Needle and Thread Thursday

Happy NTT, friends, and happy October!  I have been swamped around here with several memory quilts, and haven't taken any time at all to just sew for fun in the past week (still working on that balance thing).  I have an idea for a quilt using my scraps, and I'm hoping I get to play around with it a little bit in the next couple of days.  So, let's get right down to the highlights from last week's party!

This Gravity quilt by Myra at Busy Hands Quilts is just stunning (you know I love a rainbow)!

Jessie from Measuring Success linked up her Stacked Squares quilt and I love the color palette.  This is such a fun illusion.

and finally, I couldn't resist this pop of green and blue in this medallion quilt by Kate at Life in Pieces.

So let's party, friends!

1.  You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

NTT and Swallowing My Pride

Happy first day of Fall, y'all, and welcome to Needle and Thread Thursday!  This past week, I've been working on my Truffles pattern, and if you missed it, I just released it yesterday.  It is now available in my Craftsy and Etsy shops!  I've also been working on a couple of quilts that really forced me to swallow my pride in a favor to a friend.

For the most part, I keep my blog a sports-free zone, but as some of you may already know, I am a huge LSU fan.  I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, LA just minutes away from campus, and that's where I earned my undergraduate degree.  Well, if you're a sports fan at all, you know that rivalries can be brutal, and Ole Miss is one of our biggest SEC rivals.  It just so happens that Ole Miss is only about an hour away from where we currently live, so it is practically a local school, and you can't throw a stone in the Memphis area without hitting an Ole Miss fan.  Anyway, a friend's son and his best friend just started at Ole Miss this semester, and she asked me to make two quilts for them.

Let me tell you- it was tough for this LSU girl to get these done.

Most of the red and navy blue fabrics came from the Metro Living line, which are really beautiful fabrics with classic geometric prints.  My favorite print by far though, is not from this line.  My favorite is the red commuter train map fabric that you can see in the bottom row of the above photo.  It is really cool!  There are several fabrics in these quilts that are small prints with both red and navy combined, and although they are showing up really muddled in the photos, they really don't look too busy in person.

The backings of both quilts are identical.  I used wide WOF stripes of all of the leftover fabrics, along with some chambray to widen them out.  The quilts finished at 60" x 60" square.

The first day I worked on these quilts, my son came home from school and was positively horrified.  He let me know right away that I should be ashamed of myself and jokingly wondered how working on them didn't make me physically ill (that kid cracks me up!).  Yes, these quilts were made with a small amount of personal shame.  Ah...the things we do for friends.  :)

So, without further ado, check out some of my favorites from last week's party, which incidentally gave me plenty of eye candy while I was looking all of that red and navy this week!

Patch the Giraffe's X-ceptional quilt is so fresh and happy!

The colors in this Urban Sunrise quilt from Ida Rather Be Quilting is absolutely stunning, and the quilting is just as amazing.  There are some close-ups of it on her blog, so check it out if you missed it.

and Janet at Simply Pieced modified a cathedral window pincushion pattern to create this lovely little baby quilt!  The pops of pink are just perfect!

I hope you've been creating something in your sewing space that you absolutely adore!  Let's party!

1.  You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

Truffles Pattern!

Hooray!  My Truffles quilt pattern is finally released!  I've been working on a couple of quilts for a friend, which had me a little bit sidetracked on finishing it up, but I'm proud to say that this one is now available in my Craftsy and Etsy shops!  If you missed them, you can see the other finished photos of this quilt HERE.

This really has been one of my favorites recently.  I don't tend to love blocks that have a lot of pressing between steps, but sometimes you just can't get around it.  Well, this pattern has very little of that nonsense.  They go together pretty fast.  I really love patterns where I can put the whole block together (or almost) without pressing until the very end, so this pattern is right up my alley.

I just love all of the different fun shapes created in the pattern, but my favorite has to be the little cog/sprocket shape in the white space.  My eye is just drawn to it!  I hope you'll try this pattern out, and I hope you love it as much as I do!

NTT and Truffles

Happy Needle and Thread Thursday, y'all!  Before we get into today's post, I want to make sure you know that I have two giveaways going on right now, and several coupons, including a great coupon for quilt labels from Finer Ribbon!  You can enter the giveaways HERE!  Alrighty then, now that that's taken care of, let me share my newest finish, Truffles!

I settled on the name Truffles because the round, overlapping shapes remind me of little treats piled on a plate, and the colors just look so sweet!  I really loved working with these colors.  As much as I like them, it's not a palette I've used very often.

The backing is pieced simply with scraps from the front, and although I wish I had a little bit more red fabric on the back, when you're working with the leftovers, you just use what you have!

Kona Rich Red is the perfect frame for this quilt.  It blends with the deepest red beautifully and really pops.  I don't buy a lot of solids just for my stash because I prefer to coordinate them with each project as I go along.  This is one of the few solids I happened to have in my cabinet though, so I was thrilled that it worked so well.  That means that other than the white, every bit of fabric for this one came out of my cabinet- winning!

