Tuesday, June 19, 2012

A Finalist!!!

So I was doing my regular blog inspiration surfing this morning and came across a wonderful surprise!!! My Double Dresden Delight quilt has been choosen as a finalist in Jennifer's Summer Sewing Contest. Yippee Skippee!!!


There is some amazing sewing goodness going on in the finals.  So take a second and pop on over to Ellison Lane Quilts and vote for your favorite finalist entries :)   Trust me, you will be glad you visited, I am talking major fabric inspiration!!!

And once again, thank you for all of your sweet comments on this quilt!!  I really can't believe how many "hits" it has had since it has been posted.  I am just thrilled with the wonderful response it is getting and each of your comments just make me grin from ear to ear!!  Quilters really are the nicest group of people!!!


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Monday, June 18, 2012

The Tetris Quilt-A-Long and Color Charm Swap!!!!

Yippee Skippee!!!!  It's time for another Quilt-A-Long.  And this time it's Tetris!!!  (Insert Doh do Dut Dut, Dut, Dut, Dum, Dee, Dum, Music here :) It's a game I loved playing as a kid and I think it is going to be a blast to Quilt-A-Long to!!!  Interested???  Here's how it's going to work!

 

We will be playing with the standard Tetris pieces and using print fabrics in the colors of Red, Orange, Yellow, Pink, Green, Blue, Purple, and White. (The Color Charm Swap will be a great way to accumulate all of these prints, more on that later :)
 
Once a week you will start with a blank grid that is 6 x 6 square.  You can draw it, use graph paper, or just print this little picture off.  
In the weekly Quilt-A-Long post I will give you a piece and the alteration shapes it can convert into.  Then you will get another piece, and another ect . .  until you have enough to fill the entire block.  

 Your job . . .  To play Tetris!!!  Start with the first piece in the post and color it into your grid.  Then insert the next piece.  Just pretend it is dropping down into place.  Don't think about this to much, just pretend you are playing and the higher up it gets the faster it gets, to where you just start throwing things in there.
 Once you get tot the top of your grid you are done.  You will have some white spaces, that is the way the game works :)  Now just simply take your color grid and sew a duplicate.  We will be using 5" squares.  You can participate in the swap to accumulate these, or if you are on a fabric diet, you can use your stash, or if you like solids, you could accumulate a few Solid Charm Packs.  Whatever works for you, I just want to make it super easy for every one to play along!!!
We will be making 6 blocks in 6 weeks and in the end you will have something that looks a little like this!!!  So fun huh :)  The Quilt center will finish at 55 x82 and then you can add on borders as you desire to make it the size you would like.  How perfect for colorful, happy, random picnic quilt!!!


And since I know you all love fabric as much as I do, and since I know this is a busy time of year,  and since I know it is easier to keep up when you are motivated . . .  this Quilt-A-Long will have Prizes Galore!!!!!  Grand Prizes Drawings for those that finish their project, Weekly Prize Drawings for those that finish their blocks, and just good old Random Prize Drawings, just for fun!!!  Lots of Fabric Goodness and lots of Gift Certificate Goodness!!!  (There will be more details on the exact prizes as the start date gets closer :)  Thank you to my wonderful, generous, sponsors for providing these prizes!!!

   


The Quilt-A-Long will be starting around Mid-July!!!!     This will give those participating in the Color Charm Swap time to get their fabric and those of you participating from your stash time to cut up your scraps :)  (You will want around 225 ish 5" squares in the colors mentioned earlier.  Or if you don't like a color, you can always swap it out for a different color, just know which one it was originally as the pieces will be shown in the weekly posts in the original colors )    If you will be Quilting-A-Long please feel free to join my Flickr Quilt-A-Long group :)  


And now that we have gone over the general layout of the Quilt-A-Long, let's get the the Color Charm Swap!!!  This is going to be a fabulous way to get all of the fabric you need for the Quilt-A-Long with lots of  yummy variety.

