Terrific Tuesday Giveaway Day!!

It's Terrific Tuesday Giveaway Day so let's have some fun :)

But first, we need to announce the winner from last weeks Terrific Tuesday Giveaway!!  

The winner of the Harmony Jolly Bar from Fat Quarter Shop  is . . .   Number #244 . . .   Congrats Karen!!!   I have emailed you :)      

  

     

And on to today's

Today's Terrific Tuesday Giveaway is being sponsored by  Lou Lou's Fabric Shop .    Did you know that Jamie makes a new Lou Lou Bundle every Tuesday . . . this is today's, isn't it just stunning!!!  Jamie is also offering all Happy Quilting readers has a special discount of  20% off throughout the shop (excluding new arrivals) with the code happyquilting good until Friday!!!  Oh, so much fun shopping!!!

Today's Terrific Tuesday Giveaway is for some shopping goodness!!  Lou Lou's Fabric Shop is offering one lucky reader a $25.00 Gift Certificate perfect to use on anything in the store, including the awesome Lou Lou Bundle pictured above!!  Just so great!!!

You have two entry chances, the second being optional, 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 your favorite flavor of gum??

 ENTRY 2 - Lets show Lou Lou's Fabric Shop some Love!!!!   You can follow them on   Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram.  Or you can follow their blog or  visit The Shop and then share a favorite item ;)   Just be sure to leave a comment of how you showed your Lou Lou's Fabric Shop Love!!!

And that's it ;)  The giveaway will be open until next Tuesday, May 1st when I will announce a winner at the beginning of next weeks Terrific Tuesday Giveaway Post :)

Good Luck and Have a Happy Quilting Day!!!

Decision Made, Decision to Make :)

Thank you so much for everyone's help on Friday with deciding how to finish my Petite Point quilt!!!  It was funny, that the thing I thought the whole time I was making the quilt, is what majority of you thought I should do to finish it up.  I realized that this was a case of just staring at a project to long and then overthinking it.   I had some great advice on Instagram to just walk away from it for a day or two and then come back to it.   As soon as I saw it this morning, I realized (again) that I totally wanted all of the piecing to be the star and just needed to add a binding to do that.   So I found this beautiful deep red in my scrap drawer (yippee for more scraps busted!!!) and I think it is going to be the perfect finish.    With that decided, now I just need to decide how I want to quilt it, tee hee hee!!!

And this Peitite Point quilt has created another decision on a new quilt.   Once I had all my blocks laid out, I realized that it was going to be super easy to spin the blocks if I tried to do to much chain stitching to put it all together.   So I stacked up the blocks with the plan to stitch all of the triangles on each block before moving to the next block.  Which meant, I needed some Leaders and Enders!!!

I am still working on cutting out some more squares for this Leader and Ender project, but I remembered I had 3 Coney Island Treat packs which measure 3 1/2" and a stack of 3 1/2" white squares that I erroneously cut from another project.   Perfect match!!! 

 There was a ton of Leader and Ender sewing that went on to put Peitite Point together so I now have a stack of over 100 3 1/2" two-patches with only about 20 sets left to sew and I realized, I don't have a clue what to do with these now!!!   Of course, I can just sew them together postage stamp wise, but I just did that, and wanted to do something different with these.

Any suggestions on how I should use of these two patches??? I figured I have about a day left of sewing them and then a day to press them, and it will be time to decide :)  Don't you just love quilty decisions, talk about the best kind of happy decisions to make!!!

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Petite Point Quilt Top

I am so, so, so excited!!!!  I finished my Petite Point Quilt Top!!!!  That is 600 strings that finish at 1" all from my pink and red scrap drawers.   I do love a good scrappy quilt :)  I started this quilt in February in a class with Barbara  and I have been working on it here and there over the last two months.  But to see it all come together, so loving it!!!

The rows actually sew together like this, and I have to say, it was so hard to cut off the sides of those scrappy hexagons.  But I so didn't want to bind all of those angles, so off they came.

And I had this Quilt Top.   Only now, I am wondering how I want to finish it.   Originally I planned to just leave it like this and bind it.   Only, what color would I bind it in.  I think either red or pink will get lost in all of that scrappy goodness.

So then I started to think, should I add a border to give it a little restful place for the eye.   I found this red gingham print in my stash that I thought would work perfect for the binding, if it was next to a little white.   So I thought maybe this pink polka dot print for a border??

But then I wondered, maybe something that wasn't red or pink.  Like this fun gold metallic print.  Does that give it a little more interest??

And then I wondered, maybe something that has red and pink in it.  Would that tie it all together more.   I love the colors but is the floral to busy for an already busy quilt?

I want to finish this up just right and I am not sure how that is.  What do you think??  Leave it without a border and just use a bold binding??   Or add a border for a rest, and if so, which border, pink polka dot, gold polka dot, or floral???    Help a girl out here and leave a comment on which you would choose ;)

Regardless how I choose though  . . . I have to say that I am just so excited to see all of those wonderfully scrappy hexagons come together in such a wonderfully scrapilicous quilt top!!!  It's just so fun!!!

