Reflections + Predictions

Last week, Kristen of Sew Mama Sew emailed me asking if I'd be willing to answer some questions for her annual series reflecting on the past year, and making some predictions for the year ahead. Honestly, my immediate thought was, "who, me?" But I was tickled, nonetheless, and over the next couple of days gave the questions some serious consideration. 

My responses were posted today, and you can click back to see those of  Nydia Kehnle from Nydia Kehnle Design + Photography and Samarra Khaja from Samarra Khaja as well. The series will continue over the next couple of weeks. I find these posts really interesting, and after you've checked them out on Sew Mama Sew, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts. So feel free to share in the comments!

Love It or Hate It?

 

Several months ago, Sew Mama Sew asked me to round up some quilting tutorials, and so far, I've shared 12 Fundamental Quilting Skills and 8 Modern Ways to Back a Quilt. Today you'll find 15 Best Binding Tutorials, a pretty exhaustive collection. {Just click here.} There's a few of my own {striped binding and straight and angled matched binding} plus a dozen more, several of which I'd never seen before. You know I like to put a twist on my quilts' bindings, but even so, I was surprised and impressed at some of the techniques I found, and I'm pretty sure you'll find something new to try, or a tutorial to make your favorite method even better.

Binding a quilt is one of those things you swoon over or dread. {I'm a swooner!} For some reason, I am just intrigued by how folks finish their quilts. So much so, I've taken 2 online surveys this year here on A Quilter's Table, just to feed my curiosity. The first was about your binding decisions {survey and results}, where the second was more about your actual technique {survey and results}. Interesting reading for sure - and a good resource when you're considering your binding options. And this new round up will be a terrific added resource.

Thanks to those who gave permission for their techniques to be shared, and remember, I also recently posted Emma/joworimakes' tutorial for hand blanket-stitched binding - another to add to your own personal round up.

So have you tried some of the tutorials I mention in my Sew Mama Sew post? If so, or if you have another we should all know about, please share in the comments. How you finish your quilt can really add to the overall effect. Isn't it great to have so many options?

Giveaway Day, Oh Yeah!

This giveaway is now closed. Thanks for stopping by!

Here we go, with another Giveaway Day from Sew, Mama, Sew! It's a great {and fun!} way to visit lots of bloggers, facebook pages, and Instagram feeds, entering all sorts of giveaways, as well as getting acquainted with lots of creative folks.

My giveaway consists of a 1/2 yard bundle of Katy Jones/i'm a ginger monkey's new Priory Square, containing all 8 prints in the line. Isn't the variety of scale in this bundle a win-win?For a chance to win, just leave a comment on this post sharing one quilting tutorial or pattern found online that you turn to again and again. The giveaway will close Friday, December 12 at 5pm PST, and I will announce a randomly chosen winner before the weekend's over.

***I am happy to ship internationally. Please include an email address in your comment if it is not accessible through your profile. If you win and I can't find your email easily, I won't hesitate to choose another winner.***

Thanks again for stopping by A Quilter's Table! I hope you come again to join in my journey of quilting and sharing around the table. You can also find me on Instagram and facebook - hope to meet you there as well.

Linking to Giveaway Day at Sew, Mama, Sew!

Handmade Holidays

All month long, it's been Handmade Holidays at Sew, Mama, Sew. Hopefully you've gotten some ideas for gift sewing, and maybe even a recipe to try or a printable to have fun with. Today the month-long holiday extravaganza wraps up with my round-up of Last-Minute Gift Wrap + Tags. I hope you'll check it out!

You hopefully saw my tutorial the other day for Trim-Tied Gift Bags. I couldn't resist making one more for you, with a couple of tweaks.  

First off, if you've seen this delightful fabric, a canvas called Light a Candle from the Moonlit Collection by Rashida Coleman Hale for Cotton+Steel, you may notice right off that it's directional. And that may cause just a little issue for you when using the original bag tutorial. All you need to do is cut your fabric in 2 pieces, rather than on a fold, adding 1/4" to the length of each piece. Then seam the bottom, making sure the 'top' of your design is facing away from the seam on both pieces of fabric. {Actually this comes in handy even if your fabric isn't directional, but when you don't have enough fabric to accommodate a fold.}

Another tweak I made was to make this bag larger. Though the photo up top looks like it's lunch-bag size, it's actually smaller. Rather than the 8"x21" I cut in my original tutorial, for this version I cut 2 pieces of fabric, each 10" wide x 12 1/4" tall, and seamed the bottom. I cut the trim (the 5/8" Striped Edge Woven Cotton Trim I told you I was going to try out) 40" long, and I kept the depth of the bag the same, cutting out 1 3/4" corners for the gussets, per the tutorial.

