IG Happy Mail: Lilla!

Oh my lucky stars! Look what arrived yesterday in my mailbox! Happy mail from Lotta Jansdotter!

Lotta is a fabric designer. Her designs are organic yet sleek and urban. Her latest collection, Lilla (which means 'little' in Swedish), for Windham Fabrics was delivered to shops this spring. As part of the release, Lotta held a giveaway on Instagram recently and guess who was lucky enough to win one of her prizes!

And here's my winnings - a Lilla pattern by Lotta and Cheryl Arkison, plus 9 yards of Lilla fabric, enough of the feature fabric required for the pattern. I've been wanting to learn how to sew curves, so this pattern may be quite fun. I actually joined The Modern Quilt Guild last week as an at large member, so this may be the perfect project to celebrate my new membership.

Speaking of the MQG, I participated in my first event as a member - a webinar on fabric design presented by Kim Kight, founding designer for Cotton + Steel and author of "A Field Guide To Fabric Design". It was very interesting and I hope they have more webinars like it in the future.

Now, I'm off to climb on the combine and cut some wheat!

~Sharla

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TBT: Thimbleberries Month-By-Month

We're on the verge of wheat harvest (maybe we'll start later today) here on the farm, but I had to make time to share another Throw Back Thursday quilt. This was a Thimbleberries block-of-the-month calendar quilt called Month-By-Month from the late 90's - maybe 1998.

I signed up for this quilt through our local Extension office and picked up the kits once a month. When I started, I knew it was destined to become a UFO because I was fully immersed in a new multi-million dollar grant project at work. I dug it back out in 2007 when the hubby and I became empty-nesters and finished it, along with 7 other UFO quilts that year.

Quilt Stats:

• Quilt Pattern: Month-By-Month calendar quilt by Thimbleberries.
• Fabric: Thimbleberries by Lynette Jensen.
• Finished Size: 76" x 92".
• Quilting: I had this quilt custom quilted by a hand-quilded long arm quilter. She did a lot of line stitching and stitching in the ditch on the blocks, meandering in the sashings and a leaf motif in the border.

~Sharla

P.S. Sorry for the wrinkled quilt. I really thought I steamed it better than that!

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What?!! My First Design Client!

To say I was flabbergasted would be an understatement. Following my post last week about the Spoonflower tea towel I designed using my grandmother's handwritten recipes, I was contacted by a blog reader asking if I would be interested in designing one for her. I was excited for the challenge and we soon reached an agreement. Woo Hoo! My first fabric design client!

The whole experience went as smooth as butter, although on my end, I was a little nervous that I would meet the expectations of my client. But she sent photos of family elements that she wanted to include and it gave me all the direction I needed. (edit/update: I should have included that the quilt in the background was made by my client's grandmother who's recipe is featured, along with her grandparents' photos. The 50th anniversary pottery plates were custom made by M.A. Hadley of Kentucky). I'm happy that my client was pleased with this final design:

Because I wanted to give her options, I designed a couple of other similar layouts, including this one with a plain background:

I enjoyed this experience so much and learned a few new things, like converting .png files to .jpg files. Simple to do, but I'd never worked with .png files and so never had the need to learn.

Thank you Paula for such an awesome experience! I'm looking forward to seeing where this whole design thing will take me, but for now I'm enjoying the process.

~Sharla

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TBT: Morning Star Quilt

Oh, this one is an oldie but goody! For today's Throw Back Thursday, I'm sharing another one of the first quilts I made back in the early 90's called Morning Star Quilt. In fact, it may have been the first quilt I completed, but I'm not sure. Here's what I remember.....

1. I made this quilt in a quilt class through the extension service. We sewed for 2 days in the class then took it home to finish.
2. The pattern is from Eleanor Burns "Quilt In A Day" series called Morning Star Quilt (published in 1988). Obviously, it took me longer than a day!
3. I bought the fabric at Walmart because I didn't know any better and there weren't many, if any, quilt stores in the area. I've never washed this quilt (and I never pre-wash my fabric) so I don't know how well it will hold up.
4. It's a full-size quilt measuring 73" x 89". Thank goodness I found the book for reference! (It's a miracle!!)
5. I quilted it on my domestic sewing machine, according to the book's instructions, along the chains with monofilament thread. It definitely does not have enough quilting on it to keep the batting from shifting and someday I plan to load it on my long arm and quilt it again. Some. Day. Ha!
6. I'm sure I pieced it with good ole Coats & Clark thread and, because it has some loft, I think I used a poly batting.
7. This quilt has lived it's life folded and laid across the back of one of my hubby's antique Abernathy chairs in our living room.

