Sometimes You Like Them. Sometimes You Don't!

One of my daughters had a birthday yesterday, Friday.  She is five.  If you ask her what her favorite color is, she will answer, "Every color in the whole wide world."  She has asked me to make her a "cozy" quilt for months.  I made her a fleece blanket.  She liked it until night when it lit up with static electricity.  She's been scared of that blanket ever since.  That meant I needed to make her one with Minkee on the back.  A month or so ago I got some of Moda's new Snuggles fabric that is like Minkee for her quilt. 

Then I took her to a fabric shop and asked her if there was any fabric there she wanted for her quilt.

Yes, sometimes that is the wrong question to ask a child.  At least I was smart enough to be in the clearance room when I asked her that question.  She instantly picked up a bolt of rainbow fabric from the Wizard of Oz collection.  Try as I might, I couldn't talk her out of it.  It, of course, was perfect.  Her favorite color after all is "every color in the whole wide world." 

Then, I wasn't sure I would get it done for her birthday.  But I decided on making a star and found a piece in my stash that she also liked that coordinated with the rainbow.  Yesterday morning (by about 12:30 or 1:00) I finished her quilt -- except for the binding which I finished today.  Here is the rainbow quilt:

Are your eyes as buggy as mine?  Whew!  Can you see the block?  No?  Didn't think so.  Here it is: 

Oh!  Perfect example of how NOT to make a two-color quilt. I can't say I really like it. That really isn't what's important here.  It is definitely a "cozy" quilt, and the proud owner of it loves it!  Wow!  Here's a picture of the coziness and heart quilting pattern the five year old picked out as well as the matching pillowcase. 

I do really like the back! 

Bed of Roses

The August/September issue of McCall's Quick Quilts is now in stores with one of my quilts!  This is my first pattern to appear in a magazine.  I am super excited!  They took such lovely pictures of it as you can see.

They gave it a lovely name, Bed of Roses.  I really love this quilt.  It is a scrappy quilt made out of a nine patch block and an hourglass block.  They complement each other so nicely.  It is also really versatile.  I made it out of fat quarters, but you could also make it out of a layer cake.  The best part is that the squares for both blocks starts out the same size so you can start with any size square. 

Of course, some sizes are easier to divide into thirds for the nine patch than others.  The layer cake for example is 10" - not divisible by three, but you could cut 3" of 3.25" strips and have just a hair leftover with the nine patch block and you would just square up the hourglass block to the size of the nine patch and there you go!

The border print is a gorgeous pink floral from Aviary.  I put wool batting in it.  Love wool batting! 

McCall's has the pattern (throw size) is available online as a web extra too, so HERE'S THE LINK!

Just an FYI about the pattern.  I do make the hourglass a little different than they explain.  The way I do it is explained in THIS TUTORIAL that has a horrid picture of the quilt on it that I haven't gotten around to changing. 

Hope you like it!

What Happened to the Winners?

Well, nothing!  Some of you noticed my blocks were posted on Flickr.  I posted them Tuesday morning instead of Monday night -- trying to get to bed early.  Then that's as far as I got.  Thought I could get this post written in between this swim lesson and that swim lesson and everything else.  Guess I couldn't! 

However, there are winners! 

The winners of a pattern of mine are:

shireej!

and agnesquilts!

And the winner of the jelly roll is VickiM35!

Belated congratulations to the winners!  The winners were all notified via FlickrMail, and actually they have all contacted me and their winnings were mailed this very day. 

Love the fun blocks on Flickr!  Thanks for posting them!

Block Eleven with Konda Luckau

Well, we had our first snafu.  All the other designers have been super fabulous about getting me the blocks.  I haven't been able to get in touch with this next to last designer.  She probably forgot and is now out of town.  I completely understand since she offered to make the block six months ago!  I should have sent a reminder sooner. 

As I was skimming through my Quilters Newletter that recently came (Aug/Sept p.49), I saw this:

Now, it caught my eye because I like Joel Dewberry, but my second thought was, "that would make a great block for our Sampler!  I don't know where the block came from.  It was just a block made to show the fabric line. 

