{A Great Deal (SALE)} Shelburne Falls: New Charm Rolls

Before we moved, I planned to add some new charm rolls to the SoChick Fabric Shoppe... but then the computer crashed, and I've closed my shop while we're in temporary living arrangements.  Needless to say, I have these gorgeous 10in Charm Rolls, from Denyse Schmidt's Shelburne Falls collection, staring at me and need to sell them.  In this case, my loss will be your gain!

The charm rolls feature one 10in sqaure of each of the prints in the Shelburne Falls collection.  There is a Free Quilt Pattern, Square Dance, on Denyse's website which calls for one charm roll and solids.  A simple and modern quilt... fun to stitch with a folksy, yet, modern vibe. Check it out here: 

{Square Dance via dsquilts.com}

Head on over to the SoChick Facebook Page to snatch up a Shelburne Falls charm roll at a great price, which includes shipping!  

How it works:

Simply comment on the facebook post with your paypal email address.  You will receive an invoice within 24 hrs and must pay it within 24 hrs of receipt; your fabric will ship upon receipt of payment.

There are only FIVE rolls available... hurry!

XxOo~ Melissa

A New Finish in a New Place {My #ScrappyTripAlong Quilt}

Let's think back to New Years Eve and the first week of the new year when I pieced this Scrappy Trip Along lap quilt for my youngest daughter.

From January

Now that we have moved and are hanging out in our temporary residence, I am finishing up projects and am happy to announce that my #scrappytripalong quilt is complete!

My littlest Chickie chose to have her quilt backed with Eloise in Sky, from Jennifer Paganelli's Happy Land line, and I chose to quilt in a grid pattern mimicking the pattern created by the scrappy blocks.  I alternated rows of single stitched lines and triple stitched lines... and I am so happy with how it turned out!

I really, really love Jennifer's Eloise print and was excited when my chick picked it... as with all of my quilts so far (this is my third finish), I finished by hand-stitching down the binding.  I think this will be something that I continue throughout my quilting as I really love adding that touch; I feel like it keeps me connected to where quilting has come from.  Of course my opinion may change once I hand-stitch the binding on an extra large quilt... *wink*

After a light wash and fresh from the dryer, my little chickie soaked up the warm snuggly-ness of her new quilt.

My best attempt at capturing the cuddly-ness of a fresh quilt.

  I am hoping to have another quilt finished before we move into our new home and am excited to share it with you.

What have you been sewing lately?

XxOo~ Melissa

SoChick Quilt Along {Anchors Aweigh: Week 3}

Welcome to week 3 of the SoChick Quilt Along featuring the Anchors Aweigh Quilt Pattern, and Salt Water fabrics, by Tula Pink!

We are crossing the half-way mark this week with Rows 4 & 5 of the Anchors Aweigh Quilt.  If you are laying your pieces out together, or if you're joining them as we go, your quilt top is starting to look pretty Awesome!

Here's some quick links to previous posts for this QAL, if you need to catch up:

Original QAL Post

Cut & Prep

Week 1: Rows 1 & 8

Week 2: Rows 2 & 3

At the end of the QAL you'll be able to enter a photo, or link to a photo, of your completed top for a chance to WIN a Free Craftsy.com class for Quilting your large quilt... and this is a large quilt, on your home machine!

Thank you to Craftsy for generousrly sponsoring the SoChick QAL! This lesson is valued at $39.99 and is full of very useful information, plus it's yours to keep and watch whenever; over and over again!  Stop by Craftsy.com to check out all of the awesomeness going on over there.

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{Week 3: Row 4 & Row 5}

We are going to put our rows together in reverse order today because I have started using the method of "Chain Piecing" when sewing all of these little squares together when there are sections full of them.  As a reminder, I'll refer to the Row and then the Section within the Row as shown in the Anchors Aweigh Quilt Pattern.(ex: Row 5 Section 2 (R5S2).)

Row 5:
Lay out your pieces.

Now, with Row 5 Section 2, (R5S2) we are going to start chain piecing our squares.  Chain piecing is a time-saving technique used in quilting where you sew fabric pieces together in a continuous chain or loop.  It's especially helpful with the little squares we're working with and I noticed that it makes handling them much easier as well as they are all kept together, literally.

