Flea Market Fancy Fat Quarter Bundle Giveaway

The hand pieced quilt along is coming to an end soon. I have enjoyed the process immensely. I loved hearing your comments and emails about hand piecing too. I know I will continue to hand piece quilts in the future. One of the comments I received often was about the fabric I used in my blocks. I used Flea Market Fancy for all of my blocks. Most of mine were made from pieces that my very lovely and generous quilty friends swapped me. They were from the first Flea Market Fancy print. I started making my hand pieced blocks before the reprinted collection was available but I was so happy that some of the collection was being reprinted because I was running out of some of the prints I wanted to use for my hand pieced quilt. Well the reprint sold out of many shops right away too. Many of us are waiting for second shipments of the reprint to make their way into quilt shops.

Well I am, over the moon, excited to say that fabricworm has the entire collection in stock! fabricworm is offering 20% off Flea Market Fancy now until Friday 4/20 @ 11:59 pm PST. I have my order in my cart and ready to go. I am making one of my dearest friends a wedding quilt with Flea Market Fancy. I think the colors will fit in nicely with a Cinco de Mayo wedding!This is such an awesome deal. I've been waiting for my local quilt shop to get their order but this is actually more cost effective for me because even with shipping charges it is still less expensive for me to order online with fabricworm using the discount than it is to use the gas to drive to my local quilt shop and pay full price.

I am also so very excited to say that they are offering a Fat Quarter Bundle of all 21 prints to one of my lucky readers!!! Gasp!!!The super sweet owner of fabricworm, Cynthia, has this beautiful bundle cut, set, aside, and ready to ship to a new home :) Can you believe that?! Thank you so much Cynthia!

to enter leave a comment...
if you read my blog you can leave another comment...
if you participated in the hand pieced quilt along or joined the hand pieced flickr group leave another comment...
and lastly if you facebook, tweet or pin (pinterest) and feel like spreading the word then come back and leave another comment.
that's 4 chances to win some of the most fantastic fabric ever printed :)!!!

I'll announce a winner Friday April 27th. Thanks for entering and good luck!!!

☆☆☆ Please forgive me for not posting a hand pieced tutorial this week. I am nursing a ruptured ear drum right now so there has been no sewing or picture taking happening here. I plan to have the next step in our quilt along posted Friday the April 27th. Thanks so much for understanding.☆☆☆

Fat Quarter Shop Giveaway!!!!

The very wonderful Fat Quarter Shop has offered not 1 but 2 California Girl Jelly Rolls to giveaway!!! Isn't that awesome of them?!

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I love Joanna Figueroa and Fig Tree Quilts. There is not one of her fabric lines that I didn't love. California Girl is no exception!

The colors are so fresh. I love the soft feminine feel of this line. Don't you?! Can't you see a Granny Squares quilt made with this and some creamy white fabric?! That's what I would make :)

I'm really excited to be able to pick 2 winners (using random number generator)! Leave a comment telling me what you would make with a Jelly Roll of California Girl (a quilt for me, just kidding). I'll announce the winner next Monday 4/23.

Honey Bees, Granny Squares and Simple Patchwork

Hope you all are having a restful Sunday. I wanted to pop in and show you the finished 6 inch Honey Bee block for the hand pieced quilt along. Isn't it adorable?! I am sure it is my absolute favorite of the whole bunch!!

I only have 5 more Granny Squares to make for this quilt and then I'll add the sashing. I was going to make matching Granny Square quilts for my girls using what I had left of my Sweet fabric (Urbans Chicks) and some other cute soft pinks and aquas but my oldest said she would rather have this one. So I'm debating on making the other one now or using that fabric for a simple patchwork quilt.

Well with the Granny Squares quilt top nearly finished I let myself make a couple of patchwork squares using what I have of Bliss, Ruby and Vintage Modern (Bonnie and Camille). You can see some of my seams don't line up so nice (especially one spot on the aqua block) because I had to fudge it a little. My bliss patches were 2 1/4 in. and the rest were 2.5in. So I moved my needle over to give me a bigger seam allowance and catch just a hair more than 1/8 of an inch on those Bliss patches, if that makes sense. I was going to mix all of the colors (pink, aqua, red, grey and green) in each block but I know me and I would spend way too much time fretting over placement and then it's more stress than fun so I went with one color per block and love it!
Did you get any sewing time in this weekend? What are you planning on sewing this week? I'd like to work on some Farmer's Wife blocks. I find I work on 3 or 4 of them then take a long break.  Then I really start itching to make some, make 3 or 4 and take another long break. It's a pattern I am happy with :)

linking up with
and  JAQS Studio for Made by Me Wednesdays.

Hand Pieced Quilt-A-Long Block #12 ~ Honey Bee

Well this is the last block for the hand pieced quilt along. I decided on one of my very, very favorite blocks (don't I say that every week?), Honey Bee! It combines piecing and applique. A great skill builder.

