I don't know about where you are in the world, but it's darned cold here right now in Chicago

The month of December has been a little crazy, what with the holidays and all of the munchkin events at schools - it's been fun! But, it also means that I haven't been all that busy making things - except for this quilt and a one other project, I haven't had a chance (except for mending the knees of pants, fixing tears in shirt seams, sewing stuffies back shut (Rudolph comes to mind) that is...)

Rudolph had successful neck surgery tonight and is recuperating nicely. #momjob #rudolphtherednosedreindeer #aurifil #aurifilartisan

A post shared by Erin Davis (@sewathomemummy) on Dec 3, 2017 at 6:50pm PST

This quilt is a special gift for my step-mom and dad. Let's just say they have a few horses, and when they were visiting last my step-mum asked if I could make them a cozy lap quilt much like this one which I had backed in minky. No problem - you came to the right kid.

FYI: I have included Amazon affiliate links* at no extra cost to you to the fabrics I used, below. For more information, please visit my Disclosure Statement and Advertising Policies page. 

She chose a super sweet Birch Organics horse print from their "Tall Tales" line*:

This fabric is so nice to work with. It has such a soft hand to it.

I paired it with a Bella Ivory background and a series of Kona solids I had in my stash, and designed a Rolling Stone block layout with fussy cut centers -


The gorgeous quilting was done by Melissa @ Sew Shabby - it's an all over edge-to-edge computerized.


...but the pièce de résistance - the minky backing - YUM! That is a Shannon Cuddle Dot in Cream* which I picked up on Amazon* for a good price -


And, what's sexier than a quilt with a black binding? Gosh, I love black bindings! Makes the quilt look like it's stored forever in a picture frame 😍. I used Kona Jet Black*. I also made sure to include my label and a cute Fat Quarter Shop With Love label.

There it is! And a new quilt post wouldn't be complete without a picture of the dog trying it out - don't worry, Grandma and Grandpa won't mind at all -


Happy Holidays to everyone, and Merry Christmas Dad & S! 💗

Twice a year some of the lovely ladies at the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild attend a retreat in Wisconsin on Lake Michigan.



I love getting away for the weekend with these people - we all have a lot of fun. Some of us get a lot of stuff done, others not so much. But we all have a blast with each other.

This retreat I had a stack of stuff to accomplish, including finishing up this king sized HBC Point Quilt:



I pixelated the stripes with solids, yard dyeds, peppered cottons and brush strokes in each color; the top comes out to about 104" square. Look for a mini-tutorial on this soon.

I also needed a backing for this quilt, so I pieced a matching backing in blues (Kona Nautical for the background, yarn dyeds for the stripes):




Next up was a bit of a break on those bigger projects and time to work on something smaller; I chose to plug away at my Glitter Blocks for a while:


I also managed to quilt and bind a baby quilt for my brand new niece. The fabric is from V and Co's Color me Happy line and it sure is sweet!





(tag is from Fat Quarter Shop and I used variegated pink Aurifil #4660 50wt to quilt it)

I also had some fun with some tiny scraps of ME+YOU fabrics and made a few mug rugs; for this I quilted them with 12wt Aurifil on my machine (12wt on the spool, 50wt in the bobbin, drop your tension and use a large-eyed needle.


All in all, a very productive weekend.

The weather has been gorgeous as of late here in Chicago...

...this means, in this household, we are busy spending time outside playing and having fun, and plugging away at a lot of DiY. So far, we've managed to repair, patch and seal our falling apart crumbling driveway, and we're plugging away on our kitchen backsplash now. More soon on the driveway (I'll try to do a separate post).

This hasn't left much time for sewing, BUT, I have been plugging away on my Bella Skill Builder quilt along (publishes on the 1st of each month (here are my previous posts on it - it's a free pattern!)) and I've started a little in-front-of-the-tv-at-night project: The Glitter Block (English paper-pieced):


I'm using an Aurifil 80wt (aff link) to piece, and a new stitching technique the great @srhshlmn (IG) taught a group of us at the last Chicago Modern Quilt Guild meeting - stitches stay to the back and there are absolutely no stitches visible on the front.

I'm using Studio E Peppered Cottons* and Jenn Ski's "Ninja Cookies" fabric for Moda* and the background color is a Bella Solid in Ivory* (*Amazon.com affiliate links).

What are YOU working on this summer?

 *this post contains affiliate links to Amazon at no additional cost to you. For more information, please visit my Disclosure Statement and Advertising Policies page.

Summer has hit hard and fast here in Chicago. It is hot.

While the kids are enjoying the sudden heat wave (I think the kiddie pool in the back yard has something to do with it) my husband and I are dreading our upcoming electric bills. C'est la vie, as they say!

I've had a bit of fun over the last few days looking at this pretty quilt laying out on our spare bed as I let it rest, letting the folds and wrinkles relax out of it before sending it off to the Sister's Outdoor Quilt Show in Oregon next week.

