testing

Welcome!  Today is my stop on the Dresden Carnival Blog Hop.  The book was written by a mother and daughter, Marian Gallian and Yvette Marie Jones.  I will admit that I have never made a dresden quilt because I thought it was kind of intimidating, but this book is really making me want to give it a go. I was immediately drawn to this Lily Pad project.  I love how much movement the quilt has. And then in this alternate colorway.  I would have never guessed that this quilt was based on the Dresden plate.  The dresdens are appliquéd, which is a little scary for me, but I think I am going to have to try it anyway.    And how gorgeous is this?  I love the floating petals. I think that this is a great book for people who love Dresden quilts, but it is also a great quilt for people like me to who would like to branch out a little bit and try something new. And there is a giveaway!  Stash is giving away a copy of the book to one lucky winner.  To enter to win, just leave a comment on this post

Thank you all so much for your comments, words of encouragement, and advice on my last post.  I have sent the pattern off to a few people to have them test it so hopefully that goes well and the pattern will be available sometime next month.   Today is Harper's 8th birthday and I was really surprised how interested she was in having me make things for her birthday.  Not that she didn't also want store bought things - because she wanted plenty of those too - but she requested a crown, a quilt, and a bag.  I made the crown, am working on the quilt, and the bag will have to be a belated gift. Here is the quilt top that I am working on.  I am hand quilting it, so it will be another week or so before I am done, but I used double gauze for the backing so I am excited to give the quilt to her.  As you can see, she isn't big on pink ;) We went pretty simple for her birthday crown.  I just used 2 pieces of wool felt with a layer of stiff interfacing in between.  The trim is hot glue

The Carol Quilt has been tested and is now available for purchase on  Craftsy  or  Etsy . Happy Friday!  We are just wrapping up Spring Break at our house and it has been a long week.  I love my children dearly but they are driving me crazy. This quilt is actually going to go to one of my son's kindergarten teachers.  She is wonderful; I love how much she appreciates my son's personality and has helped him to learn and grow. I came up with the idea for the quilt after ordering some of Heather Ross' Tiger Lily fabric (I ordered mine  here ) to use as a quilt backing.  I love this print - the colors, the flowers, everything.  It is so sweet. This color scheme was fun to work with but is a little out of my comfort zone.  I love pink and orange, but am not big on yellow or green, but together I really like the color combo.   The binding is one of my all time favorite prints - Chicopee simple plaid.  I have gone through so much of it and am down to about a half yard, I think I m

A few weeks ago I received an email from the lovely Amanda at Stash Builder Box wondering if I would be interested in trying out their new monthly subscription box.  Yes, I love subscription boxes!  The box arrived yesterday and I wanted to share the experience with you.  I was sent the box for free, but I am going to do my best to give an honest review. The box got to me quickly after it was shipped and was nicely packaged. One interesting thing about the Stash Builder Box is that they have a program called Heart Builders.  Anyone can join as a volunteer .  Amanda will send a box of fabric to a volunteer piecer, who will piece the quilt top.  The quilt top is then passed on to a volunteer long arm quilter and then the quilt is donated.  Currently the completed quilts are donated to an organization called Mission Fiji.   The first things I pulled out were these patterns.  One is a block of the month and one is a quilt by one of my very favorite quilters, Emily .  One thing that I real

I recently had the opportunity make a quilt with Luke Haynes ' new fabric, Dapper.  I was really excited to work with the woven fabrics.  They are GLORIOUS! The tutorial for this quilt is up on the Moda Bake Shop , but I wanted to share a little more here. You might be wondering what makes these different than regular quilting cotton.  I don't know the technical details, but they feel like a lightweight flannel.  They are a little fuzzy, but not heavy, they have a little bit more stretch to them, but they aren't difficult to work with. When I was done with the quilt top and trying to decide how to quilt it, hand quilting seemed like the best option.  It kind of took forever (I'm pretty slow) but I am so happy that I took the time.  I considered calling it the House of Cards Quilt because it took me a little more than the entire 4th season of House of Cards to hand quilt it. I also hand sewed the binding down with perle cotton.  This is the first time that I have tried t