Friday Fabric and Friends

Today I'd like to introduce you to a fellow Northern Ontario Canadian.She will have a tutorial at The Quilted Fish next Friday.

You should check out Jackie's blog for lots of 3D embellishment inspiration.
It's her 1 year blog anniversary at the end of the month and she is spoiling readers and followers with giveaways.

Go meet Jackie!

Here is some fabric I received for my birthday - some fat quarters of the Northcott Stonehenge collection. They are fun to look at up close with all the different motifs. My mom really likes the blue;)

Here are 4 more Lady of the Lake blocks that I received from a friend I met through Pat Sloan's Quilt Mashup Forum. I will need to unstitch a few pieces to get all of the outside triangles going in the right direction, but I don't mind! The real work has been done:)






Can you see the difference? Hint - look where the blocks meet. I know I really changed up the way the blocks are made to get that secondary pattern:) When the quilt is made there will be alternating dark and light squares on point where the blocks join.
At least that's the PLAN! LOL:)



I received on more set of 4 from another friend. I'm going to combine them with the other ones I already received and make a special friendship row in my quilt!


I'm so grateful for quilting friends!

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Happiness Key and New Pattern Question

I am catching up on Pat Sloan's latest Quilt Along. She has teamed up with Emilie Richards again for a 6 month mystery project based on Emilie's books, "Happiness Key" and "Fortunate Harbor".

Above is the layout of the background for the wallhanging.

This is a photo of the gorgeous fabrics that Pat selected for the kit! A birthday present for me. It's the FIRST KIT I've ever bought for a quilt! Can you believe it?
Are you a 'kit addict' or do you like to use up your stash or shop for your own colours?
This time around I wanted IN on the lovely prints that I don't normally stock up on.




There will be a fair bit of applique and embroidery in this project. Here is my template for the water at the bottom of the quilt. I am going to trace it onto the freezer paper you see beneath it, then lightly iron the freezer paper to my blue water fabric. This way I don't have to use up a lot of my fusible web.

I like this method on big applique pieces - and on little ones too! You don't have to reverse your templates as you iron the freezer paper {shiny side down} on to the RIGHT side of your fabric. If you turn under a seam allowance while you applique, you can simply leave the freezer paper on your fabric. Or you can remove the paper and machine applique {or hand stitch} your raw edge.




Each month Pat is also having a challenge project to go along with the Quilt Along theme. This month is a needle keeper. I still have to blanket stitch around the shapes and add the words, but at least I've started!
I missed the boat on February's project - a pie tote. You can see the projects in Pat's special flickr pool for these projects.

In the meantime, I am almost, ALMOST done my pattern for

I'm still fiddling with pictures.

Here's a question for you - actually a little survey!

Leave me a comment here letting me know if you would find it useful for a quilt pattern to include SPECIFIC finishing information for the pattern.

I'm wondering if I should include information on

how to make and add the hanging sleeve to a wallhanging quilt

What are your thoughts? Necessary or not?

Thanks for your feedback.
With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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Catching up on Cake Talk

Block 10 of the Layer Cake Quilt Along will be LIVE on the Moose on the Porch Quilts today!

Here's how my Block 9s turned out. . .



This was my initial layout plan for Block 9 of the Layer Cake Quilt Along.
As you can see, there was not enough contrast between the coral prints to make the layout work.
You can see how I arrived at my fabric selections for this block in my previous cake post here.



I switched the coral bricks out for green ones. This layout still doesn't work - the illusion of the corners folding in doesn't work because the yellow is too strong.




I decided to go with layout number 4 instead! I'm happy with it and like the shoo-fly that reveals itself in the coral print, and the turquoise square.





Layout 1 didn't work out for my Christmas fat quarter block either. Instead I ended up with layout option 2. The green ovals is my background print. It only works because it is a smaller scale than the black print with the large ornaments. If I had had more green solid left I might have been able to achieve layout 1.



Can you tell I really liked layout 1?! You can see some great examples of it at the Layer Cake Quilt Along flickr pool.



With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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Liberated Churn Dash Bees

This was my first Liberated Churn Dash.

It started as a way to use up some scraps.

Then my husband asked me to use the block to make him a quilt. I designed it with 2 different sizes of churn dashes and had my Bee partners in SEW MODERN BEE help me out!

You can find my tutorial here



Here are some photos of blocks being made by other Bees:

Here is Jenn Winn's block from

Bee Scrappy

I love the play with the proportions on this block by missplanner for the

Modern Stash Quilting Bee

Are you making Liberated Churn Dashes?

You can share a photo at SEW JOY CREATIONS on Flickr, or send one to me through my email address on my profile page.


With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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