Farm Crossing: Sneak Peek

Hello Friends, I just have to share this sneak peek with you (couldn’t help it!!) … the fabrics are adorable, aren’t they?

At this point I can’t say more beyond that.  So stay tuned for the delightful details!!  I have got to fly.  I have been goofing the last couple of days, and I have got to catch up with some work so that my little family can go for an outing!  Thanks for stopping by.  Hugs to you all!

Formation: Final sneak peeks

Happy Monday, Friends!  I hope you had a restful weekend.  I managed to finish and ship off Formation.  Here are a couple of final sneak peeks for you.  You can see I went just a tad “fancy” on the quilting.  But feather quilting is my favorite quilting therapy!

Thanks for stopping by.  Here is to a lovely week to all of you!  Blessings to you.

FREE PATTERN: Simply Sweet (for Boys and Girls)

Have you heard of lief! Lifestyle brand?  It is a Dutch brand that specializes in children’s things.  Simply sweet is the only way I can describe the lief! products.  Click here to visit lief! Lifestyle’s website. Caution:  you might experience the extreme temptation to add everything on the site to the shopping cart!

A few months ago, I designed a quilt and pillow project using the lief! Lifestyle fabrics, newly released by Quilting Treasures.  Click here to view the full range of fabrics.  The quilt and pillow project comes in boy and girl colorways.  Here are the twin size quilts:

And here are the pillows that go on the bed:

Remember I had mentioned to you I have more Spring Market 2013 sightings to share with you?  The following lief! Lifestyle photos are from a few weeks ago at Quilting Treasures‘ booth at Spring Market.  See the quilts and pillows?!

[image source:  Quilting Treasures' Facebook Page]

Click here to download boy quilt and pillow project.

Click here to download girl quilt and pillow project.

Click here to purchase girl quilt kit.

Click here to purchase boy pillow kit.

Click here to purchase girl pillow kit.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you will be in love with lief! as much as I am after you have a chance to look at their products.  Hugs to you all.

Garden Mist in QUILTER’S WORLD (Summer 2013)

Hello Friends, I am happy to share with you that little quilt at the corner of the cover of Quilter’s World‘s Summer 2013 Issue is designed and made by yours truly – it’s my Garden Mist quilt!

This small wallhanging / table topper was a fun one to make because of the various techniques involved – regular piecing, my “faux” curve-piecing, fusible applique, and three dimensional yoyo flowers.  It was designed with “trying out techniques” in mind so that one can have experience in attempting the different techniques without having to make a big ol’ bed spread size quilt.

My ‘faux” curve-piecing technique was achieved by applique-ing the orange peel pieces onto square blocks.  You can see the white I used is sheer, causing the background fabric to peek through the white, and thus giving the overall look a “misty” effect.  Click here and here for my previous posts on machine fusible applique.

And here you see the yoyo three-dimensional flowers.  I just love these flowers made using Clover’s yoyo makers.  Click here and here to see the particular ones used to make the flowers.

I also decided to use “other than green” fabrics for the leaves and stems.  I quite like the visual effect of using prints for stems.

The fabrics used for this quilt are from Art Gallery Fabrics.  They have a nice selection of floral prints with a contemporary flair!  Check them out if you haven’t already.  The design of this quilt is meant for quilters to freely choose the fabrics they like to suit their own palette of choice.

Now about the quilting – except for the straight line quilting, everything else is unmarked free-motion quilting.  As usual, the supplies used are Aurifil Mako 50 cotton thread over Hobbs Tuscany Silk batting.

You can see the quilting is a mixture of pebbles and swirls, mixed in with a bit of McTavishing.  I covered the former two techniques individually in my online “Learn to Machine Quilt” class, and I combined both the motifs in quilting Garden Mist.  [Incidentally, I just checked and saw that Annie's is still offering the class at 50% off regular price.]

This following shot was taken right when the sun was rising – you can see the sun rays peeking through in the top left corner.  I was able to sneak out for a little walk before my little family woke up.

