Terrific Tuesday Giveaway Day!!!

 It's Terrific Tuesday Giveaway Day!!   Let's have some fun :)

First we need to pick a winner from last week's TTGD ;) 

And the winner of the $25.00 Gift Certificate from Thousands of Bolts is . . .#53 . .  Congrats Lisa England!!  I have messaged you :)

   

And on to today's

Today's Terrific Tuesday Giveaway is being sponsored by Green Fairy Quilts.  Green Fairy Quilts is your home for pre-cut goodness and they always have amazing sales going on every weekend on a selected pre-cut or notion!!!   And did you know that Green Fairy Quilts has a Deal of The Day, I just love these!!!    Green Fairy Quilts is adding A Ton of new Riley Blake Pre-Cuts to their 50% off Page, you won't want to miss these!!! 

And for today's Terrific Tuesday Giveaway, Green Fairy Quilts will be giving one lucky reader an Perennial 10" Stacker by Jill Finley for Riley Blake Designs!!!  This is such a gorgeous fabric line with beautiful prints and happy colors!!!!  

You have two entry chances here on the blog, and please leave a separate comment for each.  All Entries are welcome, including International Entries.   Please just be sure to leave an email address if you are a no-reply blogger ;)  

ENTRY 1 - Simply leave a comment that tells me Would you rather be too hot or too cold?? 

 ENTRY 2 - Show your Green Fairy Quilts love.   You can Sign up for their Newsletter which I highly recommend as it will ensure you catch all of their amazing sales!!  You can follow them on Instagram or Facebook,  or you can visit the Shop and then share a favorite item ;)   Just be sure to leave a comment of how you showed your Green Fairy Quilt Love!!!

And that's it ;)  The giveaway will be open until next Tuesday, November 5th, when I will announce a winner at the beginning of next weeks Terrific Tuesday Giveaway Post :)

You can also pop over to my Instagram and/or Facebook to enter there as well :)  

Good Luck and Have a Happy Quilting Day!!!

Dragon Fruit BOM - Month 1

 I just got back from a wonderful week of vacation in Kauai, Hawaii with my sweetheart.   We had such a great time playing in the ocean, hiking, skydiving (kind of crazy) and resting and relaxing.   And wouldn't you know it, when I got home, the first Month of the Dragon Fruit Block of the Month was waiting for me.   So I got busy paper piecing!!!    And here is Month 1 of the  Dragon Fruit  hosted by Fat Quarter Shop and can I just say . . . so much fun!!!  And just fyi . . . It's not to late to join in the Tula Pink Paper Piecing fun ;) 

The Dragon Fruit Block of the Month will run from Oct 24 to June 25.   This month we made 20 Paper Pieced 4" blocks.   And how cute and tiny are those pieces!!  I love that paper piecing makes everything so perfectly precise, because while I love tiny piecing, this would be tricky to piece straight without the foundation :)  And each months pieces are made with Tula Pinks gorgeous fabrics.  This month we were working on the "leaves" so it was all the pretty greens, teals, and citron colors ;)  

Month 1 and I am already in love!!!   I am so grateful that I have become better aquatinted with Paper Piecing.  It is such a wonderful skill to have and it is amazing what you can create with it ;)   If you are new to Paper Piecing, I did a strep by step paper piecing tutorial (for a different block) over here that you might find helpful :)  I am still no expert, but I am enjoying it more and more with each paper piecing project I tackle.   

 

 Thoughts and Tidbits from the First Month . . . 

Just in case you are new to Paper Piecing, here are some thoughts and tidbits that I figured out along the way of Month 1 that I thought would be helpful to share ;) 

First off, this Block of the Month is super easy to follow.   The Pattern is so well illustrated and having the custom Paper Piecing Pads makes it easy.  And I was also pleasantly surprised at the amount of fabric sent in Month 1's package!!  This is the "scrap fabric" that I had after cutting all my pieces.  It is always so nice to know you have plenty of wiggle room for oopsies :)  

And speaking of cutting your fabrics, A lot of the pieces are cut the same sizes.  So I found it helpful to look through the cutting directions first, find the ones that are similar, and then stack up those pieces of fabric and cut them all at the same time.   And cutting 4 of the WOF strips was also a huge time saver as I could sub-cut all the pieces I needed for each of the 4 blocks sets all at once.  

When it came to start paper piecing, chain stitching was key!!!  I chain stitched the 4 Courthouse Steps blocks first, and then went back and chain stitched the 16 Log Cabin Blocks second.   I found doing the four blocks first got me in the groove so I was really flying through the 16 blocks after that.   

And a big help with chain stitching that I didn't realize until I was almost finished . . . change your needle setting to Needle Up.  This way you don't have to hand crank when you need to advance to the next piece of paper piecing clear in the middle of the paper :)  And of course, I am all about a small stitch length (1.5) so tearing the paper will be easier.  And if you have an oopsie and your paper shreds, FQS gave you two extra papers so you can always start over if needed, or you can tape it back up with invisible tape and sew through it again.  

