Introducing the Summer Sampler Series

You all probably knew this about me, but I love modern quilts. There's nothing like a bold, geometric, minimalist quilt design to stop me in my tracks and make me "ooh" and "aah." It's what originally drew me to quilting, and I enjoy that it's such a departure from the long tradition of the craft.

But you know what else I love? That very same long tradition. I love that women have been quilting for hundreds of years—taking a craft that was born of necessity and turning it into an art form. I love being next in a long line of creative people putting their own modern spin on it now. I love taking blocks that quilters have been making for decades and injecting them with a little freshness. And I love the fact that quilting, this most traditional of pursuits, is now thriving online.

Apparently I'm not alone. Between the wildly popular Farmer's Wife Quilt Along, traditional quilt exhibits all over the country, and the modern takes on traditional blocks that are popping up all over Flickr (like this one and this one), it seems that many modern quilters are looking to incorporate traditional piecing into their designs. So when Kate of Swim Bike Quilt and Faith of Fresh Lemons Quilts had the idea to do a sampler quilt-along based on traditional blocks from Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia Of Pieced Quilt Patterns, and they asked me to be a part of it, I jumped at the chance! I knew whatever these talented ladies came up with was sure to be amazing.

So welcome to the Summer Sampler Series! For the next month, Kate, Faith, and I will post weekly step-by-step tutorials on the traditional block designs seen above. We'll also be telling you a little about the history of the blocks, and then we'll put them all together into a small sampler quilt. I'll be doing my sampler scrappy, while Kate makes hers from Denyse Schmidt's Katie Jump Rope line (one of my absolute favorites!), and Faith will be using solids. Each block is 12.5" unfinished.

Some of the blocks we've chosen may look challenging, but once you break them down into their individual elements, they really aren't as complicated as they seem. We think you'll be pleasantly surprised! The first five blocks consist entirely of squares, rectangles, and half square triangles. We will also be doing a little bit of paper piecing, sewing some equilateral triangles, string blocks, and diamonds. But what better way is there to learn and stretch your skills?

Full quilt-along details are below. We can't wait to get started. We hope you'll join us to make your own sampler—or at least tag along for the ride while we do the work!

The Katie Jump Rope Sampler
Mondays at Swim, Bike, Quilt: July 11, 18, 25, & August 1

The Solids Sampler
Wednesdays at Fresh Lemons: July 13, 20, 27, & August 3

The Scrappy Sampler
Fridays at Freshly Pieced: July 15, 22, 29, & August 5

Fabric Requirements: We estimate that each 12.5 inch (unfinished) quilt block will take the equivalent of a fat quarter to make; three yards of printed fabric and two yards of solids should be more than enough.

Quilting Basics: There are many helpful online tutorials for beginning quilters—Elizabeth Hartman of Oh Fransson! has a great series here: Quilt Making Basics

Summer Sampler Quilt Along Flickr Group: We'd love to see your fabric selections, process shots, and answer any questions through the flickr group!

Based on blocks found in the book Encyclopedia Of Pieced Quilt Patterns, by Barbara Brackman

WIP Wednesday #33

Wednesday again? What, like it happens every seven days now or something? I've got things to do, people to see, t-ball games to watch, bathing suits to wring out, etc. But I have been sneaking in some sewing time here and there ...

Ongoing projects:

Skill Builder Sampler Quilt-Along - currently caught up
Block #2 was a value nine-patch. I'm working with Weekends by Erin McMorris for this QA, and value is challenging within this line. Many of the prints are around the same value, and some of the others are so large-scale and multi-colored that it's hard to pinpoint a value at all. I considered getting my contrast in this block from warm colors versus cool, just as Jeni did for the Warm/Cool Quilt Along that I'm completing right now. But I decided to stay true to Leila's challenge, instead of taking the easy way out. And I'm glad I did, because I love the end result! Click here for more about the Skill Builder QA.

Farmer's Wife Quilt-Along - currently caught up
Click here for this week's blocks.


