31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Most Impactful Class

 I'm just going to start with the fact that I've never taken a class! There. I said it. As someone who is self taught from waaay back when in the 1990s, I learned from magazines and books. Then blogs and tutorials. Are there famous quilters I would love to be in the room with? Absolutely! But it hasn't happened yet.

So, for Cheryl's prompt today I considered the first class I taught just before the pandemic hit. I was approached my a local quilt guild to teach my Liberated Churn Dash technique. And I loved it!

Here is the post that features the students' work from that day - inspiring!

Liberated Churn Dash Workshop

I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'm seriously considering offering it as a virtual class next year.

The Inventory Quilt mentioned in the post never happened as again, it was planned to start right when Covid 19 hit and everything shut down. I'm going to be working on mine next year and will suggest a sew along on my blog. At least, you can come back and see my progress!

In case you're wondering I wrote this post too - What's an Inventory Quilt?

If you would like to find out about my new patterns and virtual classes, please consider signing up for my newsletter. I give my subscribers early peeks and discounts ;) You can sign up through this link - newsletter signup.

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Choosing Background Fabrics for the Liberated Churn Dash Quilt

It's time to start my Inventory Quilt! I'm excited to be making another Liberated Churn Dash quilt.

Get the pattern at 20% off with the code IQ20 - click to buy digital copy from my shop

What's an Inventory Quilt

My original quilt (seen above) is very modern looking, not just because of the churn dashes but the white  background. That was a challenge for me, believe it or not! I don't do white usually - and this time around I'm going in a completely different direction.

My background fabric is going to be different behind each churn. Well, almost all will be different as four of them will be solid red! Yep, red. I couldn't bring myself to make the background entirely red, and I also didn't have enough yardage on hand.

I decided to use what I have on hand. My inventory quilt is a snapshot of what I have on hand - what I've been collecting/keeping for the last ten years - and so I got creative with my background choices.

One of the large churn dashes will have a background of the tie dye fabric in the photo above. I actually won this fabric from Vicki Welsh a loooong time ago! Happy to finally have a home for it.

I've taken photos of all of my background fabrics after I measured to find enough yardage. I'll share them as I make the churn dashes. I did make a photo collage to give myself an idea of what the background will look like. I already see where I will move the finished blocks around, but for now, here's a peek at my background choices.

Pretty bold, right! The reds are all the same reds they just didn't photograph that way. I will move some around so the busy prints don't blur into each other :) But I feel confident that my choices will work. And with my background fabrics dark I will have fun with my bright fabrics for the churn dashes.

Your Job today

⛋Decide on your background fabric:

one solid or one print
two fabrics
a combination

⛋Wash and iron if required

⛋Photograph if desired (my kitten Sadie recommends it!)

Leave me a comment and tell me if your making an Inventory Quilt too!

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Inventory Quilt Project - Liberated Churn Dash Quilt

I'm making another one!

This year I'm a participating designer in the Just Wanna Quilt Inventory Quilt Project. What's an inventory quilt? Well, it can be anything you want! The idea is to use fabrics that you have - your stash - and make a quilt using them. It can be made with pieces from all of your fabrics or just your red fabrics. Or just fabrics from a favourite designer or all one theme. 

The idea was inspired by Jessica Quilter and has become a project through Just Wanna Quilt.

You can hear the first podcast episode to discuss the project here - Just Wanna Quilt Inventory Project is beginning! (this is a link to open and listen in Google) You can find the podcasts from the main site here too - Just Wanna Quilt podcast

Since then the project has become larger and is now including designers who are participating by making an inventory quilt using one of their patterns.

For me it had to be my Liberated Churn Dash quilt. In fact it's been hard for me to think about all of the other quilt projects I have in the works and not just work on this!

I am close to deciding if I am going to purchase a background fabric or not. I am thinking about trying to use what I have which might mean a mix of solid and print backgrounds.

You will be able to hear me talk about this project on the

 Just Wanna Quilt podcast on February 29! 

Yep! My first podcast appearance :)

 I can't think of a better way to use my extra day this year

 than focusing on a new quilting project!

You can join the JWQ Inventory Quilt sew along facebook group to find out more and meet more of the designers. Check out their patterns too as I have a feeling it's going to be hard to make just one inventory quilt.

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Starting my Splendid Sampler Sampler and a Pattern Sale

It's been awhile since I pulled out my completed Splendid Sampler blocks.

I have no where near 100 made and probably won't make anymore. Instead I'm looking at incorporating these blocks with others to make a quilt for my mother in law. She gifted me these fabrics and I had every intention of making her a Splendid Sampler quilt.

Part of what I've been grappling with from the outset is putting my blocks together in a non-traditional setting since my mother in law is really drawn to assymetrical settings. 

I even started a Pinterest board to get my planning started.

After a recent visit from my mother in law, I was inspired to start designing this quilt again. 

At this point I'm planning to make the Splendid Sampler blocks the focus at the top of the quilt and add different, some modern, blocks to fill out the rest of the quilt.

Which led me back to making a Liberated Churn Dash!

As you can see, it's huge!

I was planning to make it square, but it has ended up 26 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches - close! At least it is divisible by 2 which helps when incorporating it with other blocks.

I am working on a new set of posts for QUILTsocial.com featuring the PFAFF creative 3.0 you can see in this photo. (You might see another liberated churn dash in those posts too - shhh!)

All I can say is that I'm really enjoying playing with fabrics again to create these liberated blocks. And from looking at some recent statistics for my blog I know that modern quilt guilds are still finding and using my tutorial.

