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 I have a quilt tutorial using Momo's new Avant Garden collection over at the Moda Bakeshop today.  The back of the quilt is Mochi linen dots and is one of my new favorite things. Also, Adrianne from On the Windy Side is starting a Thursday interview series and she was kind enough to let me be her first interviewee.  You can find the interview here .

I spent the last few days getting pretty much nothing accomplished, but I did want to mention two things. 1.  I was very excited, and to be honest completely shocked, that my Sundown Quilt is a Viewers Choice Finalist in the Blogger's Quilt Festival .  If you could take a moment and stop by here  to vote for your favorite, I am sure that all of the nominees would be very grateful :) 2.  A quilt that I made for the Robert Kaufman booth at Quilt Market will have a free pattern available on their website soon.  I can't take any credit for the design since Nichole from Robert Kaufman sent me an image of what they wanted for the booth and I just picked the fabrics, made the quilt top, and wrote up the directions.  It is a very quick quilt and uses some of Ann Kelle's beautiful new prints.   I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and hopefully I will have something new to show you soon :)

The Fat Quarter Shop is hosting a very exciting sweepstakes over at their blog.  Starting today (May 23rd) through June 30th just visit The Jolly Jabber and complete a survey to be entered. To find out more information and get a peak at what is being given away, check out this video:

This skirt has been on my want-to-make list for a while and when I saw that Rachel was doing a sew-along I knew I wanted to participate.  I got a little bit of a late start, but this is a quick project and one that I would definitely make again (even though I normally hate sewing clothes). For the main fabric I used an Anna Maria Horner rayon print.  It is amazing.  Voile is soft and silky and nice but it gets so wrinkled, and the rayon has a really nice feel without requiring the constant ironing. It was also easier to work with than voile. The lining is Robert Kaufman Cambridge lawn in grey.  While the lawn is going to require ironing, hopefully having it hidden under the rayon will make it more forgiving. Because I am tall and I tend to like my skirts on the longer side I cut my fabric 26" long. The elastic casing was definitely the most annoying part of making the skirt, but it wasn't difficult and it wouldn't keep me from making another.  I ended up cutti...

Thanks everyone for their concern about the San Diego wildfires.  We were lucky that the fire closest to us (which was caused by a spark from a backhoe doing construction) never moved any closer to us and we were only asked to evacuate for a short time.  That fire is almost completely extinguished and we are now home and praying for rain. I was completely overwhelmed by the response to the giveaway and wish that I'd had more bundles to go around. The winner of the Lotus Pond bundle is . . .  And the winner of the Meadow bundle is . . . Congrats!  I will be sending you emails soon to collect your addresses. p.s.  I am super, super behind on responding to comments and emails.  I am not even going to try to respond to the giveaway emails, but if you have commented or emailed since then I will be getting to you as soon as I can!

Welcome!  I hope you are having lots of fun checking out all of the entries into the Festival.  It is such a great way to find new friends.   My second entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival is a quilt that I made for the Radiant Orchid Pantone Quilt Challenge a couple months ago.  I love purple but even more than that I love how purple looks with other colors. I quilted this one with straight lines and used a double layer of batting to make the quilt nice and squishy. Finished size: 39" x 49" Category: Small quilts Original post here   Thanks for taking the time to check out my quilt, I'm looking forward to checking out yours! Check out the links below to see my previous entries into the Blogger's Quilt Festival : Fall 2013 Spring 2013 Fall 2012 Spring 2012

Hello and happy Friday!  Being able to see Quilt Market photos and looking forward to the Blogger's Quilt Festival has really helped me get through this difficult week.  I live in San Diego near many of the fires and it has been very stressful and emotional.  Please keep San Diego in your hearts and prayers. When we were evacuated from our home earlier this week the first thing I wanted to get packed into our car (other than my family of course) was a stack of quilts and my Maple Leaf Rag was the first one I packed up. I started this quilt in early 2013 and worked on it for several weeks and once the quilt top was finished I decided that this would be my first ever hand quilted quilt.  It was a big project, but it was so enjoyable. The back of the quilt is Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee corduroy which makes such a soft quilt backing.   Finished Size: 74" x 74" Pattern: Maple Leaf Rag by Sarah Fielke in Material Obsession 2 Pieced and hand quilted by me Category: Hand...

