We had such a beautiful weekend here (finally!). I spent almost the entire time outside with the kids and zero time at the sewing machine. We have to appreciate the warm weather while we have it, right? I did manage to get out to take a few quilt pictures though! Last week, I finished my latest quilt, Whimsical Windmills. (You can see more about the fabric and quilt blocks here.)

It was really fun to get a chance to work with Full Moon Lagoon by Mo Beddell (thanks Andover!) I love the colors, the artwork, really everything about this collection.

When I was brainstorming ideas for this fabric, I couldn’t stop thinking about low volume.

I really enjoyed making this little quilt a couple months ago. I started thinking about how great Ashley’s low volume quilt, Marcelle Plus, looked, with the brights mixed in. So I gathered my low volume fabrics to use as a scrappy background to a vintage block and started working.

After doing a lot of straight line quilting recently, I decided I wanted to get back to a bit of meandering free motion quilting for a nice, crinkly look. It took a few minutes to find my “free motion groove” again, but I just love the results – even if it is a bit harder to photograph!

My local quilt shop happened to have the great panel from the Full Moon Lagoon line, so I thought that would make a perfect backing. I was a little short – opps – so I added a simple strip of white down the side. The binding is a lovely, soft stripe from Cloud9 Simpatico. The finished quilt measures 48″ x 56″.

I know a lot of people have asked me about a pattern for this quilt, as I did paper piece my blocks. I created one and it’s in my shop – it includes the required fabric amounts, a cutting table, some quilt math for figuring how many of each print to cut, and the paper piecing template.

If you haven’t paper pieced before, you can find a tutorial here on my blog. I really like to encourage everyone to learn. It opens up such a great world of opportunities for you!

Full Moon Lagoon is now available. You can find it at the following shops:

Happy sewing everyone!

Low volume sewing is pretty hot right now. For me, one of the biggest challenges is finding low volume prints in my stash. It’s probably pretty obvious that I tend to be attracted to color saturated prints. Amanda from Westwood Acres sells a low volume bundle in her shop on Etsy. She cleverly named it “Inside Voices”, I love that! Amanda asked if I wanted to play around with one of the bundles, and I thought it would be a great way to jump right into the low volume trend.

I was throwing around a few options for this bundle. I was this close to pairing it with some other prints and making a zigzag quilt using this technique by AmandaJean of Crazy Mom Quilts. In the end, I started thinking about my Stepping Stones quilt. I decided to make something using the same basic construction. Columns of fabric that are equal in width, but various lengths. These pieces are from 3″ to 4.5″ long and 3.5″ wide.

I laid it all out Saturday morning. Went to lunch with the family. Came home to this.

“Who me??” Does anyone else have a dog that likes to roll all over your projects. It’s a good thing he’s so cute.

I’m hoping to have this little baby quilt finished up by Valentine’s Day. Can wait to share it with you!