Now that my new fabric collection, Honey Locust, has shipped to stores, I am busy making all the things!  The first project I made was a quick one using the Echelons Cheater Print.

I whipped up a new ironing board cover (I know, I know, I just made one with my last cheater print), but I couldn't help myself!  It's such a quick project, and I thought these softer colors would go beautifully in my sewing room.

THIS is the tutorial I use to make ironing board covers.  I've shared it many times before.
It just takes an hour or so to make, and I often have all the supplies on hand.

It's such a sweet, happy print and oh so quilty, don't you think!!??

This little ironing board cover is bringing me a lot of joy right now.  

I also really love my Oliso iron.  I love the color, the weight, the heat, the long automatic shutoff feature, and the extra-long cord!  This is my second Oliso iron.  I had my first one for 7-10 years and knew I would be getting another one when the first one broke en route to a quilting retreat!

Anyways, if you're interested in making one of these covers too, I've got just the amount of this cheater fabric you need to make one just like it, listed in my Etsy shop HERE.

I would also love to make a quilt coat and a tote bag with this cheater print.

What would you make with it?

Honey Locust - My New Fabric Collection!

 About a year and a half ago, I began working on my newest fabric collection with Riley Blake Designs.  It's called Honey Locust, and I am happy to announce that it has finally shipped to stores! 

Honey Locust is an homage to my grandparents, who lived in a cute little house on Locust Avenue in Pleasant Grove, Utah, for many years.  Before that, they lived in Laie, Hawaii for 25 years.  My grandpa was a cowboy and a history professor.  My grandma was a quilter and a homemaker.  Their home in Pleasant Grove was on the historic registry, and it was full of learning and love (as well as lots of quilts and antiques!)  I have many memories of riding horses, learning skills such as quilting and canning, working alongside family while painting their picket fence, and singing songs while my grandpa played the guitar and taught us about our heritage.  We worked together and played together at that sweet little house on Locust Avenue, and I miss my grandparents dearly.

In this collection, you'll find cozy colors such as grove green, sky blue, berry pink, honeycomb yellow, lead navy blue, petal pink, saddle brown, and linen.  The names remind me of Pleasant Grove, picking cherries and grapes on my grandparents' property, Utah (the beehive state), my grandpa - the teacher and cowboy, and fresh linen sheets hanging on a clothesline. 

The large floral print (bottom fabric below) is called Gigi's Garden.

The grandkids called my grandma Gigi (she is the namesake of my company!)

There are 9 different prints plus one "cheater" print.

I'm kind of obsessed with the cheater print and want to make "all the things" with it!

The cheater print was inspired by a quilt I made several years ago (and that was inspired by several antique quilts I had seen around).  I kept meaning to write a pattern for the quilt, but it just never happened!  When it came time to design a cheater print for this collection, I knew I wanted to recreate the quilt on fabric!  I love that design, and I love that the blocks are even smaller than the ones in my quilt.  Everything is cuter when it's tiny, right!?

Honey Locust Rolie Polies, 5" Stackers, 10" Stackers, and Fat Quarter Bundles are available.

I hope you're seeing just how scrappy this collection is!

So many prints and colors!  It's been a blast to work with!

I've designed 3 new patterns to go along with Honey Locust.  First up is one of the first patterns I ever designed - with a major update!  I omitted some outdated appliqué and included one more size option.  It's called Square Root and it's 2-1/2" strip-friendly.

Next up is a row-style quilt called The Locust House Row Quilt.  Again, it was inspired by my grandparents' house.  My grandma also had a few row-style quilts that I admired greatly so I knew I wanted to design one for this collection.  It finishes at 62" x 81" and would make a great block of the month program for any shop!  Or a great scrap buster project if you want to make it on your own!

And finally, Checkered Spools.  In honor of my grandma, who taught me how to quilt!  It comes with instructions for two size options and is 2-1/2" strip-friendly!

I can't wait to share more with you soon!  I am busy making all the samples for these quilts (and more!) so stay tuned!  For the most up-to-date info, follow me on Instagram (@gigis_thimble) or check-out my Etsy shop for new patterns and fabric by clicking HERE.

I'd love to hear what you think of Honey Locust and the patterns I've designed to go along with it!

