The best part about writing a pattern is...

Seeing what someone else has done with it!

Here is Amie's Helix baby quilt.

And here is a beautiful fall colored cracker quilt.

If you make a cracker quilt, you can add your image to the MBS flickr pool.


If you ever make something with a tutorial, I'd love to see a picture and maybe even share it (with your permission) on this blog.

Everybody have a great Thanksgiving! 

Christmas Quilt Show 2010

Have y'all heard about the annual Christmas Quilt Show? It's being held at Sewcalgal's blog. Go check it out!

I have 2 Christmas quilts and since you can feature more than one, I am gonna go for it!

This quilt has been on my blog before but it is one made for my husband's grandma.  Her only child (my father-in-law) was born in the early 1950's so I thought she'd love these sweet little kids in Alexander Henry's Angelcakes fabric.  I mixed it up with some moda dots, some P&B plaid, some Alexander Henry Petit Fors, and some basics.  It's a disappearing 9 patch. 

And then we have a Christmas tree quilt.  I found this pattern at about.com and I loved it.  I threw in every bit of green I had.  You'll find wal-mart fabrics, Hobby Lobby stuff, Joann's stuff, LQS stuff, and even flea market fancy.  It's a smallish lap size.  I really really like this quilt!

And I backed this in a Peanuts fabric because my kids loooove some Peanuts. 

And I'll give you 2 guesses as to what side they prefer....

If you guess the side that took mama hours to piece, of course you would be wrong! :)

Quilt Festival: My shopping bag!!

 American Jane!  1 yard cut plus 47 fat quarters. 

 Olfa ergonomic cutter for 15.99 and 10 blades for $30.

 15000 (no, I didn't put too many zeros!) yds of piecing thread for 18.95 (steal!), big spools of egyptian cotton quilting thread for 8.95 (these were at least double the 1200 yd size...don't remember exactly how many yards, but it was cheaper than Hobby Lobby for sure), 2 disappearing ink pens for 2.25 each, bobbin tube for $1 (and I should have bought more!).

 The fabric is for my next Moda Bake Shop quilt but the stencil is what I purchased at the festival go quilt more borders...$2.60.

 A Michael Miller FQ for $1.69 with some quilter humor on it.

2 polka dot fqs for $1 each, the blue rose repros were my FAVORITE repro of all time that I used every last tiny scrap of.  They were $1.69/FQ.

 

Amie offered to buy me a treat for quilting her Helix baby quilt for her (I will be linking that up when she shows pics...I love seeing projects made from a tutorial or pattern I did b/c it is a great reward for the work put into it!).  I wasn't going to make her follow through but then I saw this Momo Wonderland bundle...I've drooled over that for a while and then they had 2 yards of the green coordinating dot for $10 so I was all over it. 

Just kidding on the ironing board!  I have 3 little boys, a husband, and a dog.  I don't need any more nekkid men in my life.

Tip: Caring for your Olfa Mat

At the Quilt Festival, I met (and purchased from)a new Olfa rotary cutter and blades (so cheap I might add...we are talking Wal-mart fiskars cheap). The man (Charlie) was giving great info I had to pass along to extending the life of your rotary mat and blades.

To Clean: Fill up a tub (or sink) big enough to submerge your mat. You need to do a 1 gallon of water to 1/4 cup vinegar ratio (what CAN'T you do with vinegar???). Make sure the water is cool. Once you have enough liquid, submerge your mat and wipe off any residue. Use dove or ivory dish soap and work into a lather over your mat. Rinse off. Self healing mats love moisture and the more supple they are, the kinder they will be to your rotary blade...I did not know that! Wipe your mat off with a towel.

To save your hands: Every Olfa cutter has a little set of ridges to indicates the best ergonomic position for your hands. Put your finger or thumb on those ridges to help decrease any joint pain. Apparently, folks, I was doing it ALL wrong. Now wonder I have wrist pain...I was messing my ligaments all up.

I hope this tip can help you. Do you have any good tips to share?

Tutorial: The Single Charm Pack Quilt

I like the idea of charm packs. I like the instant scrappy-yet-coordinated look. Unfortunately, it's hard to find charm packs in the quilt stores closest to me and when I do, it's either not my style or there is only one of each fabric. What on earth can you do with one charm pack? Well, that got me to thinking and that led to taking a quilt I had already done and translating it into charm pack size. Don't like using charm packs? You can just use 5" squares (substitute 1/2 yard of 2 prints each for the charm pack and you will have a cute quilt like this with only 2 fabrics (pics below of this option).

