My Fat Quarter Shop Blogger Bundle

Have y'all seen the fun bundles that the Fat Quarter Shop has fabric designers and bloggers put together? 

These bundles are so fun. They consist of 12 prints that are handpicked and put together in a special bundle available only at The Fat Quarter Shop. 

I was so flattered when the ladies at FQS asked me to put together a bundle. 

Drum roll please.............. Here it is!!

My bundle will be available in February 2016. I'm just so excited about it.  When I was choosing my prints, I knew that I wanted to mix some of the new Cotton + Steel lines that were just previewed at Quilt Market in October, as well as some of Bonnie + Camille's new Vintage Picnic line, and I threw in a darling print by October Afternoon as well. I just love these prints together and know that they will be even better in person! I can't wait to get my bundle and make something special with it.

One thing I love about The Fat Quarter Shop, is that you can sign up to receive email's when things are in stock... so if you want a little reminder sent to your email to let you know when it is available,  here is a link to my bundle: http://www.fatquartershop.com/ashley-of-crafter-by-nights-bloggers-choice-fat-quarter-bundle

Plus, y'all know you can count on me to let you know when it is available as well.

Hope you have a wonderful day! 

Happy Sewing!

xoxo, Ashley

P.S. - I hope that y'all will tag me on IG or email me any photos of things that you are making with my bundle.

Cotton + Steel Mini Quilt Swap

 Quilt swaps are all the rage on Instagram right now! It seems like every week, there is a signup for a new swap. One of the things that is so fun about the swaps is that most of them are open to anyone who wants to join. It is a great way to make new sewing friends and participate- whether you are a blogger, or just love to sew. 

If you have never done a swap before, you should try it. It is a lot of fun! Once you sign up, you are given a partner to create a mini quilt for (someone different will be making one for you). In each swap I have been in, the partners have been kept secret so that you don't know who will be creating your mini and your partner won't know that you are creating the mini for them. In larger quilt swaps, you are put into a smaller group and each group has a "swap mama" who is in charge of making sure that things run smoothly. The group usually has a separate hashtag, so when you search that hashtag you know that one of the quilts in that hashtag will be sent your way. 

This was my third swap and I definitely plan to do more in the future! :) The best way to stay in the loop and hear about upcoming swaps is to follow all of your favorite quilters/sewing friends on IG. Word usually gets around pretty quick once a new swap is announced. (You could also search hashtags for mini swaps too.) Each swap is different and has different rules, so just make sure you read the rules before you sign up to make sure it is going to be a good fit for you. :) 

A few months back, there was a signup for the Cotton + Steel Mini Quilt Swap (#cottonandsteelminiquiltswap), hosted by Modern Stitchin Mama. I love Cotton + Steel, so I knew it would be a fun swap. I have been wanting to create a mini sampler quilt, so it was the perfect time. It was definitely a labor of love and took a while to make, but I loved making each block. 

A lot of people have asked on IG if there is a pattern to make this quilt and the answer is yes... and no.  I used a pattern for several of the blocks, but I also improved and made some without patterns too.

So I thought I would link y'all to the blocks that DO have patterns for them. 

(Most of them are foundation paper piecing patterns.) 

Gemology Block by Sarah Rose Quilts

Glitter Block from Jen Kingwell's Quilt Lovely Book

 January Quilt block by Lady Harvatine (I printed mine at 50% so it's 6" square)

Feather by Sometimes Crafter

For my rainbow, I used 2 striped pattern pieces from the Pickle Dish pattern from Kaffe Fassett's Quilt Romance book and then pieced them together like a rainbow and then appliquéd the rainbow to the quilt block.

For the crazy patch quilt label, I used this pattern. 

When the quilt was all finished, I wasn't sure that I would be able to part with it! ha ha But alas, the mailing date came and it was time for my mini to go to a new home. 

