Waste not, want not ...

... or how to use every last scrap of fabric while making your Full House quilt for the January Schnibbles project.

I don't know about you, but I'm one of those quilters who absolutely hates to throw any scrap of fabric away unless it's less than 1/2" wide or is damaged somehow.  I know that sometimes, especially when trying to tailor block construction to be charm-square friendly, scraps are inevitable ... so what to do with the leftovers?  And once you've finished a quilt, do you really want to go through and sew together a million little triangles left over from those flying geese blocks to actually make something, or are you much happier just saving those bits for a rainy day that might never come?

So ... why not make two projects at once?  Thus ... the "Lumber Scraps" mug rug was born out of the scraps of my Full House quilt!

When I was constructing my flying geese blocks, I drew two lines on the back of my "sky" square.  The first (in blue below) was from corner to corner and was the line I sewed along per the construction instructions.  The second line (in red below) was drawn 1/4" away from the blue line.  I stitched a seam a 1/4" away from the far side of the line.

After sewing both seams, I cut the block along the red line ....

... and then pressed the blocks open before repeating for the second side.

That way, once I was done with all of my flying geese blocks, I had 36 - 2" half square triangles already assembled!  I laid them out in a pinwheel pattern ....

... sewed the blocks into columns, and then sewed the columns together and ended up with a 9.5" mini-quilt.

After a little bit of straight-line quilting ...

... and some binding ....

... I had made myself a little mug rug!  I suppose you could also hang it on your wall as a little mini-quilt, or use it as a little place mat for when you eat your lunch at your desk ... or you could even use it as a little Barbie doll quilt!

The best part was that because I had pre-assembled the little half square triangles as I was working on my Schnibbles quilt, I was able to finish this little project in one nap-time, and I;ll be able to add 1/4 yard to my list of busted fabrics for the week!  It's a good thing too, since that might be my only bust of the week!

Happy Sewing. :)

Pin It

Love is in the Air ...

... and to celebrate, I'm having a little sale over in my Etsy shop!

To celebrate St. Valentine's Day next, several of my patterns are on sale for $1.49!  Regular retail price is $8.00.

Happy Sewing!!

Kit Builder Contest at Connecting Threads

If you haven't visited before,

is a great online fabric company that produces its own fabric at very reasonable prices.

This week, Connecting Threads is introducing their Kit Builder Tool - a great tool that lets you play around with fabric combinations to create custom kits for several CT patterns.  All you have to do is choose your fabric and drag it over the pattern layout to instantly see how your fabric choices will look as a finished project.

Here is a table runner kit and a quilt kit I designed this morning

This week, CT is have a contest to celebrate!  Head on over to their website, build and save your kit, feature it on your blog or discussion board, and submit your final design by 2/9/11.  Three winners will receive CT gift cards. Hooray!

Poplun is rockin' a new logo!

Thanks to Ginger over at Ginger Studio Etsy Shop, Poplun is rockin' a brand new logo!!

If you're in the market for a custom design project, be sure to check her out!!  Her turn around time is super quick and she's fantastic to work with.

{giggles}

So, I've noticed that my blog has been a bit whiny and gloomy lately - my apologies!!  Maybe it's been the gazillion days of cold, overcast weather in a row we've been having here, or maybe I'm just cranky about going back to work after a cushy, two week holiday break.

Regardless, things are looking up in the Poplun sewing studio!  My lemony-yellow Saltwater Taffy  blocks have been reassembled correctly and the quilt is progressing beautifully, my Le Petite project is still making me smile, I have a new logo to unveil this weekend ...

... and I found this [new-to-me] blog: Megan's The Bitchy Stitcher

She is freakin' hilarious.  Megan is a writer, a quilter, and has a humor column in Quilter's Home Magazine.  I really have been cracking up reading her posts all morning!  She has a fantastic, snarky sense of humor, a great voice for storytelling, and isn't afraid to use profanity.  Throw in her love of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series and her new-found addiction to the Outlander series, and it's a match made in heaven!

And, as if it couldn't get any better ... she has a store too!  I mean, check out this tee shirt:

 

Photo Copyright: The Bitchy Stitcher

She has a matching coffee mug too, which I suspect will be finding a new home in my sewing room soon.  I hope you enjoy Megan @ The Bitchy Stitcher as much as I have been!

Check It Out!

