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Monday, April 17, 2017

Baby Beluga Quilt

I'm so excited to share with you a new quilt I finished recently! 

The pattern is from the book Quilts for Kids by Ten Sisters Handicraft.  Carmen Geddes is one of the authors (who happens to live near me) so I have the pleasure of running into her from time to time. She is one of the kindest people I've met and an amazing long arm quilter, pattern designer, teacher, etc.  


This book is full of 16 darling projects for children of all ages.  Each project uses the Ten Sisters Easy Piecing Grids - which are grid panels printed on fusible, lightweight interfacing.  The grids come in 1", 1.5" or 2" squares and in packages of 6, 12 or 20 panels.


I chose the Baby Beluga quilt pattern that uses 6 grid panels (retail price = $26.99) in the 2" finished squares.  I used low volume prints from my stash for the background and lots of blue and aqua prints for the whale and bubbles.  It took a long time to cut out all those squares (about 756 to be exact) but I LOVE how scrappy it is!


The quilt finished at 56" x 56" and was custom quilted by Marion McClellan.  It was my first time using Marion but she is a friend and an amazing quilter.  I knew she would do a good job and she did not disappoint!


I always love "grid-work" and the vertical rows of loops look like bubbles!
I love it!


In case you're wondering about these grids,
I will give you my two cents on them...

It was fun to try them.  It was kind of a different style of quilting and could appeal to people who have a hard time matching up seams or who don't want to pin at intersections.  You won't have to take the time to piece all of those individual squares together or pin but you will have to spend time laying out all the squares in the right places (which I thought was kind of fun) and then ironing the squares to the fusible side of the panels and then clipping the seams at each intersection so the seams will lay flat.  Once you get everything in place you can sew the rows up really quickly!  The cost of the grids adds one more expense to your overall quilt making cost but sometimes it's worth it if it saves you some brain cells, am I right? ;)  Oh, and the interfacing does add a little more weight to the quilt itself, but it's still really soft and I can't even tell it's in there!


I backed this quilt with aqua minky and bound it in a Cotton + Steel gray dot fabric.  It's super soft and snugly!  Also, it's for sale in my Etsy shop if anyone is interested.  It was made with lots of time and love (and favorite fabrics from my stash) and I hope it goes to a good home! 

If nothing else, I hope this post inspires you to try something new - a new technique, a new product, a new color scheme - the sky is the limit!  What is something you want to try or have tried recently that you are excited about?  Please share, I'm dying to know!

Happy quilting!
~ Amber 

Saturday, April 1, 2017

Five Fat Quarter Fun - Garden Path

Hello again!  Can you believe it's already April?  
That means it's time for another Five Fat Quarter Fun project!


This month's FREE Five Fat Quarter Fun project is called Garden Path and was designed by my partner in crime Amanda of the blog Jedi Craft Girl.  Be sure to stop by her blog to get the PDF pattern and see more pictures of her beautiful quilt!


Amanda and I both used Cotton + Steel fabrics donated to us by the Fat Quarter Shop!  I love The Fat Quarter Shop.  They were so helpful and they shipped my fabrics super quick without any problems!  Thank you to the Fat Quarter Shop for sponsoring our pattern this month!


I've been on a really "traditional" kick lately and I'm loving classic colors that won't go out of style - like blues and neutrals.  Who knew that you could get that feel with Cotton + Steel fabrics?  Usually their fabrics are more modern and whimsical (which I LOVE - don't get me wrong!) but I am really happy with the traditional feel of these fabrics.




















I pulled my fabrics from a few different Cotton + Steel collections including their basics, solids, Bluebird, Flower Shop and the S.S. Bluebird collections.


I ordered a few extra fabrics (aside from what The Fat Quarter Shop donated) so that I could have options.    


For the quilting, I chose one of my favorite, go-to patterns - the continuous curve!  Cathy Barney in Alpine, UT quilted it for me and I love how it turned out! 


I love this simple quilt pattern too.  In fact, I love it so much that I wanted to make it bigger!  It's super easy and quick to put together.  But, I decided to stick with just the 5 fat quarters this time.  I don't do this very often, but I'm tempted to make a second Garden Path quilt (just bigger)!!!


Did you notice that my borders and binding are a little different than Amanda's?  

If you're interested in the fabric requirements and alternate border & binding instructions for my version, click HERE. Be sure to stop by Amanda's blog to get the main instructions though, you'll need those too (click HERE).


 We hope you are enjoying these FREE Five Fat Quarter Fun projects!  We are loving the challenge they are giving us to make at least one quilt a month.  Please let us know if you make any of them.  You can tag us on Instagram @jedicraftgirl and @gigis_thimble and be sure to use the hashtags #fivefatquarterfun and #gardenpathquilt.

Happy quilting!
~ Amber