Watercolor Heart Block in Wild Carrot

Hello, friends!

Here is a little project I had a great time putting together for Janome. The full instructions can be found at HERE.

I love to add a little bit of patchwork to our home every chance I get. This Spring I have been admiring some contemporary watercolor quilts, also referred to as color washing. My style frequently combines a little something classic with a little something modern and for this project I had the idea to use only one modern print and one solid to create a flowering heart pillow.

I had the perfect print in mind and my assistant agreed. Look for areas of loose or solid background when selecting a print to work with. Then select a solid closely matched to the background color. For my example I chose Wild Carrot from my Madrona Road collection matched with white background.

Head over the the Janome blog and check out the rest of the tutorial! 

Hello. Love. Luck.

Happy Valentine's Day, friends! 

I have a little tutorial over on the Sew, Mama, Sew! blog today showing four different ways to finish a project with ruffles. I am a ruffle-aholic and have featured many a ruffled quilt over the years (Freshcut Quilt-uvet, Gypsy Caravan Quilt & Obsession on Point Flea Market Fancy Quilt), so head on over to my tutorial to find out more about my trials, errors and successes in ruffles!

In my tutorial I have created four little mini-quilts a.k.a. snack mats. Two of them use a thread painting technique. Over the holidays, my friend Ale was using a similar technique for some pillows. I modified it a bit and here are a few pictures to show you how I did it.


First off, cut your three layers: top, batting and backing. During this whole process I have the top and batting sandwiched together so that the bottom stitches of my thread painting will not show on the back of my project when I add the backing for finishing.

Using a water-soluble marking pen, draw an outline of the image you want to thread paint. I wrote the word "Luck" in cursive. The blue ink would NOT photograph to save my life, so I've enhanced it here :) And it's still hard to see.... sorry folks.

Using a free-motion foot and your feed dogs disengaged, carefully sew along the outline. This part can actually also be done using a regular foot with feed dogs engaged if you move very slowly and turn a lot. I find the free-motion foot to be an easier process, but grab a scrap piece of fabric and try out both ways to see which you are more comfortable with.

Increase the outline of your words with a second row of stitching. Sometimes I will draw this area in with my water-soluble pen for a guide.

Reattach a zigzag foot and reengage your feed dogs. Use an appropriately sized zigzag with a longer stitch length to fill in the center space of each letter. You can repeat this a few times to get a nice fill. Don't completely fill with zigzags, just enough to get a base.

With your free-motion foot and feed dogs disengaged fill in the area with smooth front to back lines as opposed to the side to side lines of the zigzag stitches. This will give a smoother surface to your thread painting.

Two examples of completed words:

Now - to see how I finished these with ruffles head over to Sew, Mama, Sew! for my Ruffle Binding Tutorial. 

Happy Love Day!

~ Violet

Let's Craft! Felt Matching Game

Recently we took a little road trip up to Gig Harbor to see my bestie and my most awesomest nephew. Since I normally talk her into painting a bedroom or tearing out her bathroom while I'm there (seriously - this happened) this time we wanted to keep it low key but we HAD to at least fit a craft project or four in to the trip.



This little guy saw some really cute matching blocks on Pinterest via The Purl Bee and told me he just had to have them. The first thing I thought when I saw them was that would be a great project for the Go! Baby... so I brought it along with the scrap bins and 1/2 yard of charcoal gray felt.

First off we dug through the scrap bins and found 18 bright, simple prints that were large enough to cut two circles from. I think we used every color of Falling Flowers from Peacock Lane, because that print's awesome. Just sayin'. Next, we used the Go! Baby to cut 72 of the medium size felt circles and the 36 print circles. Cutting multiple layers at once really made this job a lot faster.

The next step was a tad trickier. To cut the center ring without cutting off part of our original circle we had to fold each circle in half and then half it again. Then, lining up the point with the center of the circle on the die, we ran it through again and it cut the ring right out of it. Repeat 35 more times.



Yeah, that part was boring... but this guy helped entertain me through it!



Next, we stacked the layers: felt circle on bottom, fabric circle in center and donut ring on top. Then, using a zigzag stitch we stitched both the outside and the inside of the donut ring.



And that's that. A super simple project - and so far Mason says they taste great. Yeah, he's a little young for them right now, but we're ahead of the game over here :) His momma saved a wipes container to store them in too. Mmmm. Hmmmm. She's a thinker, that one.



Then, when no one was looking, I used the larger size circle to make myself a set of coasters that we actually use every single day. I love these things!




Happy Craft-ing!

xoxo ~ Violet

mod petal pillows, interview, giveaway, oh my!

