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.**

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.

 

 



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

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.

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.

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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.