Meadow Mist Designs: January 2014

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Vintage Stars Quilt Finished

I have finally finished my Vintage Stars quilt! I started this quilt back in November and had to put it on hold for xmas sewing.

For this quilt I used mostly Scrumptious by Bonnie and Camille for Moda (the line really is scrumptious) with some other Bonnie and Camille fabrics mixed in. I made the lap version of the quilt finishing at about 60" x 60" and my daughter has already claimed it as hers.

The quilt was not difficult, but I will admit that it was quite time consuming, each block contains 12 flying geese along with a bunch of other pieces. One of the nice things about this pattern is that it is actually very layer cake friendly with each block being formed from 2 layer cake pieces.

I quilted the quilt using a really open paisley swirl type pattern, I like how the curls compliment the straight lines and triangles in the blocks. I bound the quilt using a red and pink bias stripe fabric from the Scrumptious collection. For the back of the quilt I found the perfect sheet set at Target having a repeating leaf pattern in teal and green for only $13. I still have enough for backings for two baby quilts so you will probably see it again.

I am working on the pattern for this quilt and am almost ready to send it to my testers and reviewers. This by far has been the most complicated quilt pattern that I have written to date and I have been taking extra time to make sure that all of the illustrations and instructions are as simple and clear as they can be.

As a bonus, finishing this quilt was my January goal for the A Lovely Year of Finishes. (Here was my goal post)

I am also linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, and Finish It Up Friday.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Winner of Followers Thank You Giveaway

Thank you all so much for entering my Followers Thank You Giveaway! As a reminder, this giveaway was for a fat eighth bundle of 10 prints from the Shelburne Falls Collection from Denyse Schmidt:

Without further ado....Random.org has picked comment number 3 which was EmileeHope.

Congrats EmileeHope, I am about to send you an e-mail.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Work-in-progress update

I typically finish a quilt before starting a new one and almost never have more than 2 in production at once so I am not sure how this happened, but I have a ton of quilts and patterns in progress right now.

Here is a little update on where things stand...

Vintage Stars quilt:
Quilt finished! (Will be highlighted later this week). I am still working on the pattern, I hope to have it out to my reviewers by the end of this week. A little sneak peak:

Guild Challenge quilt:
At my quilt guild we are having a quilt challenge to make a mini-sized quilt using some sort of text. I am thinking of using these low volume text prints as the background and appliqueing some words over the background patchwork maybe using a quote from my favorite movie "The Princess Bride". Right now I have prints and a very loose plan.

Shoo Fly Pie quilt:
This quilt is doing double duty, it is going to be a baby shower quilt for my boss (she is having a boy) and is a test quilt for my new pattern, Shoo Fly Pie. The quilt is made with some prints from the Modern Maritime collection by Riley Blake. My boss's baby shower is Feb 17th so I have a hard deadline for this quilt. The blocks for the quilt are made, I need to sew them together and figure out a backing now.

Quilt for my new Niece/Nephew
My brother and sister-in-law are expecting their third baby in March so I need to get to making them a baby quilt. They are no finding out the sex of the baby and I want to have the quilt ready to ship so I need to have a baby girl quilt and a baby boy quilt ready and I don't even have patterns picked out yet.

I also want to make the baby's sister and brother little gifts too, I am going to make them each a bag using a pattern by Katherine @ Sew Me Something Good (blogged, pattern on craftsy). The pattern looks wonderful and I am so looking forward to trying it.

Secret quilt:
I have a secret quilt in the works that will hopefully be unveiled in late February / early March. This was my first time writing a tutorial using photographs instead of computer generated images and it was challenging to make sure that each step was photographed well because it is very difficult to go back for more pictures.

Wow, writing this all down has helped organize my to do list (and I will admit that there are some additional things on the list that I have not even started)...I better get working! What are you up to lately?