I sure wish I would have chronicled my quilt making from the beginning. Do you keep a record of the quilts you make? What kind of a system do you use? Please comment and share!

~Sharla

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My Take On The Spoonflower Tea Towel

I'm sure everyone has seen the Spoonflower tea towel - the one with the handwritten recipe printed on it. I've wanted to make my own version ever since I saw that towel pop up on my social media a few years ago. Well, here is my take featuring some of my maternal grandma's handwritten recipes.

I decided I wanted to layer multiple recipe cards so that I had a vertical design, rather than using just one card that created a horizontal design.

To add interest I photographed some of my vintage green kitchen utensils to add to the composition. I added an old photo of my grandma standing in front of the stove cooking. I pulled the aqua blue background color from the lines on the recipe cards. I did all of the designing in Photoshop Elements.

I have been busy the last week sewing the 3 yards of linen fabric I ordered with this design into a dozen tea towels. Most of them my mom is giving to her sisters and brother this week at their annual Siblings Week (I hope she has already gifted them or this post may be a spoiler!).  I added a band with my logo and care instructions to those. Of course I kept one for me, and I am giving one to my daughter.

I am over-the-moon excited with my tea towel design. Have you made your own tea towel design? Tell me about it in the comments! Next, I'd love to design a calendar tea towel - those are just so retro and fun!

~Sharla

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Label Love

Confession time. I am horrible at labeling my quilts. So, since I updated my logo, I decided to order woven sew-in labels with my logo, name and blog address. I'm in love!

Maybe now I'll be excited to sew binding on just so I can sew in my new label - probably not, but a girl can hope, can't she!

Thank you to Custom Labels 4 U for the awesome labels!

~Sharla

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TBT: All Spruced Up

I'm back with another Throw Back Thursday Quilt. This week I'm showcasing the All Spruced Up quilt I made back in August of 2011.

This quilt is a free pattern from Jodi Barrows, aka Square In A Square, and uses her Square In A Square ruler and technique. I made this as a shop sample for kits back in my quilt shop days. I elected to omit the presents under the tree that the pattern shows.

In 2013, I gifted this quilt to a family friend, so luckily I had taken photos of it when I finished the quilt in 2011. I love this quilt! Maybe someday I'll make another one to keep (nah, who am I kidding, that will never happen! lol).

Quilt Stats:

• Quilt Pattern: All Spruced Up by Jodi Barrows of Square In A Square.
• Fabric: "Noel" by Susan Winget for Benartex for top, binding and backing.
• Finished Size: 34" x 38".
• Batting: Hobbs 80-20.
• Thread: Mettler for piecing, Perma Core for machine quilting. Color numbers not recorded but both were an off-white/cream.
• Quilting: Quilted on a Gammill Statler Stitcher long arm using a holly, berries and ribbon pattern.

~Sharla

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TBT: French Roses Quilt

It's been a while since I shared a Throw Back Thursday quilt. I'm sharing quilts that I made before I started my blog just to record them, with the hope of someday printing all of my blog posts in book form as an archive of my quilting. So today I'm sharing a quilt that I made in June of 2013 - my French Roses quilt.

I fell in love with this pattern 15 years ago when it first came out, but it was a busy time in my life and I wasn't quilting much. In 2013, this line of fabric by Robyn Pandolph inspired me to hunt the name of the quilt and pattern designer down. And I'm so glad I did because I love this cozy little quilt!

Quilt Stats:

• Quilt Pattern: French Roses by Heather French, features raw edge applique flowers.
• Fabric: Love & Liberty by Robyn Pandolph for RJR.
• Finished Size: 57" x 57".
• Binding: Pieced scrappy binding using remaining Love & Liberty fabric.
• Batting: Hobbs 80-20.
• Thread: Mettler for piecing, Perma Core for quilting. Color numbers not recorded but both were an off-white/cream.
• Quilting: Quilted on a Gammill longarm, this is one of the only quilts that I have free-hand quilted, mostly stippling. The borders were quilted with the Statler computer.

~Sharla

P.S. Woo Hoo! I just realized this is my 200th post on the blog!

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