Category — Blog Hop

I first fell in love with Dresdens when I saw the beautiful quilt on the cover of Material Obsession. (Remember, I’ve only been quilting a few years.) A year ago I bought an EZ Dresden ruler and made my first Dresden mini quilt – it was surprisingly easy!

This month the Salt Lake City Modern Quilt Guild is celebrating Darlene Zimmerman’s twentieth anniversary of developing EZ Quilting Rulers – including that EZ Dresden ruler I had so much success using – with the EZ Dresden Challenge. Go check out their page to see the details and prizes – LOTS of prizes. Seriously GOOD stuff, like a sewing machine!

The first stage of the celebration is a blog hop that will hopefully start to get you thinking about different dresden designs and ideas. I decided to focus on dots, inspired by that cover quilt from Material Obsession. Each quadrant of my dresden mini quilt is a different dot though. Also, each quadrant is composed of different shades of a solid.

A dot from Tanya Whelan’s Delilah fabric line…

A dot from Sarah Jane Studio’s Children at Play fabric line…

A Kei honeycomb…

And a dot from Riley Blake’s October Afternoon Fly a Kite fabric line…

To help you get started, I’m going to give away TWO EZ Dresden Rulers to two of you. Just leave a comment and I will pick a winner Thursday, June 14th in the evening.

And don’t forget to continue following the blog hop and start thinking of ideas for your entry.

June 1 – The Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild
June 2 – Lee
June 3 – Kati
June 4 – Victoria and Tanya
June 5 – Val and Leigh
June 6 – Amy and Elisa
June 7 – Katie and Emily
June 8 – Melissa and Brooke
June 9 – Nicole and Amy
June 10 – Elizabeth and Colleen
June 11 – Me! and Deonn
June 12 – Angela and Barbie
June 13 – Amy
June 14 – Jessica
June 15 – Salt Lake MQG: Wrap-up

++ Update – closing comments to pick the winners of the rulers! ++

The winners are #50 and #143.

Diane W said “A Dresden ruler is next on my list of must-have rulers. Thanks for the giveaway.”

Lou Ann said “I would love to win. I made my first quilt just last month. All squares. Time to try another pattern and shape.”

Congratulations! I will email you both for your addresses. Thanks for commenting everyone!

Today is the day I finally get to spill the beans about a very exciting, year long adventure with Art Gallery Fabrics. A few months ago, Art Gallery asked me and 11 other bloggers to be part of a “Fat Quarter Gang”. (And if you are curious as to who the other bloggers involved are and also want to see THE MOST EMBARRASSING PICTURES of us on the internet, check out their blog post.) This was a no brainer for me. If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time you know I love working with their fabrics. Especially the Pure Elements solids which I used for my Summer Sampler Series quilt. They are quite possibly the silkiest feeling cotton fabrics out there.

Starting June 4th, there will be a *free* project tutorial by one of us in the Fat Quarter Gang on the Art Gallery blog every single week ~ bags, quilts, home decor, clothing…all sorts of good stuff! There will also be lots fabric giveaways associated with the projects.

Don’t mess with the Fat Quarter Gang

I hope you are as excited as I am about the next year and don’t forget to bookmark the Art Gallery Fabrics blog so you can join the gang and keep up with all the projects.

Update – Be sure to join the Flickr group to post your finished project photos!

Summer is here! Ok, not really, but today is Memorial Day in the United States, which is the day we set aside to remember those who died serving our country in the United States Armed Forces. It is also known as the unofficial start to summer around here. There are tons of cookouts and the pools open. Which was nice here yesterday when it hit 101 degrees at my house! It’s also when I start to get the itch to begin sewing for summer – you know, sun dresses and new bags and picnic quilts. And I hope you are motivated to sew for summer too, because Jennifer over at Ellison Lane Quilts has organized a Summer Sewing Contest that I hope you will take part it.

First for a bit of inspiration… I was hoping to have this quilt finished in time for today’s post, but things got crazy around here and it just didn’t happen. But I am working on a new, giant (for me) picnic/beach quilt for the family. My daughter wants pretty much everyone we’ve ever met to fit on it. So, it’s going to measure 80″ x 80″ and I think we are guaranteed to at least fit her and 10 of her closest friends on it at the park.

Each block uses a print from my stash and a print from Maude Asbury’s Crabtastic line.

I also threw in a couple prints from Sweetwater’s new Lucy’s Crab Shack line. Confession: I don’t eat crab. But I can’t resist the designs and soft colors of this fabric.

I created a 16-patch for each block using 4.5″ x 4.5″ squares, resulting in 16.5″ x 16.5″ unfinished blocks. I plan on making 25 in total. (So far 15 are finished.)

So here is how the contest will run:
1. Sew something fun for summer in one of these 4 categories:
You may enter one item in each category.
· Quilts
· Home Decor
· Clothing
· Bags & Accessories
2. Link up your entry at Ellison Lane Quilts:  June 10-17.
3. Finalists are chosen in each category: June 18
4. Voting Begins: June 18- June 23
5. Winners announced: June 26

The Prizes:
The winner of each category will receive a $100 gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop.

A randomly chosen winner in each category will win a Fat Quarter Bundle of fabric from Westminster Fibers / Free Spirit Fabric.

A wild card winner will be chosen by Jennifer’s husband and will receive a $25 gift certificate to The Intrepid Thread.

Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the blog hop to help you start thinking of ideas for your entry.

Last November I had the crazy idea that I would make a quilt for my husband. I thought I would line the back in fleece or something cozy and make the front some sort of “man design”. I had no idea where to even start. And every idea I came up with, my husband nixed. So…he got no quilt for Christmas. Designing a quilt for a man is hard.

That’s why when Emily Herrick of Crazy Old Ladies emailed me about her new book, Geared for Guys, I was pretty excited! (And it also features John Adams of Quilt Dad Quilts…man = true “man quilt” expert, right?) If Emily’s name sounds familiar to you, it’s probably from her super popular fabric lines, Going Coastal and Hall of Fame. Well she has a new collection debuting this weekend at Quilt Market called Shore Thing. Looks like another winner that pairs perfectly with Going Coastal. And would work great in a man-quilt!

Back to the book though. Geared for Guys has 8 quilt patterns, all designed with men in mind. I like that there are patterns for all different types of guy…the preppy guy (Ivy League quilt pattern):

The rugged guy (Helix quilt pattern):

The alternative guy (Odd Ball quilt pattern – this one would be perfect for my guy, and not just because of the pattern name! ):

The quilts use a lot of solids in neutral and blenders which I think makes for more manly quilts.

Now for the giveaway! (I told you earlier this week it was Christmas in May around here.) Just leave a comment and one of you will win a copy of the book. If you’ve made a man quilt, I’d love to hear about it. If you’ve tried and failed, I’d love to hear about that too! I’m sure there are some funny stories out there. I will pick a winner Tuesday evening. Good luck everyone!

++ Closing comments to pick a winner! ++

The winner is #191, Fran Daoust. Fran said “My daughter made a quilt for my husband. it does have flowers and leaves but he loves it because she made it. I am planning on making some manly quilts with wool.”

Congratulations Fran! I will email you for your address. Thanks for commenting everyone!