Splash of Color Blog Hop!

Good morning!  Hope you're having a happy weekend!  It's my day on Jackie's Splash of Color Blog Hop!   Jackie and I have been friends since way back in the beginning of my blogging days, you may remember her Blogger's Block of the Month  and my visit to her podcast back when my first line of fabric came out!  She's always been a great friend and supporter and I'm thrilled to be able to return the favor and talk about her fantastic book Splash of Color!

 

The first thing you notice about Jackie's quilting is that she doesn't shy away from color, nor does she stop when the piecing gets hard.  She's a Certified Judy Niemeyer   instructor and travels around the country teaching these techniques to others.  In her own book, Jackie has a wide variety of quilts with different piecing methods, from straightforward squares and rectangles  to the more complicated curves and paper foundation piecing.   The book includes templates, and also instructions for cutting with Creative Grids specialty rulers when available. 

 

I really like the rainbow effect of this quilt, Hip to Be Square.  Square and rectangles are good friends of mine! 

Along with just about every quilt, there is an alternate version, and I really liked this on point version of the quilt by Sally Murray. These two quilts are the inspiration I used to create my own Hip to Be Square table runner.  I dug through my stash for some black and white prints to go with some of my colorful Pam Kitty fabric  and in no time I had completed project!

Here are some other quilts from the book, I love this Dreaming of Pyramids quilt. 

And this Jumpin Jax quilt. I appreciate the organizational tips included for all the projects.  There is so much to be learned about how to manage your project in this book, which I appreciate.  There's more to making a quilt than just sewing and Jackie helps you have success with her tips and techniques throughout the book.

If you'd like a chance to win an e-book copy of Splash of Color leave a comment  and I'll pick a winner at the end of the hop!  Be sure and visit all stops along the blog hop to see more about Jackie's book.   Check out the  Facebook group to see more quilts and join in on the fun!

Splash of Color Blog Hop List:
Wednesday, September 23

Jackie Kunkel - Canton Village Quilt Works
Kate Colleran - Seams Like a Dream
Pat Sloan - Pat Sloan Blog

Thursday, September 24

Sherri McConnell - A Quilting Life

Shelly Pagliai - Prairie Moon Quilts

Margaret Solomon Gunn - Quilts Of Love

Friday, September 25

Faith Jones - Fresh Lemons Quilts

Jenny Wilding Cardon - Martingale

Saturday, September 26

Vicki Welsh - Field Trips In Fiber

Pam Vieira- McGinnis - Pam Kitty Morning

Sunday, September 27

Pat Wys - Silver Thimble Quilt Co. 

Sharon McConnell - Color Girl Quilts

Monday, September 28

Julie Sefton - Me and My Quilts - Exploring the Possibilities

Victoria Findlay Wolfe - Bumblebeans/Victoria Findlay Wolfe Quilts

Tuesday, September 29

Caroline Critchfield - Sew Can She

Amy Ellis - Amy’s Creative Side

Quilts for Scrap Lovers Blog Hop

This morning is my day on the Quilts for Scrap Lovers Blog hop.  When Judy asked me to participate in her blog hop for her new book, I asked her to tell me a bit about it.  When she began to talk about her frustrations with leftovers pieces of fabric from  garments that were odd shaped, I thought of my own box full of pieces from clothes I had made for myself and for Frankie.  Odd ball armhole scraps was my first thought!

 

Reading Judy's introduction, I see that she's had a similar background growing up with parents raised in the depression, where saving something for later was pretty much an art form.  We never threw away old patterns or chunks of fabric, you might need a repair to your garment, collars from one pattern might look good combined with another.  And if you toss something, surely you'll need it later. 

Judy developed a system using templates to cut and save fabric.  She also shows you how to use your existing rulers to cut with her method.  And of course she has 16 projects in her book using her method.  She's showing you projects not made from precuts, but honest-to-goodness leftover scraps. Revolutionary!

 

There are several projects that caught my eye , including Snap Cracker Pop.  I whipped out a block using Judy's methods in a matter of a few minutes.  Here's my block using some Pam Kitty with the cute apples from Elea's Apple Farm fabric.

 

You can see more here at the C&T website.  It was fun to look at all the quilts and find bits and pieces of a sewing life well lived.  The more I go through my sewing stuff the more happy memories I see lurking among all the saved pieces.  Wouldn't it be fun to cut them up and actually use them?   Reading Judy's book will help you do that!

To follow along on the hop be sure to visit these friends and read what they have to say about Judy's book this week.  Thanks to Judy and C&T for my copy of the book to read and review!

