Pillow Collective!

I was so excited to be asked by Amy Ellis to join a group of super talented ladies to celebrate her latest book, Think Big, for her Pillow Collective!

I was LONG overdue for a new pillow to add to our mix and the timing was perfect.

I chose to make the Equalizer block for my pillow. All of the blocks in the book are 18" square, which is a perfect size for a throw pillow. It's so perfect I just might make another...

Photo provided by Martingale, Photography by Brent Kane

 Mod Pod was a close runner up and I just might raid my stash again to create this gem. The instructions for each project are super clear and Amy included the best charts and diagrams to keep you organized whether you're making just one block (like me) or a whole quilt. She even included some pretty amazing instructions on how to make pillows with different closures.

I made my pillow with an envelope closure, but bound the pillow like a quilt for a couple reasons. One reason being that I use these pillows and I wanted it to stand up to the abuse it will receive. The other reason was so that I could practice stitching the binding by machine. All in all it was a great experience.

For my next pillow I plan on trying Amy's instructions for a zipper closure... I have a confession to make... I am a zipper virgin. And the blasted thing is I have one I bought just in case... And I can't find it anywhere! It's too frigid to run to the store just for a zipper, so the envelope option worked just fine this time. Next time, I'll expand my horizons a bit :)

 I am really happy with how this pillow turned out and I'm excited to make another. I had fun raiding my stash to find pieces that fit the feel of my living room. Then I got to play with the quilting and mixed a few of my favorite techniques together. Probably the thing that should excite you and I the most are the amazing prizes you can win during this Pillow Collective. Oh, I forgot to mention the prizes???

Visit each of the bloggers this week and pin your your favorites to Pinterest. Add the hashtags #PillowCollective and #ThinkBigBook to your pin description to be entered to win. There's no limit to the amount of entries you can have, so get busy. Amy has the following prizes for you to win:

 A wide variety of fabric bundles or...

This Quilt!!! That's pretty amazing if I do say so myself!

Also, if you're inspired to make your own quilt or pillow from Think Big, but you need a copy of the book, Amy has signed copies for 30% off with the discount code: ILovePillows in her shop! Hurry on over, the discount is only good through March 1st!

Winners will be announced on Amy's blog March 2nd. Happy pinning!

Since that seemed to go so well...

I'm entering another quilt!!! Please take the time if you can to join the Blogger's Quilt Festival and share what you've made. It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be grandiose, it has to be something you enjoy. Really that is all a quilt show should be (even an online show) is sharing what you've done with people. Yes there are prizes to be had, but if you win, it's just icing on the cake, don't you agree?

So for more information on the Blogger's Quilt Festival put on by the amazing Amy Ellis, you can find all of the information needed to enter or to vote (voting begins this weekend!) by clicking here. 

For my second quilt, I am digging out one of my most nostalgic quilts that I've made to enter into the Hand Quilted Category.

 This is an older pattern of mine called From Grammy With Love. I made this quilt very traditionally with 1930's reproduction fabrics and I used solid white as both the border and backing.

 I quilted simple lines withing each of the pieces and then I quilted butterflies into the border. It's simple but sweet. As soon as the binding was done, I washed and dried this quilt and now it really has that crinkly vintage vibe to it.

 Here's how the quilt looks overall, it's been a fun small quilt to make.

I actually have had several people ask where I got this antique quilt from. They cannot believe that I actually made it myself with how it turned out! I think that is one of the biggest compliments for a quilt like this. It makes me think that all of those hours of quilting were worth it. This was my first hand quilted quilt and it was a doosy. I used Warm & White batting (not knowing any better) and it killed my fingers (and a few thimbles) to finish this quilt. It wasn't the batting I should have used, but now I know.

I'm glad they kept the hand quilting category in this years Blogger's Quilt Festival and I love the other entries thus far. Remember you too can enter your own quilt into one of the many categories through tomorrow, Oct. 31st! Voting begins Nov. 1st and I'd love to see your quilts entered! For more information about how to enter or how to vote, visit Amy's blog post here. Otherwise, if you'd just like some inspiration, head on over and take a gander at all of the quilts entered! There's so much to see, there's something for everyone!

Have a great weekend and a Happy Halloween!!!

Trying something new

I am entering the Blogger's Quilt Festival for the first time! I'm super excited and you should join too! For more information about the festival, visit Amy's page here for all of the details you'll need to either enter, get inspired, or vote for your favorites (voting starts this weekend!)

 When I started thinking about entering the Blogger's Quilt Festival this year, I was in the midst of working on this quilt. Little did I know at the time it would soon become one of my favorite quilts ever and so much more than I ever imagined!

 It's hard to believe, but this is how it started. I cut up a bunch of pieces from my stash and added in a few colors here or there to get a nice mix. I liked it but I wasn't in love. When I paused to grab a drink and was glancing at the quilt, I got this crazy idea to shift the colors within the quilt and fade from one to the next. Keeping 98% of the original fabrics and adding in minimal pieces to blend the colors well, I ended up with this:

 As soon as it started to come together, I knew I was on the right track! Granted there are a few places that I wish the transition was a bit smoother, but it still works well for me.