R5S2, we will only chain piece the squares in the lower part of this section, and again in Section 8.  I pieced the solids and top four squares as I normally would. (not shown in this pic, but you'll see in the next, *wink*)

Following the arrows, you'll place the squares on top of each other right sides together, making two rows of square pairs (photo 2 below).  Then, you will stitch, using your 1/4 in seam allowance, on the right side of the squares, as indicated by the arrows in photo 2; continuing down each row.  Once you stitch one pair of squares, without lifting your presser foot and without trimming your thread, you'll place the next pair under to be stitched and so on.  All of the squares will be connected by a "chain" of fabric. 

You'll finger-press the seams open on the square pairs and repeat the process with the pairs, joining them at the center seam (photo 4, above) being careful not to twist your chain as you go (pinning can be helpful for the first run-through).  Next, without trimming the chain stitches, you'll attach all of these little rows together as we did in previous rows by nesting the seams.  The good news is, with all of the rows attached by the chain stitches, lining up the seams and stitching is a piece of cake!

Once all of the little rows are stitched together, trim the chain stitches and press all of these seams open before joining the bottom of this section to the top. 

Trim chain stitches before pressing seams open.

Complete Row 7, then continue chain-piecing with Row 5 Section 5 and you'll find how quickly these sections go together using this time-saving technique.

Once you've completed R5 Sections 2, 8, and 5, Sections 3 and 7 stitch up quickly.  When sewing with your solids, be careful not to pull at the solid fabrics as this will distort the seam.  This is especially important to remember when piecing the row together.

Row 5 Sections 3 & 7

You'll notice that my sections are a little wonky, before stitching them together I am sure to starch and press them all, even the solids.  I then stitch together the pieced sections, 2 & 3 and 7 & 8, next I joined 4, 5, and 6. I joined these pairings and added the final outside solids 1 & 9.  I find that this method allows be to best line up my pieces as straight as possible by checking against a solid fabric edge... as they aren't wonky like my pieced sections.  I have not cut down any of my pieced sections... any wonky-ness is absorbed in my 1/4 in seam allowance... so far. 

Row 4:
Again, lay out the pieces... and keep that pattern handy!

Now that you've got chain piecing figured out, this row will go together quickly.  You'll use the chain piecing method for all of Row 4 Section 4.  Below is a photo of attaching your chain pieced rows together, nesting seams, etc... and what it looks like with everything attached.

Chain piecing makes the next step, of nesting seams and stitching the little rows together, move quickly.

Once you finish R4S4, the next two sections, 2 & 6, go together quickly, too!  

Stitch all of your sections together and do a happy dance that you are more than half-way through Tula Pink's Anchors Aweigh Quilt top!

We have two more rows to go, then we'll join them and be ready to share our completed tops...  Woo Hoo!  It is SO exciting to see this come together and I'm thrilled to be sewing it with you!  Remember to share photos of your progress in the SoChick QAL Flickr group, or on Instagram with the hashtag #SoChickQAL.

See you next week!

Psst... if you have a blog or website, please grab a button (copy and paste the code from the right sidebar) to share the fun with everyone and let them know what you've been stitching.

XxOo~ Melissa 

Sewing Projects {Completed, In Progress, Upcoming}

It is a fact of life that we sewists, sewers, quilters, what have you, all have Unfinished and Ongoing projects lying around our sewing room, studio or space.  True Story.  If you are just being bitten by the sewing/crafting bug, be prepared, this will happen to you!

Sometimes it's nice to take stock of what's going down in the Ongoing projects bin, or in my case, drawer. (I keep my projects organized in the deep drawer of my Martha Stewart craft table so that I don't completely forget about them).

Here's my review of my quilting projects I've completed, am working on, and upcoming.

{Completed}
Last January I started in an After Christmas Sew-Along.  At the time I made great progress on piecing a lap quilt for my oldest daughter.  I quilted about two-thirds of it, then to the "in progress" drawer it went to wait, and wait, and wait, to be finished.  Well, before Christmas I got my behind in gear and finished quilting and binding the quilt in time for gifting to my chickadee.  She loves it.

 This was my first attempt at Free Motion Quilting, which I did on my home machine.  I did an all-over stipple, which I felt would hide any quilting flaws pretty well.  I was right, it does.  I love it.

Lap Quilt 48 x 60 in

{In Progress}
I'm ashamed to admit that I have yet to layer and quilt my 2012 Craftsy BOM.  Um, yeah... I actually still have some sashing that needs to be added, so... that's pretty high on my "to finish... soon" list.  I'll share the top as soon as I have it all put together, I'll update my Craftsy projects then, too.