I'm linking up to Anything Goes Mondays @ Stitch by Stitch, Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times, Sew Cute Tuesday @ Blossom Heart Quilts, Quilt Story Fabric Tuesday, Let's Bee Social @Sew Fresh Quilts, Show and Tell Tuesday @ I Have to Say, WIPs Wednesday @ Esthers Blog, and WIP @ Freshly Pieced.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

GROW YOUR BLOG hop - Meadow Mist Designs

Welcome to the Meadow Mist Designs stop on the

Grow Your Blog party

First off I want to thank Vicki of 2 Bags Full for organizing this blog hop, she has said that there are over 500 blogs taking part in this hop, it has been an incredible amount of work setting this up.

For those who are new here, here is a little about myself (for those that are returning, thank you!).

My name is Cheryl and I am a chemical engineer/patent agent by day, a quilter at night, a mom to a 6 year old son and 3 year old daughter, and a wife. I love designing quilt patterns, writing quilt instructions, and doing quilty math to combine my quilting skills with my engineering and technical writing backgrounds.

Here is a little collage of some finishes from the past year:

For 2014, I am planning of starting a blog series on how to design quilts on Microsoft PowerPoint which is surprising versatile and do almost everything EQ7 can.

I hope that you'll take a look around and decide to follow my blog and join me on my quilting adventures!

Now onto the Giveaway:

This giveaway is for a bundle of my three (3) most popular digital pdf quilt patterns: On a "Jelly" Roll, Charming, and The Quilt in the Hat. This giveaway is open to everyone, anywhere in the world. The patterns will be e-mailed to the winner.

To enter:

(1) Leave a comment, any comment. If you would like a topic to comment on, let me know if you would be interested in how to design quilt patterns using Microsoft PowerPoint.

(2) Followers (new and old) get a second entry, leave a separate comment letting me know how you follow.

Thank you all so much!!

(Note: On normal posts I try to reply to each and every comment, but on giveaway posts having so many comments it is difficult to respond to each one)

** Note: If you decide to follow my blog, I also have a followers only thank you giveaway (A fat eighth bundle of 10 prints from the Shelburne Falls Collection from Denyse Schmidt) going on until the 28th you can enter here.**

Friday, January 24, 2014

Joel Dewberry Bungalow Set

Today I wanted to highlight a custom set of sewing accessories I made made for a client using the purples and blues from the Bungalow collection by Joel Dewberry. I made a matching cathedral window pincushion, needle book, thread catcher, and sewing machine mat.

I was so excited when the client picked out the Bungalow prints, I love the color purple in the collection (I am not normally a purple fan) and the large scale prints were lovely. I think that this purple is close to the Orchid 2014 pantone color of the year.

I made the sewing machine mat as a mini quilt, using 2.5" squares (2" finished) in a 8 x 15 block arrangement and then echo quilted each side of the seams. I was really pleased with how the simple patchwork pattern of the quilt really lets all of the colors and prints shine.

My kitty Abby liked the quilt so much she wanted to model it :)

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, and Finish It Up Friday.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Followers Thank You Giveaway

I have only been blogging since September, but I have met so many wonderful quilters and have already forged such great new relationships that I wanted to have a little giveaway celebration for my followers.

What's up for grabs? A fat eighth bundle of 10 prints from the Shelburne Falls Collection from Denyse Schmidt (I love Denyse Schmidt's fabrics!)

As this giveaway is to celebrate my followers, you must be a follower of this blog to enter (old or new), anywhere around the world.

Leave a comment, any comment (one per person) to enter. If you need an idea for a comment, you can answer: When you are reading a quilt pattern, do you prefer the steps to be shown with pictures or with computer images?

The giveaway will go until Tuesday, January 28th at 9pm EST.

Thank you for joining me in my quilting journey!

Cheryl

Giveaway now closed...thanks for entering

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Wake Up to Kona Blog Hop

Welcome to my stop on the Wake Up To Kona blog hop! This is my first blog hop and I am so excited to be taking part in it. Many thanks to Madame Samm at Sew We Quilt and Carol at Just Let Me Quilt for organizing this blog hop. Be sure to check out all of the other Kona creations from the other blogs, they are spectacular.

I have a Kona color card from 2012 so when Kona introduced the 28 new 2013 colors I figured that instead of buying a new color card, I would buy a charm pack of the colors and make my own color card addition. Because I only needed a little square of each color, I decided that for this blog hop I would make something with the rest of the charm pack.

