Trish & Birdie Blog Tour

It was a pretty fun email that came unexpectedly inviting me on a blog tour to introduce a new fabric line !

What happened after that was receiving a fat quarter bundle of this delicious fabric, we were asked to make something with it.
This is the collection called 'Trish and Birdie' by Deane Beesley at Sweet Bee Designs
.
It is a delightful collection of all things sweet, flowery and full of sunshine.

I thought and thought of what to make. I didn't want to make something that would end up in my closet as the fabric was just too cute! Placemats, tablerunners, wall hangings all ran through my mind. 

As many of you know, I have a bit of an addiction to circles, modern quilting and the drunkards path block.   I decided that the best way to create with this fabric was to combine all of that together. 

Using a template that gave me a 5 1/2" block of drunkards path, I started. 

I pulled out 5 different fat quarters from the bundle and coupled that with some dark grey solid fabric. From there, with no exact plan I began cutting the 2 different parts of the block out using the print fabric.  The solid grey fabric I just used for the 'L' shape piece of the block. 

When it came time to sewing, I simply mixed and matched the pieces together. One tip  I have when sewing drunkards path blocks is start in the middle and stitch out in one direction and then go back to middle and stitch out in other direction. 

When you finish a block, press and trim. 

Then I just started laying them out on my design wall and rearranging until I found something I liked.  

I filled in the spaces with more grey fabric and sewed up the top.

As I was wanting to show off the print fabric and keep it traditionally modern if that is even a phrase, I went with straight line stitching! 

I do love the straight line stitching!

Please be sure to check out the other amazing items made on this tour by such talented quilters!  

@jinabarney

@be_so_crafty

@abrightcorner

@allisonsews

@thelittlegreenbean

@lilyshinecreates

@pipersgirls

@poweredbyquilting

@stephjacobsondesigns

@lovinglylissa

@jackiesartquilts

Thank you so much for the invite Deane!  It sure was fun!

Modern Bookmarks to Teach Kids to Sew and Quilt

Do you want to teach kids to sew and quilt but sometimes find the task daunting? Although there is nothing more satisfying than seeing a child accomplish a project and be so proud of it!

I have a number of tutorials on teaching kids to sew, but the bookmarks are probably my favorite for those beginner projects. 

How to Make Bookmarks

Supplies - enough to make 5

Scraps of bright fabric

Batting 10” square

Backing 10” square

Instructions 

1. Take your scraps of fabric and with your ruler cut long straight sides. You are looking at about 10” long by 1/2”-2” wide.

 

2. Begin sewing the scraps together along the long side until it is approximately 10” x 10". 
3. Press well.

2. On the 10”x10” backing fabric, on the right side, draw out as many 2” x 7” rectangles as you can, leaving a 1/2” space between each and not getting too close to the outer edges.

5. Layer in order:

         Backing wrong side up

         Batting

         Scrap top right side up

6. Flip over and pin in the center of the rectangles to hold layers in place.
7. Set the machine to a tight zig zag stitch and sew on the lines you made for your rectangles.

6. Once done, cut out close to the stitch line and you have made your bookmarks!

Start enjoying using them! They have endless possibilities and make fabulous gifts! Be sure to send me a note if you make some!

An InLinkz Link-up

Modern Quilting with Bright Colors

Hello!
I have been getting a bit more into my studio now that spring is coming and the winter deadlines are fading as fast as the snow is melting.

With Easter approaching, I thought it would be fun to design my own Easter quilt. The bunny and carrot were done first as they were the trickiest with a few pieces to figure out.
The eggs were nice and simple and bright rick rack finished them off.

Spending some time working on different free motion designs within  a quilt and to play with bright colours and drunkard path blocks. My colours at the moment seem to be bright blue, pinks and greens. 

When watching a movie with the kids, hand sewing these hexies is a great way to keep productive while enjoying family time. 

The national quilt organization I belong to, is hosting a Postcard Challenge this May and you make a postcard, mail it in, and it gets displayed at their annual conference where you can buy the postcards for $5 each and the money goes to the Children's Hospital in British Columbia, Canada. I kept mine simple and modern, hoping that would be a nice draw for someone to purchase. 

Last picture is I am spreading my wings.  My father was an amazing carpenter and could make anything. Most often design his own items. This is a small coaster with epoxy that I dyed blue. I have four more in the making. Eventually I want to make bigger items but need to start small to perfect the process. 

Hope you are getting crafty as spring comes into season!

Creating Modern Quilts

I love when inspiration hits!

I was having so much fun following QuiltCon through their mobile app that I got out my sketch pad one day at the farm and just started doodling.
Here is what I have so far.

