2015 Finishes – Page 3 – Sew Bittersweet Designs

Blogger’s Quilt Festival – Hypnotic Eye

Hello! If you are new to my blog, welcome! My name is Melissa and I am an aspiring quilt designer with a small shop over on Craftsy. I am a mom to a beautiful and amazing almost 6 year old little girl and a wife to my very own personal hero (he’s a US Army Soldier). If you are a regular here, thank you for sticking with me over the years. I have recently taken a break on regular blogging but I am trying to make an effort, especially now that my daughter is in full-time kindergarten, to make more time to blogging.

My entry into the Blogger’s Quilt Festival is my Hypnotic Eye Quilt. I’ve decided to enter it into the original design category. I designed this block in EQ7 as a challenge for the Quilt Design a Day group over on Facebook. It is an outstanding group and if you want to further your design skills, I highly recommend joining! The inspiration photo for the day was a seaside landscape and we were given the colors below.

At about the same time that I designed the block, a black and white challenge was announced for the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guilds. The challenge was to make black to white quilts with a pop of color. Black to white meaning that you could use shades of gray as well. I interpreted this challenge using all solids, and this is what I came up with.

To date, this is one of my favorite quilts that I have made.

Quilt Stats:

Designed, Pieced & Quilted by: Melissa Dunworth (me)
Batting: Warm & Natural
Fabrics: Kona Solids and American Made Brand Solids
Free Motion Zentangle Inspired Quilting

You can read more about this quilt in this post. You can also read more about my quilting process on this quilt in this post.

I hope you will consider visiting the festival and voting for my quilt for Original Design!

And please keep coming back! I promise to be blogging more regularly!

Princess Merida – My October Finish

12 Comments / 2015 Finishes, A Lovely Year of Finishes, Clothes, halloween / By Melissa Dunworth

I did it! Despite throwing my back out, I spent 5 hours yesterday, sitting on a heating pad and sewing. I know I couldn’t have finished if I had needed to cut anything but luckily I cut out everything a week and a half ago. To date, this is the most complicated pattern I have made. This is only more complicated than Elsa from last year because there were so many more pieces. I still disliked sewing Elsa more – that slippery fabric was AWFUL!

This is Simplicity Pattern 1557

Here she is, the sleeve gauntlets are made, she even has a bow and arrow (thanks Nana and Baba).

I made her the cape to go with it, she was a little upset that I didn’t do the applique on the front that the pattern shows, but we watched the movie this weekend and when I pointed out that Merida does not have an applique of herself on her dress, she was fairly satisfied that she didn’t need one either.

I just love the way she looks with the cape on! This costume will last forever because it was 6 inches too long and instead of cutting the excess off, I simply folded it up and hemmed it, that way as she gets older I can let it down and it will last a little longer.

I don’t consider myself a clothes person, but the more I sew for Anne and the more I see the joy it brings her, the more I enjoy it. I will always be a quilter first but I will do just about anything to put a smile on my baby’s face!

Happy Halloween to all who celebrate, and happy princesses to those who don’t! I for one have a very happy princess in my house right now!

PS. You have until Halloween to link up your October Finish! Get on it!

Missing In Action

7 Comments / 2015 Finishes, Quilt Shows / By Melissa Dunworth

I’m alive! Alive and well. I’ve been gone because I have been sewing secret projects that I can’t share just yet. Hopefully next weekend I will be able to.

In the meantime, Anne and I are jet setting off to California to attend the International Pacific Quit Festival in sunny Santa Clara, CA. I already know that I did not win a ribbon or anything, but just being juried in to the show feels like a huge win, in and of itself.

The quilts that were accepted are my Swoon:

And my Hypnotic Eye quilt.

I will also be taking many many pictures for other friends that are in the show and were not able to attend. I am super excited for the weekend. Wish me luck that we arrive safely and without incident. This is Anne’s first time on a plane and I’m petrified because of her peanut and tree nut allergies. I will be armed with Epi Pens and sanitizing wipes!

Have a great weekend and I will be back in full blogging action next week!

Hazel the Hedgehog number 4

8 Comments / 2015 Finishes, A Lovely Year of Finishes / By Melissa Dunworth

Ok, I guess you could say that I really like this pattern… I just finished my fourth and already have fabric for my 5th and 6th. (Pattern by Elizabeth Hartman)

This particular quilt was made for a good friend who I met through the quilting world, but I think our shared deployment experiences is what really brought us close together. She had her fourth baby, but first little girl last week! This quilt is for the little angel that has graced the world with her presence.

She is also my finish for September, A Lovely Year of Finishes. Make sure you link up your finish on this post here.

I think my favorite part is the binding, or maybe the glasses. I can’t really decide.

Have a happy first weekend in Fall!

Washington State Fair

13 Comments / 2015 Finishes, Quilt Shows / By Melissa Dunworth

Anne and I made a trip to the Washington State Fair on September 11th, admission was free if you brought a canned food donation. A small price to pay to help someone else. We haven’t been to the fair since she was three because she had an allergic reaction to something there and we ended up under the care of 6 paramedics. Needless to say our trip left me nervous. We literally arrived, walked a mile to the quilt exhibit (no stops, no touching anything, no eating anything, barely breathing), looked at the quilts and walked a mile back to my car. I was scared the entire time. I am happy to report that this time we didn’t have to visit the paramedics at the fair.

We went to the fair because I entered three of my quilts. My Swoon, Hypnotic Eye and Divergent. I wasn’t really expecting to receive any ribbons at the fair because having been in the past I know the quilts they typically pick are the ones that are hand appliqued and clearly years were invested in making them, so I was pleasantly surprised to find ribbons on two of my three quilts.

Swoon didn’t receive any ribbons, but that’s ok, she was a blue ribbon winner and a judges choice at the county fair and I’m still riding high on that. She did get juried in to the upcoming Pacific International Quilt Festival, so that is super exciting.

Hypnotic Eye got a Judges Craftsmanship Ribbon, which is just awesome! It is such a wonderful feeling to have my technique recognized as being good. It was kind of difficult to see it shoved into a corner, in fact, it was so well hidden that most of my friends who have gone to the fair haven’t even been able to find it. Oh well! Oh and good news, she’s heading to the Pacific International Quilt Festival too!

Now Divergent just surprised the dickens out of me, when I dropped her off I was warned that she may be disqualified and not even judged, so when I saw two ribbons on her I just beamed. She received an Honorable Mention and a Judges Craftsmanship ribbon! Wowzers, talk about knocking my socks off.

So, here’s why I entered the state fair. I want to get better at my craft, one way to improve is to know what you are doing right and what you are doing…”wrong”. I don’t really like the word wrong but it fits here. The judges always provide feedback and good judges will provide positive comments and areas for improvement. Some judges turn their areas for improvement into negatives and that can be hurtful to read, but a good judge turns it into constructive criticism and that’s where the growth comes in. If you are willing to learn from the judges then it opens you up to growth.

I am excited to read my comments and send off Swoon and Hypnotic Eye to the next show. Wish me luck!