Introducing Kaleidoscope Lane

Well, here it is ... what I've spent the last month working on! I'm pleased with it, and I hope you all love it too.

Mosaic

Swirls

Kaleidoscope Dot

Glazed Tile

Plaza

Medallion Stripe

Scallop

Garden Path

So now it's up to the Connecting Threads staff to decide whether my collection is the one they want to produce and sell. Connecting Threads will be featuring all five of the finalists' collections on their blog, Notions, in the coming days, and will announce the winner in the next few weeks.

I haven't seen the other finalists' collections yet, so I have no idea how mine stacks up, but regardless of what happens, I'm so glad I did this. I learned a lot about designing a complete line of fabric, including many lessons about how to approach the design process next time (if there is one). And since I'm happy with the end result, I feel like it's a win for me even if my line doesn't end up being produced. But of course, fingers and toes crossed that it will be!

WIP Wednesday #45

Welcome back to WIP Wednesday! Not much to report this week, since you all know what I've been working on lately, but here goes nothin' ...

Ongoing:

My Connecting Threads fabric contest entry
Still plugging away, polishing up my designs and getting the files ready. Two more days to get it all done! I hope to be able to show them to you on Friday.

4x5 Bee blocks
So, you might think I'm crazy for tackling a block like this in the middle of the Connecting Threads time crunch. And you're probably right. But honestly, I've enjoyed the break from all the intensive computer time. I actually find paper-piecing fun and relaxing (I'm weird like that), so these blocks are really hitting the spot right now.

I ended up doing the Oregon Star because one of my hive-mates chose this incredible mini-quilt by Mrs. McPorkchop as her "Favorite Block." That mini has always been one of my favoritest faves myself, so I decided to look into the pattern for it. The pattern comes from the book 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars, by Carol Doak. I probably never would have given this book a second glance if it hadn't been for Amanda's mini, but once I got past the very traditional fabric used in the book, I realized the patterns had a lot of potential. I think I still love the Oregon Star the most, but you'll probably be seeing a few of the other stars from me as well, sooner or later. In the meantime, I've got two 4x5 blocks done, three to go.

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Summer Sampler
Hope Valley

No progress:
• Farmer's Wife QA (on hold until October)
• Skill Builder QA (ditto)
• Kaleidoscope QA
• Figgy Pudding quilt
• Wonky Log Cabin

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

That's it from me—now it's your turn to share. Link up any post from the past week featuring any unfinished sewing project. Be sure to link back here to my blog and comment on at least a few of the other links. Enjoy!

Back At It

Well, hello there! How are you all? I've missed you while I've been slaving away on my Connecting Threads contest entry! But at the same time, I did enjoy the freedom of my blogging (and sewing) break. I felt like I could a) breathe and b) really focus on my design work. That felt very good indeed. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have been sleeping, eating, and living these designs. They're the first thing I think about in the morning when I wake up, and the last thing I think about at night when I fall asleep. And I'm probably dreaming about them in between, but I'm so tired, I don't remember. : )

I so wish I could show you the results of all of this work. I just don't think it's quite there yet. But I will say that I truly love what I've done. It was touch-and-go for a while, but around the middle of last week, I had a breakthrough, and there was no going back. I'm kind of working a Farmer's-Wife-goes-Bollywood vibe—and if that isn't the most whacked description you've ever heard of a fabric collection, I would love to know what is! So stay tuned, because I'm going to have a BIG post featuring all the prints coming up in just a few days.

In the meantime, WIP Wednesday will be back tomorrow. Yesterday I turned on my sewing machine for the first time in almost a week, and I've even fit in a little work on my 4x5 bee blocks.


Also, Angie of Stitching By Starlight is featuring ME today in her "10 for Ten" interview series! She had a fun list of questions that I enjoyed answering, so head over there to read about little old me. And every 10 for Ten interview features an amazing giveaway, so even if you couldn't care less about what movies I like, I know you won't want to miss out on free fabric. : ) Thank you, Angie!

Entering Freak-Out Mode ... Now

Hello—it's September 20! That means I have to finish designing my entire Connecting Threads fabric collection in the next ten days! omgomgomgomg.

If Tim Gunn were paying me a home visit right now, I think he might pronounce himself worried. And I certainly wouldn't want Tim Gunn to worry about me—not even an imaginary Tim Gunn. So I'm signing off for the rest of the week. No blog posting, no blog reading. I may actually go to the trouble of temporarily un-installing Google Chrome from my computer. That's how serious I am.

