Melissa Dunworth – Page 75 – Sew Bittersweet Designs

NICU Quilt Tutorial by Purple Panda Quilts

6 Comments / Hopeful Threads / By Melissa Dunworth

On thing I truly love about this online quilting community is all the wonderful and supportive friend’s I have made. One such friend is Kristy from Hopeful Threads. We are working together this month to make NICU quilts, blankies and lovies. Another wonderful, amazing and crazy talented friend is Lyanna from Purple Panda Quilts. When I mentioned the project to her she offered to do not only a quilt, but a tutorial as well!

What makes this truly amazing is that Lyanna is currently in graduate school and pulled herself away from her studies to do this, thank you Lyanna.

Please make sure you head on over to Purple Panda Quilts to get the tutorial for this stunning baby quilt!

Swap Fun With My Guild

11 Comments / Purse/Pouch, SSMQG, swaps / By Melissa Dunworth

Last night was our monthly meeting for the South Sound Modern Quilt Guild and it was a fun one! In September everyone who wanted to brought in baggies full of their scraps and traded with someone else. The goal was to make a swap gift for someone using that persons scraps (kind of guaranteed they will, at the very least, love the fabrics). There was no limit on what you could make.

When I got my bag all I could see was white fabric. I was initially a bit scared, what was I going to do with just WHITE! My partner though was stealthy, she hid all of her colors inside a nice wide strip of white, lovely oranges and grays. Here is what I made:

I have a ton of orange and gray scraps too, so I added some from my stash. My partner made it so easy on me, she said she didn’t have a zippered pouch and her pin cushion was in need of updating. Voila!

I made the pouch using a QAYG technique, with no pattern or tutorial, just made it up as I went. The pin cushion I just sewed together all of the scraps. I had so much fun making this. If you want a tutorial for the pouch let me know, I will happily whip another one up, it won’t be exactly the same, but you will get the general idea of how to make it.

The awesome part though was when we got to give our gifts, the ladies in this group are just so crazy talented! It was amazing to see what they made with scraps! Heather from Creative Blessings had me and she clearly did her homework! She got me down to a tee.

I felt so incredibly spoiled! She got me my favorite fabric line (Simply Style) and a gorgeous mug rug and cup cozy with a little coffee set! She even gave me some extra flying geese and hexie templates!

This card (which I didn’t read until this morning) truly touched my heart. Heather is incredibly talented with making cards and it made me feel so special to receive one of hers!

And this notebook cover! She designed it herself and could she have gotten my style any better?!? Hexies and flying geese! My two favorite things!

I think Heather needs to do a tutorial for this! It is truly an awesome design. It even has a pouch for sticky notes and a pencil! LOVE LOVE LOVE!

As Heather said in her card, this guild has filled a need in her life that she didn’t know she had, and she is so right for me too. I had no idea who much starting this guild would mean to me, but it truly has been the most amazing experience! Thank you so much Heather!

October Winners – A Lovely Year of Finishes

5 Comments / A Lovely Year of Finishes, Fiber of All Sorts / By Melissa Dunworth

Another month of incredibly awesome finishes has come and gone! I love how productive we have all been and I am getting so excited for 2014! Shanna and I hope you will join with us again! In the mean time, winners for October. Thank you again to our sponsors. Remember, if you are interested in sponsoring next year please contact either Shanna or myself, we would love to work with you!

October Winners Are:

1. A Fat Quarter Bundle from Moda United Notions

Winner 1: Lisa Marie – joining us from Flickr

2, 3. TWO winners each getting to choose one pdf pattern
from Sew BitterSweet Designs – that’s me!
($10 value)

Winner 2: Heather – Quilts in the Queue –
Winner 3: Moneik from Moneik Quilts

4. Choice of $15 or 2 charm packs from Stitch n’ Giggles

Winner 4: Patty – A Stitch in Time

5. A Paper Piecing Kit from Paper Pieces

Winner 5: Lisa L. – joining us from Flickr

6. $25.00 Gift Certificate to Superior Threads

Winner 6: Kris – Sew Sunshine

7. Quilting Patterns designed by Quilting Lodge

Winner 7 – Tammy – Karamat Sews

Thank you again to everyone who linked up! Remember you still have time to link up for November! Time to get that Christmas sewing into full gear!

