Craft Book Month - Blog Hop

I am so excited to be apart of this blog hop, my first blog hop! Lindsay and I officially met at the Spring Quilt Market. She is such an amazing lady. All the work she does behind the scenes is absolutely incredible. So when she asked if I would showcase a project I have made from a book, I jumped at the chance!!

If you know me, I do not do a lot of projects from others when it comes to quilting. I mostly do my own thing and create a quilt specifically for the person who will be receiving it. I am a self-taught hand-quilter of 12 years now. In recent months I have started learning to machine quilt.

Being a shop owner, I not only try to keep up with what's new in the quilting world, but also what's new with designers. There are so many fantastic quilts out there. So many of them I do want to make. So very little time to fit them all in. At least not all at once.

I think it's safe to say that we love pre cuts! I bought my first pre cut 2 years ago. It was a charm pack. At first I didn't really get the appeal of pre cuts. Now I do. They certainly save on time and cutting for a quick project. While my collection of pre cuts has slowly been growing, I still have only used charm packs. Up until I saw this quilt:    Picnic by Kimberly Brackett from her book Scrap-Basket Sensations

This was my first quilt, cut and sewn, for the 2012 year. I think it took me 3 days. And, yes, I still need to get it quilted. I have an ever growing stack of quilts just waiting to be quilted, and I know I'm not the only one ;)

This was a quilt I needed to make. I needed to make a quilt for my little girl, and this was it. One of the hardest parts for me is finding the right fabric for the right pattern. With this quilt, I already knew what I wanted to do. So, I used my first Rolie Polie; or my first 3 Rolie Polies. It was Promenade by Cyndi Walker for Riley Blake Designs. (For those not familiar with Rolie Polies, they are made up of one piece of each fabric in a line, so they tend to be 1/3-1/2 half less than that of a Jelly Roll.) 2 would have been perfect if I had stuck to the pattern dimensions, but I like to make BIG quilts. This pattern is for a lap, and I wanted it for a twin. So, I added a block to each row and a full row at the bottom.

I wanted all the colors to blend nicely with each other; instead of keeping one color for one block, I laid them out in a 3-1 ratio. I am quite pleased with the end result, and more importantly, my little girl LOVES it!

Thanks for stopping by y'all! and don't forget to check out the other great blogs in this blog hop.
Enter to win your own copy of Scrap Basket Sensations & a Wee Folks Jelly Roll, along with many other prizes over at the Craft Buds site. (details on how to enter are below)

Week One

Sunday 9/2: Hopeful Threads / The Jolly Jabber

Monday 9/3: Stitchery Dickory Dock / Me Sew Crazy

Tuesday 9/4: Olive & Ollie / Sew Sweetness

Wednesday 9/5: Fabric Seeds / The Busy Bean

Thursday 9/6: CraftFoxes / Stitched In Color

Friday 9/7: Katie's Korner / A Prairie Sunrise

Week Two

Sunday 9/9: Sweet Diesel Designs / missknitta's studio

Monday 9/10: Sew Tara / Clover and Violet

Tuesday 9/11: Sew Fantastic / amylouwho

Wednesday 9/12: Projektownia Jednoiglec / Two More Seconds

Thursday 9/13: Ellison Lane Quilts / Don't Call Me Betsy

Friday 9/14: Live a Colorful Life / LRstitched

Week Three

Sunday 9/16: Fairy Face Designs / Canoe Ridge Creations

Monday 9/17: Inspire Me Grey / Freshly Pieced

Tuesday 9/18: Lindsay Sews / The Cute Life

Wednesday 9/19: The Littlest Thistle / Sew Crafty Jess

Thursday 9/20: Urban Stitches / imagine gnats

Friday 9/21: Sew Bittersweet Designs / The Plaid Scottie

Week Four

Link up your craft book project at Craft Buds from Sept 23-30 from your blog or Flickr account, and enter to win prizes. Winners will be announced on Monday, October, 1!

To participate in the month-long contest, just link up any project you've made from a pattern in a craft book. That easy! One entry per person, and all craft book projects must have been completed in 2012. Just create a new blog post or Flickr photo (dated September 1, 2012 or later) and link back to Craft Buds in your post or photo description.

No time to create a project? This month, just follow Craft Buds and comment to win some new craft books and lots of giveaways!

Picnic

SO .. I must be having an episode of insomnia. I have been up since 4:00 this morning. After already being up at 1:30. I laid in bed for an hour before deciding that I really should be sewing instead. I was able to finish my sister's quilt yesterday (pictures to come). I had only 3 1/2 blocks to finish when I ran out thread. My sis brought me new thread and I got down to the last corner of the last block when the bobbin thread ran out. Not to mention, my needle broke not too long before the thread ran out. Towards the end of the thread, the leading line was wound under the tail, which caused the thread to stop unwinding and stalled my machine. Not realizing this happened, I continued quilting and busted the needle. in 3 pieces. The sewing Gods must be against me :)

After I finished up her quilt, I started sewing my diaper covers for Kristy's monthly project. I don't have a serger, so I used the zigzag stitch instead. I got all the way down one side with about an inch to go, when the needle got on the foot and busted. again. in at least 4 pieces. teeny little fragments everywhere. And the best part .. half of it fell right through the foot, landing smack back end of the bobbin cartridge. stuck.
In my bout of insomnia, I spent some time looking for all the lost pieces, trying to get the needle unstuck, only to have it fall behind into the gears. I had to take nearly every screw out looking for the needle, only to find it hadn't fallen into the gears but nestled nicely inside the bobbin cartridge center.

With my machine sitting completely disheveled and the idea of me unscrewing everything to give a spic-and-span cleaning, a little eye ache is slowly creeping behind my pupils.

I need a break!

(Update: After I finished this blog post, I went back to my machine. Finished cleaning out some fuzz and started putting it back together, only to find that somehow the screws needed to secure the face plate have gone missing. 2 hours later, and I still can't find them.)
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Kim Brackett's Picnic quilt has been on my to-do list since Its release. I finally got around to making it! I haven't followed someone else's quilt pattern (I usually do my own thing) in ... ... hmm .. I really can't think the last quilt I made following another's pattern. The Christmas quilt I made this year for my brother was from a book. Although, I started that quilt some 10 years ago.
Anyway, I was really excited to make this quilt, and it was a nice refresher not having to do figure out the math myself. I used Promenade by Cyndi Walker for Riley Blake Designs.

Now it just needs to be quilted!

I added an extra 2 rows to the side and bottom to make it a Twin. I used 2 1/2 Rolie Polies, Now I can't decide if I should use the extra strips for a scrappy binding or the grey polka dot (featured in the photo) that I had originally planned on.

I keep thinking maybe a matching doll quilt too ..

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Thanks for stopping by!

Have you checked out our Charm Packs lately?