Another "In Progress" is my Scrappy Trip Along.  The top is completed, I have the batting, now I just need to get my backing together, layer, quilt and bind.  I'm still trying to decide how I want to quilt this one, which will be my third completed quilt, and will go to my youngest chickadee.  She currently has the first quilt I made, her 35 x 35 inch "night-night", which she's outgrowing... size-wise anyway.

Right now I'm torn between quilting in a plaid-inspired pattern, or just dense straight line quilting.... hmmm, what are your thoughts?

{Upcoming}
I have started cutting Two-Inch square blocks for an upcoming Quilt Along that I am hosting here on my SoChick! Blog in February.  If you follow me anywhere (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), you know that I've been hinting at it, but I will officially announce it in the coming days.  I'm very excited about this quilt, when I first saw it I knew I had to make it as my Epic Quilt of 2013.  To me, especially as a novice quilter, it's completely Epic.  Sign up for my Newsletter (over there to the right) to be one of the first to get the official announcement and opportunity to purchase the Quilt Kit!

What have you been working on? Feel free to share links to your blog or photo sharing stream in the comments!

XxOo~ Melissa

What is a "Scrappy Trip Along"? { aka #ScrappyTripAlong}

Here's my quickie post so that all of you who are seeing my Instagram or Twitter Feed, or my posts on Facebook (because you may not necessarily be on either one of the other social sites (why!?!?)), know what the heck I'm talking about while i'm showing off these scrappy blocks I just randomly (seemingly) started stitching.

It's not really random at all... 

You see, sewers/quilters all sort of gravitate towards one another, we share a passion, and if one of 'us' starts something and is having a blast, we all want to jump on the wagon and stitch our hearts out, too! (Right?! Can someone back me up on this?)  New to sewing? Oh, you'll soon understand.

Anywho, on New Years Eve I noticed that a few of the peeps that I follow via Twitter were madly stitching these scrappy quilt blocks and sharing them (via Instagram and Twitter) with the Hash Tag (#) ScrappyTripAlong.  I did a quick search and learned that it was started by Megan (from Lucy and Norman) and Brenda (at Just A Bit Frayed)... read about it on Brenda's blog, HERE.

I jumped in on the fun and have started sewing my blocks.  What a fun, impromptu Quilt Along!

You can find the original post for the Scrappy Trips Around the World Quilt in Brenda's post above, or on Quiltville.com.

And, here is another post from Brenda explaining how many scrappy strips (2.5 x 16 inch strips) are needed to make a given size quilt.  I'm still undecided on how big I'll go.

Are you going to join in the fun?! Share your instagram/twitter info in the comments, I'd love to follow along!

XxOo~ Melissa

{SALE Announcement} SoChick Fabric Shoppe

Happy Friday!  If you are signed up for the SoChick! Newsletter, you know that I need to make room in my studio for new fabric... to help with that I'm having a SALE in my Fabric Shoppe on Etsy!!

Through Thursday, November 15th, save 30% at checkout with coupon code ETSY30.  That means you can score Amy Butler prints for as low as $6.30/yard and cotton laminate for less than $12/yd!

It's a great time to grab up fabric and try any of these free projects that Amy shares on her website.  

Source: amybutlerdesign.com via Melissa on Pinterest

You can make beautiful gifts for giving over the Holidays or save it for stitching on a cold winter day, nothing beats the winter blues quite like beautiful fabric!


Enjoy and have a great weekend!


XxOo~ Melissa

Catching Up With Sewing {Craftsy BOM Progress: May}

Here's some more Craftsy BOM progress!  Today I'm sharing my blocks from the May Lesson.

{Craftsy BOM: Wonky Log Cabin}

While I liked learning how to make these blocks, in the end I'm not exactly sure how I feel about them.  You can see that I used my blue scraps for one and green for the other, my whole Craftsy BOM quilt is blue and green, on gray.  My background fabric is Kona Ash.

 I like that the center of this block can be a fussy cut piece.  I also decided to use two different fabrics for the outer framed edge, I like the contrast of the light and dark corners.

This is the wonky five-side log cabin, I had issues with this block... you can see my Kona Ash background fabric as the center square, but it's obvious that I didn't have the whole "wonky" factor down until after the third row of scraps... then it all got a little crazy; my log cabin surely has more than five sides!  If you need a scrap-busting quilt, this is the block to make... I cleared out most of my green scraps on this one.  Although it was a challenge, I'm still happy with how this block turned out.  I'll have to make a mental note to not place it near my March Broken Spider Web block, as they may cancel each other out once the quilt is put together.

