New pillows for the couch have been on my to-do list since the beginning of Winter. I love my Autumn pillows, but I was ready to put them away until next year. When I saw Sarah Watt‘s Timber & Leaf collection for Blend Fabrics, I knew the natural designs and soft colors were perfect for my house. I mixed in Free Spirit Designer Solids in Pearl and Dogwood.

These two are my favorites!

I was inspired by Amy’s Indie Vibrations quilt. I really liked how her string blocks were paper pieced so they would line up, but still be different widths of fabric strips. I made two paper piecing templates, each are 6-1/2″ x 9-1/2″ unfinished. I used 3 of each template to form the 18″ square pillow.

You can buy the pattern for Amy’s Indie Vibrations quilt in her pattern shop.

I quilted the pillow with straight lines, about 1/2″ apart. The back is a simple envelope enclosure.

You can find Timber & Leaf at Moona Fabrics. Now to make another one for the other side of the couch!

Thank you so much for all your wonderful words about my Cutting Edge quilt! I was really surprised to see so many comments here and on Flickr, you guys really made my day.

I didn’t do any sewing over the weekend. We drove to Cincinnati for a trip to see our family and then did a bit of Father’s Day relaxing once we got home. I feel like I could sleep another 10 hours this morning, but I guess 3 and 5 year olds don’t feel that way and were up early – on with the coffee!

I was happy to come home to some new fabric, Beauty is You by artist Cori Dantini. I snapped some pictures without ironing it, but I’m sure you can see how beautiful this fabric is.

The fabric line has two different fabric panels – one with three large pictures and one with several smaller pictures. I love these and plan to make them the centers of my blocks.

I think this fabric is just starting to pop up for sale. I bought mine in a bit of an impulse when I saw it in the Hawthorne Threads newsletter.

You can also find it at Lark Cottons and on Etsy. You can see more close up photos of the fabric in my Flickr photo stream.

Off to do a bit of morning sewing before swim lessons. Happy Monday everyone!

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.