{Giveaway}: Little Folks Voile Scarf

Anna Maria Horner's Little Folks line is printed on voile (French for fantastic!) fabric that is buttery smooth and silky soft and, did I mention, fantastic! Voile is a wonderful, light-weight fabric that feels amazing.  I recently ordered more to use for a super soft quilt that I'm going to make this fall for next spring.  The colors from this line are wonderful for fall scarves as well, so... in celebration of the arrival of cooler temperatures, and the arrival of my Little Folks fabric order, I'm going to do my 1st Giveaway! 

The 4 fabrics the winners can choose from are pictured here.  The winners will also be able to choose if they want a regular scarf or an infinity scarf!

All you have to do to be registered to win is: 1) register as a follower of this blog and 2) leave a comment!  I will select 2 winners at random on Wednesday, October 13th (since 13 is such a lucky number) and will announce the winners on Friday, October 15th.  BONUS: if you REFER A FRIEND, have them mention your name in their comment and your name will be entered into the drawing twice!  Please be sure to leave your e-mail address in your comment if it isn't visible on your profile!

I'm so excited to do this Giveaway! 
P.S. To find more givewaways you can use Giveaway Scout, a giveaway search engine. 

Weekend Update: Elliott's Baby {Quilt} and Giving Up?

We'll start with "Giving Up?" first...  For those of you who don't know, I cannot stand fast food and have a strong (and recently validated) fear of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).  Fast food and HFCS are both BIG contributors to obesity and heart disease in America.  While I cannot disclose the results of the study, because it's ongoing, I CAN say that the results of the study thus far have motivated me to give up BOTH... FOREVER.  I will no longer knowingly eat anything with HFCS and I will do my best to not eat fast food! 

I make a new baby quilt every time a friend has a baby.  This is a NEW tradition and so far I have made 4 and have 2 more in the works for due dates in December and January, which are the "Big Stitches" projects I have ongoing.  However, I felt this incredible pang of guilt as I was sitting on the couch hand quilting one the other night for a friend since I realized that while I have intended to make a quilt for my son, Elliott (9 months old), it kept getting moved to the back burner along with my Folk Dance quilt for myself. 

Elliott - 9 months

ET's just too cute to leave hanging... so, this weekend I decided that I would pull out the adorable fabric bundle I purchased from Fabricworm the other week and get started.  I put all of my other projects on the backburner to make this one.  Hope you like it!  The fabric palette for the quilt top is Lagoon and Lime and is comprised of the following fabrics:

Michael Miller's Groovy Guitars in Lagoon, Ta Dot in Lagoon, Zoology in Lagoon,
Play Dot in Lagoon, and Dinky Dots in Lime; 
Monaluna Circa 50 Starburst in Pool, Woodland Chain in Pool, and Tree Stripes

I used Kona Solids in Coal for the sashing and worked on the quilt most of the weekend during what little free time I had and here is the finished quilt top!  I hope you like it.  I'll start the quilt back this week and will try to get this finished by the end of next weekend so I can include it in next Monday's Weekend Update!



Elliott's Finished Lagoon and Lime
Charm Square Quilt Top

Now I just have to decide HOW I want to quilt this one...

Fabric, Fabric Everywhere...Organizational Help from the Experts!

So, I just started quilting approximately 3 years ago and I've used so many beautiful fabrics.  I LOVE fabric!  ...so much so that I can't seem to stop buying them up when I see some I like and I also can't seem to part with scraps that I think I may use in the future.  The problem with this is that I have drawers full of unorganized fabric.  I'm SO type A that it's driving me CRAZY just knowing these drawers exist, but at the same time I don't know HOW to tackle this issue... so I keep the scrap/extra fabric drawers closed so that I don't have to look at them.  I felt motivated to remedy this problem yesterday, so I emptied out 1 drawer onto my workspace in the kitchen.  In the end, I was so overwhelmed that I ended up just putting it all back into the drawer!

I'm in need of some advice from the experts out there on HOW to organize my fabrics!  I'm overwhelmed by the amount that I'm begining to accumulate.  I don't want to just throw them away, but how do I organize them for future use WITHOUT becoming a fabric hoarder!?!?! 

