Hexies by Halves PDF Pattern and Quilt-Along Highlights

That's right!  The Hexies by Halves PDF Pattern is finally done and up for sale in my shop.  I've gone through the whole pattern, added some additional photos, and clarified some things.  I'm very happy with it, and I think everyone who participated in the quilt along would agree that the instructions are very detailed and even a beginning quilter can successfully complete this quilt if they already possess basic sewing skills.  Besides this specific pattern, it contains sections on choosing fabrics, basting and preparing your quilt for quilting, simple machine quilting, and binding.

One of the most fun things about hosting this quilt-along has been seeing the pictures of your finished projects come in.  I know there are going to be more pictures coming.  Each participant took the same pattern and really made it her own!

Marianne from Adventurous Quilter made this beautiful quilt with different browns she had in her stash.  I love how it turned out and the way she photographed it really shows off those quilting lines.  She's a great quilt photographer and took some other beautiful pictures you can see here

Linnae made this lovely pink and blue quilt.  She had extra hexies and made it larger.  Since it wasn't quite large enough for a twin bed, she added a border.  I love her arrangement with the large pink flowers on a blue background.

Linnae made this lovely pink and blue quilt.  She had extra hexies and made it larger.  Since it wasn't quite large enough for a twin bed, she added a border.  I love how she made a patterned arrangement with the large pink flowers on a blue background.

I-Spy Orion and the Start of School

The daughter of a friend of mine participated in one of the previous I-Spy swaps and she needed help finishing up her quilt.  She needed it done soon.  Of course it really doesn't take much convincing for me to spend the day sewing with a friend.  My Becca always loves seeing Big Becca...and was thrilled to get to help pull out the pins for her.  Several people have been asking about when the next I-Spy Swap will be...and it's coming in a week or two.  They fill up fast, so if you want to get an email when the swap opens, then leave a comment on this post or email me.   If you're interested in participating in an I-Spy Swap, I'm not planning on doing any soon, but you can sign up to get an email when/if we do another one here.  I also ended up with a couple extra sets from our last swap, and those are here in my Etsy shop.

I think it turned out great for her first quilt.

And I had plenty of time to help her today, because it was the first day of school or our older kiddos.  Gosh, I love them...but the house is so much calmer during the day when they're at school.  They both got great teachers who will take good care of them.

Scrappy Stripes Quilted Tote Bag

It's about time that I shared my quilted tote bag I made for the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guild Meet-Up in Portland...otherwise known as PNW MQG PDX Meet-up.

Everyone who signed up for the swap was given some denim fabric that had been donated from Robert Kaufmann for the event.  (I think others got to choose their denim at a guild meeting, but since I'm in the middle of no where, they just mailed me half a yard or so.  We were asked to make a tote bag using the denim and any other fabrics we wanted to make a "modern" tote.

I wanted to do something quick and easy (why does that rarely end up being quick and easy?) so I thought I'd pull out my 2 1/2 inch scraps, chain them together in rainbow order, insert them into the fabric in random stripes, and sew up the bag.
Well, I didn't have as many fabrics in my 2 1/2 inch strips as I remembered...so I decided to cut some more...and I kept finding fabrics in my stash that just HAD to go into the rainbow.  All told I ended up with 86 different fabrics although not all of the fabrics ended up in the bag itself (since some of them were in the scraps of the fabric that didn't end up in the bag.  I sewed them into one long chain in rainbow order.

Hedwig Necklace - For Harry Potter Fans

This post has been a long time in coming (as in the pictures have my old watermark on them)...but better late than never, eh?  I'm always on the lookout for something different, inexpensive, and easy to mail for Mother's Day since our kids have extra moms and grandmas to remember.  (Our oldest two kids are adopted in open adoptions.)  This is a little late for a Mother's Day post, but perhaps it can help someone out for Halloween or dare I say...Christmas?

Hexies by Halves Quilt-Along - Lesson 6 - Binding Your Quilt

Become a Sponsor

I know none of us are really ready to start thinking about Christmas yet...but if your shop or small business relies heavily on sales during the Christmas season, now is the time to start advertising.  I generally offer sponsorship in 3 month plans, but I've made a four month plan available for those who would like to sign up now and have your sponsorship extend through Christmas.  The 4-month plan also includes an upgrade in button size.

I typically publish a maximum of 1 sponsored post a week, and the best time slots around Thanksgiving tend to fill quickly, so sign up early to get your choice of weeks.

You can find information about my rates and services here. 

Wouldn't you love to see your products show up here.

Please show my sponsors some love...

Bombshell Apron from Mimi and the Boy

Anatomical Heart Pendant from Boutique Academia

Half Yard Bundle Cruzin in Red - From Sisters and Quilters

Weekend at the PNW Modern Quilt Guild Meet-Up

Let me just say I had one of the most rejuvinating and enjoyable weekends than I've had in a long time.  It was so nice to get away without any kids or distractions and be able to sew while chatting with so many other creative and talented quilters from all over the Pacific Northwest.

I was able get two quilt tops started and completely finished during our all-day sew day on Saturday.  (I did have the pieces cut and layout figured out the night before.)  I'll have share more details about how they're put together when I get them quilted and bound.  I'm not sure what I'll do with the Rocket Boys Triangles...maybe put it in my shop. 

The I-Spy Stripes quilt will be going to Katie's Comforter's Guild which supplies quilts to Seattle Children's Hospital.  I think it will be a nice and cheery one for them.  Last weekend was the anniversary of the Katie that Katie's Comforter's Guild is named for passing away several years ago, so I was thinking of her and her family while I sewed it.  Her mom said she liked cats, so I put the cat and dog print at the very top.