Thank you for stopping by.  I hope you have enjoyed my Garden Mist quilt.  Do tell me what you think of it.  Meanwhile, I am going back to work.  I have eight quilts to ship out in the near future.  I am on my second one….

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My 2013 lineup thus far besides “Garden Mist” – click on project names for more information:

Annie’s Love Those Precuts Book (January 2013):  Apple of My Eye

Annie’s Sweet Layer Cakes Book (April 2013): Sunburst Melody

Fons and Porter Easy Quilts (Spring 2013): Baubles, Baubles

Fons and Porter Easy Quilts (Summer 2013): Curious Cats

Fons and Porter Easy Quilts (Summer 2013): Fabrique Foursome

Fons and Porter’s Love of Quilting (March/April 2013):  Now I know my ABC’s

Machine Quilting Unlimited (March/April 2013): Quilting Curvy Feathers

QUILT (June/July 2013): Color Burst

QUILT (June/July 2013): Pattern Play

Quilt-it…today (July/August 2013): Yay Day

Quilt Trends (Winter 2013, Cover Quilt): Tango

Quilts and More (Spring 2013): 2 Wishes

Quilts and More (Spring 2013):  Watercolor Sketches

Quilter’s World (February 2013): New Life

Quilter’s World (April 2013): Monkey Around

Quilter’s World QUICK & EASY QUILTS (Spring 2013): In & Out

Quilter’s World QUICK & EASY QUILTS (Spring 2013): Garden Maze

Simple Quilts & Sewing (Spring 2013):  Stained Glass

The Quilter (December 2012/January 2013): Not Too Square

The Quilter (April/May 2013):  In the Meadow

Benartex Free Pattern (March 2013): Pumpkin Patch/Autumn Fauna

Benartex Free Pattern (March 2013): Flora Linda/Catalina

Lecien Free Pattern, Lynette Anderson (April 2013):  Forest Floor/Wildflower Wood

Quilting Treasures Free Pattern (January 2013): Mediterranean Dream

Quilting Treasures Free Pattern (February 2013): Butterfly Kisses

RJR Fabrics Free Pattern (May 2013): Nature’s Harmony/Silent Harmony

Through the lens of…

… a four year old’s camera.  I had shown you recently a picture of Miss Baby snapping pictures with her camera.

I finally had a few moments to sort through the images downloaded from Miss Baby’s Crayola Camera (This camera actually works, albeit with limited resolution – click here for more details).  These are the art-sier presentable shots from her recent picture set.

No — your eyes aren’t out of focus as you scroll through the pictures.  Miss Baby hasn’t mastered the art of holding the camera still while snapping the shots.

I am pretty sure she didn’t ask this couple’s permission before snapping their picture.   I am not quite sure what compelled her to take the picture.

And this is the “professional head shot” my daughter took of me, with part of my head cut off!  I intend to send this to any editors asking for an updated head shot of me, ha!

Lightheartedness aside, my little one is growing up way too fast.  When asked not to grow up so fast, she informed me with all seriousness and sincerity she didn’t have time to stop growing… and this week, we received this in the mail.

Can you tell I am entering a new phase of motherhood?  It’s all good and fine except I am not quite ready…

Thanks for stopping by!  Some of you had asked about Miss Baby, and I hope you have enjoyed the little update on her. 

Come back tomorrow for another magazine featured project!!  Till tomorrow!

Can you relate…?

… I am sure you can!  A sweet bloggy friend Ellen sent me the following photo:

The sign states the symptoms: Continual desire for snuggling under a handmade quilt.  Patient often has blank expression and is sometimes deaf to spouse or kids.  May interfere with regular meal preparation or household tasks. Patient has no taste for electric blankets or bedspreads.  May wander off at Quilting Bees.  Known to mumble to self about Log Cabins, Double Wedding Rings and Roses from Ohio.

After the very comforting prognosis of “No Known Cure”, the sign proceeds to state “Temporary treatment: Medication is useless as the disease is uncurable, although not fatal.  Victim should attend as many Quilting Shops, Bees (group therapy) and Shows as possible to alleviate symptoms.”

