Karen's Quilt {C2C Bee 2019}

This go-round of the Coast to Coast bee has me working on Karen's quilt. For her quilt this year, she has a medallion quilt inspired by a few Kaffe Fassett florals.

Karen made the star center and Stephanie added the subsequent borders. 

I decided that my first order of business would be to add some smaller spacer borders. First I added a solid border in the blue that Karen sent along with the quilt and then I added a border of all 4" x 2" finished flying geese. These geese were made from the same blue solid and two different black tonal prints. I used my Accuquilt Go! cutter to cut all of the pieces and parts for my geese.

So, I actually had this plan in place for over a month and most of the cutting done before I finally got this section of the quilt added. Technically I'm a little behind now (and Audrey's quilt is sitting in a box waiting to be worked on!) but I didn't want to just add this section to the quilt so I got Audrey's blessing to hold onto the quilt a few extra days and add a little more to the quilt.

After a little bit of thinking, I decided on adding some half sawtooth stars to the quilt. I also used my Go! cutter to cut the triangles for these units and used 5 different fabrics for my half stars on the sides of the quilt (finished size 16" x 8") and quarter stars in the corners (8" finished).

I used both of the floral prints that Karen sent along with the quilt and then added in three fabrics in similar colors for the stars.

The big piecing was fast and really added a big punch to the quilt, as well as showing off the beautiful prints! Now Karen's quilt is 64 inches square!

This is already off in the mail to Audrey -- and I have Audrey's quilt from Stephanie waiting for me to start working on it!

Hope your weekends were full of productive sewing!

Sharing at Oh Scrap!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway here!

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

Daisy Chain QAL {Block Construction Part 1}

Update 8/11/2020 -- This pattern is now available in our Etsy and Payhip shops. Please visit one of those sites to purchase the full pattern.

Let's start putting all those blocks together!

This week we are making the first half of our blocks. Next week we will make the remainder of the blocks and reveal the quilt layout.

Combine your Unit A and Unit C block sections as shown below with your 4.5” background squares (D). Make (5/13/24/32) star blocks. Blocks should measure 12.5” unfinished.

Here are my units laid out for the stars for my baby sized quilt:

Here are the finished stars for my second quilt.

Some tips:
-- Press as desired. There won't be too much matching/nesting to worry about going forward.
-- Watch those four patch chains -- make sure they are all going in the same direction! As you might be guessing, the chains are sort of important, hence the name "Daisy Chain".

Check out blocks from some of our participants!
-- Stephanie's stars are white with purple chains on a black background.
-- Gene's stars are yellow with purple chains on an orange background.
-- Kate's chains are red and her stars are black paisley.

Next week we'll reveal the quilt layout and piece together the remaining parts of the quilt!

Schedule
Fabric Requirements - February 4th
Cutting - February 18th
Block Units- March 4th
Block Units - March 18th
Block Units - April 1st
Block Units - April 15th
Catch up week link up - April 29th
Top Construction Part 1 - May 6th <--- That's today!
Top Construction Part 2 - May 20th
Link up/giveaways/quilt parade starts: June 3rd
Link up/giveaways/quilt parade ends: June 17th

Paint The Town Red {Modern May with Island Batik}

This is my third year as an Island Batik Ambassador, and thus my third modern quilt challenge month. The first two years, I knew exactly what I wanted to make and what techniques to use -- the first year I made my Ombre Everest wall hanging, the second year I made my 30 Pearls wall hanging.

Rather than designing something entirely new, I decided that what I wanted to do was to use Cheryl and Paige's Modern Plus Sampler pattern. I didn't join in during their quilt along and was feeling major FOMO when their quilt parade started, so I figured the best way to fight FOMO was to drink the Kool-Aid and join in, albeit a little late!

So what am I going to do for my quilt? Paint the town red! (And orange, and maybe yellow too!)

My plan for this quilt is to have a very warm quilt using these batiks and also using the white, grey, and black solid batiks as the "neutrals" for the pattern. I'm going to skip the applique and paper pieced blocks to make only the traditionally pieced blocks. The quilt will be built from the center out, with the darkest reds and oranges used first and moving to lighter colors as the quilt grows.

The center most five blocks are striped double plus blocks. For these blocks, I used white as my background/solid, and used two shades of red and one shade of range for the piecing. I modified the piecing directions for these blocks to be able to strip piece as many of the block units as possible. First came the center little plus blocks:

Then I strip pieced the stripes:

And chopped up my stripes:

My units laid out and prepped for sewing into blocks:

And all five blocks completed:

The next set of blocks will be the smaller plus blocks that surround these five blocks. I'll be using the black solid and the yellow and white dot batik for those blocks.

What are your sewing plans for this weekend?

Sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday!

Brutal Honesty {May 2019}

May already looks to be a very busy month! I have a number of secret sewing projects that are in the pipeline and will be shown off relatively soon -- so we'll see what kind of WIP progress I can manage this month.

April was a big month too -- because we had our first-ever Honey, Bunny, and Doll trunk show! It was a great experience and I can't wait to do another! (Tell your LQS that you want Honey, Bunny, and Doll patterns!)

Sent out for quilting, return date TBD:
1. Double Delight -- approximately twin size
2. Good Fortune Mystery Quilt -- small throw size
3. April Showers C2C Bee Quilt -- January UFO project -- queen size

Completed tops:
4. Magnolia Mystery QAL -- No progress
5. Breezy Blooms C2C Bee -- No progress
6. Radiant Jewel Quilt -- April UFO project -- I finished the top in April! I might add a border of the background fabric around the quilt, but otherwise it's ready to be quilted.

Tops partially finished:
7. Romantic Garden Quilt -- No progress
8. Monthly Wall Hangings -- March UFO project -- No progress
9. Pineapple Stash Bee Blocks -- February UFO project -- No progress

Just blocks and units:
10. Sew Kitschy Blocks -- No progress
11. Cubicle Quilts -- No progress
12. Happy Houses blocks -- No progress
13. Birthstone blocks -- No progress
14. Jingle Bell Square -- I now have 12 blocks complete, so I am 25% done with the main blocks.

Quilt alongs and long term projects:
15. Monthly Island Batik Ambassador projects -- In April, our assignment was to make a baby quilt using our Accuquilt Go! cutter. I made a pink, white, and black baby quilt using two alternating block designs. In May, we are tasked with making modern quilts! I'm going to be making a partial version of Cheryl and Paige's Modern Plus Sampler quilt pattern.

16. Daisy Chain Mystery Quilt -- All of the block unit directions have been published (Unit A, Unit B, Unit C, and Unit D) and next week we'll have the first half of our block construction directions. How is your Daisy Chain quilt coming along?

17. Coast to Coast Bee 2019 -- I have been working on Karen's quilt, and will be posting about my additions to her medallion quilt very soon!

New Projects/Secret Sewing:

18. Halloween Table Runner: This is slated to be shared next week!

19. Christmas Throw Quilt: This is on the schedule for later in May!

20. FQS Hop Quilt: This hop isn't until June so I am not starting it until after the above two projects have been finished and shared. I have all of my supplies waiting at the ready though.

My UFO for April was my Radiant Jewel quilt. I was able to complete the quilt top and it is ready to quilted!

My UFO for May is technically my Double Delight quilt. Since that quilt has already been sent off for quilting and I don't have it in my possession, I'm going to try to catch up with my February and March UFOs (my pineapple quilt and my September mini quilt) instead.