Rainbow Mini Swap

I actually remembered to take pictures (and good ones at that) and show them to you before I packaged it up and sent it off. Usually I remember that I needed to take pictures as I'm sitting in the post office parking lot after I sent it.

I joined the Rainbow Mini Swap and instantly I felt on top of my game! I had a plan! I know and love color and I couldn't wait to get started.

 This was my first time playing with Liberty of London fabrics and I AM HOOKED!!! I started with the feathers and once I finished those, the mini needed to grow just a bit and I still wanted to play with more color, so I added these offset borders. It worked out almost perfectly to run "around the rainbow" twice. I had to improvise just a few pieces. It was pure luck because I just cut haphazard widths of strips, there was no rhyme or reason to the pieces besides thicker strips for bigger pieces and smaller prints were cut into thinner strips...

 Then I played with the quilting and did this denser-ish swirl design in the background and these angled lines on either side.

I wanted to mimic the feather into the border and you can see how the quilting added to the quilt as a whole. I had so much fun making this mini and I can't wait to see what shows up at my doorstep!

What what what?!

That's what I was saying to myself during my little giveaway a couple weeks ago. Things have been a bit busy on the blog I hadn't had time to share this tidbit yet!

I woke up early in the morning (when Ben gets up for work) and I usually check some emails and watch some news until I fall back asleep... Well, I was searching through my emails and one of the comments on the giveaway said:

I just learned about your blog in a quilt magazine Fresh Quilts. I am so excited to find your blog! And bonus a giveaway!

Well, Lori... you changed the number one item on my to-do list for that day in an instant! No matter what, I had to get to the store... And when I did I found this:

I was trying to play it cool... But there was this large gentleman blocking all of the quilting magazines. I didn't want to be rude, but I really wanted him to get out of my way! Didn't he know I was a woman on a mission?! And then I spotted it and flipped through feverishly until I saw:

It took every ounce of my being not to scream in the middle of the store! I probably had a ridiculous grin on my face, but I didn't care. The gentleman had moved on so I grabbed some other favorites to read and I practically ran to the counter... But not ran ran... More like that goofy walk that kids do when you tell them not to run at the pool but they still try to get the same speed...

And that's when it happened...

I got busted. But in a good way. There was only one cashier and she was busy, so I stood there with this stupid grin on my face... Another guy working at the store comes up and asks me to come to another register (SCORE)...

He starts ringing me out and then asks if I have their rewards card to save whatever... I reply no...

Then he looks at me with a weird look on his face and asks, "Aren't you in here like every other week buying these magazines?"

I WAS BUSTED. I tried to brush it off and my reply was something less than cool with, "It has to be more like every other month, duh"

But I didn't care, I had my magazines including the magazine with my little mini in it that I had no clue about, so I ran to my car and posted on social media...

To which I got a reply from my Hubby's aunt... "Oh yeah, I saw that a few weeks ago. I was at the store sipping coffee and looking through magazines and saw your name..."

After my jaw hit the floor I demanded in not my nicest tone "And you didn't say anything?!" She thought I knew...

Such is the life of a quilter, I tell you. So there it is, my goofy story about my quilt in a magazine that I didn't know was there. This issue is still on newsstands, so run and pick yourself up a copy and I hope you got a good laugh at my tale!

Mini Madness Continues

A little bit ago I hosted a giveaway over on Instagram for reaching 400 followers. I offered up a choice of either $75 towards long arm quilting or a personalized mini quilt...

 Aurelie won and chose a mini quilt. I had so much fun piecing this and then the quilting was a blast! I love it so much that I may just have to make one for me!

 I drew up this pattern and paper pieced the feathers and adapted the rest as I went. There was a certain size and proportion I was trying to get and I'm so happy with how it turned out.

 I really like how the quilting stands out on the pieced back too!

 You can really see the quilting details in the feather at this angle.

Then just as I was getting ready to pack this mini up and send it on it's way, the sunset was shining through the window and it cast the most amazing light and shadows!!! This picture really doesn't do it justice, but it was so pretty I had to snap a few more pictures!

I know I know, many of you may be feeling neglected that I didn't offer the same giveaway here... Well, just hold your horses and come back next week for a giveaway! It's been long overdue here on the blog and you all deserve some quilty love too!

I have some other wonderful posts scheduled in the meantime while I hash out the details for the giveaway, stop back tomorrow for a new printable that I'm sure you're going to love. On Monday I will be featuring a new project from Seems Like Scrappy and then probably Tuesday I will post the giveaway... Sound good?

Aurelie, enjoy your mini and if you ever get tired of it, feel free to send it on back! I will miss it so!

Plan B Sewing

I have this amazingly huge quilt on the machine right now that needs to get finished, and I was all set and planning for a super long day of quilting...

That was until I woke up with the dog in the middle of the night to let him out and it was snowing like mad...

