Churn dash fabrics for my Inventory Quilt

Happy Saturday! Before I share my fabrics for the churn dashes I want to give you the links to the Designers Quilt Show.

Today is Day 6 and the last full day of new designers. Check them out here.

You can still catch some great classes too. Go to the classroom by clicking here.

And the rafflecopter link for prizes. Good luck!

The Inventory Quilt Project is on for several months. I am one of the featured designers for April. 

use code IQ20 to get 20% off this pattern in my online shop

The quilt I am making is my Liberated Churn Dash quilt. I'm excited to be making a second one! This one is going to look a LOT different from my first. For one thing, my background is not going to be white, but a mix of dark prints and red.

Here's my post about selecting my background fabrics.

Today I'm going to show you the fabrics I pulled for the churn dashes. 

I started by literally pulling a pile of fabrics from my collection.

I wasn't sure how these were all going to work together until I started organizing them by color. The first pull I did was the light neutrals or low volume prints.

Even here I was generous with the term and ended up with three different piles.

Then I went through and sorted the rest into warm and cool palettes. 

I'm going to try and keep them separate and make warm looking churn dashes and cool ones. Notice I didn't put any red fabrics in here because of the red fabric choice for some of my backgrounds.

The cool ones should play nicely off of the red backgrounds. There's not many here because I think I will end up mixing the low volumes with them. If I picked dark blues they would blend in with my background fabric choices.

Then I was left with a pile that sorted it self out as I was selecting prints. These won't make it into the churn dash quilt at all. 

Why?

• Some are too dark and too closely resemble fabrics I chose for the background. 
• Some don't read as warm, cool, or neutral - busy prints.
• Or the prints are too large and won't translate well into smaller cuts.
• Some are too bright a green and I think they will make the red backgrounds steal the show.
• Some I'm still at the 'I'm in love' stage and don't want to commit them to a project just yet!

I have made one small churn dash block. I used a low volume pile on this fun crane print. I'm happy that I will be making two with this background. I went with low volume because there are actually a lot of colours in this print and I wanted to make sure there was a good contrast between the churn dash and the background. I'm not sure how well I did with that, but I like it!

Your job if you are making one of these quilts with me is to pick your churn dash fabrics.

You could go with all low volume, or all warm or all cool colours. Maybe you have a fabric line that you are going to use.

You could check out the post from my workshop and see some of the fabric choices the quilters made for their liberated churn dash blocks. 

Liberated Churn Dash workshop

My first Liberated Churn Dash quilt used a cool palette with some brown to go with the backing fabric that my husband picked out. He actually picked the backing fabric first and I picked fabrics to go with it! 

Read my post about No Orange.

OK! Go play in your fabrics :)

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Liberated Churn Dash Workshop

I led my first Liberated Churn Dash block workshop!

It's been over 10 years since I wrote the tutorial for my online beemates to make these blocks for me. 

Eventually I developed a quilt pattern which is still popular.

purchase the Liberated Churn Dash Quilt pattern

It was a thrill to see other quilters embrace the possiblities of playing with the churn dash block, and making their own design decisions from cutting the background to fabric placement.

A crisp white background or a grey one.

A bold yellow with no repeating fabrics, except one! And don't forget the frogs :)

Traditional leftovers found a happy home in a liberated churn dash.

A batik jellyroll was used to create a coordinated look.

And one student embraced the luck of the Irish and created heart corners to make a lucky liberated churn dash :)

I learned a lot too as an instructor! It was encouraging and inspiring to see how the quilters used the technique as a starting point for their own creativity.

This quilt is also my pattern contribution to the Inventory Quilt Project. I'll be making another quilt using this pattern and my stash. 

Join us! You can find more information and Sew a long at the Just Wanna Quilt facebook page - Inventory Quilt Project.

My designer month is April so stay tuned and start digging through your stash too!




With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Creating Again

I've spent the last two days down and out with pink eye and fevers.

Today I woke up with a new zest for life!
Grateful for everything (freezing temperatures and dirty dishes included.)

After working on some of the UFOs on my list (quilting on the large churn and fusing applique on a new tablerunner for a pattern) I couldn't resist some liberated churns.

It didn't turn out exactly as I had envisioned it (which is probably good because I'm pretty sure I was hallucinating yesterday!), but I was happy to have enough energy and stamina to get an idea out and DONE in a day.


Then I asked my husband what he thought.

Now, this isn't always a bad idea as my Liberated Churn Dash Quilt was created based on his preferences for a quilt.

He said there needed to be fabric between the churns.

I was already feeling noncommittal, and I had watched this video with Victoria today.