Completed tops awaiting quilting:

Warm/Cool Quilt-Along - I've completed the top and the back, so it's all ready to baste. I'm actually going to try spray basting this time! Yes, it's true! And I can't wait to give FMQ stippling another shot. Click here for more info on Jeni's quilt-along.

Hope Valley (the original Supernova)

Completed quilts awaiting binding:
Modern Meadow - seriously, this is embarrassing. I really need to find the time to just sit down and finish this one already. There's absolutely no reason for it to still be hanging around on this list.

On hold:
Secret project (on hold while I reconsider fabric selections)
Figgy Pudding quilt
Wonky Log Cabin

This week's stats:
New projects - 0
Completed projects - 0
Currently in progress - 10

Okay, your turn. But before we get the linky underway, let me thank all of you for linking up here, week in and week out. You all have make this linky what it is, and I am so happy to be able to host it! The first week I hosted this linky, 8 people linked up. Last week, it was 98! Are you kidding me? You guys are the best!

So, think we can break 100 this week? C'mon newbies, you know you want to! : ) Just remember to link back here in your post, and please comment on the other links. Have a wonderful week!

Farmer's Wife—a Challenging Week 4

Okay. This week's blocks pushed me a little!

First, "Birds In the Air." The piecing wasn't terribly challenging here, but all those tiny pieces and the insane amount of seam bulk on the back did cause problems for me. Even pressing seams open, my block isn't lying totally flat and some of the seams are a bit wavy. Also, I wish I would have picked more contrasting fabrics. Note to self: Next week's blocks should really pop!

Second, "Bouquet." Definitely the toughest block I've tackled so far. Has anybody been rating the difficulty of these? Because I would love to know how this one stacks up. It really doesn't look like it should be that hard, and there are plenty of blocks that appear to be much more complicated than this one! In the end, I think my block looks pretty good—corners are relatively lined up, nice straight seams, etc., right? Well, it better be, because this was the second one I did! The first one is so eye-searingly bad, for a variety of reasons, that I debated not posting it at all, but in the interest of keeping it real, I'll go ahead and show you. Are you ready?

Yeah, I know, right? This has to be one of the worst things I've made in a long while. And I wish I could tell you what went wrong here so you could avoid it, but I have no idea myself! This block actually turned out too large, so I seriously debated just trimming it down, but the fabric choices are pretty poor also, so I decided to scrap it and just start over, LOL. The second time around, the block came together beautifully—no clue how or why it turned out so much better, but I'm not complaining!

Fortunately next week's blocks look much easier. : ) Whew!

Rain Boot Winners

Wow, thank you, everyone, for sharing all your wonderful nature memories with me. : ) I'm not able to respond to all of your comments, but I read every single one of them and thoroughly enjoyed them. I especially loved the camping-gone-wrong stories, since my main memory of camping as a child is of sitting in our pop-up camper listening to the rain pour down on us for days at a time. : )

Also, I am super flattered by all the interest in my little rain-boot print! Remember, if you didn't win, you can buy it directly from Spoonflower—click here to purchase. And please let me know if you make anything with it, I would love to see pictures.

Okay, so the winners of the Rain Boots fat quarters who had my favorite comments are:

annabelle g, who said:
"One of my fav memories is of a huge mulberry tree at the edge of the woods. There was a small footpath through the underbrush that lead to a clearing just under the mulberry tree, our clubhouse. Daddy hung a tire swing and helped nail boards to the side for us to climb easier. You could not see anything from the outside, just the woods. So it was like our secret place. We spent so much time there, my brother, sister and I, esp in the summer. It was a wonderful place. I wonder sometimes if its still there. If its been found by other kids and is still a happy place, a happy tree. Fond childhood memories.....thank you :)" Awww, what a beautiful description of a magical childhood place. How could I not choose it?

and

Mary on Lake Pulaski, who said:
"What a great design Lee! A few years after I survived major breast cancer, I signed up for Outward Bound to help me regain my self confidence. I spent seven days in the Boundary Waters with nine other women cancer survivors I had never met before. Nature is such a healer. We spent the time canoeing, navigating, rappelling, soloing, cooking and fishing. Nature and all of those women became my friends. I think I can say that is the reason I am a twenty-four year survivor. " Wow, Mary, what an experience! A clear winner. : )

