Changes!

I have made some small changes around here. You may have noticed that kitchentablequilting.com no longer brings you here — it will now take you to a website that has my shop, my blog, and recent Instagram posts. 

After almost 11 years of blogging, using this particular blog host has become a little cumbersome and it is cutting in on my sewing time. I need to simplify and I hope this simplifies things for you too.

Almost all of the blog posts are now hosted on the new website (I didn't move any posts that are no longer relevant) and the format is much cleaner and easier to read. There are no ads and a lot less clutter. Plus, the search function works better and you can easily sort posts by the year they were written and what they contain. 

Part of simplifying also means that I won't have RSS subscriptions available anymore to my blog. This won't effect too many people and I have moved those subscriptions over to my email list. These emails will keep you updated on my blog and this shouldn't be too much of a change. 

One great change: comments are back. Blogger does not have a great spam filter for comments and I was getting inundated with dozens of really inappropriate spam comments every day. This shouldn't be a problem on the new website (fingers crossed!) so comments are back.

Of course all changes come with their issues — I am sure that there will be links that don't work and Pinterest pins that no longer take you to the right place. I intend to work on fixing these but it will probably take me a long while. If you have any specific questions, please reach out to me and I will do my best to help you!

This will be my very lost post here on my Blogger blog and you can find all future blog posts right here. The good news is that this blog isn't going anywhere — all posts will remain available at archive.kitchentablequilting.com. 

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A Meander Olivia Quilt

Lately I have been wanting to go back and make some older patterns. Does anyone know how to add more hours in the day so I can have time to do this? The Olivia Quilt Pattern is one of my favorites and I haven't made it in ages so Aneela Hoey's super cute Meander collection was the perfect excuse.

 

I have been a fan of Aneela's fabrics for a long, long time. Sherbet Pips and Posy were some of my favorites when they came out so I am so glad to see that she is designing fabric again. 

 

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A Scrappy Melody Quilt + Some Luxe Cuddle Tips

As a personal challenge to myself (and out of necessity since my scrap bins are overflowing) I have been trying to make a scrappy version of most of my patterns. For the Melody Quilt Pattern, I knew that I would need to do something to differentiate the scraps so that the pattern didn't get lost — I couldn't just use colored scraps + white scraps because I needed a 3rd category.

If you have used my Plaid-ish quilt tutorial, you know I like to use value so this seemed like a fun way to go with this pattern. I would use darker value scraps for the A Fabrics, medium value scraps for the B scraps, and light value scraps for the background fabric.

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The Melody Quilt — Mockups

In the past when I have posts mockups, I usually check out a fabric shop online and look at their bestsellers or new releases to see which fabric collections I want to use. For the past couple of patterns, I have asked for your suggestions on Instagram and it has made this all so much more fun to me. So here are your requests mocked up in the Melody Quilt Pattern.

I did a mockup for every request except one collection that I couldn't find and one that I couldn't find digital fabric files for. There were collections here that I wasn't familiar with and it was so fun to get to work a variety of styles. I tried mixing up the background fabrics so they aren't all just plain old white. Each of these mockups would use fat quarters of the collection.

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The Melody Quilt — Darling Version

If I had to pick just one fabric designer to sew with for the rest of my life, it would probably be Denyse Schmidt. She strikes just the right cord between modern and traditional and I love that her prints can be mixed with each other but also mix well with other patterns. When I saw that she had a new collection called Darling, I knew it would be perfect for the Melody Quilt Pattern.

Since the lap size version of the Melody Quilt can be made with fat eighths or fat quarters, I wanted to make one of each to show you what they look like. You need a pretty good number of fat eighths for the pattern and this collection allllmooost had enough. Not quite. 

Some fabric collections have lots of prints (25+) and some have very few (more like 10-12) so I try to accommodate both types of collections. Darling has 27 prints and I needed 26, but two of the prints are cheater HST prints and I didn't think they would work particularly well here so I ended up using one of the prints twice. 

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The Melody Quilt — Speckled Version

You know I love sewing with basic fabric collections — they are so versatile and every time new colors are added to a line of basic prints, they just get even better. Speckled is one of my favorites and I had a lot of fun putting together a variety of warm shades for the cover of the Melody Quilt Pattern.

This started out as personal challenge because I have a hard time using yellow in quilts. While I'm not going to join the yellow fan club anytime soon, it turns out that I do like yellow as long as it is used in combination with other warm colors.

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New Pattern — The Melody Quilt

If you are looking for a last minute Christmas present for yourself (or someone else), I have a really fun new pattern for you: this is the Melody Quilt Pattern. This is my FINAL pattern of 2022. 

Like most of my other patterns, this one is named after someone special in my life. Someone extra special — this pattern is named after my mom. Why did I wait so long to name a pattern after my mom? I don't know, sorry mom! 

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Christmas Inspiration

I don't do a ton of holiday sewing, but I was surprised to look back and see that I had quite a few to share! And this doesn't include the tree skirt I made (that I never photographed) or the first stockings that I made for my family years ago (which were EPP and that I did not love). 

Each of the projects below links to the original blog post. The only holiday-related sewing I did this year was the Ivy Quilt that I made several months ago so I have been done with my Christmas sewing for months!