Can you tell that I'm really making an effort lately to make quilts entirely from stash?  Snatching up fabric when I find a great sale is fantastic, but unless I actually make a concerted effort to use what I have, it doesn't do much good.

By the way, I'm still putting the finishing touches on the Truffles pattern, so be on the lookout for it within the next week or so!  It's a fun one to make, and pretty quick, too!

Soooo...let's get to last week's party highlights!

Amanda at Material Girl Quilts shared this delectable blue and green Oakshott HRT.  That's a Half Rectangle Triangle, in case you're wondering.  I've only worked with HRT's once, and even though I liked the finished result, they were a bit of a pain (and it was a small project).  So, my hat's off to Amanda on this beauty!

This mini from Lori at Crossquilt is super adorable.  I love that text print background!

and Katie Mae Quilts shared this stunning Shivaun Place finish.  So lovely!

Wow.  just wow!  I seriously could have chosen at least five more to share with you from last week.  There was certainly no shortage of awesomeness.  Of course, that's true every week, it seems.  I'm on pins and needles (pun intended...maybe ;)  ) to see what you have going on this week!

1.  You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

Paint Chip Challenge Swap

In the spring, my chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild decided to have a Paint Chip Challenge swap for members and it was SO much fun!  In May, each member chose two paint chips/cards in coordinating colors they love, wrote our name on the back of them and then sealed them in an envelope.  Our task was to create a mini quilt for the person we chose using only the 8 colors represented on the paint chips.  We were allowed to add gray, black, or white, and a small pop of a third color if we chose (I didn't choose to do this).  Yesterday was the day where all of the minis were presented.  We were challenged to really represent modern quilting in our minis.

My partner chose shades of blue and purple.  When I actually got down to choosing fabrics that matched the paint chips, it was tougher than I thought.  There is real subtlety in these colors.  The purple is really a deep periwinkle, and the blue has more aqua in it than I initially realized. I chose to play around with snowball blocks in varying sizes for my swap partner.  The tiniest snowballs finish at 2 inches, with the corners at just half an inch.  That is by far the smallest piecing I have ever done, and I'm not entirely happy with the way the binding covered up part of the edges, but I like the finished piece nonetheless.  It's hard to tell, but the stippling is pretty tiny as well.

My mini was made by Nysha, of Studio Nysha.  He is a Zentangle instructor and really pushes the boundaries of modern quilting.  It's no surprise that I chose shades of blue and green, right?

The photo does not capture the artistry in this piece, called Intersection.  Although the green stripes are Kona Cotton, the print stripe at the bottom is organza, and the creamy background is silk.  In some places, the matte side shows, and in others, the shiny side.  The quilting is done in varying shades of blue, and with various thread weights.  It really is a work of art, and it looks amazing hanging above my quilt ladder (beside the window, out of direct sunlight).

This was my very first swap, and I really loved the experience.  I don't have a ton of room in my sewing space for minis, so I have to be really selective about participating in swaps, but I may just have to seek out others!

Something Finished, Something New

Ahhh... fall is in the air.  A front moved through last night and left behind cool, crisp weather;  the kind of weather that makes me wish I could set up my sewing machine on my deck outside and just breathe it in.  Fall is my favorite season, and maybe it's because the cooler weather makes me think of snuggling up with a quilt, but I especially love sitting down at my machine when there is just a little nip in the air.  Yesterday, I was on a roll and finished up my red and aqua quilt, and I really love how the top turned out.

To me, the pattern looks like scrumptious little desserts piled on a plate, so I'm calling this one Truffles, and I can't wait to get it finished.  The colors are so fresh and happy, and I'm also feeling pretty good about the fact that these fabrics all came right out of my cabinet.  Hooray for stash busting!

The other thing that I have been madly working on lately is my Ball and Jacks pattern, and I am delighted to tell you that it is now available in my Craftsy and Etsy shops!  Hop over and take a look. This is one of those patterns that has a "big bang for your buck."  There is very little wasted fabric, and although the blocks are pretty simple to put together, the finished quilt looks much more complicated, so there is a big payoff.  It is written in lap, twin, and queen sizes, and has full color illustrations and cutting diagrams included.

It is perfect football weather, and perfect weather for my city's local festival, which happens to be going on this weekend.  I've been there all morning, working at my Sunday School class booth, and reveling in the gorgeous weather.  My husband actually runs the booth for our class, so he and wild thing will be there all weekend long from sunup to sundown.  Hmmm... I'm sure I can find something useful to do with my time!

Time to Party!

Welcome to this week's Needle and Thread Thursday, y'all!  In case you missed it, check out my finished Ball and Jacks quilt that I posted earlier this morning.  At first, I planned on adding it into this post, but as I wrote, I felt like it was getting too lengthy, especially considering that this post will also include giveaway winners!  First off though, let me show you the pull for my latest project.

I have a LOT of reds in my stash, and I haven't made a quilt with red in quite a while.  I always find that reds are tricky to pair with other colors.  With blues, the quilt comes out looking patriotic, and with greens, it looks like Christmas.  Red with aqua and gray is happy and fresh though, and I'm looking forward to cutting into them!