So this Color Charm Swap is a monster!!!  Because each Tetris piece is made up of 4 squares, I thought it would be fun to do a 4 yard swap!! So you provide 4 yards of 1 fabric cut into 224 charms and will be receiving 224 . . . 4 sets of 56 charms in 8 colors, 28 charms of each of the 8 colors)  This allows you to make each Tetris piece out of the same fabric using the 4 charms.   (But you are welcome to mix them up as well if you like :)

Now, I know, lots of us are on fabric diets and trying to keep the fabric purchases to a minimal.  So . . . to help you out with the purchase of 4 yards (since most of us don't have 4 yards of the same fabric lying around in our stash) Julie over at the Intrepid Thread has created a special custom listing in her shop just for this Quilt-A-Long.  Here's how it works.  Shop around (And yes, you can add more than just the custom listing in your cart if you find something you want for yourself and want to save on shipping) and find the perfect fabric in the color you are assigned (assignments will be made soon) .  Then go to the Custom Listing Here and in the notes section list the fabric you want.  No matter what fabric you pick, your 4 yards will only cost $28.00.  That's $7.00 a yard!!! Sweet!!!  A huge thanks to Julie for this great discount :)



So do you want to Swap Along with me???  Sign-Ups start Today and will end as soon as the Swap is filled.  You can read all of the official guidelines, rules, ect and officially sign up at the Tetris Color Charm Swap Flickr Group here ;)   So yes, you need to go here to sign up!!!!  (And if you want to participate in the swap but not in the quilt-a-long, that is fine too :)


I think that just about covers it all!!!  Hoolay that was a long post :)  Sorry, lots to cover :)  I hope you will Quilt-A-Long with me, we are going to have so much fun!!!!  If you have any questions just email them my way.  happyquiltingmelissa@gmail.com.   And one last thing . . . Everyone loves buttons!!!






Edit - Here is a quick link reference to all of the posts in this Quilt-A-Long series

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Sunday, June 17, 2012

Happy Father's Day!!!




He Loves It!!!

To all the Dad's in my life . . .  I Love You!!!   Have a Happy Father's Day!!! 


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Saturday, June 16, 2012

Looking for a Pattern Writer

Good Morning all!!  First off I wan't to say Thank you so much for all of your sweet comments on my Convoy quilt!!  You all sure know how to make a girl feel good.  I sure love my readers!!!  Thank You!!!  I will be sure to get some great pictures of him opening it :)


Second off, I have a friend in the fabric industry that is looking for a couple new pattern writers to work with them going forward.  They have  a fantastic designer that designs their quilts and projects, so they are really looking for someone to break down those quilts and write very detailed instructions. Then they have another quilter make the quilt based on those directions and then give everything to their design department to make their pamphlets.  


So is this something you might be interested in???  If so, please email me  (happyquiltingmelissa@gmail.com) and I will get you in touch with my friend.  Thanks so much!!


And because every good post needs a picture . . . . But my husband has the camera up the mountain and I can't take a picture of anything "quilty" . . .  So you get the family racing paper boats .   (They only lasted about 2 runs and then they were just wet paper , but we had a marvelous time none the less :)  







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Friday, June 15, 2012

Convoy!!!!

Well, thanks to the help of the amazing ladies of the Beejeebers Bee, each of them making one of those awesome semi's around the border of the quilt,  this  is ready to Roll On Out in time for Father's Day!!  Yippee Skippee!!!   Convoy is a special quilt for my dad designed to fit in the cab of his truck.  He started driving trucks again last year (after a 20ish year hiatus while we kids grew up) and just loves being on the road!!


I struggled for a while trying to decide on how to quilt this without taking away from all of the awesome semis.  In the end I decided to go for a basic straight all over stipple that I think tied it together without distracting to much.  Most of the quilt is done on a larger scale in white but I wanted the semi in the middle to really pop.  I designed that particular block to look just like my Dad's Semi.  Down to the logo on the door :)       So I quilted it with blue thread instead and did a slightly smaller scale of quilting.    I really like the way it turned out :)

I found this super fun backing fabric in my stash.  It really ties in well with all of the fun colors from the front and just reminds me of my dad because it is a little on the wild side!!  (His nick name is Wild Man because of all of the crazy shorts he wears that my mom makes him out of the wildest fabric she can find, including flames :)

So now I just need to wrap it up for Sunday :)  I can't wait to see his face.  I will be sure to take lots of pictures :)  Thanks again Beejeeber's Ladies!!!  You all rock!!!

EDIT - -  Several of you have requested dimensions for making this quilt.  While I don't haev all of the dimensions for each of the trucks as my Bee Mates made up their own, this post has the basic small truck block  dimensions that we used for most of the trucks, and this post has the basic large truck paper piecing pattern I drafted for the large semi in the middle.   Hope that helps ;)  

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