Modern Building Blocks consists of blocks that range in size from 6″ to 36″. When I was making this quilt I had so much fun playing with the blocks and their sizes.
I thought I would share some of the pics I took along the way.
Everything is divisible by 6 so the combinations are endless. Shown above are some of the 6″ blocks lined up by color.
This quilt goes on and on but the end result is so worth it, so don’t give up if you don’t have all your blocks done.
Just keep going and going and going.
Yes, it could be a mini
or you could just put together some of the 6″ blocks and be done.
I am usually a print kind of gal but I enjoyed working with the bella solids.
Finally the quilt top was done.
Quilted by the wonderfully talented Natalia Bonner of Piece n Quilt.
Are you making the Modern Building Blocks quilt?
If so leave a comment with a link to your quilt. I would love to see yours.
Or follow the #modernbuildingblocks to discover all kinds of yummy eye candy.
Everything in our world is so fast, fast, fast especially at this time of year. I find it interesting there is this Slow it Down movement that people like Cheryl Arkison talks about in her book, A Month of Sundays, or the Slow Stitching topic that Mark Lipinski talks about. Now Mark is the most energetic person in the industry so when he talks Slow it makes
you stop and listen.
I strip piece. My mind thinks what is quickest most efficient way to make a project.
But this slow it down got me to thinking
about my Tone it Down quilt.
Slow it Down…
Tone it Down…
I thoroughly enjoyed each and every second of making this quilt. Looking at each and every little piece of fabric as I worked from block to block. Thinking about the fabric, the designer that created it and the story that goes along with it.
Now I watch online as more and more people are
making this quilt and posting their
pictures and honestly
it is quite humbling
and makes my heart feel good.
search #apqquiltalong to see some of the versions
This is what the quilting industry is all about.
I am sure if you are reading my blog you are a quilter
or one of my aunts.
If for some reason you have landed here and are not a quilter, I encourage you to join this community. It is the most wonderful world to be living in.
Sign up for a class, get a book, do anything, just start!
The tone it down quilt is not for the faint of heart.
It is not a quilt that you can create over the weekend.
However this is a great quilt to add to your
to-do list and slowly enjoy as each block develops.
When I have a big variety of stripped pieced sets that need to stay in a certain order I write on the scrap the corresponding letter or number so at least I have that as a reference.
but now I can use these pins to keep my sets neatly numbered.
Whether you are planning a booth full of the newest items or coming to shop the show to find the latest trends and items, everyone that goes to market puts in a ton of work. I must say it is all worth it to get to see old friends and make new memories.
Have you heard of a face-ie? Well leave it to Barb from Me and My Sister to coin a new phrase. She meant selfie but I like using face-ie now. When the moda designers and staff get together their is always plenty of shenanigans. I was not taking a face-ie but they had me hold my hand up to the camera as if I were. Then they were saying lean back, further, further, further as if i were to be better positioned in the frame of the picture. However I do believe this was a trick to see if I would fall flat on my booty, as you can tell by the way they were all positioning their cameras to get a shot of me on the floor. I hope I surprised them with my great balance and yoga moves. OR maybe I disappointed them if you know what I mean.
Just a few other fun pics from the show.
And did I mention shenanigans?
Maybe all the parties involved will let me share more about the picture shown below.
I wish I was the one that thought of it, but I didn’t. It was the talented crew at McCall’s Quilting that named my quilt. I couldn’t have thought of a more perfect name for this quilt. Just the sound of it makes me think of fall and laying on a quilt, looking at the sky through the colorful leaves… Well scratch all that. That is what I think it should look like if I lived somewhere that actually had fall. We seem to go from Winter to Summer and not much in between. Yesterday it was 80 degrees, today it is 30.
I guess I can enjoy my “fall” quilt at the lake or snuggle under my “fall” quilt when the temperatures plunge.
I combined two of my favorite lines, Persimmon by Basic Grey and Modern Neutral by Amy Ellis. But this is also a great scrap buster project. The complete instructions and yardages can be found in the McCall’s Quilting January/February 2015 issue. To find out more information about this quilt, magazine and kit information please visit http://www.mccallsquilting.com/mccallsquilting/articles/Confetti-Forest-Trendy-Triangles-Throw-Quilt-Pattern
Subscriptions- November 11th on New stands November 25th
On a side note if you want to see more about Persimmon by Basic Grey, Alison shares the fabric line and patterns available. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsaiYNUTWEE
And here is Amy Ellis talking about Modern Neutral fabrics, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CTEUKppzf0
.