Combining all of the colors including a burnt orange with a bright pink with a sea blue were definitely outside my comfort zone, but I figured that was the point of the blog hop...to stretch me out of my comfort zone and make something that I would not normally make.

My idea was to make a mini-quilt using a simple hourglass block (blocks are 3.5" finished) so that all of the colors were in small pieces and crowded next to each other. I was very pleased once the quilt top was put together. Each 4 color block was a interesting color combination and my children had fun picking out their favorite combos.

I decided to quilt in vertical lines a little less than 1/4" apart using a light gray Aurifil 50wt thread. I love the look this dense quilting gave to the quilt and I finished the quilt with a binding of Kona coal.

Here are some pictures of the finished mini quilt I am calling Kona Colors 2013. I have decided that it is going to live in my sewing room to add some color to the wall.

Thank you so much stopping by my blog for this wonderful blog hop, make sure that you visit the other blogs hosting the hop today.

Thimblemouse& Spouse

Daisy Days

My Addiction to Quilting

Hill Valley Quilter

Malini’s Quilts

Englating

I hope you enjoyed my stop on the blog hop and will decide to follow my blog and my quilting and pattern drafting adventures!

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, and Finish It Up Friday.

Monday, January 13, 2014

My First Foray into Modern Scrappy Slab Making

I usually do not use the terms "modern quilter" versus "traditional quilter" much as I feel that I play in both worlds, but I will admit that basically every quilted item I have made is based off of a block design. Maybe it's from being an engineer and a planner, I tend to draw out my quilts first and have some sort of repeating element in them.

This past Saturday, at the Greenville Modern Quilt Guild meeting, we discussed scraps, scrap management, and some scrap projects. This meeting was more of an open discussion instead of a speaker so I thought I would make a scrappy slab to show at the meeting. I used the tutorial taught in the book Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkison.

I don't have a huge scrap amount so instead of making the blocks with just one color, I made mine with blues, red, grays, and blacks. I must admit that it was a little difficult to start and make those first seams and cuts. I did not want to use up my precious scraps and create something awful looking, but I pushed ahead, grabbed some prints, and started sewing. Once I got over the initial fear I really had some fun. Sewing the pieces together and seeing the blocks forming was pretty rewarding.

Here are some of my slabs I made:

I took the exercise once step further and combined the slabs into a quick quilt top, adding some irregular borders as a place for the eye to rest a little bit.

I think that I am going to quilt it with a large pebble pattern all over, with the curved quilting hopefully contrasting nicely with all of the straight lines.

So that is my first fun adventure with no-block design, scrappy modern slab making. It was super fun and I will be trying it again soon (as soon as I clean up, piecing with scraps makes for quite the mess :)

I'm linking up to Anything Goes Mondays @ Stitch by Stitch, Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times, Sew Cute Tuesday @ Blossom Heart Quilts, Quilt Story Fabric Tuesday, Let's Bee Social @Sew Fresh Quilts, Take a Look Tuesday @ Sugar Bee Crafts, Show and Tell Tuesday @ I Have to Say, WIPs Wednesday @ Esthers Blog, and WIP @ Freshly Pieced.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Sashing question and Blog hop announcement

First up a sashing question:

When I originally designed the Vintage Stars pattern I envisioned a white sashing between the blocks, but I started questioning that decision and wondering if there would be too much white in the quilt.

I tried out all sorts of colors and prints as the sashing and the leading candidates are Kona white and Kona ash. I have mocked up the quilt top as best I can to get an idea on how each sashing color will make the quilt top look.

Could I have your help in deciding, which sashing do you prefer, white or ash? Thanks for your help!

Vintage stars "sashed" with Kona ash

Vintage Stars "sashed" in Kona white

Secondly a blog hop announcement:

I am going to be taking part in my first blog hop, Wake Up To Kona hosted by Carol at Just Let Me Quilt going from January 7th-21st. My day is January 15th. Here is a little peek into my project and the schedule for the whole hop: