Welcome Bear Creek Quilting Company and Giveaway

Today, I would like to welcome Bear Creek Quilting Company as Meadow Mist Designs' second sponsor!

Bear Creek Quilting Company is run by Shari, one of the nicest women I have met through my blog. I had the opportunity to work with her to bring you the Rainbow Rail Fence quilt pattern in 2014 and am currently working on a new quilt pattern for her using the wonderful Paradiso line by Kate Spain.

Bear Creek Quilting Company is a fantastic online fabric and quilting shop including premium cotton, flannel and batik quilting fabrics.  I love the huge selection and how the store and has something for every quilting style.

I also love that Bear Creek Quilting Company offers Free shipping on orders over $65.00 and $5.00 Flat Rate shipping on orders up to $65.00 (in the US).

Starting today, the Bear Creek Quilting Company is having a huge year end celebration sale with 10-80% off selected merchandise throughout the store with Clearance being added to and updated daily. (25% off all books, 25% Kona Cotton Solids, 25% off Charm Packs, large selection of remnants on sale and clearance updated daily are just some of the highlights.)

Shari has been so generous to offer a $20 Gift Certificate to Bear Creek Quilting Company to one lucky winner!

Here is how to enter, just one comment per person:


1. Please sign up for the Bear Creek Quilting Company newsletter (it is in the upper right hand of the home page) and let me know that you did so. (As a bonus, for signing up for the newsletter you will automatically be entered into a monthly giveaway)  

Note: If you are a no-reply blogger then please include your e-mail address. If I can not reach you, you can not win.

I hope you all are having a wonderful and relaxing holiday season!!

* Giveaway now closed, thanks for entering! *

Top 5 Posts of 2014

I hope that everyone is getting set for a fun and hopefully relaxing holiday season.

2014 has been such a fun year and as we near the end, I thought I would take a look back and highlight the top 5 posts by views (the title of each post is a link to the full post)...

# 5  Charity Quilt Finish and Mystery Quilt-A-Long Announcement

#4  Check Plus in Quilty Magazine

#3  Vintage Stars Quilt Finished

#2  Looking Glass Finished

#1  Candy Circle Quilt at the Moda Bake Shop

Pile O'Fabric Stash Bundle Giveaway

Today I have a wonderfully giveaway sponsored by Pile O'Fabric! 

Pile O'Fabric is my my blog's first sponsor and is run by Alyssa Lichner, a graphic designer turned avid sewist. Alyssa has a very popular blog, frequently posting wonderful teaching tutorials and patterns, and this year opened a shop which sells modern fabrics and notions (with free US shipping on orders of at least $45).

Each week, Pile O'Fabric highlights a stash bundle (in both solids and patterns) in a particular theme or colorway and offers it for a special reduced price for that week. I had the super fun opportunity to curate a bundle!!

I fell in love with the Midnight Flora in Navy print and decided to build a bundle around, pulling in the blues, corals, and tans from the flowers.


To give you an idea on how the bundle looks in quilts, I have rendered two of my quilt patterns using the bundle fabrics, Broken Frames and Shoo Fly Pie.

And now for the Giveaway for both bundles (prints and solids)!  That is 12 fat quarters total!!

Here is how to enter:

The giveaway is open to all participants, but international winners will receive a $30 store credit instead of the fabric. This giveaway will last one week, until 8pm EST on December 26th and the fabric will ship directly from Pile O'Fabric.

1. You must sign up to receive the Pile O' Fabric Newsletter. Please leave a comment letting me know that you subscribe.

2. My followers, old and new, get an additional entry. Please leave a second comment letting me know how you subscribe (I have buttons on the upper left side of the blog for following by e-mail, bloglovin, and feedly).

Note: If you are a no-reply blogger then please include your e-mail address. If I can not reach you, you can not win.

Giveaway now closed - thanks for entering

December Foothills Mystery Quilt - My Blocks

The December instructions for the Foothills Mystery Quilt were to make some Hourglass Units and 4-Patch Blocks.  (All of the instructions for previous months can be found in the tab above.)

Here is a picture of my blocks and units, in all of their scrappy goodness.

Thanks for quilting along with me :)

I am linking up to Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story, Sew Cute Tuesday @ Blossom Heart Quilts, Show and Tuesday @ Freshly Squeezed Fabrics, and Scraptastic Tuesday @ She Can Quilt.

Sew Mama Sew Winner and Responce Results

Thank you all so much for the super response to this year's Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day! There were a total of 874 entries for the Fat Quarter Berry Bundle of Cotton & Steel Blenders.

Without further ado, Random.org has selected comment #419.

Which was Natasha!  Congratulations!

The optional question for the giveaway day was what precut size you find to be the most challenging to figure out what to do with (charm pack, jelly roll, layer cake, fat 8ths, fat quarters, etc).  

It was so interesting to read what each person said.  As an engineer, I thought some graphs of the responses might be interesting.  

By far, jelly rolls were cited as being the most difficult precut size to work with. Most people said the shape of the strip was limiting or they could not find a jelly roll pattern they liked. A number of respondents admitted that they did love how cute they looked all rolled up on their shelves though :)

For the mini charm packs and charm packs, the largest amount of comments were around there not being enough fabric to make a substantial item from the packs (a lot of respondents said they picked up 1 charm pack here and there and then could never figure out what to do with it).

Fat eighths were cited as being a weird size which was difficult to figure out a plan for, always being too large or too small a piece of fabric. Layer cakes and fat quarters were called out for being difficult most often because there were so many possibilities.

I love designing with precuts and from your responses I have an idea on which precuts to focus on next year. I actually have a Moda Bake Shop tutorial that will publish next month which makes a great baby sized quilt using only 1 charm pack, so maybe that will help with some of the lone charm packs people have :)

Thank you so much to everyone who decided to follow my blog. I hope to bring you fun and useful content and most importantly get to know you all!!

Thanks!
Cheryl

Meadow Star Table Runner - Free Pattern for Camelot Fabrics

I am happy to introduce my third quilt pattern for Camelot Fabrics called the Meadow Star Table Runner which is now available as a free download on Camelot's website.

The quilt pattern is a modern take on a classic quilt block, and is shown using the Itty Bitty collection by Andrea Turk for Camelot Fabrics.  By adding some more blocks, you could easily make this pattern into a baby, lap, or bed quilt.

Here are some other versions of the quilt using Camelot fabrics:

Please go take a look and download the free pattern and check out all of the patterns I designed for Camelot Fabrics.

I hope that if you make a Meadow Star table runner or quilt that you will consider adding it to the Meadow Mist Designs flickr group :)

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

Guest Posting A Tuesday Tip @ The Cozy Pumpkin

Today, I'm sharing a fabric storage tip over on The Cozy Pumpkin. It involves salad and fabric storage, an unlikely combination, right?

I hope you'll hop over and check it out!

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

Welcome to the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

This is my third time participating in the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day.  I love Sew Mama Sew (I became a Sew Mama Sew Contributor this year) and I enjoy spending a few many, many hours entering giveaways and finding new wonderful blogs each SMS Giveaway Day.   

So onto the giveaway....who wants some Cotton & Steel?  Up for grabs is a 9-piece fat quarter Berry Bundle of Cotton & Steel blenders.  

I am a fan of the Cotton & Steel fabrics, especially the blenders because they are so versatile and the rich colors and fun accents like metallic printing make them irresistible.  

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 and a quilter at night.  I have a wonderfully supportive husband who allowed me to turn the guest bedroom into my quilting room, a 7 year old son and 4 year old daughter.  I love designing quilt patterns and doing quilty math which allow me to combine my quilting skills with my engineering and technical writing backgrounds.  In addition to my blog, you can find me hanging out on Instagram as MeadowMistDesigns.

I sell my patterns and sewing accessories on etsy (as Meadow Mist Designs) and patterns on craftsy (craftsy also has a couple of free patterns).

In 2014, I have had the privilege of contributing to several magazines, including Quilty, Make Modern, Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, and Fat Quarterly.  I am currently hosting a Mystery Quilt-a-long I designed and have been busy adding new tutorials as well as working on some new quilt patterns.

2015 looks like it is going to be just as busy so I hope that you will decide to join me in my quilty adventures.  Here are a few of my recent finishes...

Now on to enter the giveaway!! 

This giveaway is open to everyone, everywhere in the world and is for one (1) Berry Bundle of Cotton & Steel which includes 9 fat quarters of the blenders collection.  This giveaway starts today (Monday December 8th) and will run until Friday December 12 at 8 p.m. EST. (To lower shipping costs, the fabric bundle might be disassembled.)

To enter:

1. Leave a comment, any comment. If you would like a topic, I would love to know what precut size you find to be the most challenging to figure out what to do with (charm pack, jelly roll, layer cake, fat 8ths, fat quarters, etc).

2. My followers, old and new, get an additional entry. Please leave a second comment letting me know how you subscribe (I have buttons on the upper left side of the blog for following by e-mail, bloglovin, and feedly).


Note: If you are a no-reply blogger then please include your e-mail address. If I can not reach you, you can not win.

Thank you so much and I hope that you will decide to follow my blog and join me on my quilting, sewing, and pattern writing adventures!PS - On normal posts, I try to respond to each and every comment and visit the blogs of those who comment, but on giveaway posts I unable to due to the high number of comments.

** Giveaway now closed, thanks for entering! **

Xmas Quilt

Today I would like to show you an old pre-blogging days (xmas 2012) quilt finish.  It is a Christmas quilt I made for my family so it felt right to show it today at the start of our holiday season.

I made the quilt using the Briar Rose pattern by England Street Quilts and a jelly roll of Joy by Kate Spain.  Joy is still one of my favorite Xmas fabric collections with its addition of the blue prints.  I still have a charm pack of Joy that I am hoarding :)

I made this quilt before I got my Bernina so it was pieced and quilted on my old 1980's slant shank Singer.  The sewing machine does not have any sort of extension table so quilting this large lap size quilt was a bit difficult and hard on the wrists.  I used a loopy quilting pattern with some stars and my families name thrown in once and a while.

In other news, thank you so much for making the launch of Looking Glass such a success!  The pattern reached the #2 best seller spot on craftsy.  You can still get the pattern for the reduced price of $5.50 for one more day (the pattern will go up to its full price on Sunday Dec 7th).  You can find the pattern in both my Etsy shop and Craftsy shop.

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

Foothills Mystery Quilt - December Instructions

Welcome to the December instructions for the Foothills Mystery Quilt-a-long! The instructions for previous months can be found in the Foothills Mystery Quilt tab above.  The monthly instructions will be posted on the first Thursday of each month.

Please share your in-progress pictures on our flicker group Meadow Mist Designs and on Instagram using the hastag #FoothillsMystery so that everyone can see your progress :)

And now onto December's instructions, we will be making some hourglass units and 4-patch blocks.  This month's piecing should be very quick as I know that everyone's Decembers are very busy.

Hourglass Units

Using 9 fabric set C squares (7½” x 7½”) and 9 fabric set B squares (7½” x 7½”), form 17 hourglass units (6½” x 6½”).

a.  Place 1 fabric set C square (7½” x 7½”) and 1 fabric set B square (7½” x 7½”) right sides together.  Draw a diagonal line using a removable marking device on the back of the fabric set B square (shown as the solid line).

b.  Sew ¼” on either side of the solid line (shown as the dotted lines).  Cut on the solid line and press seam towards the fabric set C fabric forming 18 HST units (do not trim yet).

c.  Place 2 HST units together, right sides together such that the seams nest with each other.  Draw a diagonal line using a removable marking device on the back of one of the HST units (shown as the solid line).

Note: If you are using multiple prints or colors for fabric sets B or C, be sure to mix up the HST units within the pairs of HST units to ensure a good mix of colors and/or prints in the resultant hourglass units. 

d.  Sew ¼” on either side of the solid line (shown as the dotted lines).  Cut on the solid line and press seam open.  Repeat for a total of 18 hourglass units (the quilt uses only 17 so you will have one hourglass unit extra).

e.  Trim the hourglass blocks to 6½” x 6½”. 

Four-Patch Blocks

Using 24 fabric set A squares (3½” x 3½”), form 6 four-patch blocks (6½” x 6½”).

a.  Arrange 4 fabric set A squares (3½” x 3½”) as shown below.

b.  Sew units into rows, pressing seams open or to alternating sides.

c.  Sew rows into block, pressing seams open.  The blocks should measure 6½” x 6½”.

Repeat for a total of 6 four-patch blocks (6½” x 6½”).

Thanks so much for quilting along with me!

Pile O'Fabric - New Sponsor

I would like to welcome Pile O'Fabric as the first official sponsor of Meadow Mist Designs.

Pile O'Fabric is run by Alyssa Lichner who is a graphic designer turned avid sewist.  Alyssa has a very popular blog, frequently posting wonderful teaching tutorials and patterns, and recently opened a shop which sells modern fabrics and notions.  

Each week, Pile O'Fabric highlights a stash bundle (in both solids and patterns) in a particular theme or colorway and offers it for a special reduced price for that week.  I had the chance to curate a bundle (so much fun!) which will be announced in December along with a chance to win it on my blog :)

Just last week, Alyssa announced a new Skill Builder Block of the Month (BOM) for 2015.  As soon as I saw it I knew that I had to join in.  One of my goals for 2015 is to take some time to learn new quilting skills and this BOM fits the bill perfectly (not to mention that I will have an awesome quilt when it is finished). I will be posting my progress in the quilt-a-long throughout the year and I hope that you will join me!

You can check out the details of the Pile O'Fabric 2015 Skill Builder BOM right here.  You can even purchase a kit to make the quilt top or entire quilt.  I am going to try to use my stash almost exclusively, though I may have to buy a couple of purple or yellow fabrics as my stash is very light in those colors.

So if you have a minute, please check out Alyssa's store, BOM and blog to welcome her to Meadow Mist Designs :)