Sweet Celebrations Book Tour!

As we've talked about before we were so excited that we were asked to be part of Moda's newest book, Sweet Celebrations.  It's such a great collaboration of sewing projects for all of life's happy events!

Can't wait to hold my first copy!  ....keep reading because we have a fun GIVEAWAY at the end!

Here's a little bit of eye candy.  The pillow below Heather made, so cute right?  You can slide little candies and gifts into the pockets.

This little mailbox I created along with the party hats.  Can't wait for my boy's to use the mailbox this Valentine's, they both really love mailboxes for some reason, lol.  The party hats are fun because the age/number is removable thus reusable!

Here's a few fun questions from Oda May to get to know us a little better.

What is your favorite birthday memory?

Megan writing :)  When I was 18 my three best friends spent the night, my parents were out of town and we made music videos all night long.  Including me starring as Britney Spears.  I love to re-watch that old VHS tape.

Do you prefer to celebrate with cake pops, cupcakes or plain ole cake?

Ice cream cake, hands down.

If you could have a quilt shop spree what items would you snag off the shelf?

Precuts, batting, notions, minky...everything?

Here is a recipe for our very favorite (and the best) Caramel Popcorn. If you visit each blog on the tour you can get each recipe!

Here are the blogs on the tour:

October 1 - StashBooks and Moda Cutting Table

October 2 – Melissa Mortenson and Melissa Corry

October 3 – Mary Lane Brown and Natalia Bonner

October 4 – Lissa Alexander and Corey Yoder

October 5 – Jane Davidson and Angela Yosten

October 6 – Jo & Kelli Kramer and Stefanie Roman

October 7 – Sherri McConnell and Megan Jimenez & Heather Andrus

October 8 – Angela Mitchell and Ellie Roberts

October 9 – Katie Blakesley and Aneela Hoey

October 10 – Amy Smart and Angela Pingel

October 11 – Vanessa Christenson and April Rosenthal

October 12 – Moda Bake Shop

October 14 – Readers have until midnight on the 14^th to comment on all the blogs for the giveaways.

October 19 –Winners announced on all the blogs.

Giveaway!!

Leave a comment to win 

Sweet Celebration with the Moda Bake Shop Chefs book

AND

a fat quarter bundle (our favorite!)

Leave a comment here telling us your favorite type of sewing project! 

You can comment on each and every blog to increase your chances of winning.  Outside of US will win the e-book version.

This giveaway is now closed.

Big news!

A year ago Heather and I would not have thought we would be sharing this news with you today!  About last September we were contacted by some lovelies at Moda Bake Shop asking if we would like to be contributors in an upcoming book....um YES!!!  We had a short deadline to get some samples and sketches together and submit them for approval.  And they chose three of our projects!! Eeeek!!  The book is called Sweet Celebrations with the Moda Bake Shop Chefs:

The book is filled with awesome projects by way-more-awesome-than-us chefs for celebrations we all have year round, birthdays, holidays, back to school,etc..  I cannot wait to see the book in person!

So one October weekend Heather and I did something sneaky.  VERY sneaky.  Only five people knew about this until now.  Our mom, me, my husband, Heather and her husband.  I flew to Utah for the weekend and Heather and I crafted our hearts out!  She picked me up from the airport late at night, we hit a Walmart for essentials nowhere near any friends or family and headed to my parents.  Our parents were in England so we had their big beautiful home to ourselves and we got it good and messy.  With the aid of some Lifetime Original Movies we completed all of our projects for the book in less than 72 hours!  Not only did I not have any spare time to visit, but the book was top secret so we couldn't let anyone know I was in town!!

Here are our projects:

 Isn't that banner pillow Heather made darling??

Super sweet birthday hats.

And a sweet valentine's mailbox!!

There you have it!  We are so so so so excited :)

Dashasel sews walk in the woods quilt....

Good morning, our pea pod pin cushion tutorial is posting at Moda Bake Shop today, go check it out!

Elaine from Dashasel sews made this awesome quilt! Look at the  paper piecing little girl and fox! Love it!  And the creative piecing, I think the modern looking shape is great. Plus I am really into red and blue again, so love the colorway. And the quilting...wow, this is all just great! Elaine is involved in a lot of swaps and fun projects over at her blog, be sure to check her out!

Project Quilting, Challenge 5- A Walk in My Woods

 

For this week's Project Quilting, the challenge was "It's Where I Live". We were asked to interpret something about where we live. Further the colors of our quilt were based off of our street and city names and state.

In our area many of the buildings were built in the 1930s. With this in mind, I was inspired by the art deco architecture of the time, such as this photo of the Milwaukee Gas Light Building. Coincidentally, the New York Beauty Quilt-along just started and this week Kim of My Go-Go Life headed up the first tutorial (it's a pretty awesome tutorial with lots of tips for those who even have paper piecing backgrounds). So with this in mind, I started making some of these blocks:

Block 0 

15 block 0s later....