So have fun with the gift-wrap and tag tutorials in the round-up! I know I'll be using most of them for my own gift-wrapping this year!

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday.

Monday, Monday

There's two things to tell you about today!

First, I have a new quilting roundup over at Sew, Mama, Sew ~ 8 Modern Quilt Backs. Not only are there several tutorials, but oodles of inspiration if you follow the links to the free class, flickr group, and Pinterest boards at the end of the post.

I usually find both planning and stitching those larger quilt backs a challenge. I try to keep some larger "quilt back worthy" prints in my stash, so at least I have more options. But I do really like a multi-pieced back too, so there's always a quandary. Anyway, let me know what you think. And if you have a go-to method or especially love a new technique you see, I'd love to hear about it!

Also, here's a link to last month's Twelve Fundamental Quilting Skills if you missed that.

The other thing I want to mention is that Rachael/imagine gnats just announced the kick-off of Selfish Sewing Week!

Believe it or not, I was invited to be one of the featured stitchers, and I'll be blogging all about my week's project on Saturday. Meanwhile, what I'm working on is making the Brookfield Bag by Sew Sweetness. It's a free pattern on Sew, Mama, Sew, and I thought it would be perfect for every-day. So far I have all my pieces cut and prepped!

So stay tuned, and I hope you join in and do some selfish sewing for yourself this week!

Trending

Check out my new Quilting Trends post at Sew Mama Sew! Today it's all about Medallion Quilts, Friendship Block Swaps, Half Rectangle Triangles, and Large or Super-sized Blocks. To make it easy to look back and see the previous trends posts, I've created a "Quilting Trends" tab on the blog. Just click here!

Here's the previous posts if you happened to miss them . . .

June 2014

Cross Quilts, Metallics, Feather Blocks, Slash + Insert

May 2014

Mini Quilts, Churndash Quilts, Quilted Pillows, Spirals and Circles

Red Hots Review

This week and next, Sew Mama Sew is showing off all the Oakshott Ruby Mini Quilt Challenge finishes. You'll be seeing lovely Oakshott minis from these talented folks:

• Jen of bettycrockerass
• Malka of A Stitch in Dye
• Deborah of Whipstitch
• Kristy of St. Louis Folk Victorian
• Beth of Plum and June posted here

And today is my turn! 

Check out my Red Hots reveal post if you missed that. And see the others at Sew, Mama, Sew. You can also get some sneak peeks using hashtag #oakshottrubymini on Instagram. 

And last but not least at all . . . you can purchase Oakshott Fabrics at quilt shops, directly from the manufacturer in the UK, or online from Contemporary Cloth in the U.S. Sew, Mama, Sew also has a fat eighth bundle of Oakshott Ruby to give away! Comment on any of the Mini Quilt Challenge posts for a chance to win. How hot is that?!

Red Hots

I totally expected the Oakshotts coming my way to be beautiful. I mean, I had heard others describe them and seen photos of their projects, but oh my! To experience them in person, I was stunned by their luminescence. I seriously just stared at the stack for a few days before I could even consider what to do with them.

Of course, I knew a mini quilt was the goal, as I was participating in the Oakshott Ruby Mini Quilt Challenge hosted by Sew Mama Sew. And it didn't take me long to know I wanted to use every single one of those luscious colors. Each fat eighth was 9.75" x 23.5", with very enticing names - Madrid, Girnoa, Barcelona, Cordoba, Granada, Valencia, Salamanca, Corunna, Cadiz, Palma, Toledo, Seville, Almeria, Jerez, Santa Cruz, and Santiago - all 100% cotton and each with a red warp.

I took inspiration from Red Pepper Quilts and her tutorial for Cutting and Sewing Free Hand Curves. I loved the vertical curves in her pillow cover and had that in my mind as I began. But I decided I wanted some of my curves to be scrappy, or rather striped, and with my vision set, I cut strips from the longest side of each piece of fabric, 1 1/4" to 2 1/2" wide. I began sewing them first in pairs, offset at one end . . .