I'm getting caught up, more progress posts to come! 

XxOo~ Melissa

Catching Up with Sewing {Craftsy BOM Progress: April Blocks}

It's been a while for sure since I have sat down to sew with my Free Craftsy BOM Lesson.  I don't mind playing catch up, though, so I hope you don't mind reading about it!

To recap about the Free Craftsy BOM Lesson, you can read any of the posts, here.

Today I'm sharing my blocks from the April Lesson, enjoy!

{Craftsy BOM: English Paper Piecing}

These blocks were a lot of fun! I enjoyed the hand sewing aspect for the hexies... especially that I was able to sit with my husband and watch football, while sewing, true story!  Needless to say, I can easily see how one could get hooked on hexies.

The first block for the Craftsy BOM: April Lesson, was a Hexi Stripe; here we just stitched our hexies in a row and then appliqued to our background square.  I used temporary spray adhesive to hold my hexies down, I love temporary spray adhesive; one of these days I'll tell you all about spray basting a quilt with it!

The second block in the lesson called for us to make a scene with different sized Hexies.  In the lesson, our instructor, Amy Gibson, made a sun with rays and grass (Sunny With A Chance of Hex), but I decided I'd do a flower; only after piecing it together did I realize it looked like a snowflake... oh well, it works.

I'm so excited to get all of these assembled into the quilt at the end of the year, you'll be seeing quite a few Craftsy BOM Progress reports as I get caught up and share them all.

Are you doing the Craftsy BOM Lesson?  Did you know you can still sign up?  If you haven't been over to Craftsy.com, you should totally check it out.  Read why I heart it, here!

* * *
Be sure to stop by tomorrow for Feature Friday to learn about my friend Ashley's Shop, One In The Hand, and a SALE!

XxOo~ Melissa

A Subway Art Mug Rug Tutorial

I am completely fortunate to have wonderful friends in my life, both in person and on the web (shout out to my Tweeps!).  It's great to have people you can count on, and it's even more fun to say "Thank You" and show your appreciation of them with a handmade gift.  

Here is a little something I put together for one of my friends, who also happens to be my neighbor, to say thank you for 1-being awesome and 2- taking care of my fur-kids when we go out of town for a weekend.  My dogs love her... true story.

Inspired by Subway Word Art, and knowing that this friend is a coffee drinker like myself, I put together this little Mug Rug as a token of my appreciation.

This Mug Rug is a quick stitching project, which is perfect for trying a variety of techniques, practicing/ refreshing your skills, and using scraps from your stash!

Subway Art Mug Rug
(Finished Size: 6in W x 10in L)


**EDITED TO ADD:
  Exciting news!  You can purchase a version of this Coffee/Morning inspired Subway Art Machine Embroidery Design in my SoChick Fabric Shoppe on Etsy!  Enjoy!


You will need:

- 5 x 7 in. piece of Muslin or light colored cotton solid for your embroidery, and any necessary supplies (i.e. stabilizer, etc). I used Muslin in this project.

- One Fat Quarter of Focal Fabric (Fabric A)*

- Assorted scraps of Fabric B

- One strip of binding fabric measuring 2 x 36 inches.

- One piece of Quilt Batting 7 x 11inches

- Home embroidery machine with a font design program, or embroidery font files.**

-Basic Sewing Tools: thread, a water soluble marking pen, ruler, rotary cutter (and mat), Iron, board or pressing pad, Temporary Spray Adhesive (optional)

*Choosing your fabric:

I picked two main fabrics for my mug rug.  The first is a focal print (Fabric A), I chose a Coffee Themed print from Michael Miller Fabrics, which has words like "Espresso" and "Coffee" throughout; I snipped these out for the applique.  The second print (Fabric B) is Lime Dots from Amy Butler Design, it coordinates great with the focal fabric.

I chose to bind my mug rug with Limestone Dancing Paisley print from Amy Butler Design.  Having a third print lends clean lines to the edge of the mug rug and keeps your binding from blending in with your focal prints.

