STL Traveling 7: Angie's quilt

Now that you've seen the starting block for my STL Traveling 7 traveling quilt, let's start looking at the additions I've made to some of the other quilts in the group. The first quilt I received was Angie's. Her starting block was the round star with the triangle border (bottom left corner in the pic below).

Design-wise, she was up for anything. In terms of color, she wanted a lot of neutrals with pops of teal and mustard yellow. Just my thing.

This seemed like a great opportunity to break out my Modern Triangle Quilts book by Rebecca Bryan. There are so many fun triangle designs in there, and I basically went wild. I picked out a variety of blocks in the 4" size and then combined them with "solid" (not pieced) triangles and a few designs of my own.

Once I'd added the triangle section on the right, I needed something to add a row along the top to bring them together, so I scoured another favorite block book of mine, Elizabeth Hartman's Patchwork City. I eventually decided on the Bookstore block, adding some extra negative space to bring the row to the size I needed.

I gotta admit, I was pretty chuffed with how this one came together, and it was definitely a fun one to work on.

Felt gift card envelopes tutorial

Hello all! I'm just popping in today to tell you about a new tutorial I have up on the Havel's Sew Creative blog for these super cute felt gift card envelopes.

They are so quick to make and add a little something special and homemade to what can seem like an impersonal gift. The felt is so easy and fun to work with, and I appreciate having a handwork project where I can sit on the couch by our twinkling Christmas tree. (P.S. I get all of my felt from Benzie Design. It comes in a million colors and sizes, and it's a dream to work with. They're not paying me to stay that; I just love their products.)

The tutorial includes templates and instructions for three different designs, plus embellishment ideas. Click on over to the post to check it out!

Oh, and if you happen to be looking for an envelope you can sew by machine, check out this tutorial from last year.

STL Traveling 7: Traveling quilt 2017

This year, I decided to join another traveling quilt group with some of my STLMQG buds, and boy has it been fun. Unlike last year's quilt (which is actually still going on due to some scheduling issues in the group), this group isn't secret, so we've been able to share the progress of our quilts on Instagram (#stltraveling7), which has been really fun to see. I'll be sharing my additions to the other quilts here as well. But first up is my quilt!

Back over the summer, I got my hands on a fat-eighth bundle of April Rhodes's Observer collection and decided to use it as the basis for my starter block and color scheme: off-white, tan, mustard gold, navy, blue-gray, light blue, and denim.

I pulled in a few more coordinating fabrics from Carolyn Friedlander and Cotton + Steel and went to town on a paper-pieced block I designed called Stacked Diamonds (I'm hoping to make it available soon). Eight templates combine to create a 16" finished block.

I put together a color card to send along with my block, as well as the rest of the fat-eighth bundle. I also suggested the other group members add their own fabrics, noting that some Essex Linen and chambray would be nice.

I chose "Layered" as my theme and told the others they could interpret it however they saw fit. So far, the progress has been really interesting, and I'm always anxious to see what will pop up next!

November do.Good Stitches blocks

For November's quilt for the Emerge Circle of do.Good Stitches, Rebekah decided to make a sampler quilt unified by the colors navy, orange, and gray. She asked us to pick any two 12" sampler blocks we wanted and to stick to prints in navy, any shade of orange, and light gray.

I loved the freedom of this month and chose two blocks from The Quilt Block Cookbook by Amy Gibson (the second one was slightly modified). I particularly like this play on the X-plus block and think it might have to make an appearance in a future quilt of my own.

Who doesn't love a good sampler, right? And this color combo is one of my faves. Happy to get this one in the mail early!

Black Friday comes early at Havel's Sewing

Psst...I have a secret for you. Havel's Sewing, my favorite source for sewing scissors, cutters, and mats, has started their Black Friday sale early, and there are all kinds of sweet deals up on their site. We’re talking rotary cutters for $7.95, people. And, as always, you can use coupon code “blueskycrafter7” for $7 off a purchase of $25 or more. So treat yo' self (or your friends!).

I highly recommend that giant pink cutting mat to help with your holiday projects, like this fun felty goodness from Benzie Design that I’m about to cut into. Happy shopping!

Park mini quilt: A finish (and a class)!

A few weeks back, I finished up this fun Park mini quilt, my latest hand-applique project.

I used Carolyn Friedlander's Park pattern and made the wall quilt size, just four easy blocks, two of each version. It measures 27" square.

Most of the fabrics are from the Big Sky collection by Annie Brady. I'm pretty obsessed with this collection. I mean, just look at those bears peeking out. And I love that citrony yellow overall print with all of the animals.

I paired them with a little Essex homespun in navy, a Greek key print from Sweet Marion, a Dear Stella print from the Timberland collection, and the citron Add It Up print from Cotton + Steel.

I decided to machine and hand quilt this one, and I really love how the big-stitch quilting makes the applique pop. For the hand quilting, I used a variety of perle cottons and DMC embroidery floss.

This mini is a sample for a hand-applique class I'm teaching locally this Saturday at Janie Lou from 1-4 pm. There are still a few spots left if you have a little free time and want to enjoy a few laughs and lots of learning. You can sign up right here. Back to the sewing!

Fall table runner

Ever since I saw (and bought) this super cute fall print by Pen & Paint last year, I've dreamt of a fall table runner in similar colors. I love that it uses the fall "standards" -- reddish orange, golden yellow, tan -- but then pops in the unexpected teal and bright blue. So this fall, I decided I was finally going to make it happen, and I'm so happy with the result.

The center panel is a delicious print (Reflect in natural) from Carolyn Friedlander's Euclid line, printed on Essex yarn-dyed linen. I kept it simple by just lining the outside with a patchwork of prints.

For the quilting, I outlined the seams on every few prints to create a generously spaced crosshatch.

I like my table runners to be reversible (because why not?), so this was the perfect opportunity to use this fabulous Cotton + Steel Halloween print (Lil Monsters Party in mint) I'd been hoarding for a Halloween-y but not too Halloween-y look (I don't really decorate for Halloween).

I had exactly one-third of a yard of the print, so I cut the Euclid linen on the front to the same size. Then, I surrounded the Halloween print with a border of Essex Homespun in navy in the same dimensions as the patchwork on the front, so the quilting would all line up.

I stuck with the Essex Homespun for the binding because it looked great on both sides, but I wanted to add a little something to the back, so I finished it off with some big-stitch quilting on the binding to make it pop. I love the little orange border it created.

I gotta say, I'm going to be pretty reluctant to take this one off the table for Christmas.