A Very Scrappy Trip Along... FINISHED!

I finally finished my Field Study Scrappy Trip Along quilt! What a relief! 

 I used mostly prints by Anna Maria Horner's newest line: Field Study, but I did throw in a couple Lou Lou Thi prints, a few Bloomsbury Garden prints, Timber and Leaf, and a couple other random prints. I love the bold, crazy color scheme... I think it tied together well.

It ended up being 90x100 inches so it was slightly larger than a standard queen sized quilt. Holy Cow! I am so happy to be done with it. I loved making it, but after cutting, piecing, quilting, and binding this massive quilt- I was sick of it! Now that it's finished, any unkind feelings have since been forgotten!

I went for a very scrappy quilt... I used most of the leftover strips for the binding and part of the backing so it turned out VERY colorful and VERY scrappy. I love it though. It is definitely one of a kind! 

It was so large that there was no way for me to take a picture of the entire quilt by myself, so I draped it over a tree branch and was able to get a picture of a portion of it. (almost half is tucked under and hanging over the back of the branch.)

Although my quilt is super scrappy, I couldn't let go of all control- I had to keep some sort of fabric/color/design to tie it all together- maybe next time I will throw all order to the wind and go completely scrappy. I used the blue leopard print on the long diagonal of each block to create the unified diamond. The rest is totally random and scrappy.

I quilted the quilt myself by doing straight lines with my walking foot. It resulted in a grid of 3 3/4 inch squares. I am not brave enough to try my hand at free motion quilting yet- especially on a quilt this size, but I am pleased with the way it turned out...

Last year, when I did a little makeover on my bedroom, I bought a duvet cover for my bed. I loved it, however, after only a handful of months, the cover started to rip/tear at the button closure. I couldn't believe it! It was unrepairable. So I decided when I started my Scrappy Trip Along quilt that it would replace our duvet. I was able to salvage the backside of the cover and use it as a quilt back (I did have to add some scraps to make it large enough but I had a pretty large piece to start with). So in the end, I didn't feel as horrible about the duvet not holding up in the long run.

I think the quilt looks great with my pillows. It definitely adds to the eclectic feel of my room. My husband even likes it! Win Win!

I loved following along with all of the other talented quilters and seeing the progress on Instagram! So fun!! Can't wait to get working on my Marcelle Medallion quilt now! Yay for Instagram quilt alongs!!!

Leopard print, Y-seams, and voile.... oh my!

Last week I finally finished my Field Study scrappy trip along (king sized) quilt top. I love how vibrant and bold the colors are! And the leopard print... oh my... how I love it! I tried the quilt top on my bed today- just to see how it looked. It's perfect! The colors match and it totally adds to the eclectic look in my bedroom... Now I need to quilt the beast! 

The problem is... I keep getting myself sidetracked! Since finishing the quilt top, I have started 2 other quilts. I just can't help myself... 

Sew Mama Sew had another fabulous $6 sale on AMH Good Folks Voile and I had birthday money burning a hole in my pocket so I just HAD to order some! (As if I needed any more added to my little folks stash- but one can never have too much- right?) I managed to snag enough to back a quilt and make a shirt or two. 

I started collecting my Little Folks Voile last year and have been perusing the Little Folks Flickr Group for inspiration ever since.  After hearing how slippery it is to sew with, I settled on starting with a basic patchwork squares quilt to get a feel for  working with it. Once I get the hang of working with voile, I have plans to make a Little Folks Swoon quilt that may look something a little like this beauty...

(These scraps are so beautiful I can't bring myself to throw them in the trash! ha ha)

After the Scrappy Trip Along and the X-Plus Along on Instagram came the Medallion Along. 

I couldn't help but join in once I saw this beautiful quilt! So far I have my center medallion done... Which was quite the feat given that I mixed up my templates and started sewing it together with the pieces mixed up... and then there was the Y-seams! ha ha Don't let it scare you though- if you are a responsible "template maker" and are patient, it's really not that hard! It was my first time with y-seams and they were not as hard as I thought they would be... my points are not perfect, but we are rolling with it! :)

Stay tuned for my progress and definitely check Instagram for inspiration! #marcellemedallion #medallionalong

For anyone that is wanting to make the Marcelle Medallion quilt, you can find it in the Liberty Love book by the talented Alexia Abegg or you can also find the pattern in the new Love Quilting & Patchwork magazine that just hit Barnes & Noble here in the US.

I picked up a couple copies this afternoon. It was a little surreal when I opened a magazine in B&N and saw my face starring back at me! I showed a little self control and only bought 2 copies... and I showed even more self control and refrained from showing the lady that was standing next to me! ha ha

I heard it should be available in Joann stores as well but didn't have any luck finding it in my local store... probably in the next week or so.