And the random winners of the FQs are:

#145 - lizmakesstuff
"When I was in high school, my family went on a trip to the Canadian Rockies. We went on several hikes that were ostensibly "easy" but in reality were anything but. One of them was a 23-mile round trip hike to a glacier. Though it was July (specifically Canada Day!) there was lots of snow on the ground, much of which had never been touched by humans. We had lots of fun playing in the snow that day (we're Florida kids so snow is a novelty!) and we were exhausted at the end of it but it was definitely a trip to remember!"

and

#9 - Kristen
"These boots remind me of my pretty white and pink raincoat I had when I was 7. I used to hope it would rain so I could wear my raincoat to school. It was reversible so one side was pink and the other side was white with tiny little different colored hearts. I still remember splashing in the puddles on the way home from the bus and my mom being worried because it took me so long to get home. Thanks for helping me remember that! LOVE the fabric!"

Congrats to all the winners! I'll be sending you an email to get your mailing addresses. Enjoy your fabric!

Warm/Cool Top Complete

266 half-square triangles. 219 different prints (114 cool prints, 105 warm prints). 6 full bobbins worth of thread. Two rotary cutter blades. One completed scrappy quilt top. : )

I love love LOVE this top! Thank you, Jeni, for your Warm/Cool Quilt-Along—I probably wouldn't have gotten around to making this without your QA. My girls love the top too. Miss E. is thrilled that we don't have to give it away. She's already had a good sit-down to check out all the colors and print motifs. Her favorite is the Sherbet Pips dog chasing his ball.

At the last minute I decided to take out most of the HSTs with purple. There were a couple of reasons for that decision—for one thing, I don't have very much purple in my stash, which meant that the colors weren't balanced. And for another thing, most of the purples I do have are fairly warm pinkish purples. So the purples just weren't working in the final layout, they diluted the warm/cool pattern, and out they went. (I did leave a few purples, like the Central Park print in the far right HST above.)

Working this many HSTs is not for the faint of heart, but here are my tips to make it a little easier:

1. Use a mechanical pencil to mark your diagonals. Somehow marking just seemed to go faster and was more accurate with a mechanical pencil versus a standard one.

2. Use a 4.5" quilt square for trimming your HSTs (or whatever size your finished HSTs require). Centering is vastly easier with a square. And if you don't have a 4.5" square, you could do what Elizabeth did and make one out of template plastic (just be sure to mark the diagonal for easier centering).

3. You don't have to stand up while you're trimming your gazillion HSTs! I'm embarrassed it took me so long to realize this, but just in case it hasn't occurred to you either, you can sit down while trimming—you just need a nice, low table. A coffee table might work, or I found that my daughters' little coloring table was the perfect height for trimming while sitting on the couch (I have a large ottoman in my family room instead of a coffee table, so I don't have that option). This discovery made trimming 266 HSTs much more tolerable.

I'm hoping to baste this one in the next couple of days and then try that FMQ again. Can't wait for this one to be complete!

I'm linking up to Sew Modern Monday.

P.S. Stay tuned - this afternoon I'll be posting the winners of my Boots fabric giveaway!

Giving You the Boot(s) - A Giveaway!

Hot off the presses! The appropriate tweaks have been made, and my Rain Boots fabric from Spoonflower is now "final."

Many of you may remember that this print was inspired by my daughter's amazing nature preschool, and it was my entry for Spoonflower's Project Selvage contest. Since then, I've made the scale of the print significantly smaller, moved the boots a bit closer together, and tweaked the colors, especially the blue. I'm really happy with this final version.

So, want some Rain Boots fabric of your own? I hope you do, because I'm giving some away! Just leave a comment on this post with your favorite memory involving nature. Four different winners will each get a fat quarter of my Rain Boots fabric. I'll choose two winners at random, and two winners whose comments I love. Just leave your comment by Sunday, June 26. I'll announce the winners on Monday morning.