Your players:
1 charm pack (Moda Origins)
2 yards solid (Kona Stone for this quilt)
1/2 yard binding (something I found at Hobby Lobby because I totally forgot to purchase binding with the charm pack)
Backing: 3 3/8 yd (I pieced from stash vs. buy new)

What you do:

Separate your charm pack into 2 categories: Busy prints and subtle prints.  You will be using your busy prints in the center of your blocks and the small prints will be cut up for your "chain".

 Remove selvages from your solid and cut 21 9" squares from your solid.  You have just finished half your blocks...don't you feel accomplished?

 From the rest of your solid, cut 21 5"x5" squares and 42 2.5"x5" strips.

Cut your 21 "less busy" charms in half...these will become your chain.

You can go scrappy like me or you can match up your charm halves if you like.

 Sew 2.5"x5" solid strips on both sides of the "busy" charms.  Sew "less busy" charm halves into either side of the 5" solid square.

 Cut your pieces of solid bordered by charm halves in half to give you two pieces like above.

 Attach the strips you just made to either side of your "busy charm" section.  This is a Puss-in-Corner block...actually it's one of the many blocks named "Puss-in-Corner", and probably the easiest version of the block.  Alternate your Puss-in-Corner blocks with your solid 9" squares. 

 Voila, a 51.5" x 60" lap quilt (and it's sooo soft because I didn't stipple but I don't like the look as much).  It has an argyle look to it.  Don't like it with all the patterns?  Try this making it with 2 coordinating prints (quilt on the right):

The quilt on the right is one of my all time favorites.

And then my youngest asked me to take a pic of his shoes with the quilt...and I did.  His shoes are awesome and it distracted him from asking me to drag out the power wheels.  Woo-hoo!

And this quilt has a special purpose.  I see my quilting as a ministry where I can spread the love of Christ because God can use EVERY talent we have for His Glory...something I realized after seeing my son's Bible study sheet about Dorcas, the seamstress in the Bible.  I picked out these fabrics that are really not "me" but then I started thinking "well who am I gonna give this to."  A thought popped into my head of someone who (to be honest) doesn't care for me.  At one time I did not care for them either, but I'm older now and I'm just indifferent about that and wish them the best in life.  I really wrestled with God because while I don't dislike them there are many many people who DO love me that haven't received a Mary quilt yet because the time is just not right.  I sat in church that Sunday and heard this coming from the pulpit:

^{Matthew 5: 46-47 46} If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

And it hit me like a ton of bricks that this personal ministry of mine is for helping ME learn to be more Christ like and not just helping others feel the love of Christ.  It hit me that I have just been loving those who love me...and what's so special about that?  And then I said "Ok, God...I get it."  After I decided to follow what He had laid on my heart I looked at the fabrics again and realized it was the color of the person's alma mater.  God works in mysterious ways and it is always a blessing to me when I catch a glimpse of that mystery.   I hope they like the quilt but my goal was to do what God led me to do and I know He will manage the back end. 

Quilt Festival part 5: Consider yourself warned:

I will shamelessly copy this quilt at some point in the future.  Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest.  I will try to post my haul soon, but Amie seriously walked away with the best haul of all. 
Check out Amie's blog for her take.

Happy Veteran's Day to all who have served or sacrificed time with a love oned who is serving!!!  

Quilt Festival part 4: This Iron is Hot.

 

Meet the i-touch iron.  It's hot.  Not just in degrees, but as in WANT IT, GOTTA HAVE IT!  It's $150 and was designed by the son of tailors.  You NEVER have to pick it up.  It stays in this position.  The iron "pops up" when not in use to save your wrists from wasted motion.  It has a HUGE steam reservoir (about twice that of my home iron) and 30 min auto shutoff (vs. 3 or 4 minutes for many home irons...or NO auto shutoff like my thrift store iron which is equally terrible and a major fire hazard).  This is so much more stable and safe than putting an iron up on it's end.  I personally have witnessed one of my boys tipping over an iron and burning his leg all because of how unstable irons are when placed on their ends.  We need this iron in our house...for safety.  I will be pitching the safety angle to my engineer husband, BELIEVE IT!

