four HSTs.
- You could also combine HSTs randomly and have four different red fabrics in each pinwheel.
-Feeling super scrappy? Use your favorite technique to make scrappy red slabs (a la Crazy Mom Quilts' "scrap vortex" technique) and then cut those slabs into the size squares you need for this step. This will allow you to use smaller scraps, but allot yourself extra fabric to account for the additional seams.

Don't feel overwhelmed by this week's assignment! Every week we'll be making fewer and fewer blocks so this week will likely be the most time consuming! It might be helpful to sew all of your HSTs at once and then set yourself up to do all of the trimming in front of your favorite movie to help the time pass more quickly!

I'm really excited to use the black background this time around! If you haven't picked up your backing fabric yet, our Kona sale is still going on!

This week our prize sponsor is Jennifer from The Inquiring Quilter and the winner will receive a PDF pattern of their choosing! She's currently a fellow Island Batik Ambassador! Here's a little bit about Jennifer:

Jennifer Fulton is a quilter/blogger who is passionate about color, fabrics, and design. She’s also extremely curious and asks a lot of questions—that’s the reason she named her blog The Inquiring Quilter!

Jennifer is also a technical writer with over 30 years experience. She’s written many books, including a book on quilting—Idiot’s Guide: Quilting. Currently, Jennifer writes a blog and designs quilts and patterns for leading fabric manufacturers such as RJR, Quilting Treasures, Timeless Treasures, Windham Fabrics, and Island Batik. She is also an Island Batik Ambassador. Jennifer recently designed patterns for Keepsake Quilting and Missouri Star, and has had her quilts displayed at Quilt Market.

Just post a picture of your progress on Instagram with the hashtag #BlockedRainbowQAL -or- post a picture in the HBD Quilts Facebook group! I'll pick one winner on Sunday night and share it in next Monday's post! We also have a giveaway and sale in honor of reaching 900 likes on Facebook! We are giving away a few copies of our new pattern, Summer Patio, and our Christine's Kitchen and Starburst patterns are $9 on Etsy for a short time only! (Regularly $12!!)

Also sharing at Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, and Needle and Thread Thursday!

Schedule:
March 19 - Introduction, Yardage Requirements, Kona Sale with HBD
March 26 - Sponsors, Background Spacer cutting, Color Suggestions
April 2- Red Pinwheels <--- That's today!
April 9 - Orange Churn Dashes
April 16 - Yellow Flying Geese
April 23 - Green Sawtooth Stars
April 30 - Blue Bowties
May 7 - Purple Bear Paws
May 14 - Catch up week/Mother's Day
May 21 - Setting directions
May 28 - Catch up week/Memorial Day
June 4 - Finished Quilt Top Parade/Link Up

April Cubicle Quilt {Finished Mini}

My coworkers have enjoyed seeing my cubicle-sized mini quilts that match my larger monthly wall hangings that hang at home. I made ones for January, February, and March before getting distracted by plenty of other projects.

To make the April cubicle mini to match the April wall hanging at home, I decided that my cubicle mini would just have a scaled down umbrella (thank you, Google Images clip art machine). I had made the pieced background for this over a year ago in shades of green. I picked a larger floral print for the umbrella and brown for the handle.

For the satin stitching, I used brown on the handle and pink around the umbrella. For the quilting, I used a green and yellow variegated thread in rows of loops.

The backing is an old yellow and green stripe from my stash and the binding is a yellow, green, and pink leafy print left over from some older baby quilts that I made (in approximately 2013!).

This will be going up in my cubicle on April 1st! Now I have over a month to try to get one done for May.

Sharing at Finish it up Friday and Oh Scrap!

Just Keep Trimming {Double Delight}

I like to have a "quiet project" to work on so that I don't drive my husband completely crazy with the sewing machine running all waking hours. Usually I have something that needs pressing or trimming that I'll work on in the evenings while we watch baseball or basketball. My new Double Delight project has provided me with PLENTY of pressing and trimming as of late.

After finishing up pressing 120 square in a square units, I had to trim 120 square in a square units. This took me quite a while to trim in between working on other things and I made a lot of pretty trash in the process.

I went ahead and stacked these units into four piles of 30 so I won't have to recount the stacks when I am ready to make the blocks! I'll just rotate the units so that the fabrics are in a variety of locales within the block.

I think that I used approximately ten different chartreuse fabrics and about eight different mulberry fabrics. I had quite a lot of certain mulberry fabrics (like the cream/mulberry floral left over from the backing of my Stash Bee Star Quilt) and a mulberry batik tonal fabric. 

When I picked up my new sewing machine, I also picked up a half yard of a cream print that matched well with the other two cream prints I had started using for this quilt. It was more difficult than I anticipated to find something that had a similar shade of cream in the background! 

It definitely won't be enough cream for the rest of the quilt, but it's more than enough to continue adding sides to my other set of 120 square in a square units and my nine-patch sections as leaders and enders until the next time I venture out to the quilt store. My hope is that the more "traditional" quilt store in the opposite direction might be a better source for cream fabric! 

Maybe I'm just being too particular about the shade of cream for a "scrappy" quilt? I think that a more cohesive background color -- even if I end up using 4-6 different fabrics -- will help the blocks stand out more than something more scrappy -- what do you think?

Sharing at Let's Bee Social and NTT!