Star Cakes is another fun quilt in the parade of the Fat Quarter Shop’s Top 10 Videos of 2015. I chose to make a baby-friendly-sized version, because WOW, you can get FIVE baby quilts out of TWO layer cakes with this pattern, and WOW, I know FOUR women who are pregnant with girls at the moment.
And there’s more fun: Fat Quarter Shop wants to see YOUR versions of their Top 10’s, and they’re offering a $100 gift certificate to one lucky quilter who posts their photos on Instagram with the hashtag #starcakesquilt and #FQStop10.
Thanks for the opportunity to sew up this great pattern, Fat Quarter Shop!
Happy New Year everyone! In celebration of the new year, Fat Quarter Shop decided to showcase their top ten YouTube videos from 2015, and the Layers of Charm pattern was one of them. It is a very easy pattern to stitch!
I chose to make my Layers of Charm quilt using the very pretty Flower Sugar 10″ Origami Square pack, and paired it with a White Bella Solids Charm Pack I had on hand.
Every time I’ve seen a Layers of Charm quilt, I’ve always noticed those middle diamonds, and I’ve always thought that they made perfect little blank canvases for some embellishment, so I went with it and added a redwork rose to my center diamond:
I simply traced a vintage roses pattern (found all over the internet) onto the fabric, and then used some DMC cotton perle #8 in color #321 to stem stitch the design. I think it goes perfectly with the Flower Sugar “look.”
I then did some double diagonal lines of quilting with 40 weight Aurifil thread in color #2250, and I love how they cross each other!
I loved making this quilt, and it turned out so beautiful!
If you’d like to watch the Layers of Charm video, here it is:
Also, if you head on over to the Fat Quarter Shop’s Jolly Jabber blog, they’re offering a $100 gift certificate giveaway in connection with this #FQSTop10 event. Go find out how to enter!
Thank you, Fat Quarter Shop, for this great pattern and the opportunity to share it with others!
But, wait! Others are making the Layers of Charm quilt and showing it off today! Go check ’em out:
I’m so excited to have seen the sign-ups for the 2016 rendition of the Beehive Swarm Swap. And, as luck would have it, I was assigned January as my special Queen Bee month! I’ve been eagerly awaiting the appropriate time to start talking about my block choice, and it’s finally here! (I made myself wait until after Christmas…it was so hard.)
So, hi! I’m Cara. I’m crafty, and I’ve chosen the “Wanta Fanta” block for my block, and I made up a little sample block to show the colors I like:
I’m OK with a little bit of low-volume white background, and I’m also OK with plain white, or white-on-white.
For the colors, I’d like any combination of turquoise/aqua, navy, red, spring green, and happy pink. I’m not a big fan of batiks or 1800’s prints, and I really love gingham and florals. I’d really like each block to be a different color…but also waver on whether or not that’s too much to ask, so please proceed as you best see fit.
I’ve also made up a Pinterest board, in case that proves helpful:
Another new pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop and Art Gallery Fabrics! It’s a clever little pattern, and I enjoyed sewing it up so much! I love sewing half square and corner square triangles, and that’s what this pattern is all about. And, even better, the Locket quilt pattern is available for FREE!
When I first saw the pattern, I fell in love–it made me think of the light inside each person (yellow centers), and how they are surrounded by people who love them, and their experiences (multi-colored fabrics). That people/experience “filter” helps us to choose from right and wrong, which always surround us (navy & ivory).
As always, there’s a cute little video explaining the pattern, featuring Kimberly from the Fat Quarter Shop:
Today is a big day. Not for me, but a big day nonetheless: my great grandmother turns the big one-zero-zero today! One hundred years old, can you even imagine?
Christmas 2013. Sadly, we live too far away to be with her today.
Thinking about that–being alive for one hundred years–all the things she’s seen and experienced, gets you thinking about all the things that you’ve not only seen and experienced, but will see and experience over the course of the remainder of my life.
My great grandmother was thirteen when the stock market crashed in 1929, a student in middle school. The attack on Pearl Harbor happened two days before her twenty-sixth birthday–while she was pregnant with my grandmother. What was she doing when she heard that the war had ended? What did she think of Martin Luther King’s speech when she first heard it? Where was she when she saw footage of the first man on the moon? What feelings surged through her when the Berlin Wall came down?
Are those even things that she thinks about anymore?
Or do her thoughts sift through other things?
I mean, if I was one hundred years old, living in a bed in a nursing home, what would I be thinking about?
