Garden Party Blog Hop and update

Not much quilting going on at my house these days.  (update at the bottom of the post) The only sewing I've been doing is for the Paper Pieced Pattern-A-Day Garden Party Blog Hop.

For the whole month of April, Jennifer at Sewhooked has been featuring a different pattern designer every day on her blog. Each designer has designed a paper pieced pattern and will post it for free on their assigned day.  The only guidelines were the theme "Garden Party" and the size, 10" finished blocks.  There are some great patterns posted so far.  My day is April 29th so check back to see my interpretation of the theme and get your free pattern.

Jennifer is also giving away a prize every week and several of the designers are having giveaways along with their free patterns. So,click here to go to the Garden Party Blog Hop and pick up some free patterns.  If you have never paper pieced before,there are alot of great tutorials posted on the web. There are a few newer methods since I learned to paper piece too.  If you tried paper piecing before and didn't like it, try a different method.

On a different note, we found a house!!  It's only 2 blocks from where we live right now which is also two blocks closer to my quilting buddy Linda of L&R Designs Quilting. So, at some point, there will be lots of quilting going on.  We take possession of our new home on April 27th but don't have to be out of our current home until May 15th so we have time to do alot of updating.  I have been planning a new kitchen and bathrooms as well as picking out appliances, flooring, paint colors, etc.  I plan to show before and after pictures of the remodel as we go along so this blog may be more about decorating than quilting for awhile as I am an Interior Designer when I'm not quilting.

And my daughter is due to have baby #5 on April 26th!! Lots of stuff going on besides quilting.

Catching up

at dinner on the ship

Where does the time go?  We are back from our cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico.  The trip went well as far as planes and buses and such being on time.  The weather was not too warm but it was very nice to be off work and not have access to phones or email or the internet.  This was self imposed because you really can have access to all of that if you want to, for a price, but I just wanted a break from it all.  If you have never been on a cruise, I think it's the most relaxing vacation you can have. You don't have to take care of anything.  You can eat as much as you want whenever you want and sleep as much as you want too.  I took a nap everyday!  I highly recommend that.

We went on an excursion at each stop on the cruise. We did some sightseeing by bus on Catalina Island and took a cooking class at the Mango Mango cafe in Ensenada.  Our chef, Jesus, taught us make salsa, enchiladas and tostadas which ended up being our lunch.  Fun time overall.  This was cruise #5 for me and believe it or not our room was on deck #5!

my first charm pack

On our stop in Denver on our way to California for the cruise, we visited the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden, CO.  The display was entitled, "Male Call", and all the quilts were made by men.  Since my husband has decided he would like to learn to quilt, he was quite interested to see these quilts. At the quilt shop in Golden, I bought my first charm pack!  It's very hard to find a charm pack or any other pre-cut at a quilt shop in Iowa for some reason. 

Before leaving on the ship, I tried to send out a free pattern to everyone that had left a comment during the Blog Hop Party.  However, there were several no reply bloggers that I can not get an email address for.  So, please email me here with your email address if you left a comment but did not receive your free pattern.

We have been looking at a lot of houses since we got back so not much time for sewing lately.  I did cut up some more scraps last night with my quilting buddy.  I needed to keep busy so I could think about something other than if the offer we put in on a house was going to be accepted or not.  I don't know when I'll be able to start a new sewing project but I still have some finished projects to show yet.  Some day soon I will be able to show you how I set up my new sewing room.  Just need to find a house first!  

Everyone is a winner!

Yes, you read that right.  Everyone who left a comment during the Blog Hop Party wins a copy of the pattern they chose.  Why you ask?

Well, it's been a very lucky week for me so I have decided to pay it forward.  Let me explain.  The Blog Hop Party began on St. Patrick's Day and I am part Irish on my father's side.  I guess I had the luck of the Irish with me that day because we received an offer on our house that has been for sale for around 3 years.  The luck has continued when we flew to Denver yesterday to visit my husband's daughter on our way to California to go on a cruise in celebration of our 5th wedding anniversary.  My husband's calling it our "nickel" anniversary.  Our flight to Denver not only left on time but arrived 45 minutes early!  That's gotta be luck.  Now, today we found out that the inspections on our house are good so we just have to have an appraisal to make the sale final.
Very good news that will make our anniversary cruise an extra special celebration and alot more relaxing.