Here's my Electric Quilt version:

and HERE's the link to instructions!

We will still have a drawing -- I have another jelly roll and I have a couple patterns so there will be three this time!

Thanks for playing!

Finding Old Quilts

Panguitch is a small Southern Utah town in the middle of nowhere.  Their annual community celebration centers around quilts for a good reason.  During the first winter, the community ran out of supplies.  A group of men headed to a neighboring community to get the needed supplies.  The snow was too deep for their wagons so they ended up using quilts like snowshoes to walk to get the supplies.  The quilts literally saved the town.  Here is a link to where you can read the story in more detail:
Utah.com

Their annual celebration is called the Panguitch Quilt Walk.  During the Quilt Walk, the whole town joins in the celebration.  Quilts can be seen everywhere, inside and out.  There is another quilt story associated with this celebration that is not as well known.  The story goes -- one of the ladies in charge of the quilt show that takes place during the celebration, was taking some things to the dump.  While she was there, she saw a man taking quilt after quilt after quilt out of his vehicle and tossing them onto the pile of trash there at the dump.  She waited for the man to leave and proceeded to take quilt after quilt after quilt off of the pile of trash and place them into her vehicle.  Most of the quilts were in poor condition, but these are the quilts that are seen hanging throughout the town.  From a distance they are admired.  Upon examination, their condition is noted, but the quilts are still valued and admired.  What a blessed day to be at the dump! 

I share these stories to ask a question.  Where do I go, besides the dump, to find old quilts like this?  I would love to have some old quilts in poor condition.  I just looked on ebay hoping to find some "cutters."  I was disappointed to find that ebay sellers are now actually cutting old quilts into pieces and just selling pieces of these old quilts.  It was more difficult (read as more expensive) than I thought to find an entire quilt. 

I think I am okay with an old quilt top.  Could I place iron on interfacing behind holes so I could quilt the top?  I know when I say that I want to quilt an antique top, but if it is in poor condition, it isn't as valuable as it could be, and I really want the quilts to be enjoyed. 

Thanks in advance!

Block Nine Winners!

Winners, winners, we have some winners! 

Oh, but first, super quick, I've gotten some questions regarding putting the quilt together.  I will be providing those instructions after the last block.  I haven't decided on the timing yet.  I had been planning to give it to you the usual two weeks after the last block.  Lately I have been thinking about giving it to you sooner.  Maybe I will give it to you after the winners for the last block is announced.  I think that is what I will do.  Any objection?

Okay, so now the winners. . . .

First, the winner of Kari Ramsay's 12 Days of Christmas jelly roll is:

iambuzzysma!

And the winner of the jelly roll from me is:

laurajo06!

And now for the fine print:

These are the Flickr usernames. I have emailed both winners via Flickr mail. I have also posted their blocks to help identify the winners. Email me (kluckau@moosequilts.com) to claim your prize.

Remember, if you didn't get your block done, no worries. There will be another drawing in two weeks! Any blocks posted between now and then will be entered into the next drawing.

Thanks for playing everyone! Keep on quilting!

Prize Drawing Postponed 24 Hours

Hope you don't mind.  With all the confusion there was today, I thought it would be nice to delay the drawing until tomorrow night.  There are two jelly rolls on the line.  I hope the information I just posted will help with the confusion and all of you who wanted to get your block done for this drawing will be able to. 

I will be randomly picking one of the fabulous blocks on the flickr site tomorrow (Tuesday) night instead of right now. 

Thanks for playing!

Block Ten Tips

My apologies.  Kari asked me to look over her instructions before I posted them.  I said I would, but I don't know what happened to last week.  I didn't look over her instructions.  My bad.  The fabric requirements, the cutting instructions, and the diagrams are all correct.  If you just followed the pictures, your block would turn out fine (that only helps if you have quilted enough to be able to follow the pictures).  There were a couple things that needed clarification.  So let's get it figured out together! 

1)  Fabric A and D are the same so there really is only 3 jelly roll strips used plus the background. 