If you don't happen to win, never fear—my Rain Boots fabric is now for sale through Spoonflower! Click here for buying options. And if you're part of the awesome Spoonflower Swap with Gen X Quilters, you'll be getting a few squares of this from me via the swap. Enjoy!

WIP Wednesday #32

Hit it ...

New projects:
We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler Quilt-Along
This QA features three blocks per month, each one selected to teach certain quilting skills. It's a quilt class and a quilt-along, two for the price of one. Perfect for beginners or those who just want to brush up (click here for more info). Our first block was this basic log cabin.

I think I've already mastered the skills being taught here—accurate cutting and a 1/4" seam. But would you believe I've never made a log cabin block like this? Nope. I've made plenty of wonky, drunk-love-style blocks (like this one, this one, and this one), but never a good old-fashioned l.c. And this is exactly why I wanted to do this quilt-along. I taught myself to quilt almost entirely by reading blogs. While it's a fun and effective way to learn, I'm guessing I've missed things here and there. : ) Or maybe, just maybe, I'm doing a few things "wrong." Since Leila's quilt-along is as close as I'm likely to get to a basic quilting class, it seems like time well-spent.



Ongoing projects:
Warm Cool Quilt-Along
266 HSTs, sewn, pressed, and trimmed. I'm now seeing HSTs in my sleep. The top is this close to being done, so stay tuned.

Farmer's Wife Quilt-Along
Click here for this week's blocks. I'm all caught up on this one.


Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Hope Valley (the original Supernova)

Completed quilts awaiting binding:
Modern Meadow

On hold:
Secret project (on hold while I reconsider fabric selections)
Figgy Pudding quilt
Wonky Log Cabin

This week's stats:
New projects - 1
Completed projects - 0
Currently in progress - 10

Let's link 'em up and move 'em out. Remember, link back here, and comment, comment, comment!

Farmer's Wife QA, Week 3

I'm going to follow Elizabeth's lead and post my Farmer's Wife Quilt Along blocks every Tuesday. Like Elizabeth, I'm doing the blocks in order, and like Elizabeth, I appreciate the idea of a weekly schedule for them. Ah, it's nice not to be the only order freak in blogland. : ) This week's blocks: Bat Wing and Big Dipper.

I like how the Bat Wing block turned out, but what's up with the corners of the block being rounded? I know the rounded corners on the templates are supposed to be helpful, but I'm not used to that, so it just seems to be screwing me up. But the block still turned out to be the right size, so I guess I can't complain.

Big Dipper is okay, although I do wish I had chosen fabrics with a little more contrast. They looked good next to each other, but in the completed block they're getting lost in each other a bit. Oh well—I suppose it won't hurt to have some blocks like this once the entire quilt is put together.


Next week's blocks look a bit more challenging, especially when it comes to choosing the right fabric. Looking forward to it though!

Farmer's Wife Quilt-Along Underway

So, this Farmer's Wife Quilt-Along. You know how everybody's saying that these blocks are so addictive? Believe it. It's all true!

If you're on the fence about this QA, I'm here to tip you over, because this is going to be a fun one. Long, but fun. : ) I think I'm in love with my first four blocks! Don't let the template situation scare you off. It's actually not nearly as much of a pain as I expected. I'm just printing the templates I need as I go. Not a big deal at all.

And having made all four of them this afternoon (from start to finish, including making the templates), I'm now very confident I can keep up with the two-blocks-per-week schedule. Who knows, I might even get ahead (gasp).

I've never done anything remotely this traditional, but I enjoyed putting a modern spin on the blocks with my fabric choices. And since I've done so little traditional piecing, I have a feeling I'll learn a lot from this project.