I hope you all have a very Happy Quilting Weekend!!!

Linking this Quilt Top finish up to Amanda's, Sarah's and Myra's ;)

Happy Quilting Tutorials

Happy Quilting has been around for close to 8 years now, and over that time I have written a lot of Tutorials.  And by a lot, read over 65 Quilt Tutorials (with 2 more coming soon ;) and over 50 Other Project and Technique Tutorials.    That is a whole lot of Tutorials to surf through.  So the other day, I spent some time trying to make my Tutorials easier for you to find.    So of course, now I want to share those updates with you so you can make lots of Happy Quilting Projects!!!

So first, let's talk about Quilt Tutorials :)  As, I said, there are over 65 and you can find them all by clicking on the Quilt Tutorials tab at the top of my blog.   This takes you to a long picture list of all my Quilt Tutorials. 

But I realized that surfing through 65 Tutorials can be overwhelming, so I decided to group them by Pre-Cut.   I am hoping this will make it much easier to find just what you are looking for.    So the quilts are now separated into groups of Charm Pack Quilts, Layer Cake Quilts, Jelly Roll Quilts, Fat Eighth Quilts, Fat Quarter Quilts, Yardage Quilts, and Scrappy Quilts.    You can simply surf down the right hand side of the list to find the pre-cut you are looking for and then look through the quilt images in that section.  To go to the specific Quilt Tutorial, just click on the image of the quilt!!!  Easy as that!!  

And of course, there are more tutorials than just Quilts!!!  If you click on the More Tutorials tab at the top of my blog, you will find over 50 more tutorials walking you through some more fun Happy Quilting projects and techniques.  

And again, I realized it is overwhelming to just surf through 50 tutorial images, so I broke the tutorials down into main groups and then smaller groups with those main groups.   So first off, you have the Project Tutorials, which are then sub-divided into Totes, Table Runners, Holidays, For Kids, For the Kitchen, and For the Sewing Room. 

The next main group in the More Tutorials tab is Quilt Block Tutorials and it is subdivided into Scrappy, Holiday, and Pieced. 

And finally, there is a Technique Tutorials section and a Guest Tutorial section.    I really hope that breaking these down like this will make it much easier to find just what you are looking for ;)

  

And last but not least, did you know there is a Video Tutorials section at Happy Quilting ;)  Just click on the Video Tutorials tab at the top of the blog to see all kinds of videos that will walk you through the basics of finishing a quilt, applique, and lots of free motion quilting ;)

And that is my Happy Quilting Tutorials overhaul.   I truly hope you find my tutorials helpful on your  quilting journey.   I can't even begin to count how many hours are wrapped into all of these tutorials but I just love making them and then seeing your amazing projects that have been inspired by them :)     

Which speaking of, I truly do want to see your Happy Quilting creations!!!!   I can't tell you how happy it makes me :)    If you make any quilts or projects using any of my Happy Quilting tutorials or patterns, I would absolutely love for you to send me a picture!!!  You can post it on social media with #happyquiltingwithmc,  add it to my  Flickr Group  or email it to me at happyquiltingmelissa@gmail.com.  And as always, if you have any questions on finding a tutorial, or following its instructions, please don't hesitate to email me ;)

And that is the new and improved Happy Quilting Tutorials in a nutshell ;)  I hope you find lots of new inspiration as you surf through the tutorial tabs!!!

Happy Quilting!!!

A Scrappy 4th Start ;)

So remember this stack that I had leftover from my Sew Sampler Baskets and Roundabout Quilt. Well I was just so excited about the stack, I couldn't wait to start sewing it together!!

So I started sewing the strips end to end, rotating the colored prints and low volume prints.  I am using my Ribbons Quilt  as inspiration, but I know I don't have the same amount of strips, so I decided to sew them together with a 1/4" seam instead of an angled seam to add a little more length.

Once all the seams were pressed in this long snake, the fun begins.   I just matched the beginning and end of the strip and started sewing along the long edge till I got to the end and then just cut the end and you have a new wider strip.  It was really fun to see how the color prints and low volume prints rotated through the strip.  All of the strips are different sizes so it was super random ;)

Then just rinse and repeat ;)  The 2 strips become 4, and the 4 become 8 and so on.  I pressed my seams open to help it lay flat and help avoid any of the stretching that you can easily get with so much strip sewing.

And before I knew it, super fun random strip goodness!!!  This measures about 34" x 72", which means I want to stop here or else it is going to be short and wide.   And 72" is a great width. I think I will add some more to make it about 72"ish by 76" to 80" long ;) 

I have a bit of scrappy strips of gorgeous Chambray left from my William and Jack quilt and I am thinking that would be super cute to add a bit of summer denim feel to the quilt.  I don't have enough for the whole quilt, but I am thinking of adding it somehow.  

What do you think???