Christmas Diamonds Table Runner – Tutorial

22 Comments / Christmas, Fiber of All Sorts, tutorial / By Melissa Dunworth

I joined a Christmas swap on Facebook. I had a lot of fun sewing this lovely little table runner together for my partner.

Measurements: 16×40
Materials
20 White Charms (5″x5″)
20 Christmas Charms (5″x5″)
Backing Fabric at least 18″x42″
Batting scraps at least 18″x42″
Ruler
Fabric Marking Pen or Pencil

Note:
All seams are 1/4″

Start by pairing your white charms with your Christmas Charms and sewing your Half Square Triangles. I have a tutorial here if you have never made them before.

For this project I pressed to the dark side, usually I just press open but I find it is easier to match points perfectly when pressing to one side or the other.

Trim your HSTs down to 4.5″ x 4.5″. You will have 40 sets.

Next you want to lay out your pattern, don’t follow mine exactly as the upper lefthand block is actually turned (look at my first picture in this post to see how that block should be oriented).

I like to sew my blocks together in pairs, for each pair I pressed towards the green HST. This will make life so much easier and your points close to perfect when assembling everything.

Next sew the 2 pairs together butting the center seams nice and tight and you will have a block that measures 8.5″ x 8.5″. I like to alternate each block when pressing the middle seam, one up, then one down. Again this leads to better alignment. You butt the seams up next to each other and the point line up perfectly.

You will make 10 of these blocks total.

Assemble your top. Remembering to line up those alternating seams.

The above picture was taken after I ripped out my turned block and fixed my mistake. Oops!

Quilt as desired.

The wonderful Shanna from Fiber of All Sorts is who recommended the magical 3 lines to me for the quilting and I have to say I love how it turned out.

Bind using your favorite method.

Happy Holiday Sewing!

Hopeful Threads November 2013 Project

8 Comments / Hopeful Threads, pay it forward / By Melissa Dunworth

I feel so blessed to have teamed up with Kristy from Hopeful Threads for another amazing month of sewing and this time quilting too! This month Kristy and I are asking everyone to sew, quilt, knit or crochet blankets and lovies for the local NICU where Kristy lives (they currently have a huge shortage).

When Anne was 20 months old, she got sick, really sick. When her temp hit 102 I took her to the doctor, they said it was just a virus, give her a couple days and she would be fine. Well 2 days later when she blew the thermometer out at 105, I rushed her back to the hospital. My hubs was working a 24 hours shift, so it was just Anne and I. We were admitted immediately and they went to work on getting her vitals back up. I left the house in such a rush that I didn’t bring anything with me, in fact I only had 2 diapers with me. When she was wheeled into the hospital room the first thing I noticed was a quilt waiting on her bed. A handmade quilt.

She was practically lifeless, she just laid there when they did a catheter and IV. Didn’t move, she said no a couple of times, but other than that didn’t even fight. We knew she was really sick. She was in the hospital a total of 3 days, my mom flew up the last day and stayed with us for a week afterwards to help get her back to normal. Shortly after her stay, she started having nightmares and night terrors about what she went through. It was heart wrenching. Through it all though was this quilt, it was such an amazing gift of comfort and love. For the first several months after she got sick she couldn’t sleep without it.

Now I get to pay it forward and make a quilt for another child and family in need. I hope you will join me in sewing with Kristy from Hopeful Threads. Remember, that since we are doing Preemie blankets and lovies, these quilts will be fairly small.

Appropriate sizes range from 20″ x 20″ up to 36″ x 36″. Slightly larger, 48″ x 48″ would be fine too as they can be donated to a PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). Please visit Kristy’s post about the November project for more information, and I hope you will join us in sewing this month!

Author name: Melissa Dunworth