quilty fun birthday party!

Happy First Birthday, Quilty Fun! Welcome to my stop on the birthday blog hop! 

Quilty Fun by Lori Holt has quickly become my go-to book for fun, scrappy patchwork designs. Seriously, I would like to make everything in this book! The book contains clear, easy-to-understand diagrams for creating the row quilt shown on the cover, plus ten additional projects ranging from pillows to runners to quilts, all using rotary cutting with no templates. 

To help celebrate the first birthday, Lori Holt has created a special, fun birthday cake block!

Mmmm chocolate layer cake. My favorite! I was so excited to print out the free pdf of this pattern's cutting instructions, and I immediately started sewing my birthday cake. But I liked it so much that I needed another piece of cake. How about a red velvet cake?

And because I have so many favorite cake flavors I just kept going! Anybody want a piece of strawberry cream cake?

Before I knew it, this happened. Twelve cakes with rainbow sprinkles sashing!

Who wouldn't love a fancy cake for Valentine's Day?

Or maybe a pretty birthday cake with fanciful buttercream rosettes?

Could I tempt you with a slice of chocolate mud cake?

Seriously, you are going to LOVE making these cakes. One would be cute as a pillow. Three would make a great birthday table runner. Or go crazy like I did and make twelve (or more)! Download the FREE copy of the Quilty Fun birthday cake pdf pattern here. You can also view all twelve of my birthday cake blocks on my Flickr page.

But don't leave yet because the birthday party is just getting started! Here are some of the amazingly fantabulous patterns in Lori's book. There's the full row along quilt that I made last year.

I loved making the Snowball Fight table runner. I really need to have this quilted before Christmas!

And the Quilty Fun book also has directions for Lori's signature bee pattern. Here I've reduced the size of the bee and made a quartet of them!

I do hope that you'll help me in celebrating Quilty Fun's first birthday. Pour yourself a nice hot (or cold!) drink, download the birthday cake pattern and start stitching!

Thanks for stopping by today. Be sure to visit the Fat Quarter Shop for a copy of the Quilty Fun book. Their blog will also have links to all the other bloggers participating in the hop. And drop by to see what Lori is working on here. I'll see you soon!

quilty fun finale!

The Quilty Fun sampler is finished!

Wow, it's hard to believe that this twenty week project is done! And I can honestly say that I have enjoyed every step of the way. With one exception. Borders. I hate piecing borders! "Borderline, borderline, feels like I'm going to lose my mind." But I think that black dotty postage stamp border is pretty cute!

This might be the first time that I've ever planned my whole color scheme around a border. I always knew that I wanted to have a Pam Kitty Morning black print in the border. Of course, I settled on the one black print that wasn't already in my stash! I found exactly one seller on Ebay who still had a few yards. I made sure to incorporate some black into each week's blocks so that it would all tie together at the end.

I modified the pattern to create four buzzy bees at the center instead of one larger bee. Now I am four times as likely to get stung...

The clever block patterns appear in the Quilty Fun book by Lori Holt. Lori sure does have some great ideas! Print fabric is an assortment of all three fabric lines by the wonderful Pam Kitty Morning - Pam Kitty Picnic, Pam Kitty Love and Pam Kitty Morning. This was also my first quilt with a white-on-white print, which is Sweet Things by Lakehouse. 

I rushed to get my sampler completed this week, because this is the final week that prizes will be awarded by the Fat Quarter Shop. This week's two prize winners will each receive a fantabulous LARGE box of Aurifil's Bee in my Bonnet Happy Colors thread. And I'm not gonna lie. I WANT that box of thread! That sure was motivation to complete this quickly.

There's a new quilt along starting next week! Yay! That's right, Lori Holt has a new Great Granny Squared quilt along! This might be the perfect excuse for me to go shopping for some new fabric after I find out more details on her blog next Monday.

Check out everybody else's finished Quilty Fun samplers at the Flickr group. I'm also linking up today with Crazy Mom Quilts "finish it up Friday."

Thanks for stopping by!

putting it together

The big Quilty Fun assembly continues! Bit by bit, putting it together. Those words come to my mind every time I'm on the verge of completing a quilt top. They're actually lyrics from Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award winning musical "Sunday in the Park with George," which is a fictionalized account of Georges Seurat's painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters. I didn't see the original production in the 80's, but I was lucky to see the amazing revival on Broadway in 2008.

And bit by bit, I enjoy putting all the parts together. It's fun to see all of the blocks from the past 19 weeks finally turning into a finished work.

Here are this week's buzzy bees in their floral frame.

Happy houses and SPRING flowers. I am SO ready for spring! It's been in the mid to high 20's here in NYC this week, and super windy. And this weekend we'll have rain - does that count as April showers?