*** Edited to add:  Leave a comment, C&T publishing is giving away a free e-book to one of my readers!  Let me know what you think about scrap quilting!

Nov 1 Christa Watson

Nov 2 PamKittyMorning

Nov 3 Mary Abreu

Nov 4 Diane Knott

Nov 5 Kim Lapacek

Holiday Wishes

Good morning friends!  Welcome to Christmas in July with the Fat Quarter Shop Holiday Wishes Blog Hop!  Holiday Wishes is Sherri Falls great new quilt book and it's chock full of large and small projects perfect for Christmas and projects that also translate well for all year round!

 

I chose some cute fabrics for my project.  My selections are two pieces from the Flower Sugar Christmas, the Cozy Christmas pink and red stripe and the Sunrise Studio red Polka Party dot.  They all work so well together!

 

The Merry Gifts quilt is a great quilt. Perfect to bring out after you as soon  there's a chill in the air. I knew when I opened that book that I wanted to make a Merry Gift Pillow.   The block is 14" x 18" so I needed to make a custom pillow form for it.  I went totally old school, using my pinking blade to rotary cut two pieces of fabric 15" x 19" and  sewed them with a half inch seam allowance  all around (wrong sides together)leaving a 4 inch opening.  I  used poly stuffing to fill it nice and tight, then machine stitched the opening closed.  The trick to getting a nice firm pillow is to stuff small bits in at a time, compacting as you go, so it's nice and full with no gaps. 

 

Now I have a pillow form the exact size of my pillow guaranteeing a perfect firm full  pillow! I made my block following along with the book, the instructions are great and the illustrations just what you need for an easy sewing experience.

I totally love it! 

 

Imagine how cute a whole bunch of these would be on the sofa at Christmas time!

 

The Holiday Wishes Blog Hop is every Wednesday in July!  Tons of super fun clever people participating and I'm excited to see all the projects. Thanks to Fat Quarter Shop for including me in on this blog hop!

 

 

Hop on over to these blogs for more Christmas in July!

 

Happy Quilting- Melissa Corry

Persimmon Dreams- Kim Lapacek

Zakka Art- Wynn Tan

Why Not Sew? - Erin Cox

FreeMotion by the River- Connie Campbell

 

Modern Prairie Sewing Blog Hop!

Good morning! Lets have a  coffee and talk about how cute this Modern Prairie Sewing book is.  You might remember the first time we met Abi, her sisters and her mom Kristie way back in Kansas City for Spring Quilt Market.  Today I'm excited to be sharing Abi's book with you. 

 

Modern Prairie Sewing  is filled with lots of adorable projects and a lot of great sewing information for  novice and experienced seamstresses.   Little "Sew Clever" tips are sprinkled through for additional fun ideas. 

 

The photography is lovely through out the book, but how could it not be with so many beautiful young girls  modeling the projects?  I couldn't wait to get working on my project, the Leeway Apron. 

 

I used  a home decorator weight cotton fabric that I prewashed, and some coordinating PKM blue fabric for the ties, bias tape, and my Recipe for Success for the pocket, because it makes perfect sense here! Of course Frankie isn't a prairie girl having grown up here in California, but she can look the part, ready for a potluck.

 

I shortened the pattern 3 inches for Frankie as she's petite! I think it's the perfect length for her. 

Here's a list of who else is on the hop, so you can see more fun sewing projects.

Jenny at Sew Pretty Dresses August 20th
Jona at Stop Staring and Start Sewing August 22
Melissa at 100 Billion Stars August 23
Caroline at Sew Caroline August 25
Melissa at Lilac Lane August 26
April at April Rhodes August 27
Abiah at Marie-Madeline Studio August 28

On August 29th hop on over to The Modern Prairie Girl blog for an opportunity to win a signed copy of Modern Prairie Sewing !

Thanks for joining me on this blog hop! xo

Fat Quarter Baby Blog Hop

Good Morning friends!  Today is the first day of the Fat Quarter Baby blog hop! Fat Quarter Baby is the latest book by It's Sew Emma/Fat Quarter Shop, and it's chock full of great baby quilts to make! 

 

This week the blog tour will feature quilts from the book made by a group of your favorite bloggers.   The book has 20 great quilts, 10 for girls and 10 for boys, and you'll see all of them over the course of the hop. 

 

This is Elizabeth.  I made it exactly like the one of the book, very exciting for me to have Fat Quarter Shop use Fog City Kitty in their book. The applique is very easy, but if applique isn't your thing,  it's just as adorable without it!

