Next month I’m lucky enough to be leading a sewing workshop at the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild. I grew up in Cincinnati and my family all still lives there, so this will be a really fun opportunity for me to hang out with all the talented modern quilters in my hometown.

The guild was really great and left the decision as to what we would be working on up to me. I love improvisational quilting so I thought that would be a fun technique for everyone to explore. This is our class sample ~ improvisational log cabins.

These blocks are a bit similar to the pillow I made Jennifer last October. You can see the work in progress below.

I broke down the log cabins by warm and cool colors, incorporating a bit of grey and just a small amount of prints.

The border is a black and white Alexander Henry crosshatch.

I quilted this mini quilt with randomly spaced organic lines. They are all around 1/4″ apart, but I didn’t mark or measure. I used my walking foot and slowly moved the fabric back and forth ever so slightly as I quilted.

This new quilt has a home above my new computer workstation in my sewing space! For more information about the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild, you can contact them through their blog or email them at cincinnatimodernquiltguild (at) gmail.com.

There are two types of quilts I just never get tired of making – squares in squares and quilts for children. Last week a friend asked me to make a quilt for her to give as a gift for a baby shower. She picked the fabric color theme and I got free reign on the quilt design.

I pulled a couple fabric stacks and she selected one with blue, brown and some Heather Ross goldfish fabrics. (Sadly, this is just about the last of my goldfish in bags. End of an era!)

Each block has either two or three fabrics. They measure 12″ x 12″ each. I decided to do more wavy quilting on this one…thought it was appropriate with the whole fish/water theme!

Someone asked me how I did this type of quilting on the Mermaid pillow last week. I used the Running Stitch on my machine (Bernina 440QE stitch #4, looks like a zigzag) and maxed out the width and set the length to around 4. It created these lovely wavy lines.

The final quilt measures 36″ x 36″. I think it’s the perfect size for a playmat or draping over the baby on a walk or in the car.

I pulled another set of fabric centered around Sarah Jane’s Children at Play line and I made another little boy quilt from that for my shop. It’s all quilted and waiting for binding – I hope to share that with you next week!

A couple weekends ago, on Mother’s Day, I spent part of the day playing with some of my Heather Ross fabric scraps. I made some scrappy log cabin blocks, just having fun coordinating colors and prints. This week I decided to turn those little squares into pillows.

I thought I would add some ric rac trim to the edges for added cuteness. I’ve never sewn ric rac to the edge of anything so I used this tutorial.

I quilted the front of the pillows to a piece of batting. Random lines…

Straight lines…

Diagonal lines…

Wavy lines…

The backs are just some cute prints I had laying around.

One of these pillows is being mailed out to one of my husband’s coworkers who just had a baby boy. The others have found a new home on my daughter’s window seat!

I really was slacking in my sewing during the last week. My husband spent a lot of the week traveling for work, and well…the kids were just exhausting. My 2 year old wasn’t napping much and there just weren’t a lot of breaks (until Friday when they spent the day with my in-laws). I did finish a couple pillows though!

I am kind of embarrassed to admit that these have been sitting around for at least two weeks, waiting for me to finish and hand stitch the binding. But I just love how they turned out.

One features Aneela Hoey’s Little Apples fabric (again). I built a log cabin around the children playing in coordinating prints and then quilted it in a free motion meandering design.

The second pillow features the new Meet the Gang fabric (and coordinating prints from my stash) which is crazy adorable. This one is quilted with straight lines between the multicolored squares.

I made these for my Etsy shop, I thought I should add a few smaller ticket items for the holidays. Is anyone else doing that as well? I’m going to spend the next few days finishing up my Christmas tree skirt. Those of you who follow me on Twitter have seen a lot of sneak peeks of that project. I can’t wait to share it with you all!