Here are two of the first blocks - apples from week 1 (in October!) and baskets from week 4. That was before I started my blog!

Honeycombs and cocoa cups! The colors of the cups were inspired by two of my favorite mugs - a red and green Santa mug that was a gift from my father a loooong time ago, and a piece from my collection of Spode Blue Geranium.

I've had a few questions here and on Instagram about the pattern. It's actually completely rotary cut! No paper piecing!

My scalloped border fabrics from Pam Kitty Morning are picked out and ready to sew as soon as Lori Holt publishes the pattern next week. And I might have something tricky planned for the bonnet label, too!

There are several other amazing versions of this quilt happening over at the Flickr group. I love to see how different this top can look in other fabrics. 

(P.S. Happy 84th birthday to Stephen Sondheim. Thanks for the music!)

buzzing around with quilty fun

The bumble bees have arrived! It's week 19 of the Quilty Fun sew along.

I miniaturized the pattern and made a quartet of bees instead of a solo bee. Each bee is half the size of the original block (roughly 6" instead of 12"). My calculations were all done on bright bee-yellow Post-It notes, and then discarded after cutting. The blocks went together really easily, but I may have complained a little when I had to sew the 3/4" easy-corner-triangles onto the sides of the heads. 

I'm so happy with my collection of little bees flying around in a circle. Just wait until they see that they're about to be surrounded by a bunch of colorful blocks! Lori Holt posted instructions on how to assemble the quilt top yesterday, and so, I'll have the top completely joined together within the next few days! All that will be left is to piece the borders and label. Yay! 

flowers with quilty fun

I picked some flowers this week with the the Bee In My Bonnet Quilty Fun sew along!

It's week 18 already! I cheated and started to work on these blocks a few days early. I definitely knew that I wanted pink and blue flowers. It took a few days of fabric auditions before I settled on these two combinations. These fabrics are lucky that they just need to sit on my cutting mat and look pretty for their audition. Can you imagine if they had to sing and dance?!

We have just two steps left. First, next week is a bumblebee that will be framed by four patches, flying geese and quarter square triangles. And then the following week is finishing and a label. I have already started to work on the bumblebee.

Want a sneak peek? I was so exited to start this block. All along I've known that I wanted to customize my bumblebee. Instead of one 12" bee block, I would like to have a collection of 6" bees! Here's why. Every summer I love to visit the Cranford Rose Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I follow the garden on Twitter, and when the roses are in bloom I make a BEEline over to the garden (hee hee). The roses are always beautiful, and they're always BUZZing with activity. The colors and scents are very inspirational. And that's how my idea was born. Here's the start of the bee bodies with their bright Pam Kitty Morning fabric that you can find here or here. 

The bees still need wings and heads. I've been cutting fabric as needed for for each step instead cutting it all at once. This extra-large calculator helps to ensure that each piece is downsized correctly. See those rectangles? They may become wings.

In one of those strange moments of synchronicity, last night I watched a B movie from 1940 called "Dr Cyclops." I'm a big fan of vintage horror and sci-fi movies. In this movie, Dr Cyclops uses his ray gun to miniaturize a horse, and then he turns it on a group of scientists and miniaturizes them, too. The tiny people are terrorized by the house cat. It's completely dumb fun. But I wonder if I am similar to Dr. Cyclops as I miniaturize my bees!

Thanks for stopping by to see my flower garden. Now buzz on over to the Quilty Fun Flickr group to check out what everybody else is cultivating this week. And also visit Patchwork Times to see what other quilters have on their design walls. And finally, I'm linking to Hexie Weekend (thanks, Angie!) with my not-quite-hexagons.

mittens with quilty fun

I made mittens this week! Mismatched mittens. 

We're nearing the end of the Quilty Fun sew along. Just a few more weeks to go! I carefully planned my colors for these mittens. There's no pink or grey here because the blocks that go above this strip have plenty of pink and grey.

These were very easy to make, but I probably needed to pay closer attention to the directions. Because otherwise, thumbs can end up in the wrong place. I wonder how I know that! And I can't operate a seam ripper while wearing mittens.

I'm no stranger to these quilty mittens. I've made them twice before. During the holiday break I made a mitten and snowball runner with a bonus pattern from Lori Holt's book. That was in the dark ages before I started blogging. This one is mostly Doodlebug Designs fabric. I like saying that name. Doodlebug. Doodlebug. Doodlebug!

But my first mitten love is always gonna be the original Bee In My Bonnet Row Along from last year. I had so much fun planning out my fussy cutting here. And I feel happy every time I see this quilt.  