 

You can order a copy of Fat Quarter Baby here.  Be sure and check out the other bloggers on the list this week to see all the cute quilts, and also stop by the Jolly Jabber to check out what they're up to!   I've enjoyed all the fun peeks at the quilts on Instagram and Facebook. 

 

Anne – Caroline of Sew Can She

Claire – Melissa of Oh How Sweet

Emma – Melissa of Happy Quilting

Hannah – Sherri of A Quilting Life

Gerri Robinson of Planted Seed Designs

 

Ok friends, have a great week!  xo

 

#fatquarterbaby

 #fqsfun

 #itssoemma

 

 

More Christmas

Good morning my special peeps, how are you? It's another blog hopping day here in PKMLand and its all about a special gift or decoration day. Here's my special gift and decoration, my cool vintage snowman. Frankie gave me this wonderful old plastic vintage snowman last year and I love him. I can't wait to get him out. Of course my kid ornaments are my favorite, the school days crafts are the best, and over the years they've always been on the tree in spite of the teenage eye rolling. I'm pretty sure if those ornaments weren't on the tree, I'd be hearing about it!

Thank you thank you for all the wonderful comments yesterday!!! All so thoughtful and enthusiastic. Late last night Bret picked a number and I counted and Annemarie is the winner...

"What a fun Christmas Blog Hop. Thanks for the Coffee mat pattern - would love to win a prize - I LOVE COFFEE TOO!!! Annemarie."

Well Annemarie, its your lucky day! Email me your snail mail address and I'll get your prize packed up and in the mail. Thanks again to Elizabeth and Alex for the lovely additions.

Today is Kari's day of the blog hop... hop on over and see what she's up to! See you tomorrow!

100 Blocks Sampler Sew Along

Good morning!  Hope the week is treating you well! Today  the 100 Blocks Sampler Sew Along is featuring the 6 inch version of Courtyard Square over on the Quilty Pleasures blog.  Did you know that this is from the very first edition of  Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Magazine and my very first published design?  It was so exciting, and even more exciting, I've had a block in every issue since then!  You can read about it here on my blog post from 2009!

 

You can see my block in the first row, third block on the red and white quilt. Even though we were well into the blogging days, I didn't have a photo of my block!  What kind of blogger was I???  This is photo is  from  Quiltmaker.  I loved this line of fabric from Moda, Sweet by the Urban Chiks. 

One of the most fun things was being next to Monica at Happy Zombie.  She wrote a fun post about being next to me in the magazine and she took our blocks and made the cutest quilt ! You can read about it here. 

 

But lets get back to the blog hop!  The 100 Blocks sew along is taking the original 12 inch blocks and making them 6 inch finished for this sampler quilt!        I made a small selection of blocks  in photoshop to have some fun!  

 

There's all kind of options to explore value and that center square is perfect for some fussy cutting in both the large and small blocks. 

And then I made some blocks. I really liked the idea of a darker background, so I put the gray in that postion.  

 

And here's how they'd look sewn together.   

I stitched up some more blocks in red and then put them together on point.

 

If you wanted to do that as well, you'd need 5 Courtyards Square blocks,  one 9 3/4" square cut twice diagonally for 4 setting triangles and two 5 1/8" inch squares cut diagonally (once) for 4 corner triangles. Then trim up and quilt as you like and bind.

You could always add borders.. I'm still thinking on that here.. Maybe a slim inner border of the plaid and then some kind of red outer border? Or should I just quilt it as is?  Share your thoughts if you like!

 

Thanks for stopping by today.. head over to the Quilty Pleasures blog to read about the blog hop, and if you're coming from Quilty Pleasures thanks for coming!  Have a great day friends!

 

Taking care of business.

No time to linger over coffee this morning, its time to take care of some blog business. The business of blog hops. Today is the wrap up of the Strip-Smart Blog hop, so you need to head to Kathy's when we're finished. She just might be a announcing some winners.

I have a winner to announce in the Cotton Floss Blog hop as well!!! Thanks to everyone who left a comment!!! Marsha from Cute Stuff Inside is the Cotton Floss book winner and believe me, I know this book is going to a good home. Marsha and her daughter Frannie are quite clever. So Marsha, please email me you mailing address! Luckily for the rest of us you can find a lot of great books here, including Cotton Floss.

Now I hope everyone had a good weekend. We had a great one here.. but now it's back to business. Tell me what went on where you live. xo

Take a Guess.

That's right, take a guess at who's having a PamKittyMorning..

 

Surprise, it's Alex!

I don't know if you've checked it out, but her website has had a big makeover and she is sharing a wonderful free download for a redwork pattern to celebrate it.