So, let's get to the giveaway winners.  All of the prizes are exactly the same, so here are all four lucky winners with their comment numbers- Kelly Grace (17), Karen- Quilts Etc. (4), Pauline Perry (117), and Little Black Cat Quilting (43)

                                 

                               

Congratulations to all of the winners!  I'll be contacting you via email so I can ship your goodies to you!

Now, let's get to the features from last week's party!  There sure were some stunners in last week's lineup- like this amazing selvage bookcase by Jess at Quilty Habit.  Jess has a mini tutorial for this, so if you missed it, go find out how she created this fabulousness.

or this fun use of improv piecing by Material Detachment.

and even this mesmerizing, colorful quilt top from Myra at Busy Hands Quilts.

Time to party!  Let's link up!

1.  You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

Ball and Jacks...and thanks!

I've said it before but it certainly bears repeating.  When I name my quilts and patterns, either the name immediately pops into my brain, or else I can't think of anything at all.  Very rarely does it happen that I think and think, and then come up with a name I really love.  In those circumstances, I usually just go with the name I've chosen, but don't really love it.

Well, that is exactly what happened with this quilt pattern when a reader commented on my last post and said that the shape reminded her of jacks.  As much as I liked some of the other suggestions,  none of them really grabbed me like Ball and Jacks did, and I think I have figured out why.

Most of the name suggestions called attention to only the white space, with words like snowball, cotton ball, etc. and I really wanted to call attention to the print in the pattern as well.  Other suggestions had to do with the fabric in the quilt with ideas like tropical, or coral reef.  I always find that naming a pattern is harder than naming a quilt, because I feel like I have to make sure the name will fit the quilt, even if someone else chooses to use completely different fabrics.  I also feel like a pattern name has to be catchy and easy to say, not to mention short enough put on a pattern cover.

I feel like the name Ball and Jacks pays homage to the shape of both the prints and white space, and it is a name that focuses only on the shape, rather than the fabrics I used.  Naming this one was really tough for me, and I am so glad I chose to ask you for suggestions!  Thank you to all who gave input!

On the back of the quilt, this tonal blue fabric by Jennifer Paganelli blends just perfectly with the blues in the Violette line, and since this pattern yields virtually zero scrap fabric, I chose to add a bold orange stripe to add a little interest to the backing.

The binding is a great shade of green Kona, and I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't take note of the name of it on the bolt.  It isn't a perfect match for the gorgeous shade of jade green in the quilt, but it frames the quilt really well anyway.

Just FYI, Needle and Thread Thursday is on as usual this evening, and I'll be including the giveaway winners in that post.  I just felt like the name business was a little too wordy to piggyback onto an NTT post though.  So,  I'll see you later, where I'll also be giving a peek at the fabric pull for my next project!

Violette

Oh, Amy!  You've captivated me again with your brilliantly saturated hues...

Happy Labor Day to all.  I hope you all got some great holiday-weekend sewing time like I did!  I purchased this bundle of Amy Butler's Violette collection this summer while traveling, and I have been waiting for pattern inspiration to strike to put them to good use.

The twelve fabrics that I chose from the collection are almost all blues and greens (not a shock to those of you who read regularly) with a few pops of other colors here and there, so I wanted to design a pattern that would make the best use of the lack of variation in the palette.  I really like the simplicity of the pattern and the shape created in the white background fabric.

When I finish this one up, I'm planning to write the pattern, but I am completely stumped on an appropriate name.  Any ideas?

NTT and Twinkle

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star...but there is nothing little about these stars- or this quilt!  I am so happy that I got my latest quilt finished in time to share it for this week's Needle and Thread Thursday!

This Pop Star quilt measures 72" x 90," so it is a generous twin size, and with blocks measuring 18 inches finished, I think it makes quite a statement.

Because this quilt pattern yields very few scraps, I went with bold stripes on the back.  This quilt is going to my aunt to redecorate a bedroom for her granddaughters when they visit, and the room already has purple walls.  I chose the richest shade of turquoise as the main backing fabric.  I think if I had chosen purple, it would have been overkill.

I made a scrappy binding from some of my leftover fabric.  As I mentioned before, the pattern creates very little scrap fabric.  So as it is written, it actually doesn't yield enough scraps for a binding, but a few of my fabrics were larger cuts than the pattern required.  One thing you may notice though, is that the binding strips I used were shorter, finishing right at 12 inches.  I worried that the binding might look too choppy, but I think it is fun!  The pictures of the whole quilt really show this best.

This 16 inch throw pillow is the perfect use for the scraps, and I did go ahead and embrace the extra purple with the binding.   I still need to get a pillow form for it, and these goodies will be all ready for my aunt!

Okay then!  Let's get to the highlights from last week's party!  Check out this stunning Anna Maria Horner quilt from Koka Quilts!  I just love AMH fabrics.

This Cotton and Steel mini by Janet at Simply Pieced is so much fun!

and this big block Swoon from Georgia Florida Studio is so striking against the dark background.  Just lovely!

Alright, friends!  It's time to link up your latest beauties.  Party on!

1.  You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

oh, and PS- in case you missed the giveaways I have going on, you can check it out HERE!