giveaway alert!

In keeping with my promise to share really neat giveaway alerts with you, here is another one:

I think we all know Rashida Coleman-Hale of I Heart Linen, right? Well, she has graciously offered up a fantastic prize on Petite Purls. Seriously, SO good (it includes a copy of her book)! So go check it out and win yourself something nice!

stacked coins (another wedding quilt)

The first quilt I made for a friend's wedding was inspired by the Stacked Coins pattern from Joelle Hoverson's Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts.  I didn't actually follow any of the instructions or measurments but I saw the quilt there first and it made me desperate to make one of my own.



This quilt was a wedding present for my friend Esther and her new husband Loewen. I knew I wanted to make them something special and handmade when I recieved her wedding present to my husband and I.  She had taken every minute of the short 3.5 months that Joel and I were engaged and painstakingly crocheted a beautiful afghan for us. So when it came time for her wedding I knew I couldn't just pick something off the registry - I had to return the kindness.

I had a very hard time parting with this quilt in the end. And like the Plain Spoken quilt it was MUCH later than it should have been.



Most of the fabrics used in the stacks are from the Cake Rock Beach line also by Joelle Hoverson. (My goodness what a talented woman!!)  It also includes one or two random solids.  I quilted it with a diamond pattern and I have no idea what the finished size was!

Two lesssons were learned in the process of making this quilt:

1.  I needed a walking foot. Turns out I had one but had no idea what it was for. I have since learned the joys of said walking foot and how much easier it makes straight line quilting.

2.  I needed to become a prewasher. I know this debate rages on in the quilting community but after a bit of bleeding in this quilt I vowed to always prewash and now I don't have a heart attack everytime I put a finished quilt in the wash.



The backing is a couple of pieces of the solid chocolate (a thrifted shift) and some yardage from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern line.

Esther and Lowen loved their quilt and it lives happily on the couch in their living room. And now if I miss it I can pay it a visit over coffee with a friend!

speaking plainly

Speaking plainly: this quilt just about killed me. The pattern for the Plain Spoken quilt from The Modern Quilt Workshop is actually great (I'm just instructions impaired). I found the quilt on Flickr originally and lived the graphic nature and tone on tone quality of my inspiration picture. When I showed the photo to a long time friend and asked if she would want one as het wedding present she was ecstatic and I had no idea what I was getting into.

To start with I had to borrow the book from the library to get the pattern an was on a waitlist for more than a month to get it. Then I made the mistake of waiting until the morning of said friends wedding to go and actually buy some fabric for it. (In the end I didn't even use what I bought for the backing!) And then the project sat and sat and sat and sat. I puzzled over where to get my solids as they aren't necessarily readily available (or at a decent price) in Calagary. Should I order some kona solids online? Should I go to my most hated store and sort through their disorganized and frustrating piles? In the end I did the latter. I took my extremely stylish brother to Fabricland and had him build a beautiful earthy palette for me. Problem solved. And at only $8.00/m!

And then the project sat and sat and sat and sat (again)! This time for no reason at all. Finally, when I couldn't avoid it anymore, I started cutting. Buy only after my dear (extremely smart) husband suggested I cut enough for two and give the second one to another set of friends for their wedding. There was a little voice inside me screaming that it was wrong to give the same quilt to two different people buy I went ahead with it anyway. I cut all the pieces I needed for the two quilts and got to work painstakingly piecing all the little bits together.



I learned a few lessons during this quilt. The obvious one being that I should stop procrastinating! Other than that I learned a few lessons about accuracy in piecing. I quilted with straight lines on either side of all the seams which is a new thing for me and I liked it.

The quilt is backed in a brown print from a collection called "Bubbles and Blooms" and bound in the same.



Finally, I added a hand embroidered dedication patch for the beautiful couple.



And because I can, here is a shameless plug of my friend Brooks Reynolds who is a fabulous wedding photographer from my home town. He not only took the couples wedding photos, but he took mine too. Make sure to check him out!