2012 – Page 3 – Sew Bittersweet Designs

Connections

11 Comments / Fiber of All Sorts, quilt, Quilt Inspiration, Quilting Bees, SewHappyGeek / By Melissa Dunworth

I have been part of this wonderful online community for a little less than 2 years and actively on Twitter for about a year now. Through this community I have made so many wonderful friends and connections. These friends have brought such joy to my life, and this past week I was blessed enough to work with 2 friends to bring some joy to another friend’s life.

I met 3 wonderful ladies on Twitter, @h2ogirl76 (aka. fiberofallsorts) – real name Shanna, @sewhappygeek – real name Jenna, and @HQSuz – real name Susan. Earlier this year, Susan wrote a heartfelt blogpost about losing her father. It is never easy to lose someone you love and Shanna, Jenna and I teamed up in the hopes of doing something that would honor her father and show her how much she is loved and supported. Thus a quilt was born.

: Photo courtesy of The History Quilter (Susan)

The ever talented Jenna from Sew Happy Geek, took the Navy Star block and enlarged it giving Shanna and I this amazing pattern to work with. Shanna was the guiding force behind the colors and figuring out how to assemble the extra large blocks, and let me tell you that lady has an eye for color! My role was to stitch a couple of the blocks and quilt it. I also needed to figure out how to send it and keep it a surprise, and in walks another wonderfully talented lady, Jaye from Artquiltmaker. She was the essential link in getting this quilt mailed and keeping it a surprise. She is friends with Susan and was willing to package and ship our quilt for us, putting the wonderful final touch on this quilt of love.

Susan has since named this quilt “The Navy Quilt” and I have first hand knowledge that she has already spent some quality time snuggling underneath it. Being part of something like this just solidified the importance of this community and the connections we make in my mind. Sometimes it is about stepping outside yourself and doing something for someone else in need. Thank you Jenna, Shanna and Jaye for letting me be a part of this, and Susan, I truly hope you enjoy your quilt.

If you would like to read Susan’s blog post about the quilt, please go to History Quilter and read all about it. If you would like to read Shanna’s post, please go to Fiber of All Sorts and read all about it there.

Tutorial – Leftovers Pillow

10 Comments / tutorial / By Melissa Dunworth

This post was originally a guest post over at Quilter in the Gap as part of the 3rd quarter wrap up for the Finish-A-Long. I thought it might be good to re-post it now as the days left until Christmas are quickly dwindling. This tutorial will show you how to breathe new life into a leftover quilt block.

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Today I have a fun pillow tutorial for you. I am calling it the “Leftovers Pillow”. I thought this project couldn’t be more perfect for the Finish-A-Long, this project, with the exception of the pillow form, was made entirely from leftovers from projects I’ve made this quarter!

For this tutorial I will not be giving you measurements, aside from seam allowances, because I want you to know that you can make this pillow with ANY SIZE block!

Supplies:

Leftover Quilt Block
Leftover Strips for block border
Leftover batting from previous quilt (at least 2.5” larger than block on all sides)
Leftover Muslin from quilt backing
Leftover Scrap for Zipper – 2” x 4”
Zipper – leftover from a purse project that ended up not needing a zipper
Pillow form – size will depend on your finished quilt block (my block was 15.5” x 15.5” – I added a 1.5” border all the way around to finish the block out at 17.5” – I bought a 18” pillow form so my pillow would be extra full and squishy.)

Let’s Get Sewing!

Step 1: Baste your quilt block – this project is so small that I decided to pin baste my block.

Step 2: Quilt your block to your heart’s content.
Step 3: Add your borders – I added mine to the block after I finished the quilting

Step 4: Prepare Zipper

Step 5: Prep Backing fabric – mine was significantly larger than my quilted piece. I cut it to be as wide as the block – in my case 17.5” wide and then I cut it in half, not worrying about the length yet, you will trim the whole backing down to size after you have installed the zipper.

Step 6: Trim backing down to same size as quilt block – make sure you OPEN the zipper!!!

