During the big ‘Fall into Fall’ giveaway, I had a visitor comment on one of my other posts. The visitor was Mary of Needled Mom. She left me a comment on my Quilt Show Part 2 post saying that she had previously made the ‘Bug Jar Quilt’ that I mentioned wanting to make. Here is the quilt from the quilt show I went to see:

My own thoughts on this one were “Love this quilt. It is a commercial pattern and I will make it someday. I just have to get the pattern … and the fabrics … and well … the time. But someday I will!”, so when Mary said she had made it before of course I asked her where she got the pattern as I had been looking for it for some time. Mary had made the quilt many years ago for her grandson, but she took a peek through her stash to see if she still had a copy of the pattern. Unfortunately she did not, but she did find an Etsy seller for me that did have a pdf copy of the pattern. Click on the pic below to be taken to the pattern for sale.

I had never heard of the seller, bcheri, before. I am hesitant to buy pdf’s of patterns as sometimes people just scan in their copy, which is obviously against copyright laws. The picture of the pattern didn’t have the pattern makers name on it, so I just wasn’t sure if the Etsy seller was the pattern maker, but I decided to take a chance on it anyway. The pattern is not a reproduction at all. The pdf is not scanned, it is an original pdf pattern. From the pdf itself I was able to determine that, Beth Maddocks of Piece By Number, is the pattern maker and the owner of the Etsy store I bought it from. That came with great relief as I could feel very comfortable using the pattern now. Beth had great service, she had the pattern to me within 24 hours of payment, and she followed up to be sure the pattern didn’t end up in my spam folder. I would highly recommend her as an Etsy seller.

I let Mary know that I had picked up the pattern, and thanked her for helping me find it. She then asked for my address as she wanted to send me a few buggy fabrics she had found in her stash. A few weeks later these pretties showed up on my doorstep:

Awesome right?! This gives me such a head start on collecting buggy fabrics!! It’s not always easy to find a good variety in a store, so I may do a trade for more buggy fabrics as well, but Mary’s generosity certainly got me started!

I am excited to get started collecting fabrics for this quilt, and even more excited that I may actually get this one done someday. Writing this blog has just been a fun way to share my projects with the world (as my husband only pretends to care), and meeting people like Mary is the icing on the cake!

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

After I finished putting together the top for my Funky Chicken quilt, I had a few blocks left over. I offered these blocks up to a few of the other members of the swap so they could have some extras to play with when making their quilts. In exchange I just asked that they send me a few scraps since I love to play with other people’s scraps for my quilts. Well one girl was nice enough to send me a whole honey bun! A honey bun is a roll of about 40, 1 1/2 inch strips. All the strips come from one coordinating line of fabric. I had never worked with a honey bun before, so I was excited to give it a try. After thinking about a pattern, I finally settled on a Bargello pattern. Here is the top I made.

I had Kris help me take that picture, of course it was windy out when we took the pics, so getting this just right took a few shots. Just for fun, here are a few outtakes.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

Recently I won a $25 gift card to the Fat Quarter Shop. I decided to put this to good use to pick up a layer cake of the ‘Pure’ line by Sweetwater for Moda. I have been in love with this line since before it came out when FQS just had previews of it up. This was a great chance to pick it up.

I enjoy shopping at FQS, they always have quick service and their stuff is well packaged. While I was waiting for my layer cake to arrive, I perused the web for some patterns that would work with a layer cake. I wanted to try and make a quilt with only this layer cake, no extra fabric added. I knew it would be a challenge, but I did find a wonderful pattern on the Moda Bake Shop blog. This is a fun blog where all sorts of people post tutorials for making quilts, many of which are using Moda’s pre-cuts, which is wonderful. I ended up picking the ‘Boxed in Quilt’ pattern by KarrieLyne of Freckled Whimsy. (click the picture to be taken to the pattern)

She wrote the pattern to go with the Lollipop Layer cake, which has a few solids in it, but she mentioned that you could also do a layer cake with no solids, and just move the centers around. This is what I decided to do this with the ‘Pure’ layer cake. When the layer cake arrived, I paired up 40 of the squares, trying to have a decent contrast between the pairs.

Each of these pairs will have one fabric for the outside and one for the inside. Then it will be reversed. This allows each pair will make 2 blocks. The layout will be 8×5, and with the blocks finishing at 8.5 inches, the quilt will be 42.5×68. If I add a border on, I think this will make a nice sized quilt.

I had 2 extra squares because the layer cake came with 42 squares and I only needed 40, so I did a quick test of the blocks. You can see how the middles get changed and the two blocks end up being a reverse of each other.

This was my first time working with a layer cake. I am not quite sure how I like it. The pinking is a bit annoying, though I know without it; these blocks would be a stringy mess. I haven’t actually made more blocks yet, but by the time I am done this quilt, I think I will be very acquainted with working with a layer cake. My son Kolby has already laid claim to this quilt, so I better get cracking on it!

Happy Quilting!
Rachel