Archery (and a free pattern!)

I settled on a design for my arrow blocks...



It screams "Valentine's Day!" a bit more than my original vision for these arrows, but we can enjoy it for a few more days!



I did some simple outline quilting around the arrows and heart. I thought about adding more straight line quilting to the background, but after trying out a few lines I decided it was too busy. If you look closely you can still see the little holes from the quilting I ripped out. I tried steaming them with the iron and it helped, but the holes are still visible. Any suggestions on how to get rid of them??



The arrows and the heart are all foundation pieced. I drew the arrow in EQ7, and I'm sharing the pattern with you! You can download the pattern here. The finished size of the block is 8" wide x 5" high. Make sure when you print the PDF that you have Page Scaling set to None. If you use the pattern, I'd love to see it!



Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

BBSA: Block 1

Over on the EQ Blog, I'm hosting the BlockBase Sew Along and today is the link up for the first block in the sew along. I really like this first block, so after making one at work (which you can see here), I decided to come home and make another one!



I love how different the same block can look, just by changing the fabric placement. And this one is much smaller than the one I made at work- only 4". If you have BlockBase, come over and join in the fun!

As Seen on TV.... ME!

Yesterday I spent my morning at a TV studio in Cleveland taping a segment for Quilting Arts TV! I demonstrated how EQ7 can be a useful tool for the modern quilter. Here I am with the wonderful host Pokey Bolton.



I was quite a ball of nerves the last couple of weeks prepping for this segment! Public speaking is soooo not my thing. But everyone at the studio was so nice and friendly, it helped to put me at ease.



I love seeing how things work "behind the scenes". They tape the whole season in a week-- what a well-oiled machine! It was so interesting to see the other quilters/artists prepping their projects in the green room. I wish I could have spent more time hanging out there admiring everyone's work.

The episode won't air for several months; I'll be sure to post when it's available!

40th Anniversary Quilt

I am so happy to finally be able to say that this quilt is finished! It's a quilt to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary, which happened back in June, but really thoughtful gifts are worth the wait, right??



Each of the foundation pieced blocks represents something about my parents and their life together.



Pansy: Mom enjoys gardening • House: they built their house together • O: they met at the Ohio State University • Pig: they were hog farmers when I was a kid



Heart: for love! • Truck: my dad's job • Boat: boating is an activity they like doing together (this isn't the right kind of boat, but after several failed attempts at drawing a motor boat, I went with this easy-to-sew sailboat!) • Fish: fishing is another hobby they both enjoy

I had a fat quarter pack of Deb Strain's Cherish Nature collection I knew I wanted to use because it has my mom's favorite blues in it. It was pretty easy to find blocks I could use to represent my parents as I've known them all my life and have plenty of material to work with *wink*. But I took a ridiculous amount of time finding just the right layout. I almost always use EQ7 to work out my design choices, so I thought it might be interesting to see some of my rejected layout ideas.



The winner:



It's fun to see how a design evolves. My original intention when thinking about this quilt was to make the foundation pieced blocks a secondary design element. Not something you noticed right away, but saw after looking at the quilt for a while, which is why I made them all in neutral fabrics. That's not the way it ended up; I think the blocks are pretty center stage in the quilt. But I love the way it turned out. And I figured if I'm going to spend all that time making these intricate picture blocks, people better notice them!

A peek at the back:



Sewing time was pretty sparse these past few months, so this project pretty much took up my whole summer. But it was well worth it and the summer was spent doing lots of fun summery-type things. However, I'm so ready to tackle some new sewing projects! My oldest starts first grade tomorrow and I look forward to finding our new family routine, which I hope includes a bit more sewing time for me.