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Quilt Ideas - Christmastime

It is now December and we are in full Christmas-mode over here. All of the Christmas music, all of the sweet treats, and now all of the fabric. These mockups use a collection called Christmastime by Tim Holtz. His collections are always such a fun mix of scale, color, value, and texture. They are eclectic but still cohesive so working with them is more like working with scraps or a custom bundle than a fabric collection. 

I threw in some old favorite patterns for these mockups because even though they are old, they are still favorites. Plus there are a couple of newer patterns in here. 

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The Luna Quiltalong Week 11 - Quilting

I hope you enjoyed your week off last week and are ready to get started with the quilting. I always look forward to this part of the process because I can put on a good audiobook and just focus on stitching — it is very relaxing.

However, I know that this step can seem daunting if you are a newer quilter so I put together a video with some things that you can do to adjust your machine to make it a little more quilting-friendly.  The only supplies that you are going to need for this step (unless you are hand quilting) are a sewing machine, thread (this is what I almost always use), and a needle (these are my favorite). 

If you are looking for more tips on the quilting process, make sure to check out this video I did a while back where I answered lots of submitted questions about how it all works.

I am off to start my quilting! Have a great week!

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The Luna Quiltalong - Basting

In the past, I haven't included an entire week for basting in my quilalongs because (1) there are always a significant number of participants who have their quilts long arm quilted and (2) there are lots of different ways to baste a quilt and this is just one. 

But this time I am including it. I have basted a lot (and I mean A LOT of quilts) so I have a method that works extremely well for me. Also, basting can be very overwhelming if you are a new quilter so I wanted to assure you that it's really not that bad and you can definitely do it. 

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The Kara Quilt Pattern — Mockups

I have some quilt mockups for you today using the Kara Quilt pattern. This was one was pretty easy to mockup because it works well with lots of different types of collections, so I tried to be a little more creative with the background fabrics. You guys know I love a boring old white background!

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The Kara Quilt in Unruly Nature

This version of the Kara Quilt is going in my top 5 favorite makes of the year. The colors in Unruly Nature are perfect for fall and I love the little metallic accents on some of the fabrics. I had previously used this collection to make my Diana Quilt and loved it so much that I have been looking for a project to use the collection again.

The fabric collection was designed by Jen Hewett and it has a great variety of different floral prints and I love all of the warm colors. She designed a fabric collection a few years ago called Imagined Landscapes that I really enjoyed, but this one is even better. 

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The Kara Quilt in First Light

Since I have not yet adjusted to sunset happening before 5pm AND because it has been raining non-stop here until yesterday, I have been way behind on getting photos of my finished Kara Quilts. This morning on the way to my daughter's dermatologist appointment, we took some quick photos in a field. This actually worked nicely because sunrise photos were perfect for this quilt which I made with the First Light fabric collection.

This was a great stash busting project because this quilt was (mostly) made from leftovers from my Virginia Quilt (I had picked up a little bit of yardage of a few of my favorite prints that helped supplement this quilt).

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The Kara Quilt in Pixel

I love basic prints. They are great on their own and they are great mixed with other collections — they are probably my favorite type of fabric to work with. 

There is a new line of prints from Rashida Coleman-Hale called Pixel that I am hoping will be available as a basic print for a long time. The fabrics are super soft and drape-y and have a really pretty small-scale print with little pops of color. This line has some of my favorite colors to sew with (purple, warm yellows, and peach) and I can see myself getting a bolt of the black print and using it as a binding fabric for about half of the quilts that I make. It's beautiful.

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New Pattern - The Kara Quilt

I have a new pattern for you today — meet the Kara Quilt! This is a really fun, quick pattern that is great for beginners or anyone looking for a fat quarter friendly project.

This pattern is named after my sister. Well one of my sisters — I have 3! And Kara is the last one to get a pattern named after her. My other sisters are Carly and Kelly (yes, everyone has a "C" or a "K" name except for me, my brother's name is Chase). 

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The Luna QAL - Prepping Your Quilt for Quilting

You might be thinking . . . I made my quilt, what more do I need to do? Well, you don't HAVE to do anything at this point but there are some things that you can to do to help your quilt be the best it can be (especially if you are having your quilt long-arm quilted).

These steps take just a little bit of time but can give your quilt a more finished look. If you are having your project long-arm quilted, your quilter will also be grateful that you have prepared your quilt.

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Quilt Ideas - Tula Pink Solids

When I was contemplating fabric collections for a Quilt Ideas post, I kept going back to solids. I decided to make some mockups using the Tula Pink solids because (1) I have used them several times (see here, here, and here) and they are soft and vibrant and wonderful and (2) they are so nicely curated that they are like a fabric collection on their own.

In fact, I enjoyed this so much that I got a little carried away and made a bunch. Plus I had previously used them for mockups when releasing new quilt patterns so I'm going to include those as well. 

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The Luna QAL — Week 7

This week we are sewing our blocks together! If you are a little behind schedule, don't stress — there is lots of time toward the end of the quiltalong to catchup (including a catchup week). 

There isn't too much about this process that will be different than last week. Because the blocks are decently sized, you have already done most of the work!

When sewing your quilt top together, you can sew all of your blocks into rows and then sew the rows together. This is the simplest way to do things and there is nothing wrong with it . . . except that I don't like to piece long seams and I try to have use few as possible. I put together this little video during the Carly Quiltalong to show how I piece my quilt tops.

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The Luna QAL - Week 6

\This week we are going to be finishing our blocks. I am on vacation, but I put together all of the tips that you will need in this video. 

Happy sewing!

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