In real life I almost never wear gloves or mittens for short runs outside. My fingers get claustrophobic. Yes, my hands get cold. That's what pockets are for! I'll wear them if I'm going to be outside for a long time. And they're certainly handy (haha) for holding onto grimy poles on the subway trains. I even have a pair of vintage designer gloves, and they're in perfect condition. They're brown suede with a cashmere lining. I never wear them because I don't want to mess them up. Crazy, right? I'll use these quilty mittens WAY more than the real thing!

sewing spools with quilty fun

And now... Quilty Fun week 16 sewing spools! 

These blocks were perfect for me to make. See, I have a little obsession with thread. Sure, I like having it match my projects. But I also just like seeing all those little spools all lined up. Like these machine embroidery threads from Sulky.

I love Mettler 50 weight for everyday piecing and bindings, usually in white, ivory and grey. But I can never quite remember how many spools of white are my stash! It seems like I always have either 5 spools or else I'm on my last few yards. I also collect the smaller spools of Mettler in brights and pastels for sewing down bindings.

But my little thread addiction doesn't just stop at spools. I have color swatch cards, too, like these Kimono silk embroidery thread samples. I buy almost all of my fancy threads online, and I want to be sure of what I'm getting before clicking that "buy now" button. These came from Shabby Fabrics. 

So maybe it's ironic that I used just plain old white to piece these sewing spool blocks. At least my pieced spools are nice happy colors!

See the pink spool with the alphabet? Well, I wanted to be sure to have a G in there for Greg and Grey. I really enjoy fussy cutting for planned blocks, but this time all I cared about was the G. I was surprised to look at this photo and see that I also have my last initial J. And then I found C and M (just barely...) for my "assistants" - my cats Chloe and Mia!

And finally, here is the whole spooly lineup!

the assembly continues!

The right side of the Quilty Fun sew along is now assembled! I put this together and then settled in for a night of Academy Awards viewing with two pieces of chocolate cake with sprinkles at my side, inspired by Pam Kitty Morning's recent post about cake. And then I watched Ellen DeGeneres serve pizza to the stars! What a fun night. Anyway, back to the quilty stuff...

It's exciting to see this finally starting to come together after months of sewing. And oops, it looks like I forgot to trim my threads!

We're almost done! We just have sewing spools, mittens, flowers and the bumble bee... and then it's border time!

Check out what the rest of the Quilty Fun group is up to at the Flickr group. I'll be back in just a few days with the spools! I'm also linking up with the Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday, so check out what other quilters are working on.

butterflies with quilty fun

You know that moment in restaurants when the waiter asks "would you like that butterflied?" Yes, please!

Here we are in week fifteen of Lori Holt's Quilty Fun sew along! And it's so much quicker to sew up a garden full of Pam Kitty Morning butterflies than waiting for spring to arrive. It will arrive this year, right?

These were so easy and fun to create. Just a little strip pieced body, a few stitch-and-flip easy-corner-triangles, and DONE! 

I always like to take a quick pic with my iPhone during the assembly process. This helps to keep me coordinated when I sew the blocks together.

These little bodies needed some careful attention with the iron... look at how narrow those seams are on the back!

Check out other quilty butterflies at the Quilty Fun Flickr page here, and see what other quilters have on their design walls this week at Patchwork Times. 

the assembly begins!

It's time! The Quilty Fun row along assembly is in progress!

And here's the full left side!

I'll still need to make butterflies, sewing spools, mittens, flowers and a bumble bee in the coming weeks. But I have a secret change in mind here to make my quilt top a bit different from the others. (Hopefully I can actually execute my plan!) Then there's a cute bonnet label for the back of the quilt. 

I've started to think about my borders. Ok, I may have been thinking about them since November when Lori Holt announced the sew along. Maybe.... Here's the border treatment on Lori's finished quilt.

Photo from Bee In My Bonnet by Lori Holt

Here are the fabric finalists. I really want to see some black here... it's a color that I don't usually work with, and I've pushed myself to include a little black each week. Ok, I gotta admit that Pam's black prints are so cute that I HAD to find a way to use them! The black border will help to pull it all together. I'm just not sure if I want a black inner scallop, or a black outer border. 

My top choice right now is a pink dotty scallop and a wide black outer border. But blue dots with black could be really interesting, too. If you have a preference I'd love to know!

building houses with quilty fun

It's week fourteen of the Quilty Fun sew along! And this week's assignment was to build neighborhood houses. Or as I like to call them, little pink houses for you and me.

John Cougar Mellencamp's classic "Pink Houses" song was stuck on repeat (in my head) while I built my houses. The lyrics are kinda bleak, but never mind... it's all about the pink house!

Pink and green is my most favoritest color combination ever! I often combine pink and green in my blocks. Even my blog got the pink and green treatment, plus grey, of course!