So I cut the runner in half.

And then cut it up some more!
I took a small pile of stashed fabrics that I found last week folded up in some fabric (probably to make a little quilt with) and started to play.

Is it strange that the churns have more life all cut up?

I sorted through my stash bin and found a few more fabrics to add. I'm going to leave it for tonight and see what it feels like in the morning.


Right now it feels like my creative heart is beating again.



With Joy,

Sarah V

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Liberated Churn Dash Bag

I realized that I never showed you what I made with this liberated churn dash block!

A bag for my sister for Christmas.

I used Elizabeth Hartman's free pattern ~ 

Oh Franson's bag for Sew MaMa Sew

{the Handbag version}

Lots of access room in this bag to get at just about anything you can put in it.

It might be time to make another bag for me!

With Joy,

Sarah Vee

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One Last Gift - Liberated Churn Dash

~Sarah Vee

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Dashing in With a Winner

Carol C. is the winner of the Quiltmaker's 100 Block Issue, volume 3.
Congratulations! I know she's excited and planning to make blocks already:)




I finished piecing my LAST giant liberated churn dash for my quilt tonight!
I have been away{ and working } and now I'm not sure I will get this quilt done for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

But I'm gonna try!

I set to work at sewing together the first two rows of the quilt.
Here they are on my dining room table. The striped fabric is the backing fabric.




This time around I pinned the backing fabric down with safety pins instead of sewing pins like I usually do for 2 reasons: I have more safety pins than sewing pins AND they don't prick you! Usually I get too close to the pins while sewing the quilt top together. I think I will use safety pins again for the same reasons.


Once that long seam was sewn it was back to the dining room table to trim excess batting.



Usually there is one side on the back that lies flatter and will work better as the edge to lay beneath the other one. I leave that batting intact and trim the other side right down to the quilt top.

Then it's time to fold under once, then again, your top seam edge and pin it in place. In a few places on the back of this quilt it will be tricky to see these seams - a bonus of using this print.
I hand sewed this seam and now have the last two panels of the final row joined together too.

One more panel to go!

Sarah Vee

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Design Wall Tuesday!

This is my second last giant {30.5 inches square unfinished} liberated churn dash to go.
It's the first time I planned and cut out all the fabrics for a whole giant churn at once.

I'm hoping it goes together quickly{and nicely!}

There's lots of design walls to enjoy over at Judy's this week. Here's the link.

Sarah Vee

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Churn Dashing

This panel is finally quilted! It is the third panel in one row of my Liberated Churn Dash Quilt.

You can see where it fits when you look at this photo:




Actually, after looking at this photo again myself, I see that I attached it so that the top row you see here would be flipped over! Which is part of the reason why I decided to wait to join these 2 rows together until the third one is complete.




This is the next panel I have ready to quilt. It will go in the middle of the row so I should get it right!:) And this is the orientation I want, with that striped churn in the bottom right.



Now all I have to left to piece is the last two 30 inch Liberated Churn Dashes!



I'm trying really hard to stay focused on this quilt to have it finished in time to enter it as my quilt for this:


Wish me Luck!

Sarah Vee

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Pinning

To err is human. . .

Even AFTER pinning this block, I sewed it together wrong!
This is a sneak peek of the quilt I mentioned yesterday.
I got to this point {ha ha} late yesterday afternoon and unpicked seams for awhile - not just this project but my leaders and enders one too.
Thinking it was ALL me, I quit for the night.

Apparently that wasn't long enough:)

It's back together the RIGHT way now, and I did some more pinning. . .

This large churn is finally pin basted and the first 1/2 inch line around the outside edge has been sewn.



With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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Winners and A Weekend of Joy

Congrats to the winner of Kay's book: Janet R.!

Congrats to the winner of the needlekeeper: Marcia W.!

Thanks to everyone who left me such positive comments to enjoy!

We had a busy weekend here as it was my daughter's skating club's season ending Carnival. She is in the picture above with our guest skaters, Canadian Pairs Silver Medalists Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford. It was lots of fun and very inspiring for all involved.

Needless to say not much quilting got done! I did take down one of my design walls so that we can now go out on the front porch when/if it's nice enough this week! {My design wall was ON the door} I also cleaned up the pile of scrapbooking paper and UFOs that had started to accumulate over the winter.

I did manage to assemble one more large {30.5 inches square} liberated churn dash for the quilt I'm working on. Now it needs to be sandwiched with batting and backing and quilted. Then I will have 2 of 3 rows completed!


I am still waiting, not so patiently now, for my desktop computer to be returned home! I will try to schedule some more posts this week.


With Joy,

Sarah Vee

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