I posted a topic about this in The Modern Quilt Guild group on flickr.com online and I sincerely hope to get some suggestions as to how to approach this. 

You can see this post at http://www.flickr.com/groups/themodernquiltguild/discuss/72157625010128160/

I hope that the suggestions come rolling in and that you all find them helpful as well!  I'll post in the future about how I handle this issue and what the end result looks like.  Thanks in advance for the help and advice!

Modern Blocks in Eggplant and Mustard

My colors for the AMQ quilt blocks are Eggplant and Mustard.  I was so excited about contributing to this project that I went this afternoon to the fabric store to get some additional fabrics for the Eggplant palette and I already had plenty for my mustard block.  Below are the Eggplant and Mustard palettes I put together to use for my blocks.

Eggplant Palette

Mustard Palette

I actually don't make alot of quilts using quilt blocks, so this was a new experience for me.  BUT, I had so much fun doing the Rolling Dice block that I think I'm going to make a whole quilt of them in the next few months!

For these blocks, I first fussy cut the image I wanted to be the focus of each block: 1) a bird from the Echino fabric by Etsuko Furuya, to place at the center of the eggplant block, and 2) a flower from Patty Young's Flora and Fauna collection in Mustard, to place at the center of the mustard block.  I then pieced strips to each side, repeating this process until I had a final quilt block of 12.5in x 12.5in.  The blocks are shown below.  I've included a tutorial for how to make the rolling dice block as well!



Mustard Block in Flora and Fauna - I fussy cut the first two fabrics
to make it look like the hummingbird was landing on the flower.



Eggplant Block in Eschino, High Society, and some Batiks

Rolling Dice Block Tutorial

Here's how to get the rolling dice look for your blocks:



STEP 1:  Cut your focus fabric square for the center 4.5" x 4.5".



STEP 2:  Then piece strips to each side of the block with a width of your choice. 
I used strips anywhere between 1.5 inches and 2.5 inches. 
To add the strips, place right sides of fabric together
and stitch the first 2 strips to opposite sides of the block and continue to step 3.

STEP 3:  Press seams open and square up your block on both sides.
Repeat this same basic process for the other two sides of the block.

STEP 4:  Lay your block on your cutting mat, squaring it up with
the gridlines on the mat. Place your square ruler on the block,
tilting it as far as possible to the LEFT while keeping the ruler on the block.

STEP 5:  Trim around your ruler creating a square block. 
I repeated this process several times where I used my 6.5"x6.5" ruler 1st,
followed by my 9.5"x9.5" ruler 2nd, and finally my 12.5"x12.5" ruler last. 
If you’ve done this correctly, each square within a square will be set at an angle.



FINAL BLOCK:  Your final block will look someting like this.

I can't wait to show these to the AMQ group at the next meeting! 

Atlanta Modern Quilter {AMQ}

I've been MIA from blogging these last few summer months thanks to a crazy work schedule and traveling to conferences... but, I'm back!  I have so many new and exciting projects and things to write about, so I'll start with this one:  the Atlanta Modern Quilt Guild.  I was on the Modern Quilt Guild checking out their new Project Modern Challenge and saw that Atlanta has a chapter.  So, I joined and am now a member of the Atlanta Modern Quilt Guild, which I'm going to call AMQ for short.

This brings me to my next small project, about which I'll be blogging in the next few weeks, which is part of a bigger project by AMQ.  AMQ was asked to submit a quilt to the new Georgia Textile Museum.  The quilt is to displayed, possibly used for advertisement, and then auctioned as a fundraiser for the museum.

Each person is making color block squares that measure 12.5 x 12.5 and each block will be a different color.  I'm going to make 2 blocks and am currently awating my color assignments.  I think it's going to be a lot of fun designing my blocks.  Our only restriction, if you even want to call it that, is that we sew our block of almost entirely (95%) of that color. Otherwise, we can design it however we want, as long as we use modern print fabrics and put a modern push on the look.  No problem.

I'll post again in a few days about my color assignments, designs I'm thinking about for my blocks, and possible fabric choices.  I'm so excited about this project and that my blocks may be used for something so cool!