And then Hubbin texted me once he got to work saying his drive was awful and stay home if I could...

So I woke up a bit early and was drinking my coffee and decided to quilt my minis and see how the day played out...

 I was just going to quilt one... and then it went so quick so I decided to do them both!

 I love how the back of this one turned out... I guess I should have taken a picture of the back of the other one (it doesn't have extra spool blocks, but it's adorable)

So now the binding is trimmed for both of these and I just need to finish it and get them finished up.

Well, after finishing quilting these guys, I almost thought about heading down to the machine. The wind has been roaring here by the lake, but just to be safe I checked Facebook to see the current conditions of the roads and I'm glad I did. It's nasty out there. South of us has been hammered all morning and the kids have been out of school for three days now (the previous two for the cold, today for the snow). Then once I made the decision to stay put and continue on with projects here at home, the snow moved in and it's just awful out.

So instead I've done some computer work, I'm planning on jogging later, maybe moving some furniture around if I feel up to it... We shall see what the rest of the day brings, but most importantly I'm blogging!!! Like a REAL post, not a quickie from my phone! I'm so proud of myself!

I just downloaded a TON of pictures off of my camera and I will be sharing a bunch of quilts I've worked on recently and some pictures of my little vacation too!

I hope this little post finds you all safe and warm (or if you're down under, cool and dry). I'm going to go make myself a cup of tea and get back to work. Check back soon for TONS of pictures!!!

-Rebecca

Mini Scrappy Plus Quilt Tutorial

I know that as excited as many of you were for the larger Plus Quilt Tutorial, you were super excited for the arrival of the Mini Plus Quilt and here it is!

 This quilt was completely made by accident or by resorting to quiet work during insomnia really... I had a bunch of leftover pieces in varying lengths from another project. There were several solids that I knew coordinated since I used them in another project and all of the strips were 1 1/2" wide. So what's a girl to do at 4 in the morning when everyone else is sleeping (even the dog)? I redid the math for the Plus Quilt and made it square rather than rectangular and within an hour or so I had it all cut out, laid out, and ready to go!

 I quilted this up a few weeks ago with just some straight lines using my walking foot for the first true time and it went so fast. I literally quilted this while my Hubbin was getting ready, that's it! Why did I not try this sooner?! Alas, then I got it bound and then we had no sun for weeks (or we had it when I wasn't home) and without it I just couldn't get good pictures of the colors. But here it is hanging in my sewing room:

Yep, there's another mini I made that I still have to share and the Mustang I stare at every time I sew. If you haven't heard the story, my Hubbin loves Mustangs and wants one something fierce. Well, he got this die cast model for Christmas one year and promptly placed it in my sewing room so while I'm quilting and writing books I know what to strive for with all of my hard work ;) It started out as a joke, but the Mustang model is still there years later and I don't think it's moving any time soon!

Well, as with the larger version of this quilt, I've created a printable pdf file you can get to by clicking here that will tell you all of the details of this quilt. Remember, both quilts were designed to be scrappy so the directions tell you how many pieces to cut, not how much yardage you'll need. Especially with this little mini, you can easily get the pieces you need out of scraps without a lot of fuss.

Which reminds me, I rearranged my stash again (it will always be a work in progress) and I want to show you what I've done. It's working out quite well and I'm thinking I may need to dive into my scrap stash later this week... We shall see.

And as always, if you create one of these Scrappy Plus Quilts using either tutorial, please send me pictures!!! I'd love to see what you've done. And remember you can always find me at my email at rubybluequilts (at) gmail (dot) com or you can find me on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook at rubybluequilts!

Right now I'm finishing up my coffee, gonna eat some breakfast and see if it's warm enough to paint. I need to get a few things painted and I think today is the last chance I'll have to get it done. This weekend they are calling for icky wet snow already. Trick or Treating for Halloween is Friday night and it doesn't sound like the weather is going to be great... Hope you all have a great day and enjoy these tutorials! I have a few more in the works to share in the near future... Talk to you all soon!

Tidbits

I have gotten so much done, but yet have so much to do before I can share it! How rude of myself! 

Well first things first, I quilted up a couple minis this weekend including this adorable number:

I quilted this while my hubby was in the shower, that's it. I finished it just as he was finished. Why didn't I play with my walking foot more in the past?! So, since that was so much fun I quilted this mini when we got done running errands:

I can't show the front yet, but I had so much fun and stayed up way too late binding them both. 

I will have tutorials for both plus quilts soon, but I think I've officially come down with quilters elbow, so I'm pacing myself with sewing and clicking the mouse and all things that affect it. Just too much sewing and binding lately I guess. But also I want to link to printable PDF files for each tutorial which is something new for me and I want to do it right, so give me some time to figure it out and get pictures whenever it decides to quit raining here and I'll be back in the swing of things!

Alrighty, gotta go quilt before my elbow screams at me, wish me luck!