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Le Petit Project for November

Hooray!!  Today is the Novemeber Le Petite Parade over at The Pink Pincushion and A Quilting Life.  As always, everyone did a beautiful job.  I love seeing all of the different results that come from the same pattern. 

This month's pattern was Butter Churn by This and That Patterns:

I really liked the "Greek Square" and ribbon ends blocks, but for some reason, I just wasn't feeling the HST blocks around the border.  After playing around with the blocks in Electric-Quilts-6, here is my take on the quilt:

I just mirrored what were the "Ribbon V's" so that were "X's" instead, and then added a couple of extra Greek Square blocks so that everything was symmetrical.

I had originally planned to use the cream color background print in the middle of the Greek Square units again, but my Awesome layer cake came with so many great cream prints that I decided to include a few to offset the squares and break up the white a bit.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to quilt and bind it before today's submission deadline ... (hopefully this isn't going to become a habit with all of my Le Petite projects!!!!), so I can't count it towards my stash busting.  Bummer! Especially since my stash report is about to get out of control with all the post-Thanksgiving-Day sale fabric that is headed my way this week.

I'm taking a little break from my sewing machine this weekend, before I have to hunker down and finish all my super-secret Christmas gifts, but I'm hoping to start a new knitting project today (or two ... darn Ravelry has way too many cute projects!!!!), so maybe I'll have some new pictures to share soon.  Until then, happy sewing!

Free Holiday Cards at Shutterfly.com!

Hi fellow bloggers!

I know it's a little bit scary that I've mentioned the holidays and the end of the year in at least my last four posts.  I guess it's time for me to admit that the holidays are truly right around the corner!

Now, if you're like some of my friends and family, your Christmas cards have already been written, stamped, and are ready for the post office the day after Thanksgiving ... but if you're more like me, you're probably realizing that you really should get busy!!

This year I've found my favorite Christmas cards at Shutterfly.com.  I really enjoy the fact that they have modern, elegant cards with lots of photo placement (and editing!!!) options.  My favorites are here, here, and here.

They have some really great personalizable gifts like calendars and photo books as well!  I definitely have some Christmas gift ideas!

While most of the Christmas products are currently on sale, Shutterfly.com is giving bloggers 50 holiday cards for free, in exchange for a write-up or review of their Holiday Cards on your blog.  Details can be found on their website.  Hope you can take advantage of this great deal too!  Thank you to Poppy Seed Fabrics for posting the info on their blog!

Fun with Wordle

Have you discovered Wordle yet?  All you have to do is enter in a series of words and phrases, or even just a web address, it it creates these fantastic word art pictures.  Just for fun, I plugged in my blog address and came up with this!

I love it!!  Especially, how the biggest words kinda reads like a Nike commercial ... "JUST QUILT!"

Wouldn't this make a great gift for a loved one in your life!  How special would it be to have all the kids and grandkids in your family brainstorm words and phrases describing thier parents/grandparents and then have the wordle printed and nicely framed!  Hmmm ... might have to add that to my Christmas gift list!

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2010

Amy's Creative Side is hosting a fantastic Blogger's Quilt Festival showcasing the many talents of our fellow quilty bloggers.  I was so inspired after looking at all the beautiful quilts that I decided to add my latest finish to the parade.

If you're interested in participating as well, Amy is accepting submission through Friday, November 5th.  All the details are here!

Our family and friends have been blessed with an abundance of babies lately!  Last count, we have 7 babies who are happily on the way or who have just been born.  As my absolute favorite gifts to give at baby showers are baby quilts, there have been a number that have left my sewing room over the past couple of months.  While I've loved them all ... this latest quilt is turning out to be my absolutely favorite!

This quilt is for a little guy who should be making his debut in just a couple of weeks.  I knew that the mommy-to-be was planning her nursery in shades of blue and brown, so I seized the opportunity to get my hands on that Pure layer cake and matching brown polka dot yardage I'd had my eye on for awhile.  I had been finishing up my Cherish quilt when I ordered the fabric online, so it wasn't until I actually had it in hand that I began to get an idea in my head of what I actually wanted to do with it.

I've really had a thing for quilts with a crisp, white background as of late, so I knew that I wanted to use my favorite white-on-white polka dot print behind some sort of a pinwheel-ish block.  After seeing all the 10" blocks laid out side-by-side in their colorways, I decided to pair up the blue/white prints and the brown/cream prints into two-tone double pinwheels.  With a little bit of chain piecing, the blocks for this quilt really flew together!!

