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I want to thank everyone for all of your wonderful comments this week. It's always nice to know that someone besides me likes what I'm doing!
Congratulations to Melanie McFarlin, Rhiannon, and Jan. I've e-mailed you copies of the pattern.
For anyone else who wants one, I guess this is my shameless plug that they're now available in my Etsy Shop.
ETA: Yikes! Those sold out fast. I've listed more and will keep an eye on them throughout the day. Thank you!
To celebrate its debut tomorrow, I'm giving away three copies of the Mixtape Quilts pattern. Enter by commenting here before 5:00 pm PST!
Here's the third style from the Mixtape Quilt pattern, Greatest Hits. With 64 blocks, it's the most complex of the three and can be made as a large baby or lap quilt, or as a queen bed quilt.
This one was made using Erin Michael's Lush collection, plus one red-orange print from Bolt that I added to warm it up a little. The sashing is natural cotton/linen.
I really love these prints, especially the paint-by-numbers deer!
I also wanted to answer a few questions from the comments to the other Mixtape posts, so here we go!
1. What color thread do I use for quilting? I like to use thread that matches my sashing. I've tried different things, but this always seems to work for me. Also I use regular Gutermann thread, not quilting thread, because I don't like my stitches to be too thick.
2. Do I increase my seam allowance when using linen? No. I use the same seam allowance that I always would. I've never had any problems with this. I think part of this is because I always prewash everything and the pre-shrunk linen doesn't seem to unravel as much.
3. Does linen stand up to multiple washings? I haven't had any problems with linen standing up to washing. In fact, one of the reasons I use it is because i like the look of the washed linen better than the look of washed cotton solids.
The second Mixtape Quilt style, Party Mix, is a 48 Block layout using twelve different prints. It can be made as a baby, lap or twin bed quilt.
I made this version using some of Heather Ross' Mendocino collection and some coordinating dots and scroll prints in peach, coral, tangerine and gold.
The sashing is white cotton/linen blend and the binding is also from the Mendocino collection.
And here's a shot of the quilt I made Lily for Christmas. Her quilt was also made with Mendocino fabric, but in the twin bed size.
Check out Sew, Mama, Sew! today for my Fabric Focus post. This month the fabric in question is Annette Tatum's House and the pattern is a Sawtooth Star quilt (or block if you're not feeling up to making a whole quilt).
You can find a pdf tutorial and more details on the SMS blog.
I made this doll quilt using the first of the three styles included in my Mixtape Quilts pattern, which will be available in my Etsy shop this Friday. This simple 20 block layout can be made as a doll quilt, baby quilt or lap quilt. It uses eight different prints and a coordinating solid.
The prints I chose for this one are various yellows, aquas, teals and kiwis. The sashing is natural linen.
I picked these fabrics from my shelves based on color and didn't even notice until I was quilting how many of them featured rose motifs. In the end, it looks kind of cool to see the different styles of roses together.
I think I'm going to hang this one in my living room, since it matches what I already have in there, but I still have quite a bit of these fabrics left, so I'm definitely going to make another quilt that uses them together!
And here's another version of the Favorite Songs style, this one featuring different green prints.
I was so happy that Alissa and Kristen invited me to join their virtual quilting bee, Block Party!
The first month's blocks are for Alissa and she sent us fabrics in chocolate, light blue and orange. She invited us to add our own fabrics too, so I added some white solid, the zebra Mod Girls print and a little tiny bit of an orange solid. (I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about adding the zebra to someone else's quilt, but I just loved the way it looked with the other fabrics.)
These blocks were challenging for me because I don't usually do improvisational or wonky piecing. I'm also accustomed to pressing all of my seams open, which is pretty much impossible to do with this kind of layout. In the end, though, I'm pretty happy with the blocks.
Alissa said she was going to use white sashing, so I thought it would be interesting to make a block that was really like four little blocks clustered together. I kind of offset them with the white sashing so, hopefully, once they're pieced together, they'll look a little like they're floating.
You can see the other blocks that have been made so far here.
I wanted to show off some of the new fabric and/or projects I'm working with. Above is my favorite new series, Lush by Erin Michael. I haven't decided just what to do with it yet (obviously a quilt, I just don't know what kind) but I have a fat quarter of each print in the series and three yards of the dusty aqua deer print.
I was also thrilled to find this Drawing Room print at Josephine's and got two yards for the back of a scrap quilt. This quilt is a scrappy variation of my Mixtape pattern.
Here's some of the new Echino fabric by Etsuko Furuya. I just love the random assortment of animals.
Okay. This isn't new fabric, but I haven't made anything out of it yet, mainly because I've been trying to decide on the perfect project. This is a full fat quarter set of Cake Rock Beach that my best friend got me as a birthday gift back in August. I think I've finally settled on a project for it, so it's washed, pressed and ready to go.
Finally, here's a sneak peek at a project I'm working on with Annette Tatum's House line. More about this one later in the month.
I also wanted to thank everyone for your wonderful comments about Olivia's and Chris' quilts! Several of you asked why I said that I prefer working with linen and linen blends over Kona cotton. I should have elaborated that I don't have a problem with Kona cotton for piecing. I love using it for that. I just don't like the way it handles for making sashing -- particularly long pieces of sashing -- between blocks. The linen is heavier and doesn't warp around so much when you're using long strips. I also think that the linen just looks better as sashing. I like the way it gives the sashing a slightly different texture than the smooth cottons used in the blocks. As a bonus, the Essex cotton/linen is just about the most pleasant fabric ever to work with. It doesn't ravel much, has a nice heavy hand and creases beautifully when pressed.
Several of you also asked about the patterns from the Hedgerow and Rec Room quilts. Both of those patterns are coming. The Mixtape pattern is up first, and will be ready at the end of this month or early February. The Hedgerow and Rec Room patterns will follow as soon as I can get them done.
And, in answer to several other questions, Chris did like his quilt, but I think George-Michael likes it more.
Here's Olivia's Christmas Quilt. It's made with my Hedgerow pattern, which uses a feature fabric and coordinating solid in three blocks with different scrap fabrics.
I really love the combination of reds, pinks and kiwi. I decided to try out white Kona cotton for the sashing on this one and I'm not sure I'll do it again. Everyone was right that it looked better after being quilting, but I still prefer the look of linen and linen blends.
I used a lot of fabric that I already had for this one. Besides the Japanese floral print shown above, the other three feature fabrics were Alexander Henry's Sprites of Tillbrook and Floral Fantasma and a Martha Negley floral. (I had originally intended to use the Smurf-y looking mushroom print that goes with the Alexander Henry prints, but it proved too distracting to the composition and I replaced it with the Japanese floral.)
The back is pieced with 6" strips of the Floral Fantasma and an Amy Butler Quilting Solid in Olive. The binding is an Amy Butler print from Midwest Modern.
I liked the way all of these blocks came out, and they're all slightly different, so I made this mosaic to show them off!