WIP Wednesday #31

Happy Wednesday! What have you been up to for the past week? I had family visiting from out of town from last Thursday until yesterday, so I didn't do much sewing. But can show you some yummy stacks of fabric. : )

New projects:
Farmer's Wife Quilt Along
Another week, another quilt-along. My Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book arrived from Amazon today, so you know what that means: Yes, I'm doing the Farmer's Wife QA too! I know, I can't stop joining quilt-alongs! It's a problem. I think I need an intervention. But while we're waiting for the van that will whisk me off to QA detox, you can check out the stack I pulled for this one. I tried with stick with vintage-y, summer-on-a-farm kind of fabrics—what the farmer's wife would use if she were fresh and funky. : ) I ended up with Heather Bailey (Fresh Cut and Bijoux), DS prints from Joann's, and some of the ginghams from Hideaway. Visit Angela or Mrs. Mcporkchop for more information on the Farmer's Wife quilt-along.

Ongoing projects:
Warm Cool Quilt Along
My squares are all cut and marked for Jeni's Warm Cool QA. I even made some good progress last night on sewing the HSTs.

Here are my warm squares:

And the cool ones:

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Hope Valley (the original Supernova)

Completed quilts awaiting binding:
Modern Meadow

On hold:
Secret project (I may be rethinking this one entirely)
Blockapalooza
Figgy Pudding quilt
Wonky Log Cabin

This week's stats:
New projects - 1
Completed projects - 1 (3 x 6 blocks)
Currently in progress - 10

All right, link 'em if you've got 'em! Don't forget to link back to my blog in your post, and comment on some of the other links. Have a lovely Wednesday!

Back It Up

As many of you already know, I love a pieced quilt back, and now Rebecca of Chasing Cottons is having a linky specifically for the backs of quilts. I think the back of a quilt is the perfect to experiment and improvise a little. Go crazy! There's less pressure back there to pull off perfection. Anyway, Kati and Angela both put together fun collections of their pieced backs, so I thought I'd throw together a few of mine:

Supernova

Fall Equinox

Juliet's Urban Lattice quilt

Kissy Fish

Single Girl

Sliced Coins

Yep, backs always appeal to the minimalist in me.

In other news, summer is now in full swing at my house, with all the craziness that entails. This weekend was Miss E.'s dance recital—the event of the summer among 4-year-old girls around here. And in the coming weeks we have t-ball, swimming, tennis, zoo classes, birthday parties, travel plans ... you know the drill. I'm hoping to keep up my usual frenetic pace of sewing and blogging on top of that, but ... well, we'll see what happens. It's summer, after all. We don't get that much of it around here—I have to enjoy those fleeting moments! So if I don't post as often as usual during the summer months, you'll know why. But even if I'm not posting as frequently, you can bet I'm sneaking in plenty of sewing after the girlies are in bed! And I'll be sure to get pictures of it up sooner or later. Happy summer, everyone!

WIP Wednesday #30

Welcome back to WIP Wednesday! Thanks again to Elizabeth for hosting last week, but I'm glad to be back. : )

New projects:

Warm Cool Quilt AlongJeni from In Color Order is having a Warm Cool Quilt Along. Since I've always wanted to do a value quilt—and since I seem to be obsessively joining every quilt-along on the Interwebs—I jumped on board for this one too. My original plan was to do the baby size, using as many scraps as possible.

But as I was going through my scrap bins and cutting the squares, I realized something. There will be scraps in this quilt from every sewing project I've ever worked on. Many of my favorite fabric lines will be represented in this quilt. I'm even using my most treasured scraps, from lines I love but never had much of in the first place (hello, Neptune). It's my very own I-Spy quilt. I spy Katie Jump Rope! I spy Park Slope! I spy Single Girl scraps! I spy scraps from Miss C.'s baby quilt! So for all of those reasons and more, I think it could be destined to be one of my all-time favorite quilts. And that means I would be kicking myself I didn't make the lap-size version.