And if you really want to do me a favor, please tell your local fabric store about this collection!  I would appreciate that so much!  Let me know if you have any questions and thanks for stopping by today!

Teaching at the 2025 Garden of Quilts

I'm so excited to announce that I will be teaching at the Garden of Quilts again this year!

This will be my fourth year teaching and I couldn't be more thrilled!

If you haven't been before, it's 4 full days of classes, quilts swaying in the breeze throughout 50-acres in the incredible Ashton Gardens, lectures, trunk shows, demos, and a quilty vendor marketplace - 

all located at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah.

The dates are September 10th - 13th.

They even have some special events such as afternoon tea, a "meet the maker" social and shopping event, special dinners, and (what is sure to be) an inspirational show by Lori Holt!  It's going to be so much fun, so be sure to grab some friends/loved ones (or even come by yourself!) and join us for a week full of inspiration and one heck of a good time!

  

I'll be teaching 4 classes...

Wednesday afternoon, I'll be teaching Pineapple Block Paper Piecing.  It's such a great technique to add to your quilting repertoire!  My "grab and go" method is great for all skill levels!

Friday afternoon, I'll be teaching one of my upcoming patterns, Checkered Spools

(which will be available in a few weeks!). It's a 2 1/2" strip-friendly pattern with 2 size options.

Saturday morning, I'll be teaching Big Baby - a great class for beginner quiltmakers!  We'll focus on using an accurate 1/4" seam allowance, "nesting" seams, the time-saving "web-piecing" technique, and making Flying-Geese.  A baby quilt is a great place to start in the world of quilting!

And finally, on Saturday afternoon, I'll be teaching a new(ish) pattern of mine called Feels Like Home.  We'll make 3 different blocks while we do a little bit of paper-piecing (for the roofs), learn a time-saving triangle piecing hack (for the hearts), and focus on using an accurate 1/4" seam allowance.

It's sure to be a good time so I hope you'll join me!  Please let me know (below) if you have any questions!  There are so many fun classes; I'm hoping I might have time to take one or two, myself!  

Winding Ways Quilt

Hi friends!  Today I want to share a quilt I finished earlier this year called Winding Ways.  I started this quilt in July of 2023.  Around that time, I had mentioned to some friends that I wanted to get better at curved piecing.  One of them happened to have an Accuquilt Die Cut machine + dies for the Winding Ways pattern.  She offered to let us all use it, and well, here we are!

This was my color palette.  I got all of my fabrics (including my backing and binding fabrics) at Harmony in Provo, Utah.  It's one of my favorite shops (and lucky for you, they have an online shop!)  They have tons of fun gift items, yarn, and apparel fabrics.  Their quilting cotton selection is a bit on the small side, but every fabric is beautiful and unique!  

In a moment of insanity, I decided to "go big".  Why?  Why did I decide to go big?  I hadn't even made a test block.  I just dove right in.  And to be completely honest, I regretted that decision every step of the way...until it was finished, haha.  Every step was tedious.  I didn't enjoy it.  But I persevered and now I'm really glad I did!  

 

There isn't a pattern per se, just the dye cuts.  So, unfortunately, I don't have any information about fabric requirements.  But I do know, I did a 10 x 12 block layout.  So 120 blocks with 12 curved pieces on each one.  I chained pieced everything, so every step took a long time!

The blocks finished at 8" x 8" each.  So the finished quilt size is 80" x 96".

Perfect for a queen-size bed!

When it came to the quilting, I knew I wanted something circular to complement the quilt pattern design.  I found some inspiration pictures, but they all seemed to be custom quilted using curved rulers.  I didn't want to pay custom quilting prices, so I took it to my awesome long arm quilter, Jen Ostler.  We found an edge to edge pantograph called Hippie Dippie that was really similar to my inspiration pictures.  Jen tweaked the pattern a bit to make the design overlap a little and it came out perfect!

As many of you know, Jen always quilts a little object into the quilting for a fun game of hide 'n seek.  This time it was a cute little butterfly which you can see above.

I bound it in this striped woven fabric.  And I'm a little obsessed with this beautiful floral fabric I used for the back.  It tied everything together perfectly, don't you think?!?