Please tell me you can relate!!!

***

Ellen is one of the contributing authors on Mennonite Girls Can Cook, and these ladies really can cook!!!  Click on the links to find out more about Ellen and the Mennonite Girls if you haven’t already known about this sweet lady, and her cooking friends.

Geraldene’s Tango!

Hello Friends, I hope you are doing well.  You might recall from earlier this year my Tango quilt made cover of Quilt Trends‘ Winter 2013 issue.

Earlier this week, I was “over the moon” excited when Geraldene sent me a picture of her Tango quilt, upsized to a King from my original throw size design.   WOW!  What an accomplishment!  I have never made a King size quilt – the thought of making a quilt that size is quite daunting to me.  So, kudos to Geraldene for attempting such an enormously impressive project, after having to rework the calculations to transition the design from throw to king size!

This is what Geraldene wrote of Tango: “I decided to make this as soon as I saw it in the magazine. It is breathtaking.  After finding the fabrics, I just needed to figure out how to size it for a king size.  So I played around till I got it to work out. Thank you for designing such a beautiful quilt and fabric. I plan on making another one as well.”

Congrats to Geraldene, and thanks for sharing your work with us and making my week.   Seeing quilts made from my designs definitely make those long nights worthwhile!!!  Speaking of long nights, I will be working late tonight…

Meanwhile, have a lovely weekend, Dear Friends!  I shall catch up with you next week.

Formation: Sneak Peek #1

Hello Friends,

I have been making flying geese units with the batik fabrics I showed you a couple of days ago.

I love love love how my flying geese units turned out.  The units squared up perfectly 98% of the time without a hint of wonkiness.  I am beginning to think batiks are the only way to go for making frustration-free flying geese units.

Please feel to share about your positive (or negative) experience(s) piecing with batiks.  I am most curious since I am new at using batiks!  Also — this seems like a silly question, but is there a right side and wrong side where batiks are concerned?

Thanks for stopping by.  Your visit means much to me.  Hugs to you all!

Glimpses from Market…Lynette Anderson’s Wildflower Wood

I managed to meet all my deadlines for 2013 Spring Quilt Market that happened a few weeks ago.  Due to my family commitment (i.e. Miss Baby), I have yet to attend Market.  So while Market was going on, I tried to catch peeks and glimpses of various booths to see if any of my designs/samples showed up in pictures circulated on the worldwide web.

Today I am sharing with you glimpses of Wildflower Wood quilts I had spotted from Lynette Anderson’s blog.  First up is my Forest Floor design (a free downloadable pattern – click here for more information).

[image source:  Lynette Anderson Designs]

And then, I also spotted Woodland Secrets (top right).  Click here for more information on this fun and absolutely adorable BOM project offered by Lynette Anderson.

[image source:  Lynette Anderson Designs]

It was definitely gratifying seeing those samples actually appeared at Market.  Stay tuned for more sightings I will be sharing on my blog.  I am waiting to share the other “sightings” to coincide with when I can share with you the respective free patterns.

Thanks for stopping by!  Love you all!

p.s.  Wildflower Wood is available for purchase from Fat Quarter Shop – click here to view the offerings.

Fabric Preview: Island Batik’s upcoming collections!

Hello Friends,

We had some glorious sunshine the last couple of days!  Miss Baby and I were out snapping pictures.  That’s actually a working camera — I will show you soon the scenes captured through the camera lens of a four year old!

Meanwhile, I got in these scrumptious fabrics that make me feel REALLY grown up after working with Riley Blake fabrics in my last quilt.  These fabrics are a selection from Island Batik’s Sunken Pool, Outer Space, and Lake Life collections!  What do you think of them?

So, are batiks part of fabric staples?  I have to admit I haven’t worked with them a lot, but am definitely starting to REALLY fall in love with them!  I plan to use more batiks in my own quilts, as well as in my future designs.

Thank you for stopping by!  Hugs to you all!