 And if you have an i-touch you really need this ironing board cover.  When your ironing board gets hot, the heat sensitive loincloth magically disappears.  Wow...talk about making ironing fun!  They did have a female version.  Major giggles.  Cue the veteran festival goers probably looking at us and going "hmpph...AMATEURS."

 

And what quilt retreat would be complete without this nightgown: "PROMISCUOUS, will sleep with every quilt I meet."  

Quilter humor never gets old.

Quilt Fesival Part 3: Yoko Saito is kind of a big deal.

As we walk around the festival we saw this quilt and just lost our marbles.

Hand quilting done to perfection.

This is quilting truly elevated to art.

I saw the little Japanese woman and turned to Amie and said "OMG, that's Yoko Saito...and she's kind of a big deal." They were SO SO gracious and allowed us to take pictures of everything. We are filing this into the category of : "Projects to do when we are worthy."

You have to be a genius to take these muted fabrics and produce something so full of life and general uh-may-zing-ness.

This basket quilt (above) is the one that had my applique friends from church geeking out over.

I love the sewing basket in the bottom middle (above).

The woman herself!

That lattice work is not piecing, it is hand applique.

And Amie took all these pictures because honestly I was flipping out too much to even work a camera in this booth. You can see her take on festival this week too at www.fabricwarrior.blogspot.com

Quilt Festival Part 2: In which I get my American Jane fix

From a few aisles away, I saw this booth:

And immediately I saw what I knew to be the American Jane Merry-Go-Round quilt.  Complete love.  Poor Amie gets dragged through the next few booths as I am on high alert.  This was THE ONLY booth with tons of American Jane...other places had maybe a panel or 1 print.  NOTHING like the Quiltin Gals of Azle, Texas!

And here is me nicely handing over all my money to the man.  You just can't find stacks like this...discontinued, people!!!  The lady is so sweet.  I told her she is my new best friend (um, move over Amie) and I'd hug her if I could (I am not a hugger).  Ya know what?  She hugged me!  She owns a house called The Quilt House in Azle where you and 7 of your best friends can have a quilt retreat for $30/night.  Y'all, that is cheaper than the Motel 6!  She has a workroom, kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms.  You can even shop her quilt shop 24/7 while you are in the house!!!  She specializes in 30's repros and she had almost all things American Jane there...Peas& Carrots, Building Blocks, Wee Play, Recess.  She told me to come up to Azle where she has yardage of EVERYTHING. 

So then we saw this quilt and I pointed out to Amie that this is an American Jane quilt.  I then started pointing out every fabric I recognized.  "look...that bonnet is from Happy Campers....that grass is from Basic Building Blocks...etc...nerding out...etc".  The lady came up and introduced herself as Kaye Moore (Kayemoore.com) and said she noticed I liked Sandy Klop Fabrics.  I am sure Amie had to really hold in the laughter at one of the understatements of the year.  I start gushing about American Jane and told her how much I just bought from the Quiltin' Gals and she told me that American Jane is very hard to find and it is popular...sells out very quickly.  Whew.  I am always so worried I can't find it b/c it is unpopular and maybe she will quit making fabric.  She started talking about Sandy, Stan, and their boys.  I said "Do you KNOW Sandy?"

Yes y'all..she KNOWS SANDY.  She has great things to say about Sandy including how generous Sandy was to loan her the Ticket for Two quilt you see behind me.  My mind comes to a halt: Sandy MADE THIS QUILT!?  Yes...she did. Kaye told me I could touch it and do whatever I wanted!  I regined in my weirdness slighly and just took photos in front of it.  Many, many, many photos.  Thank you Amie!

Close up of the quilt.

I really wanted to make this but I don't think I can pull it off.  I will have the most fantastic American Jane scrap stash pretty soon...once I use up my most fantastic American Jane stash.  I could really do this quilt justice fabric wise.  Skillwise, it's a different story. 

Oh, and Kaye told me Sandy would love to hear from her stalker biggest fan, so she gave me Sandy Klop's person email.  I AM gonna send her an email of appreciation for how much joy her fabric gives me...once I figure out how to come off NOT sounding like a creeper. 

PS, Kaye did not give me Sandy's email in exchange for an endorsement, but if you do want to make this Ticket for Two quilt Kaye had hands down the best deal.  The pattern alone is $75 but she had a kit of the large background fabrics for under $100.  That is a great deal b/c this quilt was big.  Such a great deal I am considering sending my husband to festival to see my quilt (b/c he wanted to) and purchase that kit for me for my birthday.