Summer Mini Quilt Blog Hop: Day 1

We can't wait for summer! To help put us all in a carefree, sunshine-y mindset, this week we're hosting the Summer Mini Quilt Blog Hop! Thanks to our talented designer friends, we'll be featuring tutorials to make four different summer-themed mini quilts. 

First up is Debby Kratovil from Debby Kratovil Quilts. She has used the cheery floral Liberty Garden prints and a cool folded hexie technique to create a sweet fabric garden. Check out her tutorial, and then head over to Debby's blog to enter for a chance to win a fat quarter bundle of some Liberty Garden prints. Click here to see all 35 Liberty Garden prints and download two free quilt patterns for use with the collection.

Here's Debby! 

Liberty Garden is a perfect collection for Spring. The flowers and colors celebrate all the newness that this season brings our way. I chose six SKUs from the collection for the project I had in mind. 

Six fabrics chosen from Liberty Garden

For this mini project, I decided to revisit some of my 3-D hexagons, yoyos and prairie point flower leaves. First, let's see what I mean for the folded hexie! Then I think you'll understand my steps.

3-D Folded Hexagon

Other techniques begin with circles. Who can cut a perfect circle? Not me! Plus, there aren't any points of orientation with a circle. I like to start with a hexagon. These are easily cut using a multi-size 60 degree ruler. This is my Creative Grids ruler. I like to practice with construction paper. That way, if I make a mistake, it's only paper!

(The pattern for this will be included at the end of this post.)

Practicing with construction paper

I cut a 5-1/2" strip of the first floral and folded it in half, with fold side down and raw edges at the top. This is approximately twice the height of my finished folded hexagon.

5-1/2" strip folded

Then I cut the folded fabric, aligning the 2-1/2" horizontal line at the raw edges. (2-1/2" is half the finished height of the 5-1/2" strip). Slice on both sides of the ruler.

Cutting the 5-1/2" strip

 Open it up and - magic! A perfect hexagon.

Perfect hexagon!

Now, fold two opposing points into the center. Notice that the fold runs from two other opposing points. Press well.

Press two opposing sides

 Now, this gets tricky to show, but easy to do: Fold the bottom right point (in pic above) up to the center. Repeat for the top left corner, folding down to the center. Press. Sometimes I use pins to hold the folded fabric in place.

Next two folds

 You now have two remaining points to bring to the center. Press and hand or machine stitch. The center stitching will be covered with a yo-yo (or a button).

Last two points brought to the center. Stitched down,

 Now for the yo-yo (circle pattern included in link below). Trace onto freezer paper, press to right side of fabric and cut out. (See. I told you I can't draw a circle well!)

Cutting circle of fabric for yo-yo

 Gather outer edge (1/4" folded under).

Gathering the yo-yo.

 Now for the prairie points. Cut three 2-1/2" squares. Now press them in half, forming a folded rectangle.  Bring outside points DOWN to the center so that ALL raw edges meet. Secure with stitching. (This is illustrated in my Trash Basket Batiks pattern link below.)

Three prairie points (will become my leaves)

 The stems of my hexagon flowers were made with a 2-1/8" x 20" strip sewn into a tube. Pull it right side out using a safety pin. Press flat.

Tube of fabric for my stems.

Now let's see it all together:

Folded hexagon with yo-yo center 

The background of my mini was cut 10" x 12-1/2" (1705-84). The side border was cut 4-1/2" x 12-1/2". All other elements were cut and described above.

Liberty Garden mini

Here are the links to my 3-D Folded Hexagon pattern (with circle and hexagon templates included) and Making Prairie Point leaves is part of my FREE PATTERN: Trash Basket Batiks on Craftsy.

You can see the prairie points (and yo-yos) in the pic below:

Thanks Debby! Head over to Debby's blog for a chance to win some Liberty Garden prints! And make sure to follow along for all four days of our blog hop! 

Summer Mini Quilt Blog Hop:
Day 1: Debby from Debby Kratovil Quilts using Liberty Garden
Day 2: Benartex blog design team using Play Ball
Day 3: Alison from Little Bunny Quilts using Anything Goes
Day 4: Kelly from My Quilt Infatuation using Patio Splash

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Quilt Along Recap

Happy Thursday! 

Back in February, we hosted the Everyone's A Star Quilt Along, where three quilters demonstrated how to make three different star blocks (using three different fabric lines!) and assemble them into a lap quilt. We hope you enjoyed following along as we stitched, and maybe even started your own version of the quilt!

Click here to find all the Quilt Along posts.

We also offered a prize opportunity to anyone who pieced a version of the quilt along quilt using Benartex, Kanvas, or Contempo fabric. We're excited to show you one of our sample quilts that has been finished, as well as two winners who stitched (and finished) their own versions using our fabrics.

First up, Stephanie Sheridan's Everyone's A Star quilt, made using the Liberty Garden prints. 

