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A couple weeks ago, our puppy jumped up on my daughter and ripped a huge hole in the side of her favorite t-shirt.  It wasn't mendable, so we discussed some options and decided that it would make a great throw pillow. And since it was such a fun and easy project, I thought I'd share a little tutorial with all of you.  It is much less work than a t-shirt quilt, plus the knit fabric makes an amazingly soft pillow.   1.  Find a fun t-shirt.  This one was an obvious pick for us because of the puppy incident, but I think it is something that we will do in the future with my daughter's favorite shirts as she outgrows them. It would also be great for old college or team shirts.   2.  Roughly cut around the shape that you want for the pillow, leaving at least a couple inches of extra space on each side. 3.  Cut a piece of stabilizer (I used  Shape Flex ) that is approximately the same size as your t-shirt minus a little and then follower the stabiliz...

A few weeks ago I signed up for a swap (yay!) for the first time in ages.  I LOVE participating in swaps, but over the past couple years I have had a difficult time finding the time to fit one in.  This swap seemed great, and the wonderful Alison was heading it up, so I hopped on the bandwagon. Unfortunately I have been a terrible swap member.  I have neglected to comment on photos and when I have tried to comment a few times recently, I have been put into "Instagram jail" for making too many comments in too short a time.  Thanks a lot Instagram. But I did make a pillow for my partner so I wasn't a complete failure.  I had a little bit of a difficult time deciding what to make because my partner didn't give me a lot to go on . . . plus she said she doesn't like one of my favorite colors and that made me want to only use that one color.  So sorry partner, I did end up using it, but I used all of the other colors too. This block is based on a Tennessee Walt...

I am back with another list of things that I would love to have if I had infinite time, space, and money.  There are a few things from my awesome sponsors and a few things I have just seen around.  What is on your wish list these days? 1.  A sewing machine for my daughter.  She is turning 8 next month and is interested in learning to sew, but I don't really want her learning on my machine.  Do you have any recommendations?  I am thinking about this Janome Hello Kitty machine . 2.  A Nikon d500 .  For the past few years I have been using my beloved Nikon d7000.  It has served me well, but the d500 will take better photos in low light, it has a tilting touchscreen, and can automatically transfer photos to your phone.     3.  Some yardage of this Vintage Picnic Extra Wide print in Navy .  This would work with so many color combos, it is so cute, and it is 108" wide so you wouldn't have to piece together your backing fabric. ...

Art Gallery Fabrics and the Fat Quarter Shop have teamed up again with another free pattern: the Blithe Quilt .  It is made up of big-ish half square triangles so it is pretty quick to piece together, but it packs a lot of visual punch. I chose to use mostly Maureen Cracknell prints for my quilt.  About half of them are from her first collection,  Wild and Free , and most of the rest of them are from her newest collection, Fleet and Flourish .  There is also a Pure Elements Solid (it's called Ocean Waves) and one print from Bonnie Christine's collection  Succulence .   The colors of Maureen's collections are amazing, they have such a calming effect on me. As much as I love bright and loud colors, these colors are much more "me" in real life. Instead of a random layout I decided to go a little rainbow-y. Even though the rainbow isn't perfectly balanced, it makes me happy. The backing fabric is this great print from Wild and Free.  I quilted it wi...

A while back I picked up Jen Kingwell's Quilt Lovely book.  It is aptly named - it is lovely - and I have several quilts from the book on my to do list (I already made one ). The Bonnie Lass pattern grabbed my attention because it is scrappy and scraps are taking over my house.  This is a great scrap buster since it uses small pieces and uses fabrics with light and dark values, so it gobbles up a good variety of fabrics.  Of course my scrap bins are still overflowing, but it is amazing what you can make with little leftover pieces. There are a few places where my darker value fabrics probably could have been a little darker, but my main objective was using up my scraps so I didn't stress about it.  This pattern was a lot of fun (though not exactly quick) to put together and I think it would be fun to remake in different color scheme (maybe black and white?). The backing is a really lovely Cloud9 flannel that I have had in my stash for a while.  It is different ...

Thank you so much for all of your entries in the giveaway!  I have been in Utah visiting my family for the past few days and it was fun to read through your comments. The winner of the Quilt Sandwich giveaway is . . . Congratulations Catherine!  It's my kind of shop too :)  I will be emailing you soon. Don't forget to check out Quilt Sandwich  and use coupon code  5OFF50 to take $5 off your order of $50 or more, and use the code 10OFF100 to take $10 off your order of $100 or more!

Today I would like to welcome a new sponsor - Quilt Sandwich ! I love that this shop has a selection that varies from basics to Japanese imports to really fun fabrics that are just begging to be used as a quilt backing .  The owners are also awesome and they are going to give us a little intro to their great shop. Quilt Sandwich Fabrics was started by Kris and Becca, two fabric-obsessed sisters who love to quilt! We started our shop on Etsy in 2008 and we now have over 1,000 bolts of high-quality, fun fabric. Some of our favorite fabric designers and companies are Cotton + Steel, Carolyn Friedlander, Denyse Schmidt, Anna Maria Horner, Amy Butler, Kaffe Fassett, Alexander Henry, and Art Gallery Fabrics. We also carry patterns for quilts and bags and pretty ribbons. We pride ourselves on excellent customer service and have received great feedback from our customers. We take care to ship your order quickly and package it nicely. We always have discount codes to save you mo...