It's my Reinventing the Wheel quilt (you can read more about it in these posts if you want!)




 I also took the opportunity to take a few new pictures of it, what with the nice weather and the fact that my helper was off for a few days from work - 


I love this quilt, and I can't wait for it to be home for good now and to try and figure out where in the house it'll take its final resting place. It makes me smile. I want to see it every day!

Do you have a quilt like that?

Very slowly, I've been plugging away on a new project - a selfish sewing project! Yay for me! I'm playing with pixels again. In pretty saturated colors - mostly solids and prints that read as solids. Very exciting.

Every year I start the year saying I will make more quilts for myself but alas, I never do. So far, I've completed this one, my Christmas (minky backed!) JOL quilt, have been working on this Bella Solids quilt, and have started this pixelated gem - playing with lots and lots of 3" squares whenever I have a few spare minutes:
I can't wait to be finished this one. It will be a relatively simple and quick project but with the house and kids, as always, it's just a matter of finding the time.

Also already on my mind: how I shall quilt this king-sized beast. Me thinks it will probably be off to my longarmer. Maybe?

What are YOU working on??

Oh yes, everyone. I'm dropping the "W" bomb today. W-INTER.

I know! I know! Many of us around the world are still reeling from late Winter storms which brought unprecedented amounts of snow so I might be hitting a nerve today with this post when I get all Winter-y and Holiday-y on you. Eeep! Stick with me. This is a cute quilt!

Fat Quarter Shop is running a mini-blog hop today via their blog The Jolly Jabber - and all of us participating bloggers were asked to make this Peppermint Bark quilt pattern in our own fabric choices -

...and I just so happened to have this Fat Eighth bundle of JOL by Wenche Wolff Hatling for Moda Fabrics (I love love love the Scandinavian feel of this fabric!) which I paired with some Kona Iron I had on hand -


Now, the pattern calls for Fat Quarters and gives a cutting diagram for FQs therein - but - never fear - I figured out a way to use F8s for this project for the lap sized quilt (but note that some who might have obvious directional fabrics might get a bit twitchy about how these cut out - so best for the not-so-obviously-directional or non-directional fabrics):

It was a relatively quick quilt to make, and the pattern comes with Crib, Lap, Twin and Queen sized options. I chose to go with the Lap sized (51.5x67") for the back of my couch during the winter/holidays.

Some tips I have for this quilt:

- I labeled each of my JOL fabric sets with little mini-sticky notes and some binding clips
- I sat and cut my fabrics at night in front of the TV so the task didn't seem so onerous
- I pre-marked all of my HST diagonal lines, again, in front of the boob-tube at night

Because I did as much of the prep work as possible in advance, I was able to chain-piece everything and zip, zip zip! this quilt came together quickly.


I backed this quilt with some pretty grey minky I picked up for a great price here on Amazon (affiliate link, & my disclosure page is (here)) .



I quilted the quilt with a simple meander with a few circles (I was trying to mimic snowballs here and there) and bound it in some Bella Christmas Red and I think it turned out great.


I think Orson really likes it -

I also wanted to accentuate the sashing and borders of the quilt with some different stitching, so I used a 12wt red Aurifil on the top spool pin in my machine with a long stitch length, low tension and a walking foot, and a 50wt in the bobbin -



(if you're interested in using heavier weight threads in your machine, here's a tutorial/tips and tricks post I wrote a while back on how to do that!)

12WT AURIFIL Tips & Tricks with your home sewing machine

Head on over to the Jolly Jabber, see what everyone else is up to. As always, if you love what you see, make sure to Pin it to your Pinterest boards for your future projects, and - the Fat Quarter Shop has this awesome Peppermint Bark pattern {here} on their site in PDF or paper formats!

I love Spring.

Not as much as Fall (my favorite season) but Spring is pretty darned fabulous. The snow is melting, I can finally see my grass (although this year in Chicago we had an unseasonably green winter (ssssshhhhh - do NOT tip off the snow gods...)) birds start chirping, my yard starts to look fabulous again, the view from my basement sewing area window is much prettier and more enticing than the season before.

I feel like it's a great time to start something new. Something I've always wanted to do...I have more time now (or I will - my tenure on the Chicago MQG board as their Social Media and Communications Chair is coming to an end, which theoretically should free up some time, right??)

I pulled fabric from my stash this week for my latest project; I'll be sticking to solids and near solids for this one, and I'm not wanting to buy anything for this project but some yardage for the backing. I'm going to try to make do with what I've got on the shelves here at home:



and at night I started pressing in front of the t.v. after the kids went to bed. Any ideas on what I might be making? It's a quilt for our masterbed, and it's relatively simple. That's all I'm gonna give ya. Any guesses?