This was my view most of the day...my machine just humming along with lots of other ladies sewing around me.  (And actually this was taken while a lot of people were off to lunch, so it was quite a bit more crowded for a while.)

Becca's Drawstring Bookbag - Idea from JoAnns

Even though I find myself buying more and more of my quilting fabric from independent fabric shops, Joanns is still my go-to store for all my sewing basics.  And lets face it...we all love their coupons and sales.  (If you don't receive Jo-Anns coupons, you can sign up for them here.)  I jumped at the chance to try out one of their projects for them.

I decided to try making the drawstring bag.  (You can browse more of their projects here, and you can find their Cape Discovery catalog here.)

My original vision was to make a bag for the kids' baseball equipment...but I got it done a little late in the season.  Becca immediately fell in love with the bag and decided it would be awesome for her little learn-to-read books.

(I've written about how much we love BOB books before.  They're great for beginning readers.

Hexies by Halves Quilt-Along - Lesson 5 - Simple Machine Quilting

From this point on in our quilt-along, many of you may be as experienced as I am and you're free to go ahead and finish your quilt on your own.  There any many different ways to finish a quilt ranging from tying, hand-quilting, home machine quilting (straight lines or free-motion), or you may have it professionally long-arm quilted.  Because there's no way I could do justice to all of these methods, I'm going to focus on my current favorite method...home-machine quilting.  I prefer home-machine quilting because it doesn't require any special equipment or a lot of space and is inexpensive.  I'm learning to do free-motion quilting and LOVE it, but I've chosen to straight line quilt all of my hexie quilts (so far) because I feel like it complements the overall quilt design well.

Thanks for your interest in the Hexies by Halves Quilt-Along.  Our quilt-along ran from July 8th through August 30th, 2013.  You can now find the full Hexies by Halves PDF Quilt Pattern in my shop here.

If you'd like to see a sample of the quality of my instructions, I have left Lesson 6 - Binding Your Quilt available for free here.

Please show my sponsors some love...

This Way and That with Cat in the Hat Quilt KIT- From Sisters and Quilters

Hedwig Necklace from Pieces by Polly

Dr. Seuss Fat Quarter Bundle from Sisters and Quilters

Modern Black and Gold Hexies Baby Quilt from Pieces by Polly

All-Boy Art Birthday Party

  Note: If you're looking for the You Keep Me in Stitches Giveaway click here.

I can't believe my boy turned 6 this week!

Seth is in LOVE with art lately.  He and Becca go in his room and "do art" for hours at a little table we have in there.  I can't remember who suggested it, but when an art party came up as a theme for his party, he jumped at it. 

And I was super happy to have a theme with so many creative possibilities and that it was something we want to encourage him in.   We've told our kids they just get parties on certain birthdays (6, 8, 12, etc).  They get a cake and little family celebration (as in dessert right after dinner) every year, but not a lot.  So it's fun to put some extra effort into the parties we do have.

Overall the kids loved it.  And despite the title of the post, we did have girls at the party and they enjoyed the projects too, we just especially found projects that would appeal to boys.  It took a little planning ahead to make sure we had the art supplies on hand, but other than buying the supplies we really did pretty much everything for the party the day before.  (And remember I have my husband home during the summers, so I had him to help out getting ready and helping during the party.)

I'm really not a fan of party favors...at least not the kind where you buy cheap toys so the guests go home with something.  I am a big fan of party favors that serve as entertainment and/or props to the party itself, so the kids got to take home some fun art projects.  I wanted to do some kinds of art projects that used materials and techniques they might not learn at school (where they pretty much stick to paper, crayons, and occasionally tempera paint).

Here's what we did:

Teacher's Retirement Book Quilt & a Giveaway

When we heard that our high school principal of 20 year (plus or minus) was retiring, Eric wanted to do something nice with the other teachers for him.  I was already making a black and gold hexies quilt for the bike-a-thon and had plenty of fabric, so we decided a quilt in school colors would be a good send off for the principal.

Then when the quilt was finished, we heard he was sharing the district retirement party with another teacher...but not just any teacher...Katie's current teacher.  It just didn't feel right to not have something special there for her when she's been so good to Katie all year.  I almost just dropped it because there was so little time, but after talking to a few mutual friends, I just knew this quilt had to be made...and that it should be something representative of her...and I only had a couple days to get it done.

Hexies by Halves Quilt Along - Lesson 4 - Preparing Your Back

This lesson will teach you how to make trim and make a pieced back to complement your Giant Hexies Quilt.

Thanks for your interest in the Hexies by Halves Quilt-Along.  Our quilt-along ran from July 8th through August 30th, 2013.  You can now find the full Hexies by Halves PDF Quilt Pattern in my shop here.

If you'd like to see a sample of the quality of my instructions, I have left Lesson 6 - Binding Your Quilt available for free here.

I'm going to the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Meet-Up

I've been itching to go to some sort of sewing/quilting conference for a while, but either found out about them too late or couldn't justify the expense.

And then I heard about the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guild Meet-Up in Portland in a few weeks.  It's inexpensive to sign up, and I can stay at my mom's house...so I'm going!  It's August 15-18th.

I'm actually REALLY excited about it, even though it's a little out of my comfort zone to go on my own.  I'm not a member of a modern quilt guild since there aren't any close enough to be practical for me to join, but they said I could go.  I'm not sure if my quilting style really qualifies as "modern" but I think maybe my Hexies by Halves approaches it. 

So anyone else want to go?  I'd love to meet some of my blogging buddies face-to-face.  You can find information about it here.