Christmas Mini and Fabric Tuesday #212

Welcome to Fabric Tuesday! Today I have a mini quilt I've been working on for the last few weeks or so:

These stars are from Celestial Pattern by Alison Glass.  Using the stars in the pattern I came up with a festive mini!  I plan to hang it next to my tree.  Originally I was thinking of a pillow but I changed the design halfway through :)

The fabrics are Alison Glass' from her Christmas Bundle.

There are a few different stars to use in the pattern.  They're paper-pieced (don't be scared! Fun and easy!).  You can either make the pattern or use the stars in lots of other fun ways!

There will be a link-up and giveaway on the Alison Glass blog.  You will have until December 10 to share a completed project using Celestial for a chance to win a signed copy of Alison Glass' book and a $25 gift certificate to her shop. And, during the gift along, the Celestial pattern is $1 off and includes free shipping. 

In addition, we'll have folks share their progress on Instagram using #celestialgiftalong where we'll be picking one winner each week for a pattern of their choice. Wahoo!  So grab the pattern, I'd love to see what you make with it!

Fabric Tuesday!

Your turn to share!! Link up a recent project using FABRIC!

My finished mini!!

Hey friends!!

I was quick enough on Instagram this time to participate in a mini quilt swap hosted by Kristi from Schnitzel and Boo!  It's a secret swap, you receive your partner's info with a form stating what types of fabrics she likes, her style, etc..  Then you make your partner a mini just for them, anywhere from 6" to 24".  I ended up being a moderator to help out with the swap...so I made two!  More on the other later...

Here is the first one I made:

From her form and instagram feed (@quiltinginthecold) I realized we had a pretty similar style.  She likes traditional piecing with some modern twists and fun bright fabrics. It was nice because if I was liking it I thought I was pretty safe that she would too!

It's 24" square.  Everyone also needed to create a tag for their mini and make sure to include some of the following info.  I just used a fine sharpie, turned under the edges and handstitched it on.

AND the other fun part of the swap is including goodies!!  My partner lives in the Netherlands so I was told that Peanut Butter cups were a must!  I also made little coin purses and included some of her favorite fabrics.

It was such a fun swap!!! I received mine yesterday and I am sooo in love!!!

I have one more mini to post, I'll share the one I received AND Heather made one too. 

And you may as well check it out on our Instagram feeds now anyway :)  And if you aren't on Instagram just do it!!!!

@quiltstory and @quiltstorymeg

Get ready for some mini goodness!!

My Bright Colorful Rainbow Polka-dot HST mini quilt...

Heather here. 

If you have been following me on Instagram (@quiltstory. Megan is @quiltstorymeg.) you have seen this all before. My bright colorful rainbow polkadot HST mini quilt. (that's it's official name)

Started with a bunch of 3.5" HST's

Found the block on Pinterest. Pretty easy layout. Did some straight line quilting. (super easy since it was a mini)

Even went with some colorful polkadot backing and binding, over the top, I know. 

Ta- Da! I just love the pop of metallics. They are Michael Miller mirror ball dots. Love. 

And I even have it up on the wall with a few other watercolors, embroideries and another mini. It makes me happy. Hope you like it!

Adding More Handmade to my Life

I've decided recently I want to add more handmade to my life...I sometimes feel the things that surround me with in my home are not necessarily the things that make me happy.  I like to walk in my home and be happy about what I see (underneath and behind all the toys, dust and clutter).

I was having a sad day and decided I needed a project to start AND finish.  I decided on this mini quilt/runner for the perfect spot in my family room.  I made these sweet little Churn Dash blocks, 6" each.

(And don't they look cute on point??)

The sashing is about 2" finished (I believe).  Simple straight-line quilting.

My gallery wall has a lot of meaning to me.  The US map has hearts in all the places we've lived since we've been married (UT, MO, AZ and VA).  I have beautiful framed art with words from my dad and his initials, all backed with the Union Jack flag.  My dad's double decker buses, he had so many and he would let my boys pick them off the shelf and play with them.  Beautiful figurine of a daddy and his three daughters gifted to me from my sweet cousins.  Pictures of my kids that really make me happy.  Our 2013 family book of all our adventures last year.

It's the first spot in my new home that really feels like me.  I'm excited to create more!

-Megan

Happy Valentines Day! and a quilt bliss project...