I am overwhelmed by all the comments that were left on my blog during the Blog Hop Party and all the new followers that signed up.  Thanks to all of you.  I will be sending an email to each of you with the pattern you chose attached as a pdf file.  It will take awhile to send out 135 patterns but I plan to have that finished before we leave on our cruise on Monday morning so be patient. Please let me know if you have any problems with the attachment but realize that I may not be able to get back to you until April 1st after the cruise as I may not have any internet access.

Now off to the Denver quilt museum!

Ribbonry is done and Blog Hop Party begins

Ribbonry quilt

My Ribbonry quilt is complete. Woo hoo!!  I finally figured out a very quick and easy way to make this quilt using nickel nine patch quilt blocks and I have written a pattern for it too. Keep reading to see how you can win one! The nickel nine patch block is simply a block made from nine 5" squares of fabric and is the basic block in several of my patterns including two FREE patterns that are posted here.

I even quilted this one myself!  I used irregular lines of quilting across the width of the quilt.  It actually turned out exactly like I planned.  I also pieced the batting.  It was way easier than I could ever imagine.  I just butted edges together that I could tell had not been cut and used a wide zigzag stitch to sew them together.  Very easy and thrifty!  I have so many scraps of batting from all those quilts I made last year and I need to use them.

Those of you who are familiar with this blog may remember voting for which quilt I should make next during the last Blog Hop Party in December.

This is the rough design that received the most votes-

Ribbonry quilt

and my Ribbonry quilt is the final product just in time for the next  Blog Hop Party hosted by Quilting Gallery.  Starting Saturday, March 17th, you can join in on the fun. There will be lots of sites to visit and each one will be having a give-away!  Please tell all your friends too.


For my Give-Away, I'll be giving away 5 FREE patterns of Ribbonry and 5 FREE patterns of  Triangle Confusion, another recently released pattern. To be entered in the drawing, leave a comment on this post telling me which pattern you would like to have. Make sure I have an email address for you so I can send you a pattern if you are chosen.  All winners will be chosen at random on March 24th after the hop ends on the 23rd.

Ribbonry quilt

Triangle Confusion quilt

Scrappy Nickel Dutch Rose quilt block tutorial

Here's what's on my design wall today.  See what's on other quilters design walls at Design Wall Monday and checkout Linky party Tuesdays at Quilting by the River.

After making this mini quilt, I realized I could make the area I have circled below better.  I'm not crazy about all those seams in that area so I eliminated them and wrote a tutorial which is posted below the photo.

How to make a scrappy Dutch Rose quilt block from 5" squares of fabric (known as nickel or charm squares) tutorial

Scrappy Nickel Dutch Rose quilt block

1.  You will need the following fabrics for 1 quilt block:

1 3/4" "bonus" blocks

2. I used the method shown below for all half square triangle blocks and corners.  Draw a line diagonally from corner to corner on the wrong side of one of the squares and draw a second line 1/2" away. Place 2 squares right sides together and sew on both lines.  Cut between the sewn lines and you end up with a 1 3/4" half square triangle block from each corner as a bonus block that can be used for another project.
 If you don't want the extra block, don't draw or sew on the second line.  Just trim 1/4" from the corner to corner diagonal line after sewing on it to complete your block. Make 8 blocks like this.

3.  To make the block in the center of each side, follow the steps shown below to make 4 units.

4.  To make the points of the center star block, follow these steps and make 4:

5.  Sew the 2 units together as shown using a 1/4" seam allowance.

6. To make the corner block, follow the same basic steps as before as shown below.  The four intersecting seams circled above have been eliminated!

7.  To finish the corner blocks, add your corners, 2 background blocks and 2 half square triangle blocks as  shown.  All four corners are made the same.

8.  Arrange the blocks as shown below and sew together in rows.

9. Sew the rows together and the block is complete!