So, there will be no WIP Wednesday tomorrow. Feel free to post a WIP update anyway, but the linky will be AWOL this week. Bear with me. I will resurface at some later date with a fabulous line of fabrics (knock on wood). : )

Strip-Pieced Zig-Zag Mug Rug

Welcome to my turn at Mug Rug Madness! Thank you to Erin at Two More Seconds for inviting me to be a part of this round. This is a fun blog hop and I'm so excited to be involved!

I've got this fun little zig-zag mug rug for you today. But don't worry, no half-square triangles involved here! This one's strip-pieced and can be put together while you're waiting for a batch of holiday cookies to finish baking. I made mine using the Ready Set Snow collection from Moda—the bright colors of this collection lend themselves all kinds of design possibilities. Ready to make yours?

1. Cut the following:

Blue stripe

• 1.5" x 7.5"

Red Christmas tree print

• 1.5" x 2.5"

• 1.5" x 7.5"

• 1.5" x 10"

Green stripe

• 1.5" x 7.5"

• 1.5 x 10"

White snowflake print

• 1.5" x 2.5"

• 1.5" x 7.5"

• 1.5" x 10"

Red swirl print

• 1.5" x 7.5"

• 1.5" x 10"

Blue dot

• (4) 1.5" x 2.5"

• 1.5" x 7.5"

2. Pair up the 7.5" and 10" strips that you just cut, using the photo above as a key. I.e., the blue stripe goes with one of the Christmas tree print strips, the other Christmas tree strip goes with a green stripe strip, etc. The 2.5" strips do not get paired up. Sew each pair of strips together.

3. Cut your sewn strips into 2.5" sections. You should now have 17 2.5" squares, plus the 6 additional 1.5" x 2.5" pieces.

4. Arrange the squares (plus the extra 1.5" x 2.5" rectangles) as shown above.

5. Sew the squares together into angled rows.

6. Sew the rows together, aligning the vertical seams to get the correct placement of each row.

7. Trim your mug rug by lining up one of the angled seams with the 45 degree line on your cutting board, as shown.

I trimmed mine to 6.75" x 8.75".

8. Quilt and bind you mug rug. I quilted straight zig-zag lines 1/4" from the seams.

9. Pour yourself a cup of coffee, relax, and enjoy!

Again, thanks again to Erin for hosting Mug Rug Madness. Hop over to her blog to see lots of other cute holiday mug rugs, plus tips and tricks for making your own.

Aurifil Winners

Thank you to everyone who entered the Aurifil thread giveaway! I really enjoyed reading all of your potential scoreboard messages (and your reactions to my barbecue parfait).

The winners of the Aurifil trial packs are:

Comment #164, Jodi






Comment #121, Tanya





Comment #153, webmailaddress2





Comment #83, Sharon







Congratulations, ladies! I've contacted all of you—please email me your mailing addresses so I can get your Aurifil thread out to you!

WIP Wednesday #44

Well, I had a productive week and got all kinds of things done! Unfortunately, due to an odd convergence of projects for contests/other people/other blogs, I really can't show you any of it! You'll just have to take my word for it. And unfortunately, it makes a rather dull WIP Wednesday post ...

Completed:

Secret project - Done! Here's a teeny little sneaky peeky. You'll be seeing a lot more of it very soon, I hope!

New:

Mug Rug Madness
Erin at Two More Seconds is hosting another round of Mug Rug Madness, and I'm so excited that she asked me to participate! I'm using Ready Set Snow by Me and My Sister Designs, which is such a fun collection. My tutorial will be running next week, but the blog hop's already started, so head over to Erin's blog to check it out.

Ongoing:

My Connecting Threads fabric contest entry
I've got some rough designs, but none of them are quite ready for their public debut. But you'll be the first to see them when they're ready!

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Summer Sampler
Hope Valley

No progress:
• Farmer's Wife QA (I probably will be putting this QA on hold until after the Connecting Threads contest deadline)
• Skill Builder QA (ditto)
• Kaleidoscope QA
• Figgy Pudding quilt
• Wonky Log Cabin

This week's stats:
Completed projects - 1
New projects - 1
Currently in progress - 9

You're up! Link up any post from the past week featuring any unfinished sewing project. Be sure to link back here to my blog and give the other links some comment lovin'. Hopefully I'll have more to show you next week!