For this block (6 inch) you will need:

4 ~ 2 in. squares (corners, print)

4 ~ 2 x 3.5 in. rectangles (sides, background)

4 ~ 1.5 in. squares (print, inner nine patch squares, mine are yellow)

5 ~ 1.5 in. squares (print, outer nine patch squares, mine are blue)

12 ~ honey bee / tear drop shaped pieces (print, mine are yellow)

freezer paper or regular paper

Honey Bee applique template here

(I printed this out and it is a bit smaller than what I drew so you may have to play with the size a bit or feel free to draw your own.)

or you can save the image here and adjust it to fit the quilt pieces.

I'll start with the applique pieces. First trace the template onto your freezer paper. Cut out the pieces. Iron them onto the back of the fabric. 

Trim 1/4 in. away from the template. 

Fold the center of the pointed end in first. (please excuse my sick little cutting board. It is far beyond self healing and I am in need of a new one)

Then fold each side in to make a nice point. Thread a needle and insert it into the point 

and fold your fabric over the template the whole way around using a basting stitch. Make 12 of these.

**Note that I assemble my whole block before I sew my applique pieces down. That way you can see that everything is placed exactly how you want it and not going to get sewn into the seam allowance. I am just showing you rather quickly for the sake of time. You can use matching thread and make your stitches look much nicer than I did here.

With my applique piece in place, on top of the piece of fabric it is being appliqued to, I bring my needle up from underneath of my fabric just catching the applique piece and go back into the fabric right at the edge of the applique piece.

Continue sewing down your applique piece this way leaving about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch open. Take out your basting thread.

Remove the paper.

Use your needle to turn the seam allowance under and continue sewing in the same manner you did before until your applique piece is completely sewn down.

To assemble block see picture. It is the cutest block and I can't wait to see the 6 inch version when I finish it. 

Here are the links to Blocks 1~11:

Block #1 ~ Churn Dash

Block #2 ~ Jacob's Ladder

Block #3 ~ Ohio Star

Block #4 ~ Bear Paw

Block #5 ~ Granny Square

Block #6 ~ Shoo-Fly

Block #7 ~ Card Trick

Block #8 ~ Friendship Star 

Block #9 ~ Square in a Square

Block #10 ~ Log Cabin

Block #11 ~ Flying Geese Pinwheel

Come join us over at the hand pieced flickr group!

Next week we will go over assembling the quilt top!!! Have a great weekend!

WIP Wednesday ~ 4/11/12

It's been a slow week around here. Everyone has come down with a cold. I've spent days sitting on the couch cuddling with sick little kiddos. So I have to be pretty quick on here today before I am called to sit on the couch and watch Mustard Pancakes for the umpteenth time.
I sewed a few more hexagons into flowers. Right now I think I am going with the aqua Kona to put in between my flowers unless I find a more traditional green that I like. 

I crocheted more Granny Squares. I wanted a more cream colored white but my sister in law assured me that this bright white looked better. I think I need 100 of these. I have 12 :)

I played around with little squares.

and I sewed my hand pieced block for the week and worked out the measurements and template for Friday's block.
That's it. I finished nothing. Started new things and worked on one old thing.
Now back to my seat on the couch that now has my rear end permanently imprinted on it.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

See ya Friday :)

Good Friday

 Here is the story if you were ever curious.

Happy Easter!

Hand Pieced Quilt-A-Long Block #11 ~ Flying Geese Pinwheel

I asked Jacque if she had any suggestions for this week's block and she suggested a pinwheel. I thought that was a brilliant suggestion and I really love pinwheels. I chose a Flying Geese Pinwheel because I get many compliments and questions about my Flying Geese Pinwheel quilts. There are a few speed piecing methods for Flying Geese units but I think they are more geared towards machine piecing. So for this block we will use the traditional method of piecing flying geese.

For the block you will need:
1 ~ 4 1/4 inch square for the geese (print)
4 ~ 2 3/8 inch square for the sky (background)
4 ~ 2 x 3 1/2 inch rectangles (background)

Mark a line on each diagonal of the 4 1/4 in. print square. Mark your sewing / seam allowance lines also.

Mark a diagonal line on the 2 3/8 in. background squares, 4 total. Mark your seam allownace, mark the seam allowance for the 2 x 3 1/2 in. rectangles too.

Sew your Flying Geese units together, 4 total.

Sew a 2 x 3 1/5 in. rectangle to the pointy end of your Flying Geese unit.

Layout your units in a pinwheel pattern. Sew your 4 units together. I like to sew left to right, top to bottom.

Here are all of my blocks so far...

Here are the links to Blocks 1~10:
Block #1 ~ Churn Dash
Block #2 ~ Jacob's Ladder
Block #3 ~ Ohio Star
Block #4 ~ Bear Paw
Block #5 ~ Granny Square
Block #6 ~ Shoo-Fly
Block #7 ~ Card Trick
Block #8 ~ Friendship Star 
Block #9 ~ Square in a Square
Block #10 ~ Log Cabin

Come join us over at the hand pieced flickr group!

I hope you all have a happy weekend :)