Also, if you're a regular reader of my blog and you're sick of seeing this quilt, I swear after this it will go away, but I'm still in love, so....eh. If you're new to the blog, welcome and it's good to have you! Alrighty, back to the quilt.

So then it was time to quilt it. I only knew when I got started that I wanted to quilt paisley feathers somewhat down the middle-ish and then have it branch off from there to both sides of the quilt. I was just going to echo around it to fill in the remainder of the quilt... But then I got bored. Quick.

So that's when I started adding in pebbles and alternating the direction of the echo.

When that got boring I added in some traditional feathers and swirls, and why not - I added in some woodgrain. There's so much quilting going on but it works. The colors make your eye move around the quilt and the quilting keeps it interesting as you look.

 So then in a weak moment of insomnia I stayed up waaaaayyyyy too late to create a scrappy binding to match the colors of the quilt... It was the most complex binding I've ever created, but my favorite! Oh, and all of the binding pieces came from my binding stash (in the egg basket to the left of the quilt in the above photo).

And then before you knew it, it was done and quilted and bound and washed and crinkly and I love it. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do and if you like it enough that you'd like to make your own, I have created a tutorial for the quilt complete with printable instructions, just click here to go to that post.

So, that's my quilt I'm entering into the ROYGBIV category. Even though it's scrappy, I think it fits here the best. I hope you all like it and I can't wait to see what everyone else has entered. Remember to head over to amyscreativeside.com for all of the information on the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Kitchen Stitches Blog Hop & A Giveaway!!!

This giveaway is now closed, come back for future chances to win!

If you are new to my little corner of the blog community, Welcome!!! I'm super excited to be a part of this blog hop featuring the new book, Kitchen Stitches, that so many of us worked on. It's been great to collaborate with so many creative women and now we've swapped projects and it's even better! Plus, you can enter to win a copy of Kitchen Stitches, entry details are at the bottom of this post!

 When I got the request to come up with a project for the kitchen from Karen at Martingale, it got my brain working and you can read more about my project here. I was so excited to see all of the projects and was already adding some to my future projects list when I got word the girls wanted to do this blog hop. I had a hard time narrowing it down to just one! Look at the choices I had:

 I finally picked one and got to work with impending snow on it's way. I shared this preview last weekend and now I can share even more about this darling quilt.

 I chose to make the Cartwheels Table Runner designed by the talented Amy Ellis (by the way, hop on over to Amy's blog to see the Pillow Collective she has going on!) I immediately fell in love with this runner and headed to my stash.

 As I said, we had some nasty weather heading our way, so I raided my stash and improvised with what I had on hand. No trips to the quilt shop were in my future. Since we are all making our projects Valentine's themed, I first ran to my reds. Then I grabbed some pinks and as you may know, you never have what you need. My pinks were fighting. I have a mix of dusty and bubblegum and it was a mess.

So then I looked over and spotted this charm pack of Birds and Berries by Lauren & Jessie Jung and it was awesome. Plus I'm not the hearts and rainbows type of girl anyway. The mixture of the red, pink and yellow for the outer pieces worked well with the balance of blues and greens for the centers. (p.s. Wouldn't this be absolutely ADORABLE colored like peppermints for winter?!)

I planned mine out a bit more than Amy's version, but like I said... when raiding the stash and improvising, I dealt with what I had on hand. Including using copy paper. If you're planning on making this, please please please use a good paper made for paper piecing that can be found at most quilt shops (or ask for them to order you some). It makes a HUGE difference! Also, the table runner as Amy made it was 12" x 60" finished which is fine, but none of my tables are that long... so I just doubled it up and mine now finished at 24" x 30". 

The paper piecing makes it so simple to make and it went really quick. This is a great project to try if you've wanted to try paper piecing but haven't mustered up the confidence to dive in just yet. 

 Here you can see my Chihuahua, Paco, eyeing it up for his own. Too bad he's not getting this one.

To finish it off, I first machine quilted the background quite densely and then hand quilted each of the cartwheel rings with a pale yellow pearl cotton. I LOVE how it turned out. I just adore mixing quilting techniques like this!

This was a bunch of fun to make and I kinda want to make another (or three!). Now, don't forget that there are several other ladies on this blog hop showing off their projects this week (and if you've missed some, feel free to jump on back to the posts and catch up and enter some of their giveaways too):

2/3  Heather at The Sewing Loft
2/4  Becky at the Patchwork Posse and  Kim at My Go-Go life
2/5  Amy at FormWork Design and  Deby at So Sew Easy
2/6  Rebecca at Ruby Blue Quilts (that's me!)  and Jackie at Jabot Quilts
2/7  Melissa at Happy Melissa Quilting
2/8  Kari at Fresh Cut Quilts

Now for the giveaway... Just leave me a comment between now and Saturday night at midnight (Feb. 8 EST) to enter. It's that easy. Please be sure to leave your e-mail address if it's not attached to your profile so I can get in touch with you when you win! I will choose a winner at random and a copy of Kitchen Stitches will be on it's way to you soon.