Weekend Randomness and a Giveaway

Happy Monday! Here are a few shots from my weekend ...

We went to the Brewers game on Sunday, and THIS was my lunch. It's a "barbecue parfait." Layers of pulled pork, beef brisket, and mashed potatoes, garnished with barbecue sauce and chives. Yes, it was every bit as awesome as it looks. No, I couldn't finish it. McLurky polished it off for me. But I'll still need to go to the gym at least 15 times this week to make up for it.

And speaking of McLurks, just look at what my awesome goofball husband did. Yes, that is the scoreboard at Miller Park, and yes, it says "wonky & freshly pieced hexi blocks rule!" I love that it didn't occur to him to put something like, "Happy birthday to my beautiful wife." (My birthday was Friday.) Nope, not my husband. LOL. (Sorry about the cruddy iphone photo taken through the ball screen.)

Since I had such a fun weekend, let's kick Monday off right—I'm giving away some Aurifil thread! Have you used this stuff? I've only used Guterman's up until now—mostly because it's available at Joanne's. I mean, it's just thread, right? But having used Aurifil for a few weeks now, I get why people love this stuff. I've had no thread breakage or tangling with Aurifil thread, and I actually think less lint has accumulated in my machine since I started using it. Everything just seems to run more smoothly. And Aurifil is easier to get ahold of than I expected—I found a shop just 15 minutes away that carries it. Not much further than Joanne's, after all. Aurifil is also available on Amazon.

So, would you like to try some 100% Egyptian cotton thread? I've got trial packs with all four of Aurifil's thread weights, plus a spool of their wool thread, to give away. Just tell me what message YOU would put on the scoreboard at a major sporting event. What do you want the world to know? How much you love Aurifil thread? That your kid got an A on his math test? The awesome thing you had for lunch today? (But whatever it was, it won't beat the pulled pork parfait. Sorry.)

I'll randomly choose four winners on Thursday, Sept. 15. For more information about Aurifil and their thread weights, click here. Good luck!

WIP Wednesday #43

So, it's 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday, and I completely forgot until about about 3 minutes ago that I need to do a WIP Wednesday post. : ) I guess between the three-day weekend, my daughter's first day of school (Tuesday), and my obsession with getting blue dye out of my hexy quilt, I completely lost track of what day it was. So, I am thoroughly unprepared this week, and this post will be light on content. But hopefully still heavy on the linky goodness. Bear with me.

Completed projects:

Do. Good Stitches Hexy Quilt - Yeah! Finished it. But it was not without its, um, challenges. You can read all about it here.

Ongoing projects:

My Connecting Threads contest entry
So this is obviously going to be taking up a lot of my time in the month of September. I have until September 30 to design 5-8 supporting prints for my focus print. I decided to begin the process by making a few changes to the focal. I tightened up the design elements, eliminating some of the negative space (click here to see the old version, for comparison's sake). I also worked on the color palette, because I wasn't happy with the palette in the original version. I tried out probably 10 or 15 different palettes before finally settling on this one. I'm still not sure I'm 100% thrilled with this, but I do think I'm on the right track. So at this point I'm going to start working on the secondary designs and see how/if the palette develops.

And have you checked out my Facebook page? There will be more about my design process showing up there, if you're interested. You can also find a shot of the focal print in repeat, as it would look on a fat quarter, which helps put the scale in perspective.

Skill Builder Sampler Quilt-Along - currently caught up
No block this week. Phew.

Farmer's Wife Quilt-Along - falling behind
Totally didn't do my blocks this week. Totally had other things going on. Oh well.

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Secret Project - the top is done, and this quilt is gonna be yummy! Hint hint. ; )
Summer Sampler
Hope Valley

No progress:
Kaleidoscope QA
Figgy Pudding quilt
Wonky Log Cabin

This week's stats:
Completed projects - 1
Currently in progress - 9

Okay, WIP 'em out! Link up any post from the past week featuring an unfinished work-in-progress. Please don't forget to link back to my blog in your post, and comment on some of the other links. And as always, happy sewing. : )

Hexy Quilt - Finished and Really, Really Clean

My hexy quilt for Do. Good Stitches is finished and looking great. But it was quite the ordeal getting it there.

I was so happy when I pulled this one out of the dryer yesterday. This is definitely my best free-motion quilting to date—my stitch lengths are starting to even up and my stippling is getting more curvy and flowing. And I couldn't be more pleased with the design (which uses my Hexing Around block tutorial), not to mention the color palette. The ladies of the Do. Good Stitches Love Circle did a fabulous job on these blocks.