When I first saw Leah Duncan's collection Meadow I really had to have some.  Each print is really beautiful and unique.  And the colors are just amazing. I bought a fat quarter bundle of the Picnic by the Hills colorway, but  I wanted to make a decently sized lap quilt so I added some coordinating prints and solids. I had a really difficult time deciding what to do with the fabrics but I have been wanting to try diamonds so I gave them a go. My husband was kind enough to help me take a photo in the back yard.  It's a good thing you can't see his face because he wasn't smiling, ha ha.  We are continuing to experience very hot, strong Santa Ana winds and spending outside is not very pleasant. For the backing I used my favorite Meadow print; normally I'm not a huge fan of green but the greens in this collection are gorgeous. The binding is an Art Gallery solid, I think it's called Emerald.  I quilted on the side of each seam and then down the center of the dia...

I love Giveaway Day, it is so exciting!  Thanks for taking the time to stop by my blog. Before we get to the giveaway I wanted to give a little intro for anyone who may be visiting for the first time. My name is Erica and I live in San Diego with my husband and 2 kids.  Over the past few years I have really fallen in love with quilting (and fabric) and I love documenting my projects on my blog.  Here are a few of the things that I have made since the last giveaway day. If you want to see more of my projects you can view past finished projects  2014 ,  2013 ,  2012 , and my tips and tutorials here . Let's get back to why you are really here. This time I have decided to giveaway 2 different prizes. One is a fat eighth bundle of Lotus Pond . I haven't received the bundle I ordered yet so this photo is from the Cloud 9 website . And the second is 4 fat quarters of Meadow . I am finishing up a quilt right now using this line and it is just so lovely that I knew ...

photo from Missouri Star Quilt Co The winner of the Palm Springs fat quarter giveaway is . . . Congrats Lou!  You will be receiving an email soon!

So lately I have been trying to work on making small changes to improve the accuracy and quality of my quilts.  One area in which I need a little work is on mitered corners; most of them time they are nice and sharp, but sometimes they end up a little wonky and I wasn't sure why. As I was getting ready to sew the binding on my Meadow quilt yesterday (I haven't shared it here yet but I have posted a couple photos on Instagram) I thought I would look to Google for some answers and I found a fantastic tip.  Am I the only one who has never heard of this ?  Basically when you are sewing on the binding you stop a quarter inch from the edge of the corner (or whatever your seam allowance is) and then sew a diagonal line into the corner.  I'm sure that makes no sense so you can read much better directions with a diagram here .  It really worked! Also yesterday, I found a very exciting magazine in the mail.  The latest issue of Quilty showed up and inside was a quil...

Last year I was able to participate in Beth's New Blogger Blog Hop and I had a tremendously positive experience.  She is running the Blog Hop again for the third year (yay!).  If you are interested in participating, check out the info page here . Beth asked me if I would write a few tips to share what I learned during and since the Blog Hop last year so I have compiled a little list that I hope will be helpful. But before I start listing off tips I wanted to start with my main piece of advice: I made new friends and I learned a lot while participating, but the most important thing that I probably learned is that making friends is a big part of blogging.  And that information has been so valuable in helping me to develop friendships and my blog over the past year. Make sure you are having fun.   Don't feel like you have to write a certain way or post multiple times a week or have all of the latest fabric lines.  Make what you want to make and have fun with your ...

This month Caitlin asked us to make Colorwheel Geese blocks in pink, black, and mustard with a white background.  Despite looking a little intimidating, these were actually pretty simple to paper piece.  Caitlin asked for us to make at least one block, but two would be appreciated, and making two blocks was really not that much more work. This quilt is going to be so pretty; I really love Caitlin's aesthetic and she always chooses blocks and colors that wonderfully outside of my norm.  I highly recommend taking a look at her blog ! I also recently made some placemats.  To be honest I was dreading making them, but I couldn't find any reasonably priced placemats in the store so I went for it anyway.  I wanted to keep them simple and I did not want to have to bind them so I used this tutorial except I ended up not quilting mine.  Well, I quilted two of them and then I decided I preferred them unquilted so I ripped out the stitches.   Using a beloved pr...

I worked on finishing up yet another baby quilt over the last couple days.  This one is for a baby boy that was born last week; I had to wait to make it because his parents didn't want to find out in advance if they were having a boy or a girl and I don't particularly enjoy making gender neutral quilts. A couple years ago I made this quilt for my son using Ed Emberley fabrics.  Ever since the scraps have been calling my name.  The pieces that I had were pretty small so I cut them into 3.5" squares, added the new Picture Pie fox print, and then added various coordinating print. The inspiration for this quilt was Anna Maria Horner's beautiful Color Dive quilt. I fell in love with it when I saw the pictures from Quilt Market and have been wanting to make something similar. The backing is an Ann Kelle Remix print, which is such a great green, and the binding is Kona charcoal. Finished size: 37" x 40" You can still find Ed Emberley prints available: Fabricworm F...