Then kept sewing the strips together until I eventually had a large piece that from then on I treated as a piece of fabric all its own.

And from here, the curves began. Working from left to right, I cut curves and added strips, sewing as I went.

Some strips were solid, some striped - whatever hit my fancy in the moment.

I had left the first strip on the left (Toledo) quite wide, and did the same with the red (Santa Cruz) on the right, imagining them in some fashion as borders. And eventually, it was decided to add in the purple (Seville) and orange (Corunna) as top and bottom borders.

And then it was time to quilt! Matchstick quilting was definitely in order in the solid strips!

And I used just about every coordinating thread I had, trying to keep the look of this piece as "hot" as Oakshott advertised.

I debated for a while over what to do in the striped strips, and finally settled on parallel lines with my walking foot, echoing the seam lines of the stripes. At first I wasn't sure about the 'traveling' lines being so obvious, but in the end, I think they added to the overall design. 

And lucky for me, I had plenty of the striped 'fabric' left, deciding it would be really fun as binding, extending the vertical stripes all the way to both edges of the quilt.

As it ended up, this binding 'extra' was constructed exactly like my Striped Binding tutorial, and pieced into the solid binding using my Straight Matched Binding technique.

Red Hots finished  at 19"x21" and really was a pleasure to create, every step of the way!

Be sure and visit the other Oakshott Ruby Mini Quilt Challengers throughout the week:

• Jen of bettycrockerass
• Malka of A Stitch in Dye
• Deborah of Whipstitch
• Kristy of St. Louis Folk Victorian
• Beth of Plum and June

And if you're on Instagram, check out hashtag #oakshottrubymini.

Many thanks to Oakshott and Sew Mama Sew for the opportunity to discover this luscious fabric for myself. It most certainly was a pleasure.

Linking up with Fabric Tuesday and Finish It Up Friday.

Trending

Just a quick head's up that my monthly post on Quilting Trends is live on Sew Mama Sew this morning! If you happened to miss last month's post, click here! And I'd love to hear what trend you are following or especially enjoying!

Oakshott Ruby Red :: It Begins

"Iridescent" is the way Oakshott describes them. A couple of other ways to say that, according to the Bing Dictionary, would be:

1. having rainbow colors that appear to move and change as the angle at which they are seen changes
2. having a lustrous or brilliant appearance

All of that together is a very apt description of the stack of Oakshott Ruby Red* shot cottons that I cut into this week. Though describing them just does not do them justice. Seeing and feeling is a whole nother thing.

Which brings me to this . . . I've been given the opportunity to participate in the Oakshott Ruby Mini Quilt Challenge sponsored by Sew Mama Sew and Oakshott and I've just gotten going. The trimmings alone are downright stunning.

Six bloggers are currently working on creating mini quilts made with these special fabrics, and we'll be showing them off beginning June 9. Here's a peek at where I am so far . . .

We're posting our progress on Instagram using the #oakshottrubymini hashtag. So take a moment now and then to check things out. Fun times!

*Ruby Reds A really hot offering named after its red warp and set off by 16 different weft variations.

Lining up with W.i.P. Wednesday.

Three Things . . .

Hey! I've got a thing or three to share with you . . .

First off, I'm over at Sew Mama Sew today with my first monthly Quilting Trends post! Hope you check it out, and in a day or two, I'll have a fun little postscript back here at A Quilter's Table.

Second, I just did something I've thought about for some time. Back when I joined flickr years ago - way before I began blogging and actively participating in the online quilting community - I began using the flickr ID 'flickrdeb50'. Well times have changed, and I just switched my flickr ID to match my other social media connections. SO look for me as 'aquilterstable'. Hopefully this is a smooth transition!

And since I know you always like a quilty photo, here's the start of my latest project - posted in my flickr photostream, of course!

Lastly, it's time to choose a winner of Gen X Quilters' delightful Patchwork Napkins pattern. Congrats to Anita of Quilt in a not-Shell! I've emailed you both. And to anyone who would like to purchase the pattern, you can do so here.

Hope you all have a great start to your week!