And then ...

... I saw this.

And this.

And THIS!

Um, horrified! I've never had color-bleeding problems before. Just to be on the safe side, I wash all of my quilts with Shout Color Catchers. And they do often catch some dye. An amazing amount of red ended up on the Color Catcher when I washed my Warm/Cool quilt. But I've never had anything like this happen—and the Color Catcher that was in the wash with this quilt only came out with a tiny amount of blue on it! I don't know how foolproof Color Catchers are supposed to be, but this one clearly didn't do its job at all.

It wasn't just one fabric that was the culprit, but appears to be at least two—one of which was in my own block, and it was a Park Slope print from Free Spirit! I am stunned that a high-end designer print like this would bleed so badly. If anyone has any thoughts as to why this may have happened on this particular quilt, please share. Because I'm stumped.

But thanks to wonderful advice from Jeni and several other ladies on Flickr, I've managed to clean up this disaster pretty well. Shout Ultra Gel stain remover, a bottle of Oxi-Clean, and three trips through the washing machine later, and the dye stains have faded considerably. In fact, it might be difficult to find them if you don't know where to look. I hope so, anyway! And this quilt is nothing if not extremely clean, after four launderings. : )

I'm super happy with the back. I love the blue, green, and orange floral plaid from Meadowsweet, but it's not the most usable print in the world. But on a back? Perfection! And it works great with my palette for this quilt.

This quilt is off to Wrap Them In Love, which distributes quilts to needy children around the world. Thank you, Love Circle, for contributing! I also was conveniently able to do this as part of Lynne's Hex-a-Long at Lily's Quilts, which you can check out here. Thank you, Lynne!

Quilt stats
Design: My own—see Hexing Around block tutorial here

Fabric: Various scraps contributed by Do. Good Stitches' Love Circle
Back: Metro Living Circles in Chartreuse, Modern Meadow Acorn Chain in Pond, Full Moon Dot in Tangerine, Kona Cotton in Sage, Kona Cotton in Banana, Sandy Henderson's Meadowsweet Peony Plaid in Lime, Tufted Tweets Ovals in Grass
Binding: Michael Miller Ta Dot in Sea

Size: 44" x 61"

Quilting: FMQ stippling by me on my home machine
Completed: September 2011

Freshly Pieced on Facebook and Twitter

Did you know I'm on Facebook and Twitter? I've been hanging around there for a while, but now I would like to start making better use of it, as a way to have more interactive conversations with all of you.

Just click the buttons above to follow my blog in whatever way(s) work for you, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, an email subscription, Google Reader, etc. (These "Follow Me" buttons will also be in my sidebar from here on out.)

Have a wonderful weekend, and to those in the U.S., enjoy the holiday. I know exactly what I'll be doing: Quilting my Do. Good Stitches hexy top, and starting on my Connecting Thread designs! Come on over to my Facebook page to let me know what your plans are!

Top Five!

The voting in the Connecting Threads contest is now over, and yes, I am officially in the top five! Can you hear me squealing and jumping up and down from there? : ) This means that I have the opportunity to design my supporting prints and create an entire line based on my focus fabric! I have tons of ideas for it, and I can't wait to get started.

Connecting Threads staff will choose the grand prize winner from the five finalists, and that person will have their line produced and sold on the Connecting Threads website. I have the entire month of September to design my supporting prints, and the winner will be announced on October 12.

I'll keep you updated on my progress as I work on the line, and I'm sure you'll get some sneak peeks. My goal is to design at least 15 supporting prints, but we may be limited in what we can enter, so I will no doubt want input from all you wonderful people about what you think should be included.

Finally, a great big THANK YOU to everyone who voted! It is beyond amazing to have the support of so many sewists, crafters, and fabric addicts! I would not be in this position without all of YOU!

Sewing Back-to-School: Ironing and Pressing

I'm guest-posting over at Sew Sweetness today as part of Sara's "Sewing Back-to-School" series—a month's worth of informative "back-to-basics" articles. My post covers everything you ever wanted to know about pressing and ironing, but were afraid to ask. Or too bored by it to ask. Or something like that.

Seriously though, pressing is so much more important than you might think when it comes to accurate piecing. My tips just might help your next quilt come together a little better. So what are you waiting for? Head over there!

And thank you, Sara, for having me over to your place today. : )