Edited October 2019 to share that my Liberated Churn Dash Quilt pattern is now available as a paper pattern through Quiltwoman.

You can also download a pdf copy from my shop.

Thanks for your support and Enjoy!

Sarah V.

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Blue Tape, Pink Chalk and Fresh Lemons!

It's a fun day at Sew JOY Creations Studio!

BLUE TAPE

Thanks to lots of chatter over at Pat Sloan's Quilt Mashup Forum, I have finally started to quilt my Happiness Key!   This is the backing {right side down} fastened with blue tape to my kitchen floor.

Here's all three layers ready to be pinned. Just looking at this quilt makes me smile! 

You can still find the free pattern over at Pat Sloan's blog on her free pattern page.

PINK CHALK

Oh Happy Day! I am delighted to share that my Liberated Churn Dash QUILT pattern is for sale online at Pink Chalk Fabrics! A dream come true, goal accomplished. This was a vision I set out for myself several years ago. It is a joy to see my pattern on the 'front page' of the Pink Chalk website today. I love Pink Chalk Fabrics - it is an online store that feels like a store, d'ya know what I mean? Inspiring, full of great ideas, colour stacks and patterns galore. Go take a peek!

FRESH LEMONS

One more thing! A giveaway of my new pattern is on NOW at Fresh Lemon Quilts! Faith created a fantastic liberated sampler and linked to my liberated churn dash tutorial. I thought her readers might enjoy a chance at winning a copy of my pattern. Click on over and enter for a chance too!

Thanks for sharing my JOY today,

Sarah Vee

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New Pattern Giveaway

I'm happy to say that I finally finished my pattern for the Liberated Churn Dash QUILT!

It's been tested for accuracy and up for sale right here.

I'm giving away one copy of the pattern to one lucky commenter on this post!

It is a downloadable pattern, so with no shipping, the giveaway is open to all of my readers.

Leave a comment telling me what kind of project(s) 

you are working on this summer. 

They can be quilt related - or not!

Comments open until NOON {EDT} Lucky Friday, July 13th

You can get a second chance by blogging about the giveaway with a link back to this post and leaving another comment.

Do you Facebook? You could link to this post and leave another comment for another chance.

Giveaway is now CLOSED! Thanks for entering!

Good Luck!

Sarah Vee

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Cat Approved Quilt

I recently washed my Liberated Churn Dash quilt for the first time. I was a little worried about my threads coming undone. So far it looks good.

I changed the contrast on this photo so you could see how crinkly the quilting got after the dryer. My husband thinks it shrunk - just a bit.

Mogli, my cat, thinks I should get back to other things - like making another quilt. 

Or doing the laundry.

With Joy,

Sarah Vee

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Liberated Churn Dash QUILT

I'm finally finished! And just in time to share it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

The quilt measures approximately 90 inches square.

Most of the smaller liberated churn dashes were made by my bee partners in Sew Modern Bee, a Canadian quilting bee that I really enjoyed being part of over the last year. You can click on our logo above to see photos of the different kinds of blocks we've been making.




Last June I designed this block while playing with my stash. When it came time for me to pick a block to make for my bee, my husband thought I should use this one. I had already told him I would be making the quilt for him {because I haven't made him one in the 14 years that I've been quilting!}




By the end of June I had my quilt top planned out, but not measured correctly here! Each of the blocks my bee partners would make would be 15.5 inches square unfinished.

My husband also got to pick the colour scheme for the quilt.

No Orange!
Really.

Here's my post about that:)

Then it was time to start shopping for fabrics. You can read about how I kept track of what I had and needed to get here.





November 2010 was my month in Sew Modern Bee. I posted my tutorial for how I made my block. You can click on the image above to get to it. By February 2011 I found out that other bee's were making my block too! How cool! I did a post linking to a few of them - not sure if there's any more out there:)




Then came quilting. I quilted each 30.5 inch panel separately, then sewed them together. Once I decided on how I wanted to quilt it, I really enjoyed the process.





I joined the panels in rows, then sewed the rows together. This post goes through the process with photos, if you'd like to take a look. It made it a lot easier for me to quilt this queen size quilt at home on my domestic machine.





My husband picked out the backing fabric too! I used strips leftover from the churn dash fabrics for the binding. A couple of hockey games and chick flicks later - I had it finished:)

I have to put a special THANK YOU here to the quilters at Pat Sloan's Quilt Mashup Forum. Without their friendly prodding and prompting I'm not sure I would have this quilt done yet. I have become a quiltMAKER [not just a topper!] because of these ladies. Thank you!




My quilt was too heavy to hang on the clothesline, so I laid it out on the deck and took a photo from my daughter's bedroom window. I had every intention of 'cropping out' the toys later.

Until later.

This quilt was made with my children around. My son sorted my fabrics back into matching piles when all the blocks were received from my bee partners. My husband took care of the kids while I shopped for fabrics. Everyone was patient with me while I hummed and hawed over fabric choices and how to quilt the panels. I got 'mom time' to work on quilting the panels on weekends when everyone was home.

They surrounded me with love so I could complete this quilt.

I'm keeping the toys in the photo to remind me of what my life was like when I made this quilt.



Thanks to Amy for hosting this great festival once again. I hope you take some time to enjoy the photos and stories of the wonderful quilts being shared by bloggers in this festival.




With Joy,
Sarah Vee

p.s. I made a pattern so you can make your very own Liberated Churn Dash quilt too!

It's available in my online shop - and as part of the Inventory Quilt Project
get 20% off with the code IQ20 (I for Inventory and Q for Quilt)

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