Hope you are all having a wonderful week!

xoxo, Ashley

A Year Full of Firsts

Do you ever have years that seem to be good years and years that seem to be not so good?? I do. So far this year seems to be shaping up to be a pretty good year so far... I feel like it as been packed full of a bunch of "firsts" for me... I thought I would share some of the fun firsts with y'all today...

Without fail, each and every year, I make a new years resolution to write in my journal everyday.... and wouldn't you know it- I have never succeeded! Until this year (so far). I got the idea from the darling Camille Roskelley to get this lovely one line a day... 5 year memory book- she is almost done with 5 years of memories! Amazing!

(another first for me this year (some of my fellow fabric junkies may have picked up on it in the picture): I splurged and bought some of my favorite Liberty Lifestyle Bloomsbury Garden fabric... Oh. My. YUMMY!! I found mine here. I bought a fat quarters of a handful of my favorite prints and I am not sure what I am going to do with it yet, but for now I am content drooling over them on my sewing table... ;)

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While I was home visiting over Christmas and New Years, I had the chance to meet one of my favorite bloggers in the world: Amy from Diary of a Quilter... To say I have a blog crush would be an understatement... more like official blog stalker! ha ha 

I have learned all of my quilting basics from this lovely lady... She is soo soo talented! And as if that wasn't enough- she is one of the nicest people I have ever met. We had such a fun time browsing a darling fabric shop called Material Girls Quilt Shop that I was visiting for the first time (I told you this post was all about "firsts") and chatting over lunch at one of my all time favorite places to eat: Cafe Rio (definitely not a "first"). It was so much fun! Thanks for taking the time to meet up with me Amy!! xoxo

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On Valentine's Day this year... I had a fun thing happen that I would have never dreamed of... I was featured in a magazine. A very lovely, inspiring, and quilty magazine based in the UK called Love Quilting and Patchwork. For those of you that are a big fan of the CrossStitcher magazine, this is made by the same company.

I have no idea why they picked little old me to be included in such a lovely magazine, but I feel lucky to be along side the talent featured within. I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet since it hasn't made its way to the US yet, but I am told that it should be on sale here shortly (around the end of March) so keep your eyes out for meand be sure to let me know if you happen to spot it here because you know I am going to be buying one (or ten) copies when it hits the stores! ;) For anyone that is itching to get a copy sooner than the end of March, it is available on iTunes. If you download the free CrossStitcher app in your newsstand, you can buy the Love Quilting and Patchwork magazine within that app. 

Until then, I thought I would give you a sneak peek of my page in the magazine... They featured my Sewing Storage.

Of course I had to give a shout out in my article (orange box that says "blog hop") to the lovely Maggie of Smashed Peas and Carrots who inspired my mini fabric bolts. Thanks again for such an awesome trick Maggie!

I have big plans for that beautiful quilt featured on the front of the magazine by Alexia Abegg ! Maybe I will use up some of my Bloomsbury Garden stash to make it! The pattern is included in the magazine. I can't wait to get started on it! It has sparked an impromptu quilt along on Instagram- look up the hashtags #medallionalong and #marcellemedallion for some yummy pictures on Insta. Anyone else in on the Medallion Along train? 

I am quite taken with these impromptu quilt alongs on Instagram... At the beginning of the year I jumped on board with the Scrappy Trip Along and seriously considered the xplus along too! This is the first quilt along that I have personally followed along with and it is so addicting! I have had so much fun watching all of the pictures pop up all over Instagram... It is so inspiring and fun to see the different fabric combinations people are coming up with! I went with mostly Field Study fabric by Anna Maria Horner, but threw in a couple randoms too.

I am all done with all 72 of my blocks... That's right ladies and gents... I went for the long haul and made an over sized queen for my bed. I am piecing all of the blocks this week and then I will be onto quilting it... I will be sure to post pictures when I am all done!

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A couple weeks ago, I decided to try making an Oliver + S pattern for the first time. I decided to make a little Ice Cream Dress for a friend who had just had a baby. I used some darling fabric from Sarah Jane for the first time too. It is from her Children at Play line and I am in love! 

I couldn't stop with just one project in Sarah Jane fabric so I started a quilt for my oldest out of some Out to Sea fabric inspired by a quilt and tutorial by Rita from Red Pepper Quilts... here is a sneak peek from my Instagram.... I am slightly obsessed with these mermaids, girly pirates, whales, and ships- you know I have a flair for anything nautical! I have the quilt top finished and am working on the quilting today... Stay tuned!

I hope you are all having a great week!! xoxo, Ashley


P.S. For anyone that loves to sew- I am a judge of the awesome SEWVIVIOR sewing competition over at Family Ever After! The auditions started yesterday so head over and audition to be in the competition and win some awesome prizes! I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!!

