Sew in Love {with Fabric}: Dreamscape

Showing posts with label Dreamscape. Show all posts

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Changing Lanes: A Dreamscape quilt

We all love a gorgeous quilt where the fabric does all the work! The Changing Lanes quilt, designed by Stephanie Sheridan of Stitched Together Studios, uses a cool palette of our Dreamscape collection in a simple yet stunning design. The Changing Lanes quilt is featured in the April/May 2017 issue of McCall's Quick Quilts. Read on to learn more about it.

"Changing Lanes" by Stephanie Sheridan; machine quilted by Linda Leathersich;
featured in McCall's Quick Quilts April/May 2017

What attracted you the Dreamscape collection?

I love the soft mottled quality of this line - all of the colors just flow and blend, and the actual fabric print is understated.

How did you choose your palette from the wide variety of colors of the Dreamscape print?

Given the choice, I always tend towards a palette of cool ocean colors - blues, greens, turquoise, aqua and my personal favorite - purple! I actually also colored this design in a rainbow and a warm color version with Dreamscapes and a neutral color version using Nature'sPearl, but the cool colors became my favorite.

How did this design come to be?

My inspiration for this design concept was a bar code - I was thinking of it as a modern monochromatic quilt. When the editors asked me to try it out in colors I couldn't believe how great it looked!

Why does the Dreamscape line work well in this quilt?

First - it had the right amounts of lights and darks (you need 4 of each)! It also is a good blend-y line, so the colors are the star, rather than the actual fabric print. The flow of the fabric plays well with the straight lines of the design.

What do you like best about this quilt?

The way that the flow of the fabric design plays well with the straight lines of the quilt design.

Tell us about the quilting.

As always, Mom's quilting perfectly complements the quilt design. She used straight lines making open boxy shapes.

p.s. Lori Baker from McCall's shared a blog post about making the Changing Lanes quilt. She added rows to make it queen size, and created a beautiful pieced back. Click here to read her post.

Click here to see the entire Dreamscape collection.

Click here to visit Stitched Together Studios' website.

Click here to find McCall's Quick Quilts.

Friday, March 24, 2017

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.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Dreamscape Block Blog Hop: Day 7

Hello, fabric lovers!

It's the last day of our Dreamscape Block Blog Hop. We hope you've enjoyed all seven block tutorials we've shared here--bookmark them to give them a try after Thanksgiving!

For this blog hop, we selected a six-color palette from our luscious Dreamscape prints to play with: Navy, Cloud, Lime, Grape, Daffodil and Lead. You'll love the variety of blocks our designers have created! And make sure you enter each day's giveaway for a chance to win fat quarters of these six Dreamscape prints! Enjoy!

Here's Wendy!

Hello Friends, Happy Thanksgiving to you! I am happy to be a part of the DreamScape Blog Hop!

Each blog hop participant was given the following fabrics to come up with a 12" block.

My "Diamond Layer" block is going to look like this. It consists of making two sub-units twice. Easy peasy - you shall see!

Constructing Unit A

Let's tackle the top right and bottom left sub-units - as they are the same.

a. For both unit A's, we will cut

(1) 7" x 7" square from Daffodil and Cloud

(2) 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" square from Lime

(2) 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" square from Grape

(2) 3" x 3" square from Lead

b. Then, I turned all my squares over, and drew diagonal lines on the wrong side of each square, except for the Cloud square.

c. HST UNITS. Place the Daffodil square on the Cloud square, right sides together. Sew 1/4" away from, and on right and left sides of drawn line. Cut along the drawn line to yield 2 HST units. Aligning the diagonal seam against the 45 degree line of quilting ruler, square HST units to measure 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" raw edge to raw edge. These two HST units will be the starting point for Unit A.

d. The Lime corner triangle is shown to be on the Daffodil side of the HST unit. So, place the Lime square, right sides together, at the Daffodil corner of (1) HST unit. Sew on the drawn diagonal line. Trim 1/4" away from sewn line. Open and press to reveal Lime corner triangle.

IMPORTANT NOTE: That sets the precedent on how to add subsequent squares in Unit A, as well as Unit B. I will not go through in detail for subsequent steps as they are the same.

e. So, on the cloud side of the HST, first place the Grape square, right sides together, at the Cloud corner of the HST unit. Sew on the drawn diagonal line. Trim 1/4" away from the sewn line. Open and press to reveal Grape corner triangle. Repeat with Lead square to complete (1) Unit A. Repeat to make (2) Unit A.

