Lucky green quilt top for St. Patrick's Day

This week I finally put together the blocks I won last March at my Quilt Guild. Green Irish Chain blocks! I used the webbing method of sewing the blocks together and had it done in under two hours. 

Here is the quilt top on our queen size bed and you can see that it probably would fit a double bed right now.

There is definitely no 'drop' going on! Now the question becomes - do I leave it as is and finish it this size? It wouldn't be used on this bed then, maybe gifted? Or put on one of the single beds in the house?

Or do I need the quilt on my bed and should make it larger? I have a few of the nine patches that I could add with a wide white border. I've also thought about a wide border with a winding shamrock applique - but then this quilt top would never get finished! I also thought about a row of rainbow squares inside two white borders. . . 

What would you do? Call it done or make it bigger?

Would you push your luck;)

With Joy,

Sarah V

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QUILTsocial week featuring PFAFF's quilt expression 720

It's been a busy week!

It was my week over at QUILTsocial to review PFAFF's new quilt expression 720. This is my favourite of their machines that I've tried so far. 

I tried some of the built in decorative and creative stitches with a sewing font and created this tea cup coaster for my tea-loving daughter.

You can read my posts from the week over here. Leave some comments too :)

With Joy,

Sarah Vee

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Quilter's soup challenge reveal

It's been busy here and snowing a LOT! At my Quilt Guild's meeting in October, we brought our jars of Quilter's soup 'base' to be traded and turned into a project. With winter weather our January meeting didn't have everyone out, but several projects were created and shared.

This was the fabric I received. . .

And this is the project I made! 

I tried to use as much of the fabrics as I could so I made rectangular churn dashes. I kept the black print fabric almost to the size I received and worked out cutting the other fabrics just enough to turn them into rectangles. I used the different green prints as the background and cut some of the light batik fabric to use as the churn dashes.

I added a black batik to the reverse side and made strips with the leftovers from the front. I only had a few little pieces of  the light batik when I was done!

This is what my jar looked like - a lot of rainbow scraps!

And these are what I got back! Two really colorful wallets!

Inside they're nice and bright too! Orange! I'm not sure of the pattern as they were made by another guild member. They look familiar, so if you know the pattern source please let me know and I will add it here as well.

I love them! It was a very successful guild program. The other projects were just as inventive - aprons made from panels, beach bags made from panels, 3D flower vases, wall hangings and Christmas minis. It was inspiring to see quilters work out of their comfort zones and try something new.

My last blog post was my contribution to the Turnabout Patchwork blog hop. I found this photo of my cushion that really shows off the quilting (I must have had one day of sunshine last month!) The winner from my blog was Karen. She will receive a pdf copy of Teresa's book and a copy of my Liberated Churn Dash quilt pattern. 

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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My turn on the Turnabout Patchwork blog hop is today

I hope you've been visiting some the blogs before me in this hop! Each of us has created something using one of the many blocks that Teresa designed for this book. You can go back to this post for the list of bloggers to check them out.

For my turn I am using the half square triangles and squares block in a variation called Diamond Star.

I decided to go bold and play with some bright coral, Pantone's color of the year, and a Ketan batik green. 

Here are my four blocks arranged in the Star Diamond. Pretty bold, eh! These blocks repeated would make a really nice quilt. But, I didn't have time to make a whole quilt! I decided to set my blocks differently.

I took my four blocks and arranged them with the orange touching instead of the green and turned them into a pillow cushion. 

Here are the blocks before being quilted. You can see that in this orientation the design looks quite different. I'm not sure I'd like a whole quilt in this arrangement, but it's perfect for a cushion!

For the reverse side of the cushion I decided to continue with the bold, bright colours and used this Kaffe Fasset print. I tried to add a bit of Teresa's bright Aussie sunshine to my project :)

There's a giveaway too!

Martingale, the publisher of Teresa's book, is generously offering electronic copies of Turnabout Patchwork. 

Please leave a comment here on my blog about what you like best about blog hops!

I'll draw a winner at the end of the hop on February 9th.

Good luck!

Sarah V.

p.s. here's a photo of where I took the photos of my pillow cushion - waaaaaay up on my snowbank! (It's probably a bit bigger by now too!)

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Turnabout Patchwork blog hop begins today

Today is the first day of the blog hop featuring Teresa of Sewn Up/Teresa Down Under's newest book, Turnabout Patchwork.

There are several bloggers posting, each having made a different block using the many options in the book.

Here is the blog hop schedule:

January 30 - Quarter Snow Ball

Arrowhead

• Jen Shaffer blog: Patterns by Jen
• Lorinda Davis blog: Laurel, Poppy and Pine

Sweet Bows

• Kate Colleran blog: Seams like a dream
• Sandra Healy blog: Sandra Healy Designs

Tutti-frutti

• Moira de Carvalho blog: Quilt Design Duo
• Lynn Kane blog: Puppy Girl Designs

Sun Dunes

• Sarah Goer blog: Sarah Goer Quilts
• Tammy Silvers  blog: Tamarinis

February 1 - Modern Shoofly

Flying Rainbows

• Gretchen Wylegala blog:  Snug Harbor Quilts

Flying Butterflies

• Anorina Morris blog: Samelia’s mum
• Raewyn Barge blog: Stitching Farmgirl

Flying Flags

• Tammy Silvers blog: Tamarinis
• Becca Fenstermaker blog: Pretty Piney

Flying Confetti

• Laura Piland blog: Slice of π Quilts
• Sarah Ruiz blog: Saroy

February 2 - Half Square Triangles (HSTs) and squares

Rose Garden Star

• Anne Boundy blog:  Said with Love

Swirl

• Joanne Harris blog: Quilts by Joanne
• Sarah Myers blog: The Quilted Diary

Houndstooth

• Becca Fenstermaker blog: Pretty Piney

Diamond Star

• Sarah Vanderburgh blog: Sew Joy Creations   ME!
• Sarah Scott blog: Piccolo Studio

February 4 - Striped Fabric Block

Shells

• Gail Sheppard blog: Quilting Gail
• Julie Burton blog: Running Stitch Quilts

Xs and Os

• Linda McLaren blog: The Quilting Biker
• Sarah Scott blog: Piccolo Studio

Jaws

• Cheryl Brown blog: QuilterChic

Arrowhead

• Stephanie Jacobson blog: Steph Jacobson Design

February 6 - Coordinated Strips

Peaks

• Afton Warrick blog: Quilting Mod

Diamond and Crosses

• Linda McLaren blog: The Quilting Biker
• Brandy Pettit blog: Pampered Pettit

Knots and Crosses

• Leanne Parsons blog: Devoted Quilter
• Andy Knowlton blog: A Bright Corner

February 8 - Double Disappearing Nine-Patch

Holiday Trellis

• Sherry Shish blog: Powered by Quilting

Stepping Stones

• Bobbi Bridgeman blog: Snowy Days Quilting
• Anja Clyke blog: anjaquilts

Two for One

• Mania Hatziioannidi blog: Mania for Quilts

Cross

• Sandra Starley blog: Textile Time Travels
• Anjeanette Klinder blog: Anjeanette Klinder

There are lots of neat blocks in this book! Take some time and enjoy the hop. I'll see you here for my turn on February 2nd.

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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