But obviously I couldn't make the lap-size entirely from scraps, so back to the stash I went. My new goal was to repeat as few prints as possible. So here are all of my cool-color squares, some from scraps and some from my stash, all ready to be HST'd. There are 176 squares, from 128 different prints! It's hard to believe I came up with so many. I didn't have to repeat any of the blues! And my warm prints are stacked up on the cutting table, ready to go next. There are 105 of those, so there will be a total of 232 prints in this quilt! My sewing room looks like it's been ransacked—my entire stash is out on the floor. : )
3x6 bee blocksAnother scrap/stash project on the way to being complete. I'm making the herringbone block I designed for the Designer Challenge in Issue 5 of Fat Quarterly. You'll find a tutorial for this block there.

Ongoing projects:Secret project
This one's moving right along! Top's almost complete.

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Hope Valley (the original Supernova)

Completed quilts awaiting binding:
Modern Meadow

On hold:
Blockapalooza
Figgy Pudding quilt
Wonky Log Cabin

This week's stats:
New projects - 2
Completed projects - 2 (May bee blocks and teacher gifts)
Currently in progress - 10

You know what to do! Let's see those links. Happy Wednesday!

Quilting Along Again

I'm joining up with another quilt-along, this one by one of my blogging besties, Elizabeth. A kaleidoscope quilt has been on my to-do list for ages and she's doing a kaleidoscope quilt-along. Yay! Can't wait!

So here's what I've got picked out for mine. It's mostly Silent Cinema, a new line by Jenean Morrison, with some of my favorite stash prints thrown in. I'm using the yellow tone-on-tone print at the bottom instead of a background solid. The Silent Cinema color palette feels so fresh to me right now—I'm loving gray, yellow, and light blue together right now. And I definitely don't have enough of these soft, lighter blues in my stash.

Can't wait to get started!

May Bee Blocks

{Sew} Beautiful: Angela sent us a variety of blue scraps with the instructions to "make a block that feels like you." How fun! But it led to a miniature quilting identity crisis for me. After thinking it over the entire month, I finally realized that I will never come up with something that is classic "me," because "me" seems to be in a constant state of change and evolution. And of course, from a design perspective, that's a good thing. So, at least for today, I am hexagons. What will I be tomorrow? Your guess is as good as mine!

But as I finished the block, I had a horrible sinking feeling that I've seen it somewhere before. This block definitely reminded me of something. But what? And then I realized ...

That's right. It reminds me of Megan's {Sew} Modern Monday button. But that was a huge relief, because I actually designed Megan's button! So I'm only ripping off myself. Whew! Doesn't get more "me" than that, does it? Well, and it's kind of Megan too, but that's a bonus, because she's also in {Sew} Beautiful! It's like I planned it or something. : )

One other thing I want to point out about this block: Angela requested that we throw in a few blue scraps from our own stashes (another fun aspect of the whole "me" thing). So I fussy-cut a little snail from my recently-acquired Prince Charming stash to use as the center of one of the smallest hexies. You can see him if you look closely at the upper-right. That little guy is now my favorite part of the block!

Do. Good Stitches: More blue! This month, the Love Circle made blocks for a "Box of Crayons" quilt. We each took one color, and we could make any blocks we wanted as long as they were in our assigned colors—another fun bee concept. It could have been a bit tricky coming up with block designs that would look good in a single color, but the "plus" concept (on the left) leaped to mind immediately for me.

And since I wanted my blocks to echo each other without being identical, I wanted another design that featured a plus sign. I didn't have to look any further than Badskirt Amy's cool x and plus scrappy quilt tutorial. I just upsized Amy's 8" block to 12.5" inches. (If you're curious about the math, you can find the dimensions I used here, in the comments.)

String Me Along: Last but certainly not least, here's my drunk love block for Elizabeth. She asked us to make a block as large as we could manage, and mine is a gigantic 18.5." I love that she sent such a fun and dramatic mix of prints and solids. This is my third drunk love bee block so far this year, so it's obviously a popular design! And you know, I love these blocks as much as the next girl, but I am now hoping for a break from drunk love, at least for a little while. : )

P.S. Thanks for all your well-wishes about the potty training! It's been an interesting few days around here. I think I must have said the words "Do you have to go potty" at least 15,000 times in the last five days. True story. Beyond that, I am not sayin' a word, because God help me if I jinx anything!