What's New

Just in case you haven't heard the latest from Sew Mama Sew . . .

Recently, Rachael of imagine gnats stepped down from doing her Sewing Trends posts and over the past week or so, SMS has announced three(!) new monthly contributors. Kelley Gilbert from Casa Crafty will be doing Sewing Trends posts. She looks like one very productive sewist, and I look forward to seeing what she has to share. Then Caroline Hulse of SewCaroline will be doing a monthly Sewing Fashion Report. She'll share about garment patterns, apparel fabric, and fashion trends. I don't do much apparel sewing for myself, but still like to see what's going on. Both Kelley and Caroline can be found on a variety of social media, including Instagram as casakelley and sewcaroline.

So down to the nitty gritty for A Quilter's Table . . . After curating the series 31 Inspiring Quilters for them back in January, SMS asked me back to round up 22 Favorite Quilt Blocks for their current #samplerQAL, and then beginning in May, write a monthly Quilting Trends report. Uh yeah! So that's "What's New" around here, and I'm excited and hope you'll watch for my posts! I'll give you a head's up from here, but the main post each month will be over at Sew Mama Sew, where there's always plenty to inspire!

A Block Round-Up Etc. Etc.

Have you seen the "Design Your Own Sampler" sew-along over at Sew Mama Sew? Sarah/Sarah Quilts has created a fun Neon Sampler and will help you design a sampler of your very own.

As part of the sew along, Sew Mama Sew asked me to pull together a list of free block tutorials that you may want to consider using in your sampler. You'll find both traditionally pieced and paper-pieced blocks - and even one combo!

I didn't see Sarah's sampler as I was rounding up the blocks, or I would have included some of various sizes. In my mind's eye was the modern sampler I once made with the 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee, where the blocks were all 12" finished, so that's what I gathered. Sarah's quilt uses different sized blocks, and you may need to change the size of a certain block you want to include. Though some of the block tutorials I list do give directions for a variety of sizes or are at least easy to modify. If your block is smaller than what's needed, consider the easy fix of just adding a border around the block. Paper-pieced blocks, of course, can be printed at a different percentage. So there's a variety of ways to adjust to what you need. And don't forget the fun of filler blocks. You can always make very simple blocks in any size you want!

Leanne/shecanquilt and Jess/Elven Garden are writing a very informative series called Decipher Your Quilt. All about quilt math, they are discussing a variety of block types, and it's a handy resource for a sampler quilt. You can find their posts here and here. Sarah suggests a block encyclopedia such as 500 Quilt Blocks, which happens to have a variety of sized-blocks, and that's a terrific suggestion. Another good resource would be Tula Pink's City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks, where all 100 blocks are 6" finished. So many of those blocks would be easily adapted to the size you needed. And of course, there's always the option of drafting your own unique block. See? The possibilities are endless!

There's already several eager folks posting their beginning designs on Instagram, using the hashtag #dyosampler. Peek there, then check out Sarah's "how to" post and my "22 Favorite Quilt Blocks". You'll be designing your own sampler in no time!

31 Inspiring Quilters :: It Begins!!

After sharing so much these last few days about what 2013 held, it's pretty mind-blowing to be able to start 2014 off with something pretty special! Beginning today, join me each day in January over at sew mama sew as I share "31 Inspiring Quilters!" All awesome sewists, I'll be highlighting their workmanship and more - all sorts of qualities that have inspired my creative thinking and so many facets of my quilting.

We start off the series today with Erica of Kitchen Table Quilting. And there's plenty more to come!

Prepare To Be Inspired

When I began A Quilter’s Table nearly three years ago, it was all about community. Getting more involved in the online quilting community has brought new friendships my way, opportunities and challenges I could not have foreseen, and in addition to all that goodness has been major inspiration. It’s been more than “oh, isn’t that pretty.” It’s been more like “OH! I just have to try that!” or "How clever is that!?" or many times, a jaw-dropping "Oh My Gosh!!" Plain and simple, the inspiration I have found through all of you moved me into creative overdrive.

With that said, it’s a pleasure indeed to be able to present the series “31 Inspiring Quilters” as a part of sew mama sew's January Quilting Month. Beginning January 1, and continuing through the month, an inspiring quilter will be highlighted each day over on sew mama sew. So stay tuned! Follow along! And be inspired.