My colors were based off my street and city names and state. These ended up being:

A: Aqua

M: Medium Candy Apple Red

W: Wild watermelon

I realize some of these names sound a little wacky, but I got the list from here. As I culled my fabric, I realized that I didn't really have much pink! Thankfully I had a charm pack of A Walk in the Woods, which gave me a little bit of pink. I also had some Kona Cotton Pearl Pink for the background, so I figured I'd work with these.

The Walk in the Woods fabric line influenced my design as I decided that the "where I live" also should represent all the fun twists and turns in life. I wanted to literally have someone walking through the twists and turns. This turned out to be little Red Riding Hood (since there is a red-caped girl in the fabric line). And though she confronts a wolf in her fairy tale, I decided she would meet a Fox (because foxes are reddish [one of my colors!] and there really are foxes in my area). Anyway, here are a few shots of potential layouts:

And of course, this is the one that I ultimately chose: I like that the "walking path" (curves of the NY beauty block) don't always perfectly match and I quilted to make the path feel a bit maze-like at times.

And here is Little Red finding her way...

It's funny because this quilt is not made in my normal, bright-loving color palette, but I really like how it came together. My sewing buddy, J's, love of these colors might have something to do with it :) I also usually make my PQ projects as wall hangings, but this one is going to be quilt meant for baby use. Of course, it will probably last baby girl the first month or so because it is a little on the small side...but since it is backed with Riley Blake's Sugar and Spice, it means she has to have it!

Made in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and measures 30" square. I'm also now completely paper-pieced out!

Slice contest entry round 2! Megan's pincushion...

 Alright, we are on to round 2 of the Sliced competition!  Check out Megan's darling pincushion! 

If you are not aware of the Sliced contest, read here and you can see Megs first round winning project...

LOVE

We were all to make a pin cushion. We were to include a Jelly roll, button and ric rac. 

Here is how she incorporated all of these things...

I love the sparkly trim edging the pod, cute! And the cluster of ric rac and sparkle is precious!

Functional wristlet...

I would like to wear it as a bracelet and not a pin cushion. So CUTE!

Good job Meg, and 

make sure to wish her luck!

Fabric Tuesday and Moda Bake Shop!

Hey everyone!  Today is the last day some of my very good friends are our house and I'm bummed to see them go. We each have two boys the same ages and it's just really fun to get together. They've been staying for five days but it went so fast!!  Sad!!

And I want to announce the winner of our Fabric Envy giveaway (Thanks Andrea!!)

 Sheila said...

Daisy cottage precut fat quarters...I followed on Pinterest, Liked on FB, and I already follow the blog!

Congrats Sheila!!

Well this weekend I was so busy playing games and watching movies that I completely spaced my tutorial on Moda Bake Shop!!! Eeeek!  This is our second time posting there and we are so happy that they had us back! :)

Heather and I grew up in Colorado on Emerson Street and I have really fond and happy memories growing up there.  If you have a minute head on over and check it out!

Fabric Tuesday #71

Welcome!

Click here if you need a refresher on the rules.

Do you have a fabric WIP? A recent fabric finish? Trying to choose fabrics for a quilt? 

If it's a post with fabric link it up!

Pssst...

Today we're being featured on Moda Bake Shop!!!!

Honestly, sincerely, I am so excited.  It's one of those crafty dreams of mine, I'm just really excited to be able to share something there!

I'd love if you hopped over to take a look at my project/tutorial.

Confession: I'm scared I'll have 4 comments.  Me, my mom, Heather and an anonymous blogger I invent ;)

Bright Fresh flower quilt from Nicole....

Nicole from Keepin' The Castle made up this darling little quilt. Make sure to check out her blog to see what else she has been up to...

So there I was blog hopping (which is where I get the majority of my inspiration for quilts - google.com's images!) And I won't lie I should have been doing the dishes about an hour earlier but "once you [start], the fun don't stop!"

Back up: I have tried to make a quilt for all of my friends for their first child. And baby number 256 (over exaggeration) was well on the way. I came upon this beautiful tutorial from Piece N' Quilt on Moda Bake Shop's blog. "It was perfect but man, who gives a queen at a baby shower," I thought. And the level of procrastination had already mounted to set me up for disaster. But I was addicted to the "I'm blushing" pattern. I had to do it. So I went to Jo-Anns and picked out perfect colors and prints and went to town on my baby version on the pattern!

The piecing only took me an hour but figuring out the measurements from just the pictures on line took me FOR-EVER! Every quilt you learn a lesson. This quilt taught me many.

A - don't procrastinate (Oh wait, I learn that every quilt)

B - Jo-Anns has fabric just as cool!

C - When in doubt just sew it together and give it a whirl and

D - My new best friend is Elmer's Adhesive

Check out my post here and enjoy! I hope baby H enjoys my little treasure!

Nicole from Keepin' The Castle

Thanks so much Nicole!  And remember, our giveaway is still going on for FIVE FREE patterns and a stack of fat quarters!  You have until Friday May 28th to comment, follow and submit.  Check out this post and make sure to enter!