When Gina Cadenasso, the proprietress of Bolt Fabric Boutique in Portland, OR asked me about doing a little interview on their blog, I was ecstatic. You see Bolt is a bit, ummm, awesome. 

Gina has this special way of curating her inventory. I don't use that word lightly. Walking into the front door of Bolt you are immediately greeted with a feeling of style, fashion and urban make-ing. Gina has a way of editing collections down to this refined boutique of prints and notions that suit Bolt's aesthetic perfectly. 

So when I discovered that Gina had chosen to include Peacock Lane in Bolt's offerings I was truly ecstatic. 

And when she asked me to pick out a fat quarter pack to give away on their blog... well, I got so excited by what I had to choose from that I had to go and make new pillows for our living room... and a mini pattern to go with them! 

Mod Petal Pillows

I chose a fat quarter pack consisting of the following five prints for the giveaway: 

Quilting Treasures - Juicy Blossoms in Orange 

Bluehill - Savannah - 7443 - Green (5) 

Lecien - Cocoa Eraser Dots 

Moda - Basic Grey - Max and Whiskers - Maybley Fur in Black 

Lecien - Rosalie Quinlan - Sweet Broderie - Daisy Chain in Orange 

I couldn't quite stop there though... my shopping pile also included:

Daisy Janie - Geo Grand - Crystal Ball in that yummy bright citron-y green

Andover - Melissa Averinos - Dazzle - Shadow Stripe in Teal (for the backing)

Kona Cotton in Ash for the middle square and border

Kona Cotton in White for the dash of sashing

I thought you might also like to see what this same pattern would look like done in the fat quarter pack of Peacock Lane that Bolt is also giving away! In this example I've swapped out the Kona Ash and replaced it with Kona Medium Gray (or even Charcoal). The prints are fussy cut pieces of Meadow in Pink, Meadow in Gray, Falling Flowers in Aqua and Parade Day in Gray. 

Shopping List (makes two 19" square pillow covers): 

1/8 yard each of five to seven prints

1/4 yard of Kona Ash for center background and border

1/8 yard of Kona White for sashing

1 yard of print for backing

3/4 yard of batting

3/4 yard of no-show lining for inside of quilted pillow fronts

thread to match

water soluble marking pen

2 pillow inserts - 22" square

(optional) 1/8 yard of Wonder Under or other paper backed two sided fusible web

Cutting List:

Various Prints: 40 @ 3 1/2" squares

Fusible Web: 8 @ 3 1/2" squares

Kona Ash: 2 @ 9" squares; 4 @ 2 1/2" x 15 1/2" strips; 4 @ 2 1/2" x 19 1/2" strips

Kona White: 2 @ 3/4" x 9"; 2 @ 3/4" x 9 1/2"

Backing: 4 @ 18" x 19 1/2"

Batting: 2 @ 22" squares

Lining: 2 @ 22" squares

Mini Instructions:

(please keep in mind this is a quickie mini tutorial - for detailed explanations of how to cut, piece, quilt and bind, I would suggest the many awesome blogs that detail those techniques... might I suggest my personal favorite, Elizabeth Hartman)

1.  Cut all pieces according to Cutting List (1/4" seam allowance included in measurements)

2.  Trace Mod Petal Template on paper backed side of fusible web squares. (Template should print out at 2.7" wide x 3.3" tall) Fuse web to eight 3 1/2" squares. Cut out. 

3.  Fuse petals to center squares in your desired arrangement. Play with this! There are many fun ways to arrange the petals. Example leaves a 3/8" space between the petals. Attach with desired edge stitch. Example uses tight zigzag stitch.

4.  Piece two Mod Petal Blocks by using the diagram. Press all seams flat. 

5.  Layer a 22" lining square face down, a 22" batting square and the Mod Petal Block face up. 

6.  Quilt as desired. Example uses straight line quilting 1/4" from the seams. Trim to 19 1/2". 

7.  Hem one 19 1/2" edge of all four backing pieces. If backing is directional, hem one top and one bottom for each pillow back.

8.  With quilted pillow top lying right side up, layer one pillow back right sides together with hemmed edge running horizontally across the middle of the pillow top, aligning raw edges along the top. Layer the final pillow back piece with right side down, hemmed edge running horizontally across middle of the pillow top, aligning raw edges on the bottom edge. Pin. 

9.  Stitch 1/4" from edge around the entire outside edge of pillow cover layers.  Turn right side out and enjoy!

Now go! Enter! Win! Sew! 

Ahh - it's all SO good.