Even though it was so hard to part with my mini quilt, I was sent the most gorgeous mini in return from Crystal @keystonecharmquilts. I am so head over heels for this mini! It's absolutely perfect in every way! I love the way that she switched the fabric placement and did a different take on a traditional kaleidoscope quilt block! I can't wait to hang it on my wall!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Sewing! 

xoxo, Ashley

P.S. Happy 4th of July to my friends that live in the USA! I hope that y'all have a wonderful weekend celebrating our great country!

And because I love helping a fellow fabric addict like myself- 

Lady Belle Fabrics is having a great sale! Head over to shop their deep discounts and sale section! Use code july4 to receive free shipping on orders over $50. Sale and code ends Monday July 6, 2015 end of day.

AMH Little Folks Voile Quilt

 Remember when I went fabric crazy 2 years ago and bought a half yard of every AMH print in voile that I could get my hands on?  It was a brief, break of insanity... But- in my defense- they were on a $6 sale! I couldn't help myself!!  They are the softest, yummiest, amazing fabrics ever! I am obsessed! 

Shortly afterwards, I joined a Fabric-aholics Anonymous program.

"Hi- My name is Ashley and it has been 1 day since I made a fabric purchase."

JUST KIDDING! 

That's only for people that can't control their fabric purchases.  I don't have a problem... Do I? ;) Mwahahahahaha!!

 Ok... In all reality- it was one of the best fabric purchases I've ever made! No regrets here! Just come snuggle this quilt, and you'll see why!

I decided to make a square patchwork quilt first. I didn't dare slice and dice those gorgeous fabrics too much! I went with a 6 inch squares to create my quilt top- 14 squares across, 14 squares down- which makes it roughly 6.5' squared. Perfect for two to snuggle on the couch with! 

Once I pieced the quilt, I decided to hand quilt it to make it extra soft and give it a good drape. I used Valdani pearl cotton in varying colors and opted for orange peel quilting. (I seriously cut a piece of cardboard and used it as my template and traced the design with a washable fabric marker- MacGuyver moment people!) 

Its backed with voile and I used Soft and Warm batting, which is pretty thin, so this quilt is super lightweight and thin. I can use it year round!

 I worked at a tortoise pace while hand quilting it, so it took forever (over a year start to finish on this quilt- which is so unlike me! ha ha) I would just pick it up every month or so and work on it while sitting on the couch in the evenings, but it was always there in the back of my mind- that looming UFO (un-finished object) project begging me to finish it. So when our family recently moved, I unpacked this beauty and worked on it for a couple weeks straight until it was complete! 

It's been in use for a few months now, and everyone in our family fights over getting to use it! If all four of us squeeze onto the love seat, we can just fit underneath it (if nobody moves! ha ha)

I love that they all love it as much as I do! :)

 Well, I hope y'all have a wonderful weekend! Mine is full of stuffing and addressing our family Christmas cards, the ward Christmas party, and a day trip to one of my new favorite cities- Charlotte! Hope I can squeeze in some sewing time too! ;)

xoxo, Ashley

P.S.- The winner of the Cotton + Steel Splash Bundle is: 

Amy Harvard

Amy HarwardDecember 8, 2014 at 1:11 AM

Love your mini! Thanks for the chance to win :). 

Congrats Amy! I will be contacting you soon!

Fort Firefly Patchwork Quilt

When Fabricworm offered to send me a fat quarter bundle of Fort Firefly before it was released, let's just say I was pretty darn excited! If you read my last post, you probably gathered that I have a huge fabric crush on the entire line!

I took about 2 days before I dared cut into it. 

Do you get nervous cutting into really pretty fabric?? I am always worried about being totally sure that I know what I am doing before cutting into something special. Plus- with this fabric, I was so torn on what sort of quilt to make because I didn't want to cut up the prints too much because I love them in their entirety! I was debating on a small Swoon quilt, On a Whim, and even thought about using my Victory Garden quilt pattern, but in the end  I finally decided that I had better do a large 8 inch square patchwork so that the prints weren't all sliced and diced up.

