by Sherri Sylvester | Feb 24, 2016
Whew – fun things going on over here. Today’s post is full of random fun facts about what’s going on at Thread Riding Hood. Including the 3 winners of the latest giveaways!
In the midst of lots of recent quilt piecing fun I’ve posted on Facebook and Instagram, I updated my Free Measurement Chart Printable for you today! I just realized I haven’t measured my girls recently and we’re going to need to because it is Easter dress planning time again. I added some better numbering and a few more measurements to the original chart. Head over to the Measure-Me Chart post or click below to get the new printable. I’m hoping to update the photos as well, but my printer has informed me I can’t print anything because I am out of ink. Argh!
I love making the girls super fancy dresses at least once a year – especially in time for Easter Sunday. Right now I’m leaning toward the Violette dress. While the girls still like being princesses! Of course I still have to run it by them and see what they think. I’d hate to gather that much tulle if they won’t wear it more than once! I’ve got some gold dupioni silk scraps that might stretch to make the bodice and peplum for one dress. Overkill maybe, but the scraps are too small for a “me-sized” project, so I may as well use them up! Here are some past Easter dresses – I love all of these patterns! You can click on them to link to more photos. (Crazy how big these girls are getting!)
What is your favorite little/medium sized girls’ dress pattern?
BIG NEWS! If you haven’t been over to Instagram lately, check out the machine Janome has loaned me to play with right now! I’ll be sharing a fun series with them leading up to Toronto’s Spring Creativ Festival. I’m really excited to let you know that Janome is sponsoring me as I present a trunk show once each day at the Festival this spring. Eeek!
WINNERS! I know, I held off until the end, thanks for being patient…. Here are the winners of the recent giveaways!
First off, Country Clothesline gave away two 12 fat quarter bundles during their Valentine’s sale. How gorgeous are these?!
#625 – Renee H. won by following Thread Riding Hood on Bloglovin’
#269 – Lorrie R. won by following Country Clothesline on Pinterest.
Last but definitely not least, Fabric Please! made someone very happy by giving away a Lil’ Red layer cake! I love the quilt top I was able to make with mine. The colours are super happy! (Quick tip: their 1st Year Anniversary sale is still on until Friday, February 26, 2016!)
#4 Linda B. won by visiting us on Facebook!
Congratulations to all of the winners. Thanks so much for supporting my sponsors, please take a visit over to both of these wonderful shops.
by Sherri Sylvester | Feb 22, 2016
Wow, it’s almost March already and here I am posting a Christmas present from last year. It’s been photographed and patiently waiting since December! Every year I try to make a gift for the girls and their cousins. Thankfully there are (so far) only 4 of them – so it’s not that time consuming. Especially with this particular project. It take just over an hour to make one of these blankets!
Remember this 10 Minute Facecloth tutorial? These blankets use exactly the same method of construction – just in a much larger size! The great thing about these blankets is that they are simple and easy to make with any size starting fabric, as long as the backing fabric is wider and longer than the main fabric by the same amount on each side.
I used 1 yard of licensed fabric, about 36″ x 44″ and 1 1/2 yards of minky, about 54″ x 60″, for each blanket. (My Little Pony and Ninja Turtles from Funky Monkey Fabrics, Cinderella and Star Wars from The Fabric Society.) This will make a good sized kid’s throw blanket, or adult lap blanket at around 43″ x 50″.
Here are some simple instructions for how I made these:
- Pre-wash both fabrics.
- Trim the licensed fabric so each corner is square – roughly 34-35″ high x 43-44″ wide.
- Cut the minky so it was about 15″ wider and longer than the fabric – roughly 49″ high x 58″ wide. This could be any size, as long as the minky is larger than the fabric by the same amount width and length.
- Use the same instructions as the 10 Minute Facecloth, only sew using a 1/2″ seam instead of a 1/4″ seam.
I was holding my breath when the kids unwrapped them, and thankfully they liked them! I was delighted that the girls and their cousins took them to bed that night and all over the house for the next few days. Just goes to show how some well-placed licensed fabrics can get you “in” with the cool kids!
by Sherri Sylvester | Feb 17, 2016
I have joined the masses (and masses) of people following Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson along on The Splendid Sampler – a 100 Block Adventure. I’ve been hoping to make a sampler quilt and learn a lot more about different quilting techniques. I think this will do the trick!
Pat and Jane are posting 2 blocks per week, on Sundays and Thursdays, until next year. All of the tutorials will be free to download until the end of the sampler. The whole thing is a mystery, which I LOVE! I’m a bit obsessed and can’t wait to see what will come out next. Lots of different designers have worked on the blocks, so I’m looking forward to finding out more about them as well.
I’ve decided to go with a scrappy sampler – mostly because I didn’t decide I was going to do this until I wanted to make the first block. Of course, I don’t have 35 coordinating light/medium/dark fat quarters sitting around – so scrappy it is! I’m looking forward to designing a layout for these 100 blocks next spring!
This first block – Hearts Aflutter – is special. I was searching through my scraps and looked up at the shelf where I stash the fabrics that mean something to me and these jumped out! I have saved the two sewing prints since Cynthia Frenette sent them to me more than two years ago after I pattern-tested her I Can See Clearly Now Pouch pattern. These are not just any old (amazing) sewing fabrics, she designed them! They might even be from her own personal first-run cuts of them, and I can only imagine how hard it would be to part with those.
Cynthia’s fabrics mean so much to me and represent exactly what I wanted in this first scrappy block. First, I love sewing (in case you didn’t catch that!), and so I wanted to fussy cut scissors, seam ripper and a tomato pin cushion into the appliqued heart. The lined up buttons, pattern symbols and measuring tape provide a fun way of working with the 4-patch to make a diamond shape. Plus, I love the red – Thread-Riding-Hood-friendly – dots!