Scrappy Spools Quilt

One of my favorite things in the world, is giving handmade gifts. I have always loved it, but even more so since I started sewing. Last year, I made quilts for almost all of my siblings (still working on one more). It was so much fun practicing my quilting skills and learning new things along the way. 

Just after Halloween, I got the opportunity to head to Nashville to pick up my sister who had been serving a mission for our church for the past 18 months. It was the perfect time to take her the quilt I had been working on for her. 

I used the Spools quilt pattern by the very talented Camille Roskelley. I loved this pattern so much! It was a lot of fun to piece... I got a little crazy with it and added a scrappy border just for fun.

I used a Moda Sophie layer cake for the "thread" on the spools and the scrappy border and then used some solid and gingham printed linen for the "wooden spools". 

I love the way it turned out... but more importantly, my sister loved her quilt too! Job accomplished! ;)

Field Study Fever

I absolutely fell in love with Anna Maria Horner's newest fabric line Field Study the moment I saw it! I love all of the rich, vibrate colors and fun prints. I was so excited to get my hands on it and start working! 

Over the weekend, I set out on a quest to make the perfect makeup bag for my little sis to take on her mission for our church. These prints were the perfect thing to use because everything about this fabric totally reminds me of her fun style.

I knew I wanted to do a quilt-as-you-go method like I used on my Quilted Weekender Bag. So I started by creating a rough pattern for the bag and cut out the panels in duck cloth and batting. Then starting adding strips of fabric and quilting with straight lines until the duck cloth panels were completely covered. 

For the inside of the bag, I used laminated cotton so that it could be wiped out in case of makeup spills. In the "lid" of the bag, I added some places to store brushes. Once my panel for the makeup brushed was done, I sewed my zipper into the correct panels and then assembled the bag. 

And of course I had to had a little "Made with Love" tag to finish it off. I got my tags from Lilla Lotta on Etsy. They are printed on cotton twill tape and I love the personal touch they add to my projects! My sister absolutely loved it! Job accomplished! :)  

 After I was done with the bag, I started a new quilt... Over the Christmas break I noticed a crazy spur of the moment quilt along pop up on Instagram and I couldn't help but join in on the Scrappy Trip Along! There is a great tutorial for the blocks here. There is a big group pool on Flickr and if you look up #scrappytripalong on instagram you will find a tons of yummy scrappy pictures there too. 

So far I only have 6 blocks done, but they are so quick and easy to put together! Probably the quickest quilt I have made so far.. I have big plans for making lots more this weekend so I will keep you posted on my progress. This is my first quilt along to follow along with and I am having lots of fun watching what everyone else makes. I just need to decide how big I want to make mine! Lap sized or queen sized for my bed... We will see how long I last! :)

I love everyones totally scrappy versions, but for some reason I can't bring myself to go totally random scrappy. I have to have some thread in each block that ties to the next so I decided to use the spotted in a crowd elizabeth blue on each diagonal so I can connect the blocks in some design at the end. I may have to get y'alls opinions for layouts when I get a bit further so stay tuned! :)

Have a great weekend!

Happy 2013!!

1- Little Miss Priss Skirt, 2- 14 Days of Valentines, 3- Tied with a Bow Carseat Canopy, 4- Mini Messenger Bag, 5- Salt Air Lattice Quilt, 6- Vintage Lace Pillowcase, 7- Zig Zag Quilt Along, 8- Vintage Modern Baby Quilt, 9- Kitschy Kids Apron, 10- Sweet Life Quilt, 11- Circus Quilt, 12- Bedroom Makeover, 13- Dolly Quilt, 14- Sewing Storage, 15- Quilted Weekender Bag, 16- Ahoy Matey Quilt, 17- Kindle Case, 18- Little House Zipper Pouch, 19- Isosceles Triangle Quilt Along

Happy New Year everyone! I know that I am a week or so late, but I thought I would do the famous "last year round up" anyways! 

Last year was a really crazy year for my family. I lost my brother at the end of February and the rest of the year was spent in a whirlwind of grieving and just trying to take things one day at a time. It is so cray how one person missing in your life can change everything.

One thing that did help me stay grounded was this blog. Having a creative outlet is so important to me. Sewing was so soothing and healing when times got rough or emotions were high. And having you readers help to brighten my day with a sweet comment, a "like" on Facebook, or a pin on Pinterest meant the world to me! So thank you to everyone that has helped me through this last year- friends, family, readers, bloggers, etc. I love you all and am so grateful to "know you"!

Here is to an awesome year!

Isosceles Triangle Quilt Along- Making the Quilt

Hey everyone! Are y'all ready to get quilt making? Hope so! I decided to go ahead and combine all of the directions into one post so that everyone can move at their own pace and take things as fast or slow as they would like.

How was the fabric shopping? Did you get all of the supplies needed to make the quilt?