And after the courthouse steps blocks, I realized I needed to be super clean with snipping my threads.  It takes a second longer, but clipping the threads right at the base of the stitching helps keep things nice and tidy and you don't have any threads making their way to the front of the block.   And since I am snipping them so close, I made sure to overstitch my lines at least 1/4" so I didn't have to worry about unravelling ;) 

Once all of my paper piecing was complete, I found trimming the blocks with a 4 1/2" square ruler and a rotating cutting mat to be very precise and quick.  If you haven't tried a rotating cutting mat before, they are just so great for trimming!!  I like the ones with the ball bearings in the middle as they turn super easy.  

And now all that is left is to take out all of the papers from my 20 blocks!!   Good thing I have my handy Pretty Tula Pink Tweezers for getting out those pieces that just don't want to let go ;)   Should be a fun little job to keep my hands busy while watching the World Series Tonight ;)  Go Dodgers!!

And that is it for Dragon Fruit Block of the Month - Month 1    Again, there is still time to join in the fun, but I wouldn't wait long because the other thing I learned with this Month was I better not get behind because this is a lot of Paper Piecing each month!!  

And just for fun . . . here are some snippets my Crazy Adventure from last week!!

HTHS QA - Week 8

It's Week 8 of the Home Town Holiday Sampler Quilt Along hosted by Fat Quarter Shop and this week is brought to you by the letters E, F, G and H!!! Eeekkk, I am just having so much fun making these letters, I might have already cut out the rest of the alphabet :) 

For my Sampler I am using Sweetwater Christmas Prints from several lines paired with a POParazzi Grey Background.  And how fun are these low volumes just popping on that background.  I just love it, especially the little reindeer, oh so cute!!!    

And that is it for Week 8 of of the Home Town Holiday Sampler Quilt Along!!!   You can make your own Home Town Holiday Sampler as well, you just need Lori Holt's  Home Town Holiday Sampler Book!   You can see the complete schedule here and check out all the details here and come quilt along ;)    

See ya next week with more Home Town Holiday Sampler goodness!!  More Letter goodness to come ;)  

Meadowland for SUU!!!

Yup, today I get to share another SUU Quilt in my favorite Red, White, and Black color combo!!! Each year at the Quilty Friends Retreat , I take a class and I decided a few years back to start making SUU quilts in each of these classes.   So this is Meadowlands Quilt and the pattern is by Then Came June.  

This was a super fun class from two years ago (yes, the one from this year still needs to be finished pieced, ah well :)   For this version I went with all soilds.   Because sometimes Solids for the Win is just the way to go!!!   I am so glad my Alma Mater has Red, White, and Black for the school colors.  I just such a great color combo and one that I don't mind doing over and over again ;)

And once again, I added an SUU layered applique to the corner of the quilt. You can really do just about anything with this layered applique technique!!   Again, you can find the step by step tutorial here for layered applique :)   

When it came time to quilt this Meadowlands Quilt I decided on an all over swirl in varying sizes ;)  It is always fun to mix up the small, medium, and large swirls.  It adds some great texture and movement to this super geometric quilt.      And of course, a red thread was perfect for this quilt.  

And that is my SUU Meadowlands Quilt.  The pattern has several size options and I made the Bed Size 80" x 96" so it will be great for cuddling up in during a cold game :) And this one will get a happy new home very soon as well.  I just love that I can use my love of quilting to help out my favorite School!!!

Thanks again for popping in for another quilt finish!!

I hope you all have a very Happy Quilting Day! 

Dutch Days for SUU!!!

It's that Homecoming Time of year and that means I get to share another SUU Quilt in my favorite Red, White, and Black color combo!!! I decided to make an SUU Fast & Fun Lap Quilts  and how cute is this Dutch Days Quilt!  I just love it ;)

For this version of Dutch Days, I used Red and White prints from the Red Hot Fabric Line from Riley Blake.  It is another perfect match for an Alma Mater quilt and paired with a Black Basic background, it just makes those red and white prints pop!!!!   And I made a scrappy binding of the white prints from this line and I love how it gives a great low volume look there.  Such a fun way to finish the quilt.  

And as always, the Homecoming quilts need an SUU layered applique to the corner of the quilt. The applique is the SUU Mascot, they are the Thunderbirds :)   And when it comes to a custom applique the sky is truly the limit.  It is such a fun way to personalize quilts!!   You can find the step by step tutorial here for layered applique :)   

When it came time to quilt this Fast & Fun Lap Quilt  I decided on all over Loose Feathers;)  I just figured I wanted something to add texture that would quilt up fast, and this is always the ticket for that!!    And of course, a black thread was perfect for this quilt.  

And that is my SUU Dutch Days quilt from my Fast & Fun Lap Quilts book !  Dutch Days finishes at 72" x 72" so it is a great size and it has already found a new home with an SUU Alum ;)  I hope you love this quilt as much as I do and if you make your own Dutch Days quilt, I would love to see it!!  You can share your quilts with me on social media using hashtag #happyquiltingwithmc and #fastandfunlapquilts and tag me @happyquiltingmc or you can email me a picture at happyquiltingmelissa@gmail.com.   

Thanks so much for popping in for another quilt finish!!

I hope you all have a very Happy Quilting Day!