This is such an awful disease and I think if I can do something, even something small like this and others join me (like you all!) I think we can do great things and make a big difference together.
Thank you all so much!!
Sherri
This quilt would be a perfect Christmas present, so go ahead and make a bid!
There is an elite club that many talk about. It is a club that has thousands and thousands of members. The members talk about it with such gleam and glow. It is the infamous Grandmothers Club. So this is my first official post about our little angel Nolan who is now 3 months old.
My son and daughter-in-law are a bit old fashioned in many ways. They followed this “new’ trend of not finding out what the sex of the baby was. Imagine that, not knowing almost at conception whether you were have a boy or a girl. So this brought about 9 months of guessing. 6 of those months consisted of complete strangers predicting boy or girl. The gal at the nail salon assured us she has never been wrong, the neighbor down the street knew for sure, a friend of a friend previewed side profile pics of the mama and was willing to bet money she knew boy or girl. We didn’t keep a tally of who predicted what, but all this did was add more confusion.
Not “knowing” also saved us lots of money because there is only so much neutral baby stuff one can possibly purchase. Don’t really know if this was my son’s plan all along but no matter what it saved us all a ton of money.
This also made the choice of making a quilt extremely difficult. Don’t get me wrong during this time I made lots of baby quilts. The problem with that is when I am making a quilt for someone I like to know that from the beginning much like knowing if you are having a boy or girl when you find out you are pregnant. I like to think about the person while I am planning the fabrics. I like to plan what the design is and how it fits their personality. I like to think that I can make it just perfect. So add up all that pressure and imagine how I crippled myself when it comes to making the first grandkids’ baby quilt.
I knew I would make more than one quilt for this wee little one so I just jumped in and made something that included all the existing family members.
Using an accu-quilt die I made a big chunky clamshell quilt.I loved using this die and I will certainly do it again. I then embroidered all the family names on each of the clamshells.
The fun thing about this quilt is that I not only got to think about the new grand baby but also got to think about each of the family members and how one little person would forever change our lives. Those of you in the club completely understand, right?
Nolan Robert Alexander
on a side note: I had to include a pic of his guard dog, Peter. I did not include pets on the quilt, so I had to go on record with a pic.
Thank you Sherri for rearranging my turn on the hop.
Here are my blocks and my process.
I don’t have much room to sew so when it comes to laying pieces the space is limited. I always look at a block and see if block has any shapes that are duplicates or mirror images of each other so I can layout a small section and chain sew. .When looking at this block, I noticed that one quarter section of this block is the pieced in the same direction as all the other corners of each block. This comes in handy when making multiple blocks of the same design.
This makes it easy to assembly line sew the sections together. Or what I call mindless sewing. As long as each of the pieces are picked up in the correct order you can just out the pedal to the medal and sew.
Following the block layout each of the sections can then be joined into segments and then constructed into the finished blocks.
Finished blocks are ready to add to the other sections. Now hop back to Sherri’s blog as she shows the final chain part of the quilt. This finished quilt will be auctioned on Ebay with 100% of the winning bid going to the Susan B Komen foundation.
Stay tuned as Sherri will also be posting a link to the Ebay auction.
I have always loved Sherri from This n That’s clean classic style and her latest project, Sweet Scandi was on my “to make in some lifetime” list. So when Sherri said she was going to have a sewalong, I jumped in.
I am best under a deadline or else the quilt would just stay on the ever growing list “sometime”.
So if you are ready to sewalong here are the details. The best part is that you will have a new quilt in time for the holidays.
July 24th- Sherri (This N That) yardages and center blocks.
We will all finish our quilt tops for show n tell on August 28th. Hope you decide to join in and sew along. If you aren’t able to join us with this project, you could still own this quilt. Sherri is going to feature her quilt on an ebay auction with all the money going to benefit the breast cancer.
You can find more specific details about this QAL, such as fabric requirements, at My Fabric Relish and Pretty Little Quilts.
There will be a lot of fun information and prizes, so I hope that you
will be able to follow along even if aren’t able to make the quilt!
– See more at: http://www.pixelstopatchwork.com/2014/05/deep-in-heart-of-texas-roadtrip-quilt.html#sthash.p5ek0S3j.dpuf
You can find more specific details about this QAL, such as fabric requirements, at My Fabric Relish and Pretty Little Quilts.
There will be a lot of fun information and prizes, so I hope that you
will be able to follow along even if aren’t able to make the quilt!
– See more at: http://www.pixelstopatchwork.com/2014/05/deep-in-heart-of-texas-roadtrip-quilt.html#sthash.p5ek0S3j.dpuf
Welcome to your next to the last stop on the Texas Roadtrip QAL.