 I did 7 x 9 quilt blocks and the quilt ended up being 52.5 x 67.5 inches so it is not too big, but not too small- the perfect size quilt that will fit my daughter for a long time. 

From the fat quarter bundle of 13 prints, I was able to get 4 blocks of each print cut out and still have a large scrap of each fabric left over to make a smaller project (yay!). In edition to the 52 blocks of the Fort Firefly, I threw in a handful of printed linen and a couple other coordinating fabrics that I had lying around to make the quilt a bit larger. I really love the look and texture that the printed linen gave to the quilt! It was a perfect pairing for the prints. (I got my linen here.)

I also bound the quilt in linen as well. I have never done that before and it was kinda a love hate relationship as I was hand stitching the binding to the back of the quilt. The linen was just bulky enough that my fingers and hands were pretty sore once I was finished- but I really love the way it turned out! It definitely added to the "woodlandy" feel of the quilt. 

As for quilting, I did something I had never done before. I am always pretty basic in my quilting because I don't know how to fmq (free motion quilt) yet- well let's rephrase that... it simply just freaks me out! I really need to try it sometime because I would love to be able to do it! Anyways... I wanted to figure out a way to "cheat" and make it look like my quilt was sort of free motion quilted, so I looked at the stitches on my machine and found this one....

A wavy stitch! I did a little practice run on a scrap of fabric to make sure it was going to look ok and went for it! I bumped my stitch length as high as my machine would let me (which wasn't very high 2.5) and got to stitching. I just used a seam in the middle of my quilt for a reference and then after that first line of stitches worked my way out to the edge of the quilt by stitching rows of vertical wavy lines next to each other until the quilt was all filled up. I used my walking foot and I lined up the edge of my walking foot to the outermost wave of the line next to it and repeated until it was all quilted. I loved quilting it because there was seriously no way to mess up the design as long as I went in a straight line! Perfect for the way I normally quilt things- straight lines!

 I used some fabric I had on hand for the back of the quilt. (Riley Blake Verona Rouge Stripe)

I would have really loved to back it in this darling print:

but when I got the bundle from Fabricworm, extra yardage was not available yet.

BUT- There is super good news for anyone that has a huge crush on this fabric like I do though....I just got an email notice that I signed up for that

IT'S AVAILABLE NOW!

I know this darling collection is going to go fast so be sure to head over to Fabricworm and snag some of it before it is all gone! You will not be disappointed! :)

Happy sewing!! 

xoxo, Ashley

Fireflies and Fabric Crushes

 Ever heard of a fabric crush? Let me introduce you to mine...

Fort Firefly by Teagan White for Birch Fabrics

I follow Fabric Worm on instagram and saw a sneak peek of this line about 5 months ago and I have been crushing on it ever since!

 The colors totally caught my eye because it was a combo I hadn't really seen before and when I looked closer at the prints, there was no hope for me, I was in love!! The fireflies, moths, deer, and darling strawberry blonde haired girl are just plain perfect!

I could have just hugged and kissed the Fabric Worm team when they offered to send me a fat quarter bundle off the sample bolts... It's probably a good thing I don't live in California because I really would have done just that! ;)

 The fabrics are even prettier in person and it is pretty rare that I love each print in a fabric line, but I really do love every single one of the 13 prints. They are manufactured by Birch Fabrics and they are printed on organic cotton. So soft!

Annnnd... as if the collection couldn't get any cuter they have the most darling cheater print that I have ever seen... hexagons filled with darling little snippets of each of the prints... Birch Fabrics- Are you trying to give me a heart attack?!? I think I need a whole bolt of this one!

 Fort Firefly will not be available until September, but you can sign up to be emailed as soon as it is available at Fabric Worm... just click on the bubble of fabric that you are crushing on and then enter your email... Awesome right?!

Well, enough of my crushing and gushing about how much I love Fort Firefly... I am off to start a new quilt with these pretties!!! These colors are the perfect thing to help ease me out of summer and into fall! Happy Sewing!!