I built a little blue and plaid house, too!  There aren't any blue houses in my neighborhood (nope, none... I looked), but I wanted a nice contrast to the pink and green house. Wouldn't it be fun to live in a blue polka dotted house?

These blocks were sooo easy to sew. I didn't need to worry about the chimneys lining up with the angles of the roof like they do on so many other house blocks. 

Lori posted instructions on how to join the left side blocks together, and so that means that I'll be back in a few days with an update!

Be sure to check out what the other Quilty Fun quilters are up to on the Flickr page here. 

falling leaves with quilty fun

It's week 13 of the Quilty Fun sew along! And this week we made falling leaves. These are bright and happy, like budding spring leaves.  

It took me just a few minutes to prep the fabric for these leaves. I had a few precut 1 1/2" strips of Pam Kitty Morning fabric that were left over from another project. Perfect!

You'll see that I am a BIG pinner. It takes me a little bit more time but helps to ensure that my blocks finish nice and flat. I often use up that whole tin of pins on just one border strip.

Normally, I like to use colors similar to nature when making blocks like flowers, trees and hearts. I like pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers and blue diamonds.

Does that sound familiar? Yes, I quoted the Lucky Charms cereal commercial!  I just got over a cold, and Lucky Charms is my favorite comfort food that I eat ONLY when I'm sick. I ate the whole box... in two days. And I can't sing the theme song when I have a sore throat. But I'm better now, so obviously the cereal IS magically delicious!

Anyway, sometimes I let myself be creative with color, and I just had to make a blue leaf!

These little leaves were so fast to make! See what everybody else is working on at the Quilty Fun Flickr group here. We have 7 weeks left, so there's still time to join us!

the groundhog saw... tulips!

Still sewing along with Lori Holt's Quilty Fun Sew Along! 

Never mind that grouchy groundhog. This week's spring tulips have me absolutely convinced that Spring is almost here!

I should probably admit that I spent a full week considering which Pam Kitty Morning fabrics to use for the tulips. First I pulled little dots, then plaids. But I REALLY wanted to try the stripes. And I am so glad that I did. The stripey tulip reminds me of those fun parrot tulips that I love. And I'd plant my own if I had a yard!

I used a big pink dot to balance the wide stripes. 

I can totally imagine a whole quilt full of these tulips. Kinda like my great grandmother's flower beds. And there's even a pattern for a quilt packed with tulips in the Quilty Fun book!

Next week we'll make falling leaves. What, falling leaves in February?! Well, mine will be bright and happy. 

See you soon!

honeycombing with quilty fun

It's time to make honeycombs with this week's Quilty Fun Sew Along!

I look forward to Monday mornings to see what Lori and her team have in store for us. And this week was honeycombs! I like how Lori has renamed the classic snowball block. Because we need a break from snow right now, right? Time to dig through my stash of Pam Kitty Morning fabric.

How about some medium prints?

Yay! A chance to use my larger prints!

And I gotta have my dots and spots!

Then just 92 easy-corner-triangles later, and I have 23 honeycombs!

And here are this week's blocks all together! 

We're just over halfway through the Sew Along, but it isn't too late to join us! Have you seen some of the great blocks that other quilters are putting together? There are some amazing things at the Flickr group here.

Next week's blocks are tulips. I might just cheat a little bit and start to pick out my fabrics now...

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

four patching with quilty fun!

Yep, it's week 10 of the Quilty Fun sew along! It's also the debut of my blog! That's right, today is Day One of my quilt blog journey. You can learn ALL about me here.

So you all know about Lori Holt's amazing book, Quilty Fun, right?

To say that I love this book would be an understatement. I've already participated in Lori's Great Granny Quilt Along, the Bee In My Bonnet Row Along, and then the Quilty Barn Along.  So of course I was going to be a part of the Quilty Fun Sew Along! 

This week's project was to make three strips of postage stamps. Or, ok, Lori calls them four patches. Let's just agree that they are tiny and cute, ok? And luckily, Lori has an ingenious way of constructing these so that you don't need to fuss with tiny squares. How clever!

I'm again using fabric from Miss Pam Kitty Morning! I love her collections. Seriously, her fabric makes me happy, like sprinkles on a cupcake. And I'm a bit obsessed with cupcakes. And so, I've got a huge stash of all three of her collections. This time I'm pushing myself to include some black in each week's blocks.

These companion sheets from the Fat Quarter Shop are super helpful.

Ah, three rows of little postage stamps! Or, if you prefer, four patches!

Well, my first post wasn't so scary after all. Thanks so much for stopping by! And a special, big THANK YOU to my friends and family for their encouragement. Come back in a few days... I'll have more. Really!