Tic Tac Hashtag Quilt - Finished

My finish to show you today is a baby version of a new pattern I am working on called Tic Tac Hashtag.  I came up with pattern earlier this year and made it my Lovely Year of Finishes goal to have the quilt finished by the end of the month (I hope to have the pattern finished and tested by the end of next month).  Here was my WIP post for Tic Tac Hashtag (and April goal setting post).

While I went with a red and blue variation, because the quilt uses two colors plus a background, I thought that it would be a great pattern to highlight favorite sports team or college colors.  The blocks are really large (16" x 16" finished) so this baby quilt having only 9 blocks came together pretty quickly.

I went back and forth on the quilting and finally decided on some large scale cross-hatch quilting to give the quilt a little texture but not take away from the simple piecing.  For the backing, I was originally going to use a large scale blue floral print, but once the top was complete I liked how it was very simple and gender neutral so I went with a solid gray.  The finishing touch is the bias stripe binding (from April Showers by Bonnie and Camille).  I love how well it matches the solid blue and gives the quilt top a little something extra.

Quilt Stats:

Pattern:  Tic Tac Hastag by Meadow Mist Designs (available soon), in the baby size (48" x 48")
Fabrics:  Kona Royal, Kona White, Polka dot by Robert Kaufman, Blue bias stripe from April Showers by Bonnie and Camille for Moda
Quilting: by me in a large scale cross-hatch pattern using Aurifil 50wt in 2024 white

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, Finish It Up Friday, Off the Wall Fridays,Fabric Frenzy Friday,  Sewjo @ My Go Go Life, Show Off Saturday @ Sew She Can, and ALYoF.

Sew Mama Sew Tutorial - Oakshott HST Pillow

Just a quick post (and giveaway) to let you know that I have a tutorial over at Sew Mama Sew and am being introduced as a contributor today!

My tutorial is an Oakshott Half Square Triangle Pillow made using 99 HST and the Oakshott Impressions fabric collection.

I think that a celebration is in order!  How about a little giveaway?

This giveaway will be for a $10 gift certificate to Contemporary Cloth for anyone, anywhere in the world.  This giveaway will be open until Wednesday April 30th at 10pm EST.

(Contemporary Cloth sponsored the Sew Mama Sew post and supplied the fabric for the pillow, however, this giveaway is not sponsored by them but was paid for by myself)

To enter:

(1)  Leave a comment, any comment.  If you would like a topic to comment on, let me know if the amount of quilting you do varies over the course of a year or stays roughly the same.


(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)

Swapping

A while ago, I came across a post from Jennifer who blogs over at Secondhand Dinosaur for a Favorite Fabric Swap.  She was looking for some very nice fabrics (she has excellent taste in fabrics) and the last print she had posted which was a red poppy print that looked familiar.  I looked through my scraps and found that I had a few large-ish scrap pieces of that print and sent an e-mail off to Jennifer to see if she would like them.  She said she would and we decided on a scrap and small drawstring bag or zipper pouch swap.

From her blog I saw that she liked solids and did not care too much for pink so when I saw the trims of different blues and teals from my son's quilt I had to use them in a draw string bag for her (yes, these are the same scraps that made their way into the Improv Quilt Two I posted last week).

I used In Color Order's tutorial, it was a very well and clearly written tutorial and the only thing I changed was to add a scrappy band in the middle of the bag.  I used this fun ruler twill tape and some hoarded Summersville house print fabric for the lining, and I think that it worked very nicely.

Post Updated:  I bought the twill tape from this lovely etsy store LittleRedCottage.


The drawstring bag and scraps have been mailed off and received so I could show you them here.

Thanks for stopping by!

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, Finish It Up Friday, Off the Wall Fridays,Fabric Frenzy Friday,  Sewjo @ My Go Go Life, Show Off Saturday @ Sew She Can.

Winner, winner

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway and helped spread the word about my two new patterns, Shoo Fly Pie and Peanut Butter Pinwheels.

And now to the winners...the giveaway was for for two people to win both patterns, but I decided to give three people both patterns.  Random.org selected

Debbie

Sewing Mom

Jodydeschenes

Debbie - you are a winner but you are a no-reply blogger so I have no way of contacting you, please send me your e-mail address to meadowmistdesigns (at) gmail (dot) com so that I can send you your patterns :)

Thanks again and congrats to the winners!