And, I'll link this up with Sunday Stash Share over at Molli Sparkle's blog on Sunday when he goes live to show off my new Bella Solids card. I'm really stoked about this one; I've owned a Kona card for years and have bought several bolts of Kona (especially Snow), but, *cough*, I have to say - I'm kinda upset with Kona's lack of color continuity.

Like, really upset.

And I really, really like Kona's hand and drape (I like a stiffer cotton. What can I say.) especially because I tend to use a lot more whites and creams for my negative space. I'm bailing on Kona. I'm jumping ship to Bella. They've been much more consistent over the years for me, and, after a fantastic lecture given by one of my fellow Chicago Modern Quilt Guild board members at the last Guild meeting (which was all about solids), we all learned why: Kona dyes in multiple plant locations in two different countries, Bella, only one. So, off I go. Harder to get, especially locally for me, so I'm forced to buy online, but I don't care at this point. For my bolts for backgrounds I'm going to make the switch and I'm super stoked about this color card! WOOT!!

  

I'll stick with Konas for the smaller projects and because I love their multi pack color bundles, but for backgrounds and negative spaces that need to be consistent, I've taken the plunge. Bella it is.

What is your go-to for solid quilting cotton? Do you have a manufacturer you love? Hate? Why? Leave us all a comment! Or just leave me a comment. I always love to hear what people have to say about their favorite brands of solids.

This week marked my little munchkin's 3rd birthday.

The kid is absolutely crazy about comic books - more specifically, Marvel comic books, and even more specifically - The Avengers.

He moved to a big boy bed a few months ago as he had outgrown his toddler bed, and the poor kid didn't have a twin-sized blanket until his birthday a few days ago, because of course, I had to make him one!

I designed this quilt myself, and it was a lot of fun to make:

Custom Marvel Quilt - the Avengers! - original pattern by Sew at Home Mummy Rug by Mowhawk*

it features all of the (current) Avengers symbols; I also made the two throw pillows on the bed from some Marvel Avengers comic book panel fabric I found on Etsy.

Avengers Throw pillow!

Mohawk Home Strata Delerus Printed Rug 5'x8' from Amazon*

On the quilt I used Connecting Threads' Mirage line of basics to give it that grungy, dirty look; ThermOWeb's HeatNBond Lite* on the symbols; and I had a bunch of jelly roll strips left over from several different projects in matching colors - so the binding ended up being a scrappy, colorful finish.

The super cool, sure to hide the stains rug I found on Amazon here*. Love the no-slip grip backing and the low pile on this rug. Perfect for a boy's room.

The curtains are an IKEA hack I did at the last minute, for sort of selfish reasons. They're blackout curtains (very similar to these ones on Amazon*). And let me tell you, he's sleeping better. We got an extra hour out of the little guy this morning. I used the same Avengers comic book panel I used above for the throw pillows and added panels to the blackouts:

IKEA hack blackout curtains with Marvel Comic Book panel fabric Mohawk Home Strata Delerus Printed Rug 5'x8' from Amazon*

Fabric from a private seller on Etsy IKEA blackout curtains (similar to these on Amazon*)

I'll write a quick hack post in the coming days with how I tackled the curtains. More on that to come.

In the meantime, another quilt done, another happy customer! And a big happy birthday to my super big boy - we love you!

I've been sewing and pinning like a mad woman over here.

Next week is our (the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild's) bi-annual retreat, and so I'm quickly trying to prep a stack of projects that I can continue on or finish (in a more efficient manner) while I'm there.

me, at retreat. (ironically, this is also me, relaxed) img courtesy of Melon Headz

It's all about the efficiency when retreat time rolls around. I'm not one of those retreaters who sits around gabbing and having a great time the entire weekend -

no -

I'm the crazy haired lady, all disheveled, in the corner, with smoke coming out of her machine and sewing like a mad woman on a mission.


When the cat is away at retreat and the mice are home with daddy, I have to get everything done!

One of the projects I've been working on during any waking moment (waking for me, but sleeping for the kids...) is my son's 3rd birthday present - a Marvel Avengers quilt I designed.

I finished the top last week and got to work on the backing this week -

 the backing, in progress..

I do love a pieced, interesting backing. I feel like I'm getting more bang for my buck that way, almost like a double sided quilt. Plus, it's a heck of a lot more economical (let's be honest...) - I managed to use almost all of the extra fabric I had purchased for the front, and some left over yardage from another quilt - so the backing cost me nothing extra.

And - I think it's perfect for my son - very bright and cheery - fits his room and his personality.

Last night I was able to finish pin-basting it, and in the next few days, between Etsy orders, I'll mark my quilting lines on it. I was going to attempt to FMQ it - but as usual - I have chickened out and decided to go with a simple straight line, gridded pattern.


(for those unfamiliar with The Avengers, the colors and symbols on the quilt correspond to each of the team members - upside down in the photo, but L-R, grey-red: Black Widow, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Falcon)

I'll maybe do something funky in the symbols - we'll see. I also don't want to detract from them at all...

How would you quilt it?