Hi friends. Hope everyone is having a great Valentine's Day.  I intend to. This amazing mini quilt was made for me by Sarah, a sweet girl I met at Quilt Bliss (@honeyguide on Instagram). Sarah had my name in the Friendship Swap and made me this darling heart mini. LOVE.

For the swap, we listed a bit about our preferences, and she got me so well!I think this is just perfection!

Love all the low volume background too.  I will leave this up all year!

Remember this bundle? 

I made these blocks using this fun and simple tutorial from Missouri Star. So easy. Looks like way more work than it was. The only reason I didn't finish was because I ran out of my solid. So now I have to match my solid and finish them off. Wonder how much time that will take?

This is more of what it will look like put together. Cuteness?

I have more to share from quilt bliss next week, my low volume quilt. I am loving it so far...

Have a fun day!

Holiday tutorial series from Christa Quilts, Log Cabin Wreath mini...

Christa is an amazing Quilter! Christa Quilts has been a friend and advertiser on our blog for quite some time. She is a rockstar with quilt design, numbers, software, the works! She knows the process from start to finish, including some amazing machine quilting. Christa hosts some amazing quilt a longs, these are great! Check them out, and join in! This lady knows her stuff! She also has an awesome quilt fabric shop, she truly has a great selection. Thank you Christa!!

Hi all! I'm Christa from Christa Quilts and I'm excited to share my Log Cabin Wreath mini with you today! I wrote my tutorial so it can be sewn as a Christmas wall-hanging, but you can make it into a pillow, a table topper, or piece more blocks for a larger quilt.
Log Cabin Wreath, by Christa Watson 18" x 18"[/caption]

The blocks are pretty small, finishing at 3" finished so this is a great exercise in sewing tiny pieces for minis. :-) If you choose to make one for yourself, please share pictures of your progress at Christa's Quilt Along on flickr.

Step 1 - Gather Your Supplies

• 1/2 yard red for log centers, borders and binding
• 1/4 yard cream for light half of the logs
• 1/4 yard total assorted green scraps for dark half of the logs
• 1/4 yard of green for outer border
• 20" square of batting
• 20" square of fabric for quilt backing
• cotton thread to match fabrics
• basic sewing supplies and sewing machine

Step 2 - Cutting the Fabric
From the red fabric cut:

• 16 - 1.5" squares for centers
• 4 - 1.25 " x 16" strips for inner borders (to trim down later)
• 4 - 2 .25" x 42" strips for binding

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From white fabric, cut 5 - 1" wide strips. Cross-cut into:

• 16 - 1" x 1.5" rectangles
• 16 - 1" x 2" rectangles
• 16 - 1" x 2.5" rectangles
• 16 - 1" x 3" rectangles

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From assorted green scraps, cut 6 - 1" wide strips. Cross-cut into:

• 16 - 1" x 2" rectangles
• 16 - 1" x 2.5" rectangles
• 16 - 1" x 3" rectangles
• 16 - 1" x 3.5" rectangles

From green border fabric, cut 4 - 2.25" x 22" strips (trim later).

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Step 3 - Sew 16 Log Cabin Blocks


Starting with the center square, add the smallest white log to one side, right sides together. (It doesn't matter which side.) Chain piece all 16 white units to each of the red squares. Cut them apart, press toward the outside log and add the next largest white log to the right of your unit, forming an "L" shape. Repeat again for all 16 logs.

Add two green logs in the same way on the opposite side of the block. Repeat for a second round of white logs and a second round of green logs. Your 16 completed blocks should look like this:

Step 4 - Join the Blocks into Rows

Lay out your blocks so that they form a wreath shape. I like to think of each block rotation as an "L" or "7" or "backwards L" or "backwards 7".

Sew 4 blocks into a total of 4 rows. Sew the rows together to create the inner quilt top. I like to press my major seams open to help keep things nice and flat.

Step 5 - Add the Borders

Measure two sides of your quilt top and trim your red border strips to this measurement. Sew them to either side of the quilt and measure again with the added red borders. Trim the top and bottom red borders, sew to the opposite sides to complete the first border.

Repeat this process for the green border to complete your finished quilt top.

Step 5 - Finish It up

Baste your quilt with pins or safety pins and have fun with the quilting! I sewed a series of straight lines in the green areas with matching thread using my walking foot.

I added double loops to the outside borders in matching green thread with a darning foot (free-motion foot) and my feed-dogs dropped.