One new-to-me technique that I used while piecing the blocks was directional seam pressing, as opposed to my normally favored method of just pressing the seams open.  I know that there is a lot of debate out there over these two methods and that there are pros and cons to both.  I've always personally just pressed my seams open because I felt like it gave me more control over precisely aligning my seams.  After having given the "other" method a shot, though, I have to say that I was very happy with the results and will probably (occasionally) use the method again.

In my mind, I had originally planned to set the blocks with white polka dot sashing and only use the brown polka dot print for the interesting squares at the corners.  Once I had all the blocks finished and laid out, the white was a bit over powering and almost made the quilt a bit feminine.  I set the blocks against the brown polka dot sashing instead and that was it - I was in love!

I've named this quilt Puppy Dog Tails, not only because "... that's what boys are made of ..." but also because when my little pups are happy, their tails wag a-mile-a-minute, kinda like pinwheels.

Luigi 

Lily

Thanks so much for stopping by on your Blogger's Quilt Festival parade!

If you're interested in making your own version of Puppy Dog Tails, please visit my etsy shop or my bigcartel shop to purchase the pattern.  Right now, it's on sale for $4.49!

Pacific International Quilt Festival Favorites, Part II

One of my favorite parts of going to quilt or trade shows is getting to discover new (or at least new-to-me) fabric and pattern designers, so I thought I'd share my favorite new-to-me designer from PIQF: Verna Mosquera from the Vintage Spool.  Her applique quilt patterns are absolutely to die for!  To be honest, I would have to say that Halloween is probably my least favorite holiday - so I was really surprised that my favorite Vintage Spool patterns were BOTH Halloween pieces.  But, if Halloween isn't really your thing either, she has some gorgeous Christmas and Valentine patterns too!

Pattern #1 is a Block-Of-The-Month project aptly named "EEEK!"  All the blocks are so adorable!

(Pattern and Photo Copyright: Verna Mosquera, The Vintage Spool)

Pattern #2 is another beautiful Block-Of-The-Month project called "Happy Hauntings."

(Pattern and Photo Copyright: Verna Mosquera, The Vintage Spool)

For more yummy pictures (including close-ups of the blocks) or to order a pattern, visit the Vintage Spool website.

Etsy Treasuries ...

Have you ever checked out the Treasury section on Etsy?  It's a great place for Etsians to showcase their (themed) favorites from fellow Etsians.  Up until recently, Etsy only allowed a certain number of treasuries to be in rotation at any given moment, so it was really difficult to create your own ... but lo' and behold, for some reason, I was able to create today!  Check it out -- I hope you enjoy!!

Mr. Darcy's Girl


   

Dreaming in Blue



 

Introducing - Cherish: A Quilt Pattern

I'm so excited to (finally) be releasing this quilt pattern!  The quilt finishes at 40" square and features square and diamond checkboards offset by sleek, brown polka dot borders.  One of the things I really love about this pattern is that it works equally well either using fabric yardage or 5" Charm Squares (my fav!!) -- instructions for both methods are included.

Fabric requirements are as follows:
Brown Print: 1/2 yard or 24 - 5” Charm Squares
Blue Print: 1/2 yard or23 - 5” Charm Squares
Green Print: 1/2 yard or 23 - 5” Charm Squares*
Brown Polka Dot Print: 1/2 yard
Cream Print: 1/2 yard
Batting: 44” x 44” piece
Backing: 44” x 44” piece or 1 1/2 yards

Note for using Charm Packs:  There are typically about 42 charm squares per Charm Pack.  I used 3 Charm Packs in Cherish Nature by Deb Strain for Moda Fabrics for the sample  As different lines have different numbers of blocks per colorway, you'll probably need 2 - 3 Charm Packs to finish your version ... and you'll have some leftovers.  Feel free to use fat quarters or yardage to augment you supply of charm squares if you find that you're still a little short.

The sample quilt is off to welcome a sweet, little girl who's ready to make her debut any day now, but if you'd like to make the quilt to welcome your little one, you can purchase the .pdf pattern at either my etsy shop or my bigcartel shop.

New Poplun shop available!