2)  The block instructions show the corner squares one way and her block shows them the other.  Which way should you do them?  Which ever way you want!  I got my blocks made today.  I did one each way in case that helped you make up your mind. 

3)  Just make the corner blocks like it says and rotate the blocks.  Your seams will be going a different direction than the diagram.  That doesn't matter.  Take a look at my blocks.  The seams rotate. 

4)  This is actually the one that makes the biggest difference.  In Step 2, you need to make 2 pieces that look EXACTLY like the diagram.  These 2 pieces should be the same fabric.  Using the other fabric, sew the squares on with the seam going in the opposite direction.  That is how to make it look like figure 3 when the two different fabrics are sewn together. 

5)  This goes along with the previous one.  In steps 4 and 5, once again 2 pieces need to be sewn exactly as shown in step 4 and 2 need to be sewn on in the opposite direction.  Here's the part you need to know -- if fabric B was sewn exactly like Figure 2, then it needs to be fabric C that is sewn exactly like Figure 4.  The long piece and the short piece need to be sewn in the opposite direction.  I hope that makes sense.

Now that we have that figured out, here are my blocks.  First, Swanky.

Second, Attitude Girls.

Always fun to see how different they look!  If you have any other questions, just ask.  Also, occasionally I hear that when the file is downloaded, it says it is corrupted.  I have no clue why this happens.  It works for hundreds of people and one person gets a corrupted file.  Frustrating!  If that happens to you, just email me at kluckau@moosequilts.com.  I can do two things.  First, I will email you the file directly.  Sometimes that works.  If not, I will resave the pdf as a picture file and you will be able to get the pattern that way. 

Happy quilting!

Block Ten with Kari Ramsay

First of all, can I just say. . .
Who in the world made this block come due on the 4th of July weekend?!?
It couldn't have been me!  Oh wait!  It could.  Sometimes I do not like having no one to blame but myself.  Y'all are just lucky that's all there is to it. 

I have had one family reunion 3 hours away, then a quilt show to wrap up, family in town, then another family reunion 2.5 hours away, and a 4th of July race in the morning.  We have been taking full advantage of "summer" here and have been loving almost every minute of it.  I have no idea how I remembered to get this posted for you. 

I am pretty sure Kari's life is about as busy right now.  She is out of town this week.  Fortunately this bunch of designers for this quilt along have all been fabulous about getting their blocks to me.  Kari was no exception.  Who is Kari?  Well, let me tell you!

Kari Ramsay is another Utah pattern designer.  (I wanted to say, "Let me tell you!" again.  It is too late for me to be writing this.  Oh well!)  Kari's patterns have really taken off recently.  I have been seeing her everywhere!  Kari's company is Fresh Cut Quilts.  She has a fun blog, of course!  You can check it out at http://www.freshcutquilts.blogspot.com/.  She has been featured on Moda Bake Shop, has recently come out with a pattern book, and I know she has more big things in the works. 

Okay, so I either didn't get Kari's shout out to you or I misplaced it.  Either way, I'M SORRY!!!  We will have to get her to give you a shout out when she gets home.  Here is Kari's bio from her blog:

I am the owner and designer of Fresh Cut Quilts Pattern Co. I am a Mom of 2 children who I adore, and have been happily married to my husband for 16 years. Before I became a quilt pattern designer, I worked in retail management and before that I was a floral designer for about 10 years. My specialty was wedding flowers. Design and sewing have been a part of my life ever since I can remember and now I get to follow my passion for design in my quilting!

Click HERE for instructions to Kari's block.
Thanks Kari!

Here is the picture of the block that Kari made:

I can see the gears in your brain starting to turn. . . .  Another fun block, full of possibilities!

Oh, and Kari has kindly donated a Kate Spain 12 days of Christmas Jelly Roll to go along with my jelly roll!  This is probably a drawing you want to be in -- as busy as I have been, I imagine that I'm not the only one.  Maybe not as many blocks will be made this time.  Maybe there will be a better chance to win.  Maybe not, but maybe so!