The farm is the place my family goes to get off the grid so to speak.  No internet, no electronics, nothing fancy, just plain ol' country living=)  And we love it. This is where much of my inspiration comes from. 

I did receive a pretty fun email this week, that put a little smile on my face! 

I was procrastinating one morning, shortly after fb launched its new icons for feelings, and had some fun creating the image below. What I didn't realize is how viral the pic would g. I wish I had put my fb address on the bottom, maybe I would have got a few more followers!  Oh well, live and learn=) 

Did I show you the numbered pins I recently got?  They go from 1 to 100 and in 2 little compartmentalized boxes with about 6 or 7 pins of each number.  And they are sturdy and long little guys.  I love them. I recently had a whole bunch of circles pinned to my design wall and used these numbered pins to remember the order in which they went. 

Lastly, I will leave you with my favorite image this week. Have a great 7 days!

Finishing and Designing

One great thing about winter is I tend to take alot of pictures of my island!
It is so magical in the winter.  This one I posted on my Instagram (JACKIESARTQUILTS) and had comments that it looked like Narnia!

I just finished a quilt going to Quilt Con to hang in the Northcott booth!   I was only provided with five 5" purple squares and a white background.  The requirements were anything goes but it had to be modern and a 30" square.  Here is a sneak peak of it. I can't show the whole quilt until Quilt Con starts in mid February.   I can tell you that it is all circles though=)

I have been playing with two apps on my phone for pictures, one is called Camera+ and the other is PicLab.  I am enjoying the different attributes they both have.  Take a look:

Yes, this is a treasure chest of yarn in my studio!

If you use Instagram or Twitter I would love a follow!   Instagram: JACKIESARTQUILTS, Twitter: @jackiewhite121.

Enjoy this beautiful winter day!

100 Quilt Blocks in 50 Days!

Solid modern colours, free patterns, fun blocks, what more can you ask for?
Janome and Michael Miller Fabrics have paired up to offer us 100 free quilt block patterns in 50 days!  Free!

They have only released 6 blocks at the time of writing this post, but you can either sign up by email to get two free block patterns delivered right to your inbox, or go and check it out online!

All the blocks are a finished size of 6" x 6" and can be downloaded.
Check out Canadian quilter Heather McArthur's block 'Spinning Star'.

Now what has me really excited, is that I was invited to contribute and I have 2 blocks being released in the next week! We were sent a collection of solid fabric from Michael Miller Fabrics and could use one or all of them.  I simply had to use them all as they were so beautiful. I also couldn't just make one block so submitted two and was lucky enough that they chose both!

Even though I can't show them to you until they are released, I will give you a sneak peak.

Check back in a week, as soon as they are released I will be shouting it out!

Done!

I love it. I wasn't sure if I would. I had pieced the leaves together a few months ago and then left them as I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them. When I finally decided to try and do a 'modern whole cloth quilt', that is the definition I am calling it, I didn't know if it would work=)

 I arranged my leaves on the cotton background on my design wall and took several shots of them being rearranged in many different ways.  Once I decided on a pattern, I machine stitched using different thread on each of the leaves matching colours of the leaves.

Then came the fun part. I decided not to plan out what free motion pattern or where I was going to quilt it, instead I started in the middle with no idea and just went!  It was very much 'free' motion quilting. White on white thread and background. Something I have never done on such a large piece before. Only once near the end did I consider getting my hot pink thread out and go a little wild!  But I held off.

I am very happy with the results.

In case you want to see what Canada is up to these days in quilting, I made a guest appearance at the GenerationQ blog! It is so much fun going there, they are the sweetest quilters ever!

Binding Stage

I am putting the binding on my quilt.  I love this stage. It signifies that the end is in sight and after hours of work, I will finally have a finished product. Right after the sleeve goes on=)

What I always have trouble on is squaring it up and getting it to hang flat. I use my special 90 degree steel ruler that carpenters use, but still can't get it quite perfect.

I try very hard not to pull the binding too tight so the corners don't curl, and so it hangs without ripples.

This is the best binding tutorial I have ever seen!

Quilting Is Done!

I finished!   I spent the last few weeks grabbing minutes when I could to finish the free motion quilting on my latest leaves quilt. It was white thread on white fabric. And I didn't have a plan, just quilted whatever design popped into my head at that moment.

I was a bit worried that I would get bored without any use of colour but it wasn't until I had only 20 minutes of quilting left that I thought how much fun it would be to be using pink!  For the most part though, I was concentrating so hard on the design that I didn't focus on the colour.

Now I have to bury threads, cut, square and bind.

Now if you want to see more quilt eye candy, check out the winners from Houston this year!