Even her computer is having a PamKittyMorning. I'm sneaky that way. I littered her whole studio with PamKittyPropaganda. Subtle right?

It's no propaganda to say head on over to Joan's to keep up with the Strip-Smart Quilts blog hop. There's still time to get your comments in.

And just because I like to keep busy, I'm in the middle of another blog hop, and I've been remiss in mentioning it until now!! Natalie at Cinderberries is celebrating the publication of her book Cotton Floss with a nice hop, check back here tomorrow for my day, but to catch up start here, then head to Monica's and then to Amanda's. Then meet me here tomorrow.

Cozy Cottage Calendar Day

Good morning favorite friends! Today is my day on the Cozy Cottage Calender blog hop!  I was so happy to be invited to play along, sometimes these fun blog hops are the perfect encouragement to commit to a project and get stitching on it. 

 

It didn't take me long to get out my box of scraps and get busy cutting. In fact you might remember I cut two of these cute houses out, and have already show you my 4 inch block.

The 8 inch block goes together so fast.  Before you know it, Cozy Cottage.  I had to much fun choosing fabrics.  Who wouldn't want to live in a house with a gingham roof?  

 

You know I love making a nice fat pillow!  Soon my house will be filled to the brim with pillows.  And don't you love the sweet little confetti border?  Someone mentioned they look like little flags, and I agree, my cottage is ready for a party!

 

But quick, before you get busy on your pillow, which is a special pattern in the calendar,  Lori has again come up with something special, a sweet little mini quilt just for us! Just hop your way over to her blog and get ready to get busy!  If you don't have her calendar yet, head over to the Fat Quarter Shop and grab one, and while you're there, click over to their blog and see all the creative people who are on the hop.  SO MUCH COZY CUTENESS!

 

Ok my very special friends.. hope you have a cozy day! xo

Quiltmaker 100 Blocks Volume 10

Hi there! Can you believe there's been 10 issues of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks magazine!  It's very exciting, that' s ONE THOUSAND blocks.  And while I missed a chance to get in on the blog hop,  I didn't want a miss a chance to share it with you!  Do you know I've had a block in all 10 issues!!

 

Here's my block for Volume 10, it's called Flower Pops, inspired by cake pops that you see all over the place!  There are plenty of chances to win a copy of the magazine, so head over to the Quilty Pleasures Blog and check out the designers on the blog hop.

Before you head out though, here's the super fun video I linked to last week. 

 

Ok, have a great day Super Friends!

Happy Tuesday

Hey there peeps, what's up with you guys? I've been busily working away on my blog hop stuff. Elizabeth distracted me with this site. This entry reminds me of my own little Disapproving Rabbit.

These are the fabrics I'm working with for my blog hopping project. I love how my Lakehouse Doll Dresses works with my Lecein 30's collection.

I can't help but feel happy working with it. Everyone has wonderful projects all lined up to share, I can't wait to see them all.

Ok, tomorrow starts a little pre-blog-hop contest, so be sure and come back for that peeps! xo

Vintage Vibe

Good morning!  Today we're blog hopping on the Vintage Vibe blog tour!  I was luck to meet Amber Johnson at Quilt Market  in Houston and she asked if I'd like to participate. Luckily I was already in love with the book and said YES!

 

book photos courtesy of Martingale, photographer Brent Kane

 

 

There are 14 great projects in this book.  Amber includes little tidbits about her inspiration for the quilts and helpful hints along the way. The instructions are clear and concise and of course there are excellent illustrations.   Even though I've been quilting for a long time, I find it's good revisit those  instructions from time to time.

 

 

 

My favorite project in the book is Sugar, pictured above. It combines a couple of my favorite things, tulips and Flower Sugar fabric!  Amber has designed a dainty version as well, Sugar Sweet,  as these are sister quilts, reminiscent of her childhood sharing a room with her sisters! 

 

I couldn't resist making a large Sugar block in Pam Kitty Garden! 

 

Vintage.. well that's all relative right? Amber's grandmother taught her how to quilt and  in the Scrap Jars quilt pictured below, she contributed  three pieces of vintage fabric for the project.  Amber invites us to figure out which are the vintage pieces.

Holy cow. I'M VINTAGE!  I made a quilt with two out of three of those pieces! 

 

It was easy to fall in love with this book.  Lots of great projects.  If this is your first stop on this blog hop, I encourage you to  head over to Amber's blog for the schedule so you can catch up!  The list of bloggers and the schedule is here. 

 

You can order a book from Amber here, or from Amazon here.

 

Thank you Amber for inviting me to hop along and sending me a copy of your book! Congratulations!