Contemporary Cloth

Flying Arrows Finish

I am so excited! I actually finished an entire quilt!  In the same month I started it, now believe me when I say, that is a record for me!  Another first for me…I made a pieced back for this quilt and I have to say I love the back practically as much as the front, so here goes, a ton of pictures! You can find the tutorial for the Flying Arrows Quilt top here.

The Front

The Back

Gratuitously cute toddler picture – sun bathing on my new quilt!

It’s perfect for watching TV on too!

All rolled up with nowhere to go!

Quilt Stats:
Measures: 62×62″
Fabric: Kona Modern Quilts for Robert Kaufman
Quilting: “Straight” Line
For: No purpose – it just tickles my fancy

Now, if you really like this quilt…I have entered it over in the weekly quilt contest at Quilting Gallery, this week’s contest is sponsored by Contemporary Cloth and the challenge was Geometric Designs. I would love your vote! And don’t forget you can always vote for more than one quilt!!!  Thank you!

 

Sew Intertwined QAL: Outside Blocks Tutorial

Hi Everyone! And welcome to the second tutorial for the Sew Intertwined Quilt Along!

Sew Intertwined QuiltIf you are just joining us or if you missed the first tutorial, head over and visit Jenna at Sew Happy Geek for the Dresden Center.

Today I will be showing you how to make the outside blocks – these are by far the easiest blocks to make and I will be showing you how to do it with the least amount of fabric waste – because I HATE wasting my fabric. I even double and triple checked the math on the HST method I’m showing just to make sure I was actually saving your fabric.

Based on my colors (shown above) you will need to cut the following: (Note: when I say feature fabric – I am referring to prints I used for my HSTs – both fabrics)

For the HSTS:
Background fabric (white): two strips – 8.5″ by width of fabric
Feature fabric: two strips – 8.5″ by width of fabric

Sub- cut the strips into 8.5″ x 8.5″ squares.

Pair your squares up – right sides together – one background, one feature fabric. You should have 10 Pairs Total

Use your 1/4″ foot and sew along the outside edges of the squares – ALL THE WAY around.

Next you will want to cut diagonally across your Squares. When you open the triangles up you will have made 4 half square triangles. You will have a total of 40 HSTs.

I pressed my HSTs towards the feature fabric because my background is white. You could also press your seams open if you like. You will want to trim your squares down to 5.5″ and then set them aside.

Next you will want to work on your 4 patches. Each block requires two 4 patches for a grand total of 40. I am going to demonstrate the fastest way to make them using strips.

You will want to cut:

6 Strips of Gray – 3″ by width of fabric
3 Strips Each of pink and orange – 3″ by width of fabric

Next you will want to sew the 3 pink strips to 3 of the gray strips, and the 3 orange strips to the remaining 3 gray strips.

Press towards the gray – I recommend this even if you are used to pressing your seams open. When creating a 4 patch, pressing towards the same fabric in both color sets, will allow you to perfectly match your seams.

Cut your strips into 3″ sections. See picture above.

Next you will want to put your pieces right sides together and butt your seams up – this is what gives you the perfect points.

Sew using a 1/4″ seam. You will create 40 four patch blocks. These should measure 5.5″ x 5.5″.

Next layout your blocks and sew them together.

You will make a total of 20 outside blocks and if you follow this tutorial you will conserve as much fabric as possible!  The important things to note if you are doing a scrappier version of the quilt: each square in the 4 patch was 3″x3″ – when the 4 patches are sewn together they should measure 5.5″x5.5″. The finished HSTs should also measure 5.5″x5.5″ – in case you decide to use a method that you are more comfortable with.  The overall finished block is 10.5″.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I can’t wait to start seeing finished blocks in the Flickr Group!

This post is sponsored by Contemporary Cloth – they provided the fabrics that were used for the tutorial and my quilt.

Contemporary Cloth

BitterSweet Bundle – Fractured Color

Today I wanted to share with you my third BitterSweet Bundle – for Contemporary Cloth – Fractured Time. This one is available for purchase and I am very excited about it. I began to realize just yesterday that my bundles are a little different than what most people out there in the quilting blogging community are putting together. I am not doing gradations of color, I am not sticking to any kind of theme or even any particular designer/manufacturer. I am trying to push the envelope and show you different combinations that you may have never thought of or considered before. With each bundle I create I like to start with a main focus fabric, in this case it is the Hay Wire Blue by Alexander Henry. As I started to pull colors and fabrics from it I discovered the Hay Wire Yellow also by Alexander Henry and realized that – Hello! It was the perfect compliment.

All of these fabrics are available separately for purchase at Contemporary Cloth AND they are also available as a bundle for your sewing enjoyment.  Now on my last bundle, Broken Time, there were a couple of questions like what would you do with such a different assortment of colors and prints. Well this time I designed a little mini-quilt/wall hanging for the bundle.

I’m calling this Checkered Stars – because it makes me think of a checkerboard but I also see stars in the design.  (Note: Keep in mind that EQ7 does change the scale of the print when you are doing mock-ups.)  Just a little something fun to help you visualize what this cool little bundle could do. If you like this…let me know and I can whip it up and do a tutorial.  You may be looking at this and saying to yourself “You didn’t use every fabric…” You would be right. When I buy a fat quarter bundle it is for 2 reasons – to build my stash and for specific projects. Half the time I split up the bundles I buy. I do have the oranges pulled into the mock up on a different image:

I think both work nicely and these are color combos you don’t see often but that do work well.

I hope you like thew new bundle, I would love to hear what you think of both the bundle and the new design. I am thinking of using it for a doll quilt I will be making for my Sewing Buddy’s daughter (we are doing a swap!).

 

Sew Intertwined QAL – First Tutorial – Dresden Plate

Sew Intertwined QALHappy Thursday Everyone! Jenna has our first official sewing tutorial for the Sew Intertwined QAL up on her blog today!

Jenna will be showing everyone how to do the Dresden Plate for the center of the quilt. Here’s a peak at how mine turned out – I would show you more but I don’t want to reveal my whole top yet – in good time I promise.

Head on over and as you start getting your blocks completed start uploading them to the flickr group! I can’t wait to oooh and aaaah over them all!!!

Contemporary Cloth

This post is sponsored by Contemporary Cloth – who provided me with the stunning Stockholm line for Robert Kaufman to make my quilt top.

 

Winners & Broken Time

First I have to start out with the fact that I am in absolute shock and awe that my last giveaway for my first ever custom bundle over at Contemporary Cloth had 926 entries! WOW! That is just so AMAZING!

Now for the winners, each will receive their own BitterSweet Bundle Fly Away, and for those who didn’t win, you can buy your own!

Sandy B and Barbara. I will be sending both of you emails later today.

Now on to my next bundle for Contemporary Cloth. First I will tell you how I started. I was going through the Yuwa Japanese fabrics on the Contemporary Cloth site, these are Japanese fabrics that I haven’t seen anywhere else. They are all very interesting, Modern, and like nothing I have seen before. I picked one print (upper left) and built the bundle around it.

The Yuwa Print, Kei, for some reason makes me think of a broken or disassembled old fashioned clock, you know, the kind with gears.  After that the rest of the fabrics just fell into place and the Broken Time Bundle was born.  This bundle is available exclusively at Contemporary Cloth for purchase and would add some great basics to your stash as well as a fantastic focal print.

What do you think? Do you see the inspiration? Broken Time?

 

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