2012 ~ fibre fun in review

There was a little quilting,


a little knitting...
 

a lot of swapping
 

and just plain fun stuff.
 

2012 was above all,  the year of foundation piecing for me

 and it was a year of firsts! My first patterns for sale.

Here's to 2012! and to the road ahead.

Happy New Years and as always, Happy Sewing!!

Sending Christmas wishes

Merry Christmas to all my friends and family out in sewing/blogging land.  I wish you all a very merry christmas or whichever holiday you may celebrate.

Thank-you so much for reading this blog and supporting my sewing passion.  Without you guys this blog would just be a bunch of pictures.  So thank-you!!!

Here's to another great year of fabric-y goodness!!

Cheers
XOXO
Caroline

For the Children of Newtown

The Quilters Corner in New Milford CT has started a pillow case drive for the children of Sandy Hook elementary school. A great many bloggers and online sewing enthusiasts have joined together via Flickr and other online venues to help out. If you're interested in more info please visit the Sandy Hook Elementary Pillow case drive Flickr site.   There are links to pillowcase tutorials on the Flickr site as well.

They will need approx. 600 pillow cases. Word is they would like to get them to the Children after Christmas break.
 
 Tonight I've made up 7 pillowcases that I'll post off tomorrow.
 
 My fabric is a little skewed towards the girly, so i have more girl cases than boy ones. I might just pop by my local fabric store make a few more tomorrow to even that out.   Might as well fill up the flat rate box.

If you're interested in helping out you can mail your pillowcases to Quilter's Corner: 312 Danbury Rd. ( Rt. 7), New Milford, CT 06776 Please pass this info on to anyone you know who would be willing to contribute. It is a small thing to do.

Christmas cheer

Does everyone sew like a mad-woman at the holidays? I tell you, my machine should be smokin' from the amount of use it's been getting lately.

Here is the last of my holiday sewing - I decided we needed some Cheery Festive Napkins.  I started the first set back in August - you know - back when I thought that would be plenty of time to get them all done! ha ha ha Not!

Here we are a week before xmas and I'm madly sewing them together.

Well, all's well that ends well as they say.


They are done and in plenty of time for the Christmas feast.

And assortment of my favorite Christmas fabrics.

A little Brrr!

A little Winterkist.

And along with that a spiffy new tablecloth.


In case you're wondering how I made these, you can follow my tute for Kitchen towels on the side bar but cut them at 15" square instead - or whatever size you want them to be.  (Put an 'X' of stitching from corner to corner to secure them before you sew on the binding).

Now that's more festive! Maybe I can convince my daughter to add in something shiny and sparkly as a centerpiece.

Happy Sewing and Happy Holidays! May they be merry and bright

Mod Pop ~ Christmas-style!

Finished up my Mod Pop quilt and my first ever Christmas quilt. I am so happy with the results and just in time for the holidays!

I used some extra blocks on the back and split the colors of the back piece - I quite like this back, maybe even a little more than the front. Hmmm....

Quilting was tough on this one. I had a hard time deciding just what to do. In the end, I opted for parallel line quilting mirroring the edge of the motif. Then I used some pebbles inside the circles and basic stippling in the other areas.
Pattern details can be found in this post.

This quilt is made almost entirely of Aneela Hoey's Cherry Christmas line along with some of her earlier lines and a few random bits of fabric to round out the color scheme. It's definitely got a red/aqua thing going on but this is a palette that works really well in my home at Christmas time. Ok this post is a short one - I've got lots more Christmas prep to do and time is running out...

Happy Sewing!

Wonky Winter Tree

Need something new to spice up your holiday decor? A last minute xmas gift?  How about a snow white winter tree?

I made this one into a pillow for a little holiday cheer.  But it would also work as a table centerpiece or runner. 

This foundation pieced design is available through Craftsy or here on the blog.  It comes as a 10”  or 16” block.  The larger size works well for a pillow and the small one as a quilt block.  Since it’s all on the diagonal, there are no difficult seams to line up.  