The happy memories? The day my husband proposed to me? Our first kiss as husband and wife? Christmas mornings when my children were young? Christmas mornings when I was young? The first time I heard my first baby laugh? How happy my second daughter was when, after months of mauling the poor thing, the cat hopped into her lap as she sat on the couch? My third daughter’s smile when she rode the Dumbo ride at Disneyland? The moment when I found out our fourth child was a boy?
The painful memories? The things I regret? My moments of triumph?
I assume all, actually.
But I’m pretty sure I won’t be bragging about being alive when 9/11 happened. Or recounting my first experience with Facebook. Or where I was when…well, whatever the next huge step is in regards to advancing as a civilization.
I’ll be thinking about my family and my choices. That time I yelled at my child when I shouldn’t have. That time I made a huge sacrifice for someone else and it turned out to be completely worth it. That first decision that started the chain reaction that led to the worst mistake of my life. That moment of divine intervention that led me to the best joys of my life. That smile. Those tears. The words. The feelings.
Which has me thinking about what’s truly important today. Of everything that’s going on this week, this month, next year…what will I be thinking about, expressing gratitude for, during the winding-up years of my life?
And is there anymore that I can do to make right now even better?
Because that’s what life is, even when you’ve had a hundred years on this planet–the total of your “right nows.”
I’m working on a secret project that I’m quite pleased with. Of course, since it’s secret, I can’t really tell you anything about it, or show you pictures of it that will give it away, which makes for a bit of a fail when it comes to a work-in-progress blog post…hmmm.
When I first saw the pattern, I had a little flash of inspiration that was outside of my usual box, and I decided to take a gamble and go with it. These are not colors I usually work with, but I am totally digging this color combo!
Yes, it’s a quilt.
No, it’s not a Christmas present for anyone.
And, no, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it specifically when it’s done. It doesn’t match anything in my house, but I love it so much that I’ll probably keep it anyway. It just makes me happy to look at it, and I consider that a fabulous reason to own something.
Now, back to my sewing so that I can show you “finished” photos in the not-too-distant future. Happy Midweek, Happy Whatever-Winter-Holiday-You-Celebrate (mine’s Christmas! Yay!), Happy Life!
I saw the sign-ups for the Bee Hive Swap in time this year, and got in! :::happy dance::: So excited!
My own swap group that I’m running liked it so much that a bunch want to do it again next year! So, busy with setting that up at the moment.
Yeah, two year-long swaps…talk to me at the end of next year. 🙂
I wrote up an exhaustive inventory of the many works-in-progress taking up space in my craft room, and then hammered out a plan to plough through almost all of them in the next year.
A newly-finished pair of socks right now is kind of perfect, given that the snow has started. I was actually thinking the socks would be a Christmas present for someone dear to me, but my feet are freakin’ freezing, so I’m going to keep them. Mwa ha ha.
The second WIP that will probably get finished is a baby boy quilt I started almost eight years ago.
The kid in this photo is Penguin, who is now nine years old. She’s drinking from the mug I received after giving birth to Junebug, who is now seven-and-a-half years old…
It’s funny how you can start a project with so much excitement, but with each passing year of not completing said project how much that excitement turns into resentment and shame. So much so that I definitely don’t want to keep the quilt when I’m done, but fear the repercussions of giving a new life an item infused with so many negative feelings from myself. The act of giving wipes off all the bad juju, right? Right?
I’ve also fleshed out a “Baby Gift Flowchart” to help me decide what to make for tiny humans on my radar. In this age of social media, I find that I’m inundated with the awareness of many a pregnancy, and the baby-lovin’ crafter part of me really wants to make something for every one of them. However, given the physical limitations of time, I can’t. So I came up with a way to shrink the pool a bit and ease my conscience. A line had to be drawn somewhere, or I’d never be done with making baby gifts.
I’m currently aware of nine pregnancies, and of three women trying to get pregnant. That’s twelve impending births in the next year. My flowchart narrows the gifts down to five recipients, which is still a lot, but gives me back a bunch of time. I am raising four children of my own…
My son broke the teeth off of the zipper of his winter parka the first day he wore it. Of course. Even better, he broke off enough teeth that the actual zipper pull fell off, too. So, instead of working on WIPs, my time is needed to repair a zipper in a parka.
Thank you all so much for your kind words and well wishes, each little comment cheered me greatly.
Without further delay, I’m excited to announce that our winner is Shannon W. who said that she’d love the Arizona Triangle Token Metallic in her bundle.