Improv Quilt Two Finish

Earlier this week, I used some quilt scraps from my son's quilt to make a mini improv quilt I am calling Improv Quilt Two (in progress - blogged here).  I quilted the mini using matchstick quilting in a light grey Aurifil thread.  The quilt finished at about 13" x 18".

For the first time, I used facing instead of binding.  I used this tutorial from Susan Brubaker Knapp @ Blue Moon River.  Facing was actually was easier then I thought it was going to be.  The only issue I ran into was that with all of the clips and pins holding the facing in place on the back, my hand sewing thread kept getting tangled and caught on the pins.  Here are some more finished pictures...

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, Finish It Up Friday, Off the Wall Fridays, Fabric Frenzy Friday,  Sewjo @ My Go Go Life, Show Off Saturday @ Sew She Can.

WIP Wednesday - April 9th, 2014

I have been busy lately drafting and finishing up some patterns and tutorials which means lots of computer time and less sewing time.  After working on the patterns for a long time my eyes started to cross with all of the quilty math and I had to break away.  In my sewing room, I could have continued working on my many already in progress quilts, but I really felt like playing.

I took the scraps from the double/queen sized quilt I am working on for my son (tentatively named Sea Star), here is some blocks laid out but not yet sewn together...

... and free pieced them into small quilt top (about 13" x 18").  My husband said that it looked like a 70's basement (I was not sure if that was an insult or a compliment).

I decided to do some matchstick quilting using a light grey Aurifil thread after being inspired by some matchstick quilting by Winding Bobbins.  I started by marking a straight line in the middle of the quilt and quilted out from the line using the outer edge of my walking foot (so the lines were about 3/8 of an inch apart).  I then quilted a line between each of those lines and then finally quilted a line between the lines again.

I really like how the mini looks without a binding so my plan is to try facing this quilt instead of binding it.  Hopefully I'll have a finish to show on Friday.

I'm linking up to  Sew Cute Tuesday @ Blossom Heart Quilts, Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story, Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts, Needle and Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation, and WIP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced.

Fox Friends, Aurifil, and Ruler Holders Oh My

Welcome to my Sunday Stash report...

I was down to my last spool of Aurifil white (I get really nervous and my eye starts twitching when that happens :)  so luckily I found some great deals on Aurifil thread at my local quilt show and at Pink Castle. Here are the 9 spools I picked up.

And now Fox Friends...I had been debating over this line since I saw the previews.  As soon as it came out I got some yardage of the polkadot bunny prints and tried to convince myself that it was enough.  Enter the sale at Pink Castle and the fat quarter bundle jumped into my cart (that is my story and I am sticking to it).

When I was at the quilt show helping out the in book sales area, one fellow quilter came in with one of these:

I don't have too many rulers (yet), but for the ones I did have I was storing them all in a stack on my bookshelf which meant that every time I pulled one out they all wound up all over the floor.  I am loving this organization.

Finally, I went to put my Bernina in for its 1 year cleaning and started talking with one of the sales women about a quilting issue I was having (when quilting in a straight line, when I turned the quilt 90 degrees or more I often wound up with a birds nest on the back).  She recommended trying the straight stitch plate so I bought one of those and will let you know if it solves the problem.

Happy Stashing!  I'm linking up with Sunday Stash with Molli Sparkles.

ALYoF Goal for April

As a new month has just started I need to get my A Lovely Year of Finishes April goal set.  I have been doing very well with my goals so far this year.  I have linked up and finished my goals each month.  I hope that this month is no different.

My goal this month is to finish my Tic Tac Hashtag quilt.  Here is a picture of the quilt top.  I actually have almost finished quilting it now so hopefully this will be an easy goal to finish this month.

I need an easy goal because:

• I cut the tip of my left thumb off yesterday morning while making breakfast.  It was not too deep (no stitches needed), just deep enough to bleed forever and be really sore.
• I have a number of quilt patterns and tutorials to be working on and finishing up.  I need to finish those before I start some more quilting.

Because of the above reasons, it might be a little quieter on the blog in April than usual.

Also, in happy news, if you look at the list of sponsers for ALYoF, you will see Meadow Mist Designs!  I will be giving away a copy of a digital pattern each month.

Happy Quilting!

I'm linking up to A Lovely Year of Finishes.