The Layout:

Subway Art Mug Rug Layout

To Cut:

Fabric A (blue):
  1- 7 x 11in (backing)
  1- 3.5 x 4.5 in
  2- 1.5 x 6 in strips

Fabric B (green):
  1- 3.5 x 4.5in
  2- 6.5 x 1in strips
  2- 1 x 4.5 in strips

(Note: these measurements include 1/4 in seam allowance on all pieces)

Prep:

-Embroider your Subway Art onto the 5x7 piece of muslin (or whichever fabric you are using):

  I used Hyperfont, which is part of my Singer Futura Ce-150 design suite, to create coffee/morning related words in different fonts.  I arranged the words to fit within a 3x5 inch space, as this is what will show in my mug rug.  Once the embroidery is complete, trim your piece to 3.5 x 5.5 inches (which accounts for our 1/4 in seam allowance).

**If you do not have an embroidery unit, you may choose to hand embroider or applique words into your 3x5 in piece.  Alternately, you may choose to fussy cut a piece of fabric or monogram this piece, too!

-Applique:
  I cut the words "espresso" and "Cafe au lait" from my Fabric A.  I used temporary spray adhesive to adhere them to the green 3.5 x 4.5 piece in the lower right corner, keeping in mind that there is a 1/4in seam allowance.  Then, I used my machine to sew a simple zigzag stitch around the edges.

Piecing your Mug Rug:
(Remember to use a 1/4in seam allowance when piecing your Mug Rug.)

(Oops, I forgot to add my 1 x 6in green strips to the top and bottom in the picture)

Step 1- Take the 3.5 x 4.5 pieces (on the right in the above drawing) and place them right sides together (RST) with the bottom of Fabric A matching up with the top of Fabric B.  Stitch together.  Press open with seam to Fabric A.  Set aside.

Step 2- Working with the embroidered piece and the 1 x 4.5 in Fabric B strips, match the short side of one strip to the top left corner of your Embroidered piece, RST.  The long edge of this strip will extend beyond the embroidered piece, this is OKAY.  Starting at the top corner, stitch down the long side of the strip, stopping 1/2 in from the bottom left corner of the embroidered piece.  Press open, with the seam to Fabric B.  Repeat with the second strip on the opposite corner of your embroidered piece.

(Refer to the layout drawing at the beginning of this tutorial to be sure you are matching your pieces up correctly.)

Step 3- The strips we just attached will extend past your embroidered piece,  fold these back and pin out of the way, leaving the seam allowance of your embroidered piece exposed (remember, we stopped stitching 1/2in before the edge.)

Step 4- Working with the Fabric A strips, match the long edge of one Fabric A strip to the top of the embroidered piece, RST, starting at the top right corner of the embroidered piece (This is why our fabric B strip is folded back and out of the way).  To the left, the Fabric A strip will align to the top short edge of Fabric B piece.  Stitch all the way along this edge.  Repeat with the second Fabric A strip on the opposite side of the embroidered piece.

Step 5- Unpin the Fabric B tails.  Fold to the front (with RST) and stitch to the remaining Fabric A pieces, to join.  Press all seams away from the embroidered piece.

Step 6- Working with the final Fabric B pieces, align one of the 1 x 6in pieces to the top of the block we just made, RST, and stitch in place.  Repeat with the final strip, along the bottom of the block.  Press seams to back of Fabric B strips.

Step 7- Attach the left and right sections of the mug rug by placing both pieces RST, making sure that your designs are facing the same way.  Stitch in place and press.

You've finished the top of your mug rug! Yay!  Now, simply layer, quilt as desired, and bind.

The following is a quick run-down of how I finished my mug rug:


Quilting:

I chose to use straight lines for all of my quilting (below); you can see that I went ahead and used a water soluble marking pen to mark where I wanted to quilt a zigzag pattern in the top right corner (above).

To Bind:

Fold the binding strip in half width-wise, making a double thick strip which measures 1 x 36 inches. Starting at the bottom of the mug rug and using a 1/4in seam allowance, I stitched the raw edge of my binding to my mug rug, mitering the corners.  I then folded the binding to the back, pinned and hand stitched it down with a blind stitch.  

*There is a great post showing how to bind and blind stitch on Quilting In The Rain Blog.

I really love how this Subway Art Inspired Mug Rug came out.  It was also a great way for me to freshen up my quilt binding skills for when I bind my oldest chickie's quilt. (I am thisclose to finishing the quilting on it!) 

While my machine was set up for embroidery, I went ahead and made a ruffled kitchen towel to match my mug rug, rolled it all together and gifted both as a matching set... my friend loved it, and that makes me so happy!

Let me know if you try this tutorial, it's my first with piecing and quilting... I appreciate all feedback! 
XxOo~ Melissa