Thank you again for all your comments, and I hope you all were able to download the free Welded quilt pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop without problem. I can’t wait to get the green light to go ahead with it once my foot heals up–looking forward to sharing that finish with you in the future!
Congratulations, Shannon W., I’ll be in touch with you so we can get your bundle out the door quickly!
As part of participating in this blog event, I got to see the free pattern before it was distributed, and I got to choose any Art Gallery fabrics that I wanted to use to make up the pattern…how cool is that?!?! I waited eagerly for the precious fabric to arrive, did a little dance at my mailbox when it showed up, and dashed home to pre-wash it like all good little crafters do…
And then I broke my foot.
Because I’m Cara, and that is what I do.
And, because I’m Cara, I really did experiment with the idea of pushing through a broken foot and sewing my quilt anyway…which lasted about the amount of time it took to move my fabric from my cutting table to my ironing board and I tripped about seventeen times. As much as I love quilting, “death by tripping over iron cord” is really not the way I want to bow out of this world.
A sad email was then written to the Fat Quarter Shop. *sniffle*
A very kind response was received. *smile* The folks at the Fat Quarter Shop are so very nice.
I am really bummed that I couldn’t make up a quilt to show you, because the Welded pattern is super cute, and I was really looking forward to its assembly.
But, even though I don’t have a quilt to show, I DO have a lovely, lovely giveaway to offer: a fat quarter bundle of your favorite Art Gallery fabrics!
To enter, simply leave a comment on this blog post telling me at least ONE (1) Art Gallery fabric that you would choose to have in your fat quarter bundle if you won! Also make sure to include a way for me to contact you if you win. (Not sure which Art Gallery fabric you’d like? Visit the Art Gallery Fabric website or Fat Quarter Shop’s Art Gallery section, drool a little bit, and then come back here to leave a comment.)
Giveaway is open to US and International commenters, and will close on Friday, October 2nd, 2015 at 11:59 pm MDT. I’ll post the winner here and on Instagram (@thatcraftycara) the next day.
A huge thank you to Art Gallery Fabrics and the Fat Quarter Shop for inviting me to be a part of this Welded quilt pattern release; it has been a lot of fun even without being able to fully participate! I’m really looking forward to sewing up my own quilt once my foot has healed!
And be sure to stop by some of the other blogs featured on the Welded blog tour:
The upside of having a broken foot and not being able to use your sewing machine, drive a car, or basically do anything is that it gives you more time for handwork-style crafting like knitting, which I’ve neglected for the past year during my sewing obsession. I started these socks while we were living in Australia last year, hoping that they’d be ready for Thanksgiving; but they weren’t and it was OK. They’re ready for this year’s feast.
I finished the first sock while we were in Australia, but didn’t get around to casting on for the second sock until July of this year. Our family went to Lagoon, and seeing how I was still recovering from back surgery and banned from all the rides, I set up camp and watched over all our stuff while my husband escorted the kids around the park.
I then worked on it mostly at physical therapy appointments for the rest of the summer, and finished it up on a lovely autumn day spent doing archery amongst the changing colors of the leaves in the mountains. These are the autumn-est of socks.
I’ve procrastinated writing up a post about them because I haven’t wanted to model them–I’ve got a boot on one foot for my stupid broken metatarsal, and I had to have something done to a toe on my other foot because my feet are just whiny little pansies right now. But I know, from previous experience, that I’ll just never get around to writing a post if I don’t do it when the finish is still fresh in my mind, so foot modeling with a broken foot it is!
Fabulous.
Just fabulous.
Limp down that runway.
I roll my own eyes at myself. 🙂
Hopefully, next week’s check-in appointment will find me wholly healed and then I can ditch the boot. *fingers crossed*
The yarn is Manos del Uruguay’s Alegria in colorway “Ceibo.” I knit these up for my US Size 10 feet and have quite a bit leftover. I may even weigh the leftovers at some point so I can really know just exactly how much is left over.
I used Diane Soucy’s “Beginner’s Lightweight Socks” pattern, which is my go-to pattern, even though I really wish I could get the Yarn Harlot’s “Sock Recipe” to work for me…I mess that one up in some little way every single time, so I went with my tried-and-true pattern.
Hello Lovelies!
Happy New Year everyone! In celebration of the new year, Fat Quarter Shop decided to showcase their top ten YouTube videos from 2015, and the Layers of Charm pattern was one of them. It is a very easy pattern to stitch!