In opposition to my general feeling that quilt block instructions – especially mystery quilt block instructions – should never be altered, I actually changed this first block a bit. The heart is meant to be straight in Pat Sloan’s version – but when I went to fuse it, I didn’t like the look – too symmetrical with the diamond created in the 4-patch. I turned it on its side a bit and it looked so much better. Then it struck me that Cynthia would likely approve! She is such an amazing, talented artist and I can totally imagine her creating her own version of this block too. (Hopefully she doesn’t mind me taking liberties in thinking that I might know what she would do!)
The black gingham corners are from my scraps – one of the other (17,000 odd) quilters did this and it worked really well with Cynthia’s fabrics. That’s a really fun part of this adventure as well – being able to see what other people are sewing, meeting them and gaining inspiration from them. The Facebook group is fun, even if it has become a bit crazy scrolling through my personal FB feed recently – quilt blocks everywhere!
I promise, Thread Riding Hood isn’t going to turn into a quilt blog with posts for each Sampler block – but I will give regular updates so you can see my progress. And hopefully you can keep me accountable! I’m going to need it I’m sure. Right now I’m pretty determined and 2 blocks per week sounds do-able, but in the summer… who knows?!
Are you following the Splendid Sampler along? What fabrics have you chosen?
Oh, and I’m saving all my blocks in this super special box that was my Grandma’s. So good – I’m excited to get started and make lots of memory-type blocks along the way, using fabrics that remind me of special things. That will help narrow down the fabrics I use too. It would be really fun to have a story for each block.
by Sherri Sylvester | Feb 12, 2016
Oooh! I am crazy about this quilt top! The colours are amazing, the star pattern is fantastic. Plus, it’s Little Red Riding Hood, so absolutely nothing could be wrong about that! 😉
When my sponsor Fabric Please! emailed me to see if I’d like to work with Lil’ Red by Stacy Iest Hsu for Moda, I’d already fallen in love with it. I am pretty sure I saw this line in the fall Quilt Market photos. Plus, I have a couple of amazing readers who tag me whenever they find new Little Red Riding Hood fabric, so I can get it for my collection. So helpful! Of course, I told Rita “Yes, Please!” and waited impatiently for it to arrive in the mail!
The Lil’ Red fabrics are in stock at Fabric Please! now, so I get to share my quilt top, just in time for Valentine’s Day – how appropriate! They have prints, layer cakes and fat quarter bundles for you to choose from. (Enter to win a Lil’ Red Layer Cake at the end of this post!)
After a ton of thought, I decided to make a Moda Love Quilt. The directions come with measurements for a layer cake, charm pack or even a tiny mini charm pack. I am loving anything with diagonals and star shapes right now. This quilt is so easy to make with rows of squares and half-square-triangles (HST’s). Plus, if you look up other versions, there are so many ways to arrange the colours. I made mini charm version of this recently and it turned out completely different due to the colour placement.
If you follow me around on Facebook or Instagram you’ll know that I asked for help deciding which colour to place in the center diamond. Your most common suggestion was to use blue (which I love, thank you!), but you may also notice that the final layout of the quilt is different from the photos posted earlier this week.
Once I was about to piece everything together, I got worried. The red chevrons at top and bottom suddenly stood out too much for my liking. Rearranging the blue/red and low volume HST’s made the center star show up a lot more, and with the pop of blue, all of a sudden it was perfect!
Now all I need to do is convince one of my daughters to love blue/red/pink and green so I can redecorate their room and make this project into a twin size quilt for their bed. (With matching pillows of course – from the extra squares!) For now the quilt top and extra 10″ squares will be joining my quickly-growing Red Riding Hood fabric collection, waiting for the perfect fabric to back it with – or maybe I should piece a few together? (I’ve also got secret exciting news that might help me with the quilting. Eeek! Can’t wait to share!)
One very lucky reader will win a Lil’ Red Layer Cake from Fabric Please! These bundles of 10″ squares are so much fun to play with. And this playful fabric line is so bright and cheerful it’s pretty hard not to love it!
This giveaway is open to readers in Canada & the US, from today (February 12) until midnight February 19, 2016. Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter – and if you don’t have Facebook to sign in with, just use your name and email address. There’s a “click to enter”, no social media login entry too!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
by Sherri Sylvester | Feb 10, 2016
I’m really happy to feature my sponsor, Country Clothesline, on the blog again. It’s been a while! Their wonderfully curated collection of fabrics are so unique I don’t know of another shop like it. Their tagline is Fresh and Pretty Fabrics, and it’s true! Gorgeous , vintage prints, lots of dots and the cutest kids’ fabrics. Recently they have updated their website and it now includes larger fabric swatches, easier search categories and a better shopping cart.
Country Clothesline is having an amazing Valentine’s sale – For the LOVE of Fabric – starting tomorrow! This sale features discounted fabrics throughout their stock and runs from Thursday February 11 – Wednesday February 17, 2016.
I’ve been fortunate to work with Country Clothesline on a number of projects, and all four of these have links to tutorials! Two shirts for my oldest – florals are her favorite! A Flutter Sleeve Shirt and Zip-Back Peplum Shirt. The popular Floral Divided Tote that I’ve used to carry around almost everything for the last year or so. And a cute Christmas Placemat project for Janome – just posted this past December!
I recently picked up these beauties earlier this year… a little something to put in my Little Red Riding Hood fabric collection and some early Christmas planning!
Country Clothesline is giving away 2 BUNDLES of 12 fat quarters, one each to two lucky readers from anywhere worldwide! This giveaway is open from February 10 until February 17, 2016 at midnight EST. Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter – and if you don’t have Facebook to sign in with, just use your name and email address. There’s a “click to enter”, no social media login entry too!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
