Design Wall, continued

                                       

Here's what I worked on yesterday with a new pattern I just got in from Threaded Pear. It's called Sugar Free and uses either a Layer Cake and a Jelly Roll (for a bigger quilt) or 2 charm packs and a Jelly roll (that's what I'm using) I finally decided to just chop up my yummy precuts of Figgy Pudding from YEARS ago! I love the Basic Grey fabrics, especially their holiday lines. In fact, I REALLy regret not getting any yardage at the time of getting these precuts because finding yardage of Moda Figgy Pudding is practically impossible. Luckily their newer line called Fruitcake is a little easier to get. I think it's rather hilarious that it's about two days before Christmas and I finally got inspired to make a Christmas quilt! But this pattern is SOOOO easy I mean, I literally started on it yesterday and the top is really ALMOST done. I think I'll be able to get the top finished tonight. I LOVE patterns like that. In fact, I'm thinking about having a Sugar Free quilt workshop, just come in and spend some time making this quilt. I bet you could get it done between 6pm and midnight. Unfortunately, I don't have much in the way of Christmas fabric in stock, but I bet this would also make up pretty awesome with a Sugar Pop Charm Pack and Jelly Roll. Sorry about the horrible picture, it's a rather grey day and the lighting isn't very good around here.

Happy Holiday Stitches,
Anna

My Design Wall

Here at the Studio, I am fortunate to have an entire wall for my design wall. After brainstorming about different options to make the wall useable (i.e. putting up insulation board etc) my dad found some acoustic tiles at Home Depot for about 43 cents each, yes I said 43 CENTS. So to cover an entire wall that is about 10 feet in length, it cost about $8.00! The acoustic tiles work well because I can pin in to them easily (just creates a pin shortage around the place) but I figured out that I could pin a flannel sheet to the wall and then just stick the blocks on that (DUH) maybe in the new year I will get some flannel yardage and consider actually using some sort of adhesive to attach it, but for now pins work.  SO, to get to the point, this has given me some room to put up projects I'm working on (and those of other people who create things in the studio). I've had this funny Hello Betty Honey Bun quilt up on the wall for quite awhile. Now that it's up there, the idea of putting ALL those tiny blocks together is sort of daunting. See?

And no, I haven't even bothered to count how many of those pieces there are. So the pattern is an Amish Brick pattern and the fabric is a Hello Betty Honey Bun, so I'm calling it Hello Brick Wall. I plan to add a small grey border and a large border in Jade, both Bella Solids that I LOVE. In fact, making all those tiny bricks was pretty easy, just strip pieced them, one 1 1/2" honey bun strip and a 1 1/2" grey strip made it pretty quick, then chopped them into small 2 1/2" units. Now I just have to sew all those together!

Well, since Blogger is being a real pain right now and not letting me add more than one photo (WHAT IS WITH THAT!?) I'll have to continue this post later. Geez!

Happy Holiday Stitches,

Anna

Design Wall Update

Last weekend I had a wonderful opportunity to go out to Regina's house to sew for two whole days! Of course, while we're sewing, we're also discussing Crafty Girls business, so it's sort of a business meeting at the same time (cool, huh?) I wanted to show off one of the quilts I worked on, it was a super productive weekend since I made significant progress on two quilt tops. First, I spent most of that week working on a Two by Fours quilt. This quilt pattern is awesome (and we happen to have it in the shop) because it just uses a jelly roll, the ENTIRE jelly roll, all the strips cut into two sub units. Then piece those together and make it into the top! Then add a small inner border and wide outer border and you have a VERY nice sized quilt. Well, I had cut my Portobello Market jelly roll into the specified pieces in preparation for a quilt retreat, hmm, LAST year, and put them into a zip lock baggy. I never got around to sewing the pieces together until last week. Each evening, I worked on the various units and by the end of the week, I had the ENTIRE top (except the borders) complete! This might have been mentioned in the post about listening to books on tape or watching Netflix/Hulu and here is the top all done!

Two by Fours Pattern made with Portobello Market JR

Aren't those fabrics pretty? I really wish that jelly roll was still available and the yardage too! I hoping that when we go to the Moda Retreat tomorrow we'll be able to find some yardage I can use for borders. I mean, we'll only have the ENTIRE warehouse available to search in! I also have a Martinique Jelly Roll and can't wait to make this same quilt from that JR!

So that leads me to my next item of business. I'll be gone for a few days, but don't worry, you won't be left in complete silence like you were last week (Sorry for that by the way). I have arranged for a couple VERY talented ladies to post in my absence and I think you are all in for quite a treat! Well, I must be going.

Oh, one more thing, if you HAPPEN to stop by our shop and try to purchase something, please accept my aplogies in advance if the cart doesn't work. We would be happy to process your order through e-mail, just drop us a line, anna@craftygirlsworkshop.com with your order and I'll send you a pay pal invoice. I'm very sorry for this happening, we are working with the company to get it resolved as soon as we can (even if it means transferring our entire inventory to another store.)

Happy Stitches,

Anna