Constructing Unit B

a. For both unit B's, we will cut

(1) 7" x 7" square from Daffodil and Lead

(2) 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" squares from Navy

(2) 5" x 5" squares from Lime

(2) 4" x 4" squares from Cloud

b. Follow the same method used to make Unit A to make (2) Unit B - take note that Navy is on the Lead side of the HST unit, and Lime and Cloud on the Daffodil side of the HST unit.

Block Assembly

a. Sew (2) Unit A and (2) Unit B in a four-patch manner to complete the block.

What to do with the trimmed off "dog ear" triangles? I save all of them for a future projects. :)

Thanks so much for dropping by. I hope you like my block "Diamond Layer" block as much as I have liked making it. :)

Thanks Wendy!

For a chance to win a bundle of the six Dreamscape prints we used, leave a comment below letting us know that you follow us on at least one of our social media platforms (either right here on the blog--options in the right hand sidebar, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest), as well as telling us what your favorite Thanksgiving dish. We'll randomly pick a winner and announce it next week! Giveaway is open through Sunday, November 27th at 11:59 pm EST.

Follow along each day of the hop!

Tuesday 11/15: Chris from made by ChrissieD

Wednesday 11/16: Alison from Little Bunny Quilts

Thursday 11/17: Stephanie from Stitched Together Studios

Friday 11/18: Kristen from KD-Quilts

Monday 11/21: Benartex blog design team

Tuesday 11/22: Debby from Debby Kratovil Quilts

Wednesday 11/23: Wendy from Ivory Spring

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Dreamscape Block Blog Hop: Day 6

Hello, fabric lovers! Is your turkey thawing in the bathtub? :)

It's the second last day of our Dreamscape Block Blog Hop today. For this blog hop, we selected a six-color palette from our luscious Dreamscape prints to play with: Navy, Cloud, Lime, Grape, Daffodil and Lead. You'll love the variety of blocks our designers have created! And make sure you enter each day's giveaway for a chance to win fat quarters of these six Dreamscape prints! Enjoy!

Today, Debby from Debby Kratovil Quilts is here to tell you what the Dreamscape fabrics said to her. ("Make us into a block, Debby!")

Here's Debby!
I LOVE bright colors. I can always find something to sew when I have crayon box colors to work with. Having the mottled gray for the background (instead of a flat solid) is a perfect "go with."

Fat quarters of Dreamscape

The fabrics told me to scroll through my files and look for something that would make them look good. After all, this is going to be a 12" block and they were each jockeying for the star position. I told them to hold on and I began looking. I came upon a block I call Striped Star that I designed 10 years ago (and never sewed). It's for paper piecing and is not for beginners, but is certainly doable for those who are familiar with the technique.

I began with cutting oversized patches for the block: 8 squares 4-1/2" x 4-1/2" of the gray/cloud color and 8 strips 1-1/2" x 6" of EACH of the four bright colors (grape, daffodil, navy and lime).

Patches cut for Striped Star Block

Then I printed 4 copies of my foundation (pattern link appears at bottom of this blog post). Notice that I identified where my patches needed to be placed. Also, on the pattern, there are arrows pointing in the direction of how the patches are to be pressed. This will enable the seams to nestle when joined.

Pattern with names of patches written down

The patches MUST be placed so that they angle as shown. Sewn one at a time, pressed and then trimmed.

Building the strips at an angle

Then trimming before adding one of the two gray triangles:

Fold paper back; use a ruler to leave 1/4" seam

Notice that the edges of the fabrics extend beyond the paper pattern. These will be trimmed later. The gray triangles are also cut oversized. This last triangle is placed first so that you don't mistakenly sew it on the wrong side! Then it gets flipped over and stitched from the paper side.

Adding the last gray triangle

Now what?

Trim fabrics even with the outside line on the paper

And from the front?

1/4 of the block before removing the paper

Removing the paper? Oh, yeah. That's right! What does that look like?

CAREFULLY remove the paper without disturbing the seams

Place the two units together. Sew with 1/4" seam allowance. Because you pressed the seams in opposing directions, this makes for a very nice join.

Pin at the seams as shown

I prefer to press the seam open in order to reduce the bulk.

Press diagonal seam open to reduce the bulk

Let's see four units together:

Four block units before stitching into the Striped Star Block

A perfect 12" (finished) block made easy using paper piecing.

Striped Star

You can find the FREE Striped Star pattern (in pdf) here: Striped Star. You can also see more of the fabrics at the Benartex site: Dreamscape.

Thanks, Debby! Head over to Debby's blog for a chance to win a Dreamscape bundle. Contest runs until November 25 and winners will be announced on Tuesday, November 29.