Step 1: Cutting your fabric. You will need to cut your fabric into strips that are 6" x WOF (width of fabric) so if you are using fat quarters you will have 3 strips that are 6"x22", if you are using half yards you will have 3 strips that are 6"x44", etc. Then you can start cutting the triangles.

To cut your triangles, you will use your template (I used the Quilt Sense Kaleidoscope Triangle Ruler). Line the ruler up on the 11" block mark and start cutting triangles by flipping the ruler up and then flipping it down across the fabric and cutting back and forth until you have all of your triangles cut- both your neutral and patterned triangles.

If you are making your quilt identical to mine, you will need 156 neutral fabric triangles and 156 patterned fabric triangles.

Once your triangles are all cut out, you can lay them out in the pattern that you would like. Once you have your quilt top all laid out how you would like, gather up the fabric and keep separated into piles for each row. I like to place labeled post-it notes in between my piles of each row to keep them separated. Now you are ready to start piecing.

Step 2: Piecing the quilt top. Ok... to start- I just wanted to mention again that I recommend using a scant 1/4 inch seam to make sure that seams will lines up correctly. I started my quilt using my 1/4 inch presser foot and realized once I started sewing my rows together that my seam allowance was slightly over 1/4 inch and it really threw things off... So don't do what I did!! :) 

For piecing, I used a couple of extra triangles and kinda played around with sewing them together to get the hang of sewing with isosceles triangles. It's not tricky- just different than what I am used to. So if you are nervous to do it- try it out with some extras and get a feel for it before you start your quilt top. 

Lay your triangles right sides together and offset them by 1/4 inch (just like when sewing bias binding together) and then sew together with scant 1/4 inch seam.

When you open them up, they should look like this.

Next add another triangle. Stagger by 1/4 (you can tell when it is lined up perfectly because the top points of the triangles will match up.) and then sew with scant 1/4 inch seam. Open up, add each triangle once at a time until you have a row complete. Then move onto the next row. 

-One thing to think about as you are piecing is that you will need to nest seams to make sure that things line up and go together well. So as you are sewing row one, have the seam allowance point towards the left each time you add another triangle. Then with row two, have the seam allowance pointed towards the right as you add each triangle and so forth with each row so that when it comes time to press the seams, they will already have a tendency to go in the direction that you are wanting them to.

Once all of your rows are pieced, press each row and the seam allowances in the direction that they need to go. This is where the spray starch comes in! The starch helps to keep those seams allowances behaving while you do your pinning and sewing. 

Now you are ready to start sewing your rows together. Pin a row #1 right sides together with row #2. Make sure that when you are pinning that your triangles are going in the correct direction. With the seam allowances going in opposite directions the seams should nest together nicely and you will be able to line up the triangles nice and neat. Once your row is pinned, sew together with the same seam allowance. Add row by row until you have your entire quilt top completed. Now use the spray starch and press the newly sewn seams... I did not press them open, I pressed them all in one direction.

The edge of your quilt should be a nice and zig-zagged now.

Measure your top and find out how much yardage you will need for your backing and how much backing you will need as well. 

Step #3: Piecing your quilt back. For mine I ended up using 4 yards of fabric even though I could have gotten away with 3 1/2. The reason being that I wanted the pattern on my backing to run up and down as opposed to side to side.

So even though I had a lot of extra that I had to cut off on the sides, I was ok with that so that my fabric pattern went up and down instead of side to side.

Once your quilt backing is ready to roll, press well and get things ready to make your quilt sandwich. I am not going to go into directions for creating a quilt sandwich, but if you need a little more direction of what to do with that, here is a great post with directions...

Once you have your quilt sandwich then you are ready to start quilting. Like I mentioned in my first post, I used my walking foot and straight line quilted along each seam.

Once you are done quilting, you can either square off your quilt top and cut the zig-zagged edges off or leave them be like I did for mine. 

Now you are ready for binding. I did not use bias binding for my quilt, but if you are doing the zig zag edge like I did I would recommend doing bias binding for yours so it bends and moves around the points nicely. Here is a great tutorial on how to make and use bias binding.

Once I had my binding made and pressed, I pinned and sewed it to my quilt front and then hand stitched it to the back of my quilt. I just worked the binding in place on the back and treated each point as a corner and finished off the points just like I usually do on the corners of my quilts. 

It took a lot more time that regular straight edge binding, but I feel like the end result was very worth the extra time. I love how it turned out!

 Well there you have it! Your very own isosceles triangle quilt!

Thanks for quilting along! Be sure to email me a picture and link of your finished quilt when you are all done! Maybe if we get enough I can do a round up post of all your quilts! Also- let me know if you have any questions- just leave a comment and be sure to leave your email so I can get back to you.

Last but not least, I just wanted to give a big shout out to my sponsor for the quilt along- Riley Blake Designs.

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