The label is from Ever Emblem. I've been getting labels from them for years!  I get the 2" cotton, fold-over, sew-in labels.  If you want to get some for yourself, you will just have to pick one of their basic cotton labels and customize it from there.  I machine stitch my binding down around it because it's hard to hand stitch through it (but then I usually hand stitch the rest of my binding down to the back of my quilt).

I'm really happy with the way this quilt turned out!  I love the colors and the quilting.  But I kind of wish I had picked colors that went better in my house.  I don't know where I'm going to put this quilt!

I'm so thankful to my friend for letting me use her die-cut machine to cut all the pieces for this quilt!  So generous of her!  The dies cut out every piece accurately with little notches to show you where to line things up!  I can't imagine doing this project without the die-cutter!

I hope you enjoyed seeing this fun project using the Accuquilt Winding Ways Dies!  I'm glad I was able to get some serious practice with curved piecing.  Tell me, what's one quilting technique that you want to work on?

Thanks for stopping by today!

Half-Square Triangle Baby Quilts

Hi friends!  Today, I have two more really simple baby quilts that I want to share with you!  Last week I shared a simple patchwork quilt.  And this week, I have two Half-Square Triangle quilts that I recently gifted to two new mommas in my neighborhood.  Both had baby girls!  It's such a joy to spread the {quilty} love!

(Sidenote: I finished all 3 of these quilts a few months ago and I'm just now getting around to blogging about them.  Just wanted you to know that I didn't whip all of them up this past week or two. :))

First up is this super simple gingham quilt.  I had some leftover HST's from another project that I didn't end up using, and decided to put them to good use and make a baby quilt with them!  Since it was so simple on the front, I decided to jazz things up a bit with a fun floral on the back.  This quilt was wider than your standard 40" - 42" wide fabric, so I tried to find a wide-back fabric that matched.  Do you know it's really hard to find a cute wide-back!?!  I finally landed on this teal and taupe floral by Lori Holt for Riley Blake Designs.  It was perfect for the look I was going for!

My blocks finished at 6" and I did an 8 x 9 layout, so it finished at about 48" x 54".

Jen Ostler in Highland, Utah, quilted it with the Cartwheel panto, 

which I think added some nice movement to this quilt.

I added one of my usual labels from Ever Emblem that has my name, city, and year on it, plus a fun floral tag that I got from Sarah Hearts.  It looks like she's out of that particular label, but she has so many other cute options, including this one that's pretty similar.  They're all so cute and I think they add a little whimsy to every quilt!

This pattern would be perfect for anyone who loves a simple, cottagey aesthetic!

Or, if you did it in solid fabrics, it would give it a simple, modern aesthetic!

[ I love wrapping gifts with beautiful ribbons that match!]

The second HST quilt I made was this one, which is a bit more colorful!

Again, I used some cutoffs from another project to make these HST's.  They have a more earthy color palette but there's plenty of florals in there to make it somewhat girly.

Do you think the days of girly = pink are gone?  I think moms these days are going

a little more modern and thinking outside the box.  Anything goes!

These blocks finish at 3" and I did a 12 x 15 layout.

Then I added a 3" finished border so it finishes at about 42" x 51".

Jen Ostler quilted this one too (she pretty much does all my quilting unless I need custom quilting).

The panto she used is called Golden Curls and I love it!

I think it has a modern, organic vibe, just like my fabrics.

Again, I used a label from Ever Emblem.  They're so handy!

I finished this quilt at the end of last year but didn't get pictures of it until today.

I can't remember what the backing fabric is called but it has a little texture, which I think is fun.

I washed this one before I gifted it.  I don't usually prewash my fabrics but this was a high-contrast quilt so I wanted to make sure the colors didn't bleed.  I threw about 4 Shout Color Catchers

into the wash and had no bleeding!  Yay!

I dropped it off at my neighbor's today.  The mom couldn't talk long (new baby she had to attend to).  But as I was walking back to my house, she called to me from her porch - so shocked that it was a quilt inside the bag.  She thought it was just diapers or something!  I love surprising people with handmade quilts!  Don't you?!?

I hope you found a little inspiration here today!  Use what you have and keep it simple if you want!

Quilts don't have to be intricate.  Cute fabrics and a simple pattern is all you need!  Oh, and be sure to check out my tutorial on how to square up HST's if you're new to quilting!  This will give you perfect points every time!

Happy quilting!