Tag Archives: fiesta fun fabric

March Blogger Bundle by Yvonne Fuchs, Quilting Jetgirl

Yesterday was the first day of spring though for much of the country it doesn’t feel like it. Today I want to provide a glimpse of spring with this month’s Blogger Bundle. Curated by my friend, Yvonne Fuchs of Quilting Jetgirl, this bright, cheerful bundle is filled with vivid color. On the off chance you aren’t familiar with Yvonne, she is a blogger, modern quilter and pattern designer who lives in Southern California with her husband and Puppy the cat. I met her several years ago and since then she has been a constant source of information and inspiration to me and her many readers. She is involved with the Quilters Planner, was a leader in the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop for several years, and is actively involved with the Modern Quilt Guild. All that being said, the most valuable facet of Yvonne’s work is her effort to build community within both the quilter’s on-line and ‘in-person’ communities. I greatly appreciate how Yvonne tirelessly supports each of these.

Let’s look at the bundle she curated! It contains fabric from across lines in shades of pink, yellow and green. There is a delightful ‘rainbow’ component to this selection which includes pieces fro Art Gallery Fabrics, Windham Fabrics and Henry Glass Fabrics. Yvonne chose to use pieces designed by Maureen Cracknell, Carrie Bloomston (one of my all time favorite designers), Kim Diehl and Dana Willard.

As usual for me, the bundle surprised me. I can totally see putting the pink arrows with the two rainbow fabrics. But when she added the cheddar yellow (from Maureen Cracknell’s Garden Dreamer, and the grassy green and rich rust fabrics from Bloomston’s Dreamer line, the collection became richer and more sophisticated. I was pleasantly surprised by this. Each month, working with these quilters, watching them pull colors together, I learn more and more.

For more information, please click here to read Yvonne’s Blogger Bundle post. She has one bundle to share with a luck winner too! As before, this bundle is available in my shop and is on sale today through Friday. (One thing to note: I am leaving Friday night for a week with my son and his family. So orders placed before 3pm on Friday will ship by Friday afternoon. Orders placed after that will wait until my return and will ship on Monday, April 2nd. If you have questions, email me at [email protected] or leave them in the comments.

Thank you to Yvonne for creating this pretty bundle and brightening our day with it. It will no doubt add color to many quilter’s stash!

Knock Knock, Who’s There?

21 Replies

I had a finish this week! Remember I did some pattern testing for Sarah of Sarah Goer Quilts? I was able to quilt and bind it over the last week or so. The quilt is just adorable. If you would like a copy of this pattern, click over to Sarah’s blog and sign up for her newsletter. I just read the second newsletter and I am enjoying them.

This quilt has been a multi-faceted project for me. It began with pattern testing the new pattern for Sarah. I made the quilt with fabrics from the Fiesta Fun line (which I just happen to carry in my shop!) I chose the Fiesta Fun fabric so I would have something to display the brightly colored fabric. When I looked at the quilt top, I knew it would be a fun one to quilt. The quilt is filled with big open spaces to play with. At about the same time Fil-Tec provided me with a lovely spool of white Glide thread to play with.

I decided to quilt the floral block and the striped blocks with the white spool of Glide. Wow. I loved it! Glide is a polyester thread with a very pretty sheen to it. It was a dream to quilt with – honestly, just amazing. It is very clear where the thread earned its name – I felt very little pull when I was quilting. I will absolutely stock up on a few more colors. Ok – back to the quilting. For the floral block, I basically outlined some of the flowers and leaves. Very simple and quite fun. For the striped blocks (made with the adorable Happy Streamers fabric from Art Gallery) I followed the pattern of the stripes, stitching on the white space between the streamers. When the fabric is as busy as this Happy Streamers is, I think it works well to keep the quilting simple.

Then I worked on the green background. I used a spool of Mettler thread to quilt this because I had a spool that worked well. Honestly though, I am not a huge fan of quilting with Mettler. It gives off quite a bit of lint and I fight the tension more when I use Mettler. But I had a good time quilting this. For the inner border I used large, free form flowers.

On the outer border, I did a an organic wavy vine with small flowers, bumblebees and butterflies.

For the bees and butterflies, I found inspiration at The Inbox Jaunt. Lori Kennedy has a vast library of tutorials for different quilting motifs. I think the bees and butterflies are so cute. Some of the butterflies are a bit lopsided, which adds a lovely touch of whimsy to the quilt (right?). Finally, on the block between each section of directional fabric, I quilted a cross hatch pattern.

The backing was cut from a sheet that I thrifted a long while back. I think the bright, primary colors work well with the top.

The binding is a cheerful print from Art Gallery, Squared Elements in Mandarin. Guess what? I have it in my shop! 🙂

I am happy to call this one done. Bright and colorful, perfect for these gray, rainy days we have been having. (But I am not complaining. I welcome the rain!!)

I would like to thank everyone for your support of my shop. I really appreciate it. The discount code for Needle and Foot readers is good for just a few more days. Enter NANDFREADERS15 follow meand receive a 15% discount on orders of $5.00 or more. This code is valid through February 12th. Next week there will be a giveaway on Instagram. If you , keep an eye out for that. If you don’t, now might be a good time to start! 😉

Linking to my favorites. Check the list at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Pattern Testing a Great Beginner Quilt Pattern

6 Replies

I have followed Sarah Goer’s blog, for a long while now. We both began blogging around the same time and somehow we became blogging buddies. Sarah is crazy busy these days. A stay at home mom of two little ones, she also blogs, quilts, and spends a lot of time teaching her two (very young) children to quilt. Now she is adding pattern design to her list of talents. When I heard she was soon to release her first pattern, I threw my name in the hat to be a pattern tester for her.

This is the second quilt pattern I have tested. Last year I tested for Mihaela of A Beautiful Day. You can read about that here if you like. Sarah’s pattern is very different from Mihaela’s Urban Folk Quilt pattern. She wanted to develop a pattern for beginner quilters. I think this design is just perfect for new quilters. It has very basic cutting and piecing which ensures success. That is just what a new quilter needs so they will gain confidence and feel good about their progress. Sarah did an excellent job with the pattern. Her instructions are very clear and easy to follow.

I chose to make Sarah’s pattern with this colorful bundle of fabric from the Fiesta Fun line produced by Art Gallery Fabric. Sarah’s pattern uses directional fabric to create some movement within the design. A focal fabric is placed in the center and the directional fabrics surround it. This pattern came together in an afternoon. I cut it and pieced most of it the day before we traveled to Toronto. Because of its simplicity, I think this would be an excellent pattern for quilting instructors teaching a Basic Beginner Quilting class.
I love the bright colors used in this quilt. The top finished at 36 inches square; perfect for a baby quilt. I have some fun ideas on how I want to quilt it. Maybe with a spiral? Maybe a spiral that begins in a corner and works its way across the quilt? Time for some doodling to figure out which motif to go with and then there is the torturous decision about thread colors (never an easy one for me). I also need to dig through my stash and find a backing fabric. I do have the perfect binding though, a bright polka dot fabric. Hopefully I will get it quilted soon. The size is reasonable and won’t take too long to do.

This pattern will be given to anyone who signs up for Sarah’s newsletter. Her first issue will be published next week. If you are interested, you can sign up here. I am looking forward to receiving the first issue.

Linking to my favorites this week. See the list at the top of the page, under Link Ups.