Linda Leathersich quilted this, stitching in the ditch around the stars to help them pop, and then adding curly swirls in the sashing and a super fun and modern straight line border design. 

Next, our winners:

Carolann created her quilt using Fernwood and Palm Court prints in a lovely aqua version:

And Janice, who used bright Fleurish stripes, mixed with black and white: 

Beautiful job, ladies! Thanks for sewing along with us! 

You can still quilt along with us! Click here to find all the Quilt Along posts and get started.

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Modern by the Yard - Issue #4!

It's here! We're celebrating spring with a bright new issue of our e-zine, Modern by the Yard. We had so much fun putting it together and we think you'll love every page!

psst...you can also download Modern by the Yard to your computer. That means you can save the patterns/pages you like, print them out, and enlarge the pages on your computer to make them easier to read as needed. When you click on the link above, look for the download option that appears below the magazine cover. Enjoy! 

Here's a quick look at some of the highlights from this new issue; click on the blue box above to turn the pages of the entire the issue yourself! Also, this issue includes a link to a survey on the last page--please answer a few quick questions for a chance to win a fabric bundle!

"Spring Fresh" by Jessica Skultety

"On the Plus Side" by Sandra Walker

"Technicolor Rainbow" by Jayne Willis

"The Newspaper Quilt" by Stephanie Sheridan

Debby Kratovil's Modern with a Twist feature

If you missed our first three issues, click here to find the links.

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March Madness: Round 2, Day 4

Welcome to our Fan Favorite March Madness Bracket! 

Voting this week helps to narrow the Elite Eight to Final Four. 

Today's Game:
Voting is now closed. Check back Monday to see our Final Four! 

Fortune by Linda Leathersich and Stephanie Sheridan featuring Kismet

vs.

Liberty Woven by Benartex Studios featuring Liberty Garden

Remember, you can vote two different ways:

Leave a comment below with your votes for this game (choose Fortune or Liberty Woven). One comment per person, please. You can also vote a second time on our Facebook Group – Sew Interesting. 

Voting for these this game is open through Friday, March 23 at 9:29 am EDT.

Catch up on our bracket! 

Click here to find the original Sweet Sixteen and 

click here to find the Elite Eight. 

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March Madness: Round 1, Day 4

Welcome to Day 4 of our quilt-themed March Madness! 

Here are today's games:
Voting is now closed for these games. We'll post the Elite Eight Patterns and begin voting for Round 2 on Monday, 3/20.

Game 1:

Fortune by Linda Leathersich and Stephanie Sheridan featuring Kismet

vs.

American Tradition by Heidi Pridemore featuring Heritage

Game 2:

We Love Joey by the Benartex Studio featuring Joey the Shop Dog

vs.

Liberty Woven by Benartex Studios featuring Liberty Garden

Leave a comment below with your votes for these two games (choose Fortune or American Tradition for Game 1 AND We Love Joey or Liberty Woven for Game 2). One comment per person, please. You can also vote a second time on our Facebook Group – Sew Interesting and a third time on our Pinterest board. 

Voting for these two games is open through Friday, March 16 at 11:59 am EDT.

Click here to see the entire Sweet Sixteen bracket.

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Everyone's a Star Quilt Along: Week 5

It's assembly week for our Everyone's a Star Quilt Along! If you've been following along and have all twelve blocks made, today we'll show you how to put your blocks, sashing and borders together.

I'm Lisa, and I'm back today to talk about assembling your quilt using my Zentastic version. Once your blocks are complete, you'll need to prepare your sashing strips, sashing squares and borders.

Cutting:
From the Rings Gray Sky:
(17) 2-1/2" x 12-1/2" pieces (for inner sashing)

From the Whiskers Gray/White:
(14) 2-1/2" x 12-1/2" pieces (for outer sashing)
**Note--in my quilt this is a directional fabric. I decided that I cared about directionality, so I cut six pieces in one direction, and eight pieces in the opposite direction. If you do this, you'll want to cut the pieces that run parallel to the selvedge first.**

From the Whiskers Hot Pink:
(20) 2-1/2" squares (for sashing squares)

From the Rings Black:
(7) 4-1/2" x 42" strips (for outer border)
**Note--depending on the pattern on your fabric, you may want to fussy cut the rows to be identical, like I did. This allows the ring design to match up from strip to strip.**

We're only showing a finished quilt top today, so we won't address binding, but you'll need (6) 2-1/4" x 42" strips for binding when the time comes. I'm planning to use the Whiskers Hot Pink for binding.

Assembly:
Step 1: Lay out the 12 blocks, 17 inner sashing pieces, 20 sashing squares, and 14 our sashing pieces into rows as shown.

Step 2: The traditional way to assemble a quilt like this is to sew the blocks and vertical sashing pieces into block rows and the horizontal sashing pieces and sashing squares into sashing rows (like Debby does on her blog). You can do that; however, I'm going to show you a different method today. I thought it went more quickly, and I think my seams matched up better. But either way works!