I'm happy to announce that Poplun has jumped on the BigCartel bandwagon. 

Our new shop can be found at http://www.poplun.bigcartel.com/ and will feature Poplun's top five patterns.  Patterns and other goodies will still be available through our etsy shop as well.

Check it out!

I'll be back a little later today to (hopefully) show you pictures of my completed Plan-C quilt, but while you're eagerly waiting, hop on over to the Freckled Whimsey blog, where KerrieLyne is giving away an AccuQuilt Go! cutter.

And, as if one giveaway wasn't enough, there 's a second AccuQuilt Go! giveaway going on at A La Mode Fabric.  Check it out!!

Introducing - Falling Leaves Table Runner

I’m so excited to introduce to you this cheery fall table runner pattern, "Falling Leaves." This table runner uses basic machine appliqué and quick piecing to create a runner that will look great on your table from now until Thanksgiving!

Here are the stats!
Finished Runner Measurements: 12.5" x 42.5"

Fabric Requirements:
White-on-Cream print: 1/4 yard
Dark Brown Leaves print: 1/3 yard
Orange Leaves print: 1 Fat Quarter
Dark Green print: 1 Fat Quarter
Brown and Red print: 1 Fat Quarter
Gold print: 1 Fat Quarter
Red print: 1 Fat Quarter

This table runner pattern is being offered at a debut special of 50% off the regular asking price ($8.99) in my etsy shop!

This week's how-to article at examiner.com gives some helpful hints for sewing machine maintenance at home.

What are some of your favorite maintenance tips?

PS: Check back at the examiner.com site this weekend for an interview with Shirley, the Knot-y Embroidery Lady, showcasing her upcoming class at Bearpaws and Hollyhocks, called "Grown Women Coloring on Fabric."  Can't wait!!

Too Good Not to Pass On!!

The Fat Quarter Shop is offering a 15% coupon to their blog readers!  Check out their interview with the Not Quite June Cleaver blog and enjoy!!

... Random Thoughts on a Gloomy Afternoon ...

I'm trying not to count the number of minutes left until the end of my work day (103, if you're curious)  ... especially since this is a four day weekend for me!  We've had plenty of gloomy weather in Sacramento lately ... which is not helping me get through the monotonous task of pushing a button ... waitingggggggggg ... and then pushing another button ... waitinggggggggg ... that I have ahead of me for the next (now) 96 minutes.

I have big plans tonight to curl up with a good book, a warm blanket (which seems so weird to be saying at the end of MAY), and a couple of snuggly pups -- hubby will be happy to have the big TV to himself to play his latest game (my way of saying thanks for dealing with soggy walls, a parade of construction workers, and multiple hospital trips over the last three weeks).

While I'm waiting to make my escape, I thought I'd share some fun finds with you!  My new favorite (non-crafting-related) blog is THX THX THX: A Thank You Note A Day.  Author, Leah, practices gratitude for things big and small with daily handwritten thank you notes.  When I first stumbled upon her blog, I happily expected a fair amount of snarky humor, but was quickly and pleasant surprised with the genuine way she finds something sincerely worth appreciating every day.  I definitely recommend adding her site to your daily blog roll ... and if you feel up to the challenge ... taking time to genuinely appreciate the little things in your life.

So, here is my exercise in gratitude for today!

So, with my new toy, I've been experiment with quarter-circle blocks and the Old Maid's Puzzle layout, inspired by this Amish Quilt mentioned in this post.

I started out with just a modest table-topper to try and figure out the gist of things.  I was going to wait until I had a finished product to show before blogging about it, but have since been inspired by Rossie's challenge to blog more about the design and quilting process that goes into making projects instead of just blogging about the finished product. So, without further ado ...

I, Shelley, pledge to talk more about my processes, even when I can't quite put them in words or be sure I'm being totally clear.  I'm going to put my thinking and my gut feelings out there.

There.  I did it.  And if you're so inspired, you can too.

Tune in tomorrow for "Autumn Maid's Puzzle" - WIP.

P.S. - A second thank you goes out to the wonderful co-worker who provided us with sugary goodness in the form of CAKE!  It definitely help the next 18 minutes go by quickly.

New Springy Blog Background ...

... courtesy of Templates by Tenille!

There are also some super cute backgrounds at The Cutest Blog on the Blog as well.  Enjoy!