A modern take on the Christmas tree which could work just as well for a generic winter themed block or project.  How about this color way?

Wishing you all a very merry holiday season! and of course Happy Sewing!

Corvallis Modern quilt guild

Sorry - Short notice on my part here, but the Corvallis Modern Quilt guild is having its first formal meeting tonight!  I am so thrilled that we have a Modern Quilt guild in Corvallis.


If you're in the area, in about 2 hours time - stop on by! 

Corvallis Modern Quilt Guild Monthly Meeting

Today at 7:00pm

Willamette Landing Recreation Room, 3501 SE Shoreline Drive, Corvallis

I will be presenting my take on Quilt Blogging. 

Hope to see you there!

Happy Sewing!

Sweet Raspberry

I hope each and every one of you had a pleasant Thanksgiving holiday.

Just a quick little update here.  I wanted to let you know that I have put a new foundation pattern up on Craftsy.  The Sweet Raspberry pattern was made for a friend who is sewing a quilt for her graduate student who just happens to be doing research on Raspberries.  How fun! So I thought I would share the pattern with all of you. 

I haven’t test sewn this pattern at all, so you use it at your own risk.  However, it’s a pretty simple pattern, and I don’t anticipate any problems with it.  This pattern is free and makes a simple little 4.5” block but you could easily enlarge it on a photocopier if you wanted to make a bigger block.  A great way to start foundation piecing if you haven’t ever done it before.  I can see this on lots of kitchen-related items.

Happy Sewing!

Sewing mod

I did a little sewing over the weekend - sewing just for me which rarely happens around here it seems.  I felt like getting into the Christmas spirit so I decided to make a Mod Pop quilt in Christmas colors.  Well, my xmas colors which are not traditional by any means.  The palette I'm into lately is bright cherry red and aqua with lime green.  A very modern palette which fits well into our house.  I had been wanting to make this quilt pattern, so I used Christmas as an excuse to make one. 

 The Mod pop quilt is aptly named - very mod, which also happens to be very trendy right now.  I love when the quilting world gets updated like this - it's the thing i love most about the Modern Quilting movement.

Here is my progress so far.

If this quilt design is up your alley, then you might want to know that there is a whole Flickr group dedicated to sewing this quilt.  You can come and quilt along with us.


And as for Modern Quilting - I would like to announce the formation of the Corvallis Modern Quilt Guild.  Our next meeting is Dec 6th. Please follow this link to our Facebook page for all the details if you're interested in joining us.



Happy Sewing!

Harvest hues

It's almost time for Thanksgiving! And turkey, stuffing and all the bounty of the harvest.

I wanted to add a little splash of autumn color to my home so I put together this little collection of foundation-pieced pumpkins and gourds. Some are scrappy, some aren’t but all are easy enough for a beginner to make. I put them together in a row for a festive table runner.
The patterns are available as a set through craftsy and each makes an 8” block.
They go nicely with my new napkins.
ETD I decided to use up some stash and make some fun autumn inspired napkins. Basic tute for them is here . These are double sided and 15” square before binding. I put a simple corner-to-corner line of stitching down the center to hold the 2 halves together in the wash. Makes a nice sturdy napkin out of quilting weight cotton.

Let the tryptophan-induced coma begin… Happy Sewing!

Kaleidoscope Mariner's Block

I have put together a quick paper piecing pattern for the Mariner's compass block that I used for Amy's pillow since some of you were interested in it.

 I modified the typical Mariner's compass a bit by adding more points to the stars in the back.

Download link here for the block pattern pieces.

Each Pattern only makes 1/4 of the entire block.  You will need to print out the pattern four times to get each of the 4 block sections to complete the entire Mariner's compass.  Make sure your printer is set to print at 100% or 'No Scaling'.

All seam allowances are 1/4".

Here is a schematic of the finished block.  The finished block is 12".

A piecing guide is shown here

For the pillow, I rotated the star just because I liked the look of it that way, but you can make it however you like.

Enjoy.

Happy Sewing!