Step 3: Basically what we're going to do is sew the adjacent sashing pieces and squares to each quilt block, and then join these larger framed blocks together. So for the top row, I started with the inner sashing pieces, laying it out like this:

 I joined the right hand sashing to each block, and then sewed a sashing square to each horizontal sashing piece. I then joined this unit to the bottom of the block. Of course, you'll still have an additional outer sashing piece to add.

Step 4: I continued by doing the same for the top sashing row pieces:

Step 5: Sewed those to the block tops:

Step 6: And then joined the three block/sashing units to complete a totally sashed row. 

Step 7: I did the same thing for row 2. And so on...

Step 8: And then I joined all the rows to complete the quilt center.

Step 9: Join the (7) 4-1/2" x 42" Rings Black strips short ends together into a long strip. Cut two 58-1/2" lengths and two 52-1/2" lengths. Sew the longer strips to the sides of the quilt and the shorter strips to the top and bottom. Your quilt top is done! 

Here's Stephanie's quilt top, made from Liberty Garden. 

Head over to her blog to learn more about it.  

Here's Debby's quilt top, made using Moon Flower. 

Head over to her blog to learn more about it.

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There's still time to follow our quilt along and win a prize! 

Which version will you make? Or will you use another Benartex, Kanvas, or Contempo line to create our Everyone's a Star quilt? Share your progress by e-mailing your pictures to us at BenartexQAL2017@gmail.com – we will post them on Facebook and Instagram throughout the Quilt Along. We are looking forward to quilting with you!

Find our earlier posts here:
Week 1 - Fabric requirements and cutting information
Week 2 - Star block #1
Week 3 - Star block #2
Week 4 - Star block #3

**PRIZE ALERT** 

Email us a photo of your finished Everyone's a Star quilt top made with any Benartex/Kanvas/Contempo fabric collection for a chance to win a bundle of fat quarters! (Bonus entry if your quilt is quilted and bound as well!)
Email your photo by Thursday, April 6, 2017 to be entered in the drawing. 

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Everyone's a Star Quilt Along: Week 4

Hi! Debby here with Week #3 Block in the "Everyone's a Star Quilt Along."

I chose the beautiful Moon Flower collection. I'll just quote the description from the Benartex website because it says what I'd say anyway!

"Red, black, and cream make a bold statement in this beautiful Asian inspired collection! From the large circle prints to the flowing “Oshi Stems”, Moon Flower is a design masterpiece, destined to make quilts to be treasured for years to come."

Let's see the fabrics again, OK?

Moon Flower by Kanvas Studios for Benartex Fabrics

 And another view:

Aren't these yummy?

It was so difficult to choose just 4 fabrics for my block, but somehow I did!

Four fabrics for my block

Now, onto the parts!

Parts for one Moon Flower block

But, wait! How did I get there? Here's a chart for cutting one block:

Now let's see some steps. First, instead of cutting all those D squares (2-1/2"), I cut one 2-1/2" strip of each fabric, stitched them together, and then cut 8 two-square units as shown below. Then, these are sewn into four 4-Patch units.

Quick piecing and cutting the corner 4 Patch units

I eliminated the funky shaped template of that B shape in the diagram by using an easy method. I cut four red and four black rectangles 2-1/2" x 4-1/2". I also cut 8 light squares 2-1/2" x 2-1/2". I drew a diagonal line on each as shown. I will SEW on this line, but note how I have them aligned.

Two rectangles (red and black) with light squares attached

 Stitch along the drawn line; trim 1/4" away from stitched line (discard the waste triangles).

Stitch on drawn line

 Press triangles as shown. Make four sets of these for each block (I made 4 blocks for this quilt).

Press triangles

Now, let's see the rows:

Three horizontal rows of my block

And the finished block:

Moon Flower Block, Week 3 Quilt Along

Here's Stephanie's Star Block #3, made using Liberty Garden.

Head over to her blog to learn more about it.

 Here's Lisa's Star Block #3, made from Zentastic. 

Head over to her blog to learn more about it. 

Come back Thursday, March 2nd to see how to assemble the quilt!

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Join us to make this quilt in just 5 weeks! 

Which version will you make? Or will you use another Benartex, Kanvas, or Contempo line to create our Everyone's a Star quilt? Share your progress by e-mailing your pictures to us at BenartexQAL2017@gmail.com – we will post them on Facebook and Instagram throughout the Quilt Along. We are looking forward to quilting with you!

**PRIZE ALERT** 

Email us a photo of your finished Everyone's a Star quilt top made with any Benartex/Kanvas/Contempo fabric collection for a chance to win a box of Fossil Fern fat quarters! (Bonus entry if your quilt is quilted and bound as well!)
Email your photo by Thursday, April 6, 2017 to be entered in the drawing. 

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