Step 7: Pin and all the way around and sew using ¼” seam, trim corners

Step 8: Turn Through the zipper and use something to push out the corners – I used my purple thang, but almost anything will work!

Step 9: Insert the pillow form, zip and enjoy!!!

Have fun with your Holiday Sewing!

The Amazing Shrinking Giraffe

17 Comments / Personal Post / By Melissa Dunworth

Or maybe an alternative title:

“The Amazon Baby”

In case you are wondering, from left to right: 2 weeks old, 1 year old, 2 years old, and 3 years old. That giraffe just keeps getting smaller and smaller. There is a story behind the giraffe, do you want to hear it? Ok, twist my arm, I’ll tell you!

When I was pregnant, my husband wanted to have a surprise, he didn’t want to know the gender of the baby and I REALLY REALLY wanted to know. When I went to the ultrasound appointment, thanks to the army he couldn’t be with me, Anne was in no mood to cooperate so we didn’t get to find out then. I was bummed! However, my mom wanted to know even more than I did, and I will be perfectly honest with you, torturing my mom turned out to be pretty fun. When my mom threw me a baby shower in CA where I grew up she made me a diaper cake and the giraffe above was the very center of the cake.

Now, I was super high risk, so I had to do lots of tests and during the last 2 months of my pregnancy I had 3 ultrasounds a week (meaning lots of opportunities to find out) to check on Anne’s progress and at one point I even had a failed version (Anne was breech). At each appt the doc always said “I’m going to say a gender, but that is just a way of referring to the baby, I’m not actually telling you the gender.” Well at my version, my mom took the doc to heart because the doctor said “HE” so many times. Needless to say at 1:36 pm on November 12, 2009, my mom got a real surprise, finding out that Anne was in fact a girl!

Ever since she was born she has had that giraffe by her side, and he is shrinking at a rapid rate. Anne is only 3 and she is already 40.5 inches tall. This is actually the first time since she was 2 months old that she has actually been on the height chart at 99%, every other time she has been well over 100%.

Are you wondering why I am taking this walk down memory lane? Because every year for Christmas I make my parents, god parents, in-laws, and myself of course, an Anne Calendar. Her greatest hits from the year before, and the picture above is the cover of this year’s calendar.

Happy Holidays from Anne and I!

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day – Courtesy of Contemporary Cloth

307 Comments / Contemporary Cloth / By Melissa Dunworth

Hello and welcome to Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day 2012. Thank you Sew Mama Sew for organizing all of this wonderful fun! If this is your first time to my blog WELCOME! I am a quilter and designer. You can find more than fifty free tutorials on my tutorials page. I blog about my adventures in quilting, my forays into clothes sewing (which admittedly scares the pants off me) and occasionally what it is like have an autoimmune disease, being an army wife and being the mom of a toddler. For those who are regular followers of my blog already, WELCOME and Thank You for sticking with me!!!

Today’s giveaway comes courtesy of Sondra from Contemporary Cloth. Contemporary Cloth is your destination for Japanese Yuwa fabrics, Art Gallery and Kona Solids, Organic Fabrics, and they have new fabrics arriving all the time. What I love most about Contemporary Cloth is the they sell fabrics that I seldom ever see anywhere else. There are always unique treasures to be found that will add charm and character to your current project and/or stash. Sondra has generously provided a 6 Fat Quarter Bundle of Daisy Janie’s new line – Tilly.

Please follow the Rafflecopter below to enter. The giveaway will be open until 5pm PST on December 7th. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

November Bee Awesome Blocks

8 Comments / Bee Awesome, Bee Blocks / By Melissa Dunworth

Before Anne and I went on holiday this month I put 700 miles on my car driving back and forth from her’s and my doctor appointments. It was A LOT of appointments and a bit stressful. Then we arrived to our vacation spot and as you know things didn’t really improve too much. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to be able to meet all my commitments, but I am happy to report that I got all my bee blocks done!

I do have one more thing to make, but I will be turning that in “late”. It is a siggy block for my stripper row, but the lovely Shanna said it was ok if I sent that to her directly after I make it. This means that the Christmas sewing can commence!