By now you have many of the highlights around the state and discovered many of the gems that give Texans our bragging rights.
I was born in Kansas but as the ol’ saying goes….
I got to Texas as fast I could.
Really it was my mom and dad that came to Texas as soon as they could since I was only 5 years old and couldn’t drive when my family moved to Texas. We started out in Lubbock and eventually moved to Dallas when I was 8.
Both my mother and father were native Texans so when I was told about this project I knew I wanted to play along. Making the blocks and reading about many of the parts of the state have brought back many memories of family reunions, road trips, and various adventures along the way. Enough about my families antics. You can read about my roadtrip down memory lane August 17th when I post the final quilt project and link up for prizes.
So today you are here to learn a little about the Texas Hill Country.
The area that defines the Hill Country varies depending on who you ask. It does however cover 25 different counties from as far north as West Austin and south all the way to Bandera and into San Antonio. Bandera, Texas is the Cowboy Capital of Texas. The town still has hitching posts outside many of the stores because it is not uncommon to ride your horse into town. Bandera also has as many honky tonks as it does churches. SIDE NOTE- This weekend, July 26th is the National Day of the American Cowboy. If you happen to visit Bandera, be sure and stop at the O.S.T Restaurant and enjoy your meal in the John Wayne room. I seriously have done this! I won’t share about the Honky Tonks we visited during the family reunion. Yes, Bandera also has a quilt store, Gone Quiltin’.
Everything is bigger in Texas except for maybe our hills, so to have an area of the state know for the hills, granite rocks and native brush tells you we are pretty proud. So if you visit, please no comments on the size of our hills. I could go on and on and tell you about the quaint downtown streets, the antique shopping, the mega outlet malls, the inter tube rides down the river but there is not enough time. You will just have to experience the charm for your self.
Any road trip is sure to include a few stops along the way at any and all quilt shops. So I will list just a few.
You won’t want to miss Creations in Kerrville, Texas.
They won’t mind that I borrowed this pic from their website.
Kathy and Julie are precious and have owned this shop for over 34 years so you know they are doing things right.
There are as many quilts shops as their are longhorns so I also wanted to include a few links that are state wide quilting events. Be sure and check them out.
http://www.rowbyrowexperience.com/texas-row-by-row-experience.htm
http://www.quiltacrosstexas.com/
The fun part of this project was we were all making the quilt step by step as the blocks were posted on the QAL. We didn’t have each others quilt blocks in advance. Since I am one of the last to post, I thought I could do a HILL block to represent the hill country but that was too predictable. I choose to do a Bed and Breakfast block.
This area has such great memories for me because many many years ago I was a young stay at home mom. I was making and peddling my wares at various arts and craft shows. This was way before e-bay, etsy and all the other wonderful ways to be able to sell handmade items that they have now.
The Country Peddler show was coming to Fredrickburg, Texas and this was the big time kind of show. I had no idea what I was in for. My husband told me about a gal that he had met coaching the boys t-ball team. He said, “I think the two of you would really hit it off.”
I invited her to come with me for the weekend and to help me out at this show. There wasn’t a single hotel room in town available so we found a charming little bed and breakfast to stay in. The house was on the back side of an existing home so finding it in the dark was an adventure all by itself. We were expecting two rooms as the Inn Keeper described on the phone. When we arrived there was one bedroom, one bath, a few steps along with a small door and a tiny keyhole. Once we opened door there was the most charming small bed inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Charming is all I can say about the decorations and attention to detail. We had a wonderful weekend and like my husband said, we did hit it off and have been best friends for over 25 years.
So when visiting the Texas Hill Country please visit the bed and breakfasts so you can truly experience all the hospitality and charm this area of Texas has to offer.
You can find more specific details about this QAL, such as fabric requirements, at My Fabric Relish and Pretty Little Quilts.
There will be a lot of fun information and prizes, so I hope that you
will be able to follow along even if aren’t able to make the quilt!
– See more at: http://www.pixelstopatchwork.com/2014/05/deep-in-heart-of-texas-roadtrip-quilt.html#sthash.p5ek0S3j.dpuf
You can find more specific details about this QAL, such as fabric requirements, at My Fabric Relish and Pretty Little Quilts.
There will be a lot of fun information and prizes, so I hope that you
will be able to follow along even if aren’t able to make the quilt!
– See more at: http://www.pixelstopatchwork.com/2014/05/deep-in-heart-of-texas-roadtrip-quilt.html#sthash.p5ek0S3j.dpuf