I filled in the white background areas with smaller, tighter loopy stipples in white thread to match.

I have also made this file available for Electric Quilt users.

Click here for the Log Cabin Wreath EQ7 download.

For more fun quilting tutorials including steps for basting and binding, please visit my Quilt Along page on my blog. :-)

Happy Holidays!

Ron Swanson Quilt from Simple Sewendipity

This takes awesome to a whole new level.  A mini quilt, for a man, of Ron Swanson (a character from a TV show, Parks and Rec).  Now I must admit, I watched the first season and my hubby and I gave up, when many people say it got really good. We've been talking about giving the show another go. However, I think Stephanie from Simple Sewendipity wins for awesome wife don't you think?? My husband would probably appreciate a Michael Scott version...or Jack Bauer. :)  Check out Stephanie's flickr for some more fun and creative ideas!

Have you ever tried to make a quilt for a man?  It’s HARD!  I was pretty settled on the fact that even though hubby is über supportive of my never-ending sewing and fabric shopping, he’d probably never truly appreciate the gift of a quilt.  Fine by me if he’d rather have CDs or a new phone – whatever floats your boat!  That is until I saw this by Monica of Happy Zombie fame.

 

 (Perhaps I should preface this by saying that both hubby and I are major Parks & Recreation fans and “Treat Yo Self!” became our adopted catch phrase for longer than was probably healthy or funny for people other than us.) 

I guess my love of quirky quilts and pop-culturey projects is no secret, so making a mini quilt of this for our 13^th anniversary seemed like it would be a good fit and probably a fairly easy finish.  About 2 weeks before our anniversary, I went onto Happy Zombie to find a few more detailed photos and how she constructed her letters…and found a tiny reference at the bottom of her Treat. Yo. Self.post that said that Ron Swanson would be appearing on her blog.  Hmm.  Intriguing.  So I clicked…and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. 

(Perhaps I should also add here that in addition to loving Parks & Recreation, my hubby wants to BE Ron Swanson and would probably wear his hair high and tight and rock a ‘stache if he could pull it off.

 

I knew instantly that a) this would be perfect, b) extremely appreciated, and c) WAY harder to finish in two weeks than I was counting on.  Undaunted, I joined the Ron Swanson Along and picked out my fabrics.  Happy Zombie’s version is pretty much one color scheme, but I liked the idea of having a separate color for the background.  I also really wanted the hair and moustache to stand out a bit, so I added a range of browns to the black and greys and chose aqua for the background.  Manly colors, all the way!

 I also wanted to scale down the size a bit from her tutorial so that hubby could bring Ron into his office to keep him company during the work week.  I scaled down the squares to 1.5”.  Now just so you know, each block was 10 squares by 10 squares.  And there were 12 blocks.  Ugh.  The cutting, my god the cutting!  I think I practically got a blister on my finger from all the rotary cutting, but I just knew that it would be SO worth it.

 

I worked and worked on the Swanson mini at every free second for those two weeks.  After a couple of days of sneaking around behind his back, I figured out a key point that I will probably use to my advantage again:  if I don’t physically bring him over to the sewing machine or ironing board or prompt him to come and look at a project, he will NEVER ask what I am working on. So I was able to work away right under his nose and still keep the gift a surprise.  Yay!  I finished sewing on the binding by noon on the Saturday of our anniversary dinner and wrapped it all up with a card that alluded to me never becoming one of his “Tammy’s.”  

The look of confusion melting into utter delight and amazement when he opened up the quilt was just perfection.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so satisfied with a gift I’ve given him.  It got even better when I asked him to turn it over and he saw the extra little something that I created for the back.

 

Scrappy eggs and bacon - because any Ron Swanson fan needs to have ALL the eggs and ALL the bacon.

 

 

I loved this from start to finish – even when all those hundreds of squares felt a bit too much, I’d get a glimpse of moustache or furrowed brow and it just all felt worth it.  Plus I felt like I was giggling and running Parks & Rec lines through my head the entire time that I was sewing.  It was pure bliss! 

 

The cherry on top was that when I posted up pictures in the Ron Swanson Along Flickr page, I got comments and praise from Monica herself!  And then she pinned it as well!  I felt a little star struck.

And just in case you were wondering, Nick Offerman HAS seen Monica’s quilt and even SIGNED IT for her!!  Gasp!  Now THAT is better than a meat tornado.