Wow, lots of new folks. If you’ve found your way here from Leanne of She Can Quilt, a special welcome. Pour yourself a lemonade, sit on the porch swing, and “set awhile,” as Grandpa used to say. Take a moment to introduce yourself, tell me where you’re from, and what your favorite kind of quilting is – both to make and to look at. Now – on to the fun stuff!
Because Cheryl, of Meadow Mist Designs, and Yvonne of Quilting Jet Girl are wonderful mentors, they’ve taken this year’s New Quilt Blogger hop a step further. Not only have they helped us all with technical aspects of blogging and built connections, but they’re also now heading up a hop of new blocks inspired by the colors of the New Bloggers button (look over in the sidebar). The lovely people at Cloud 9 Fabrics sent each of us a bundle of their gorgeous solids to play with.
Aren’t they lovely? I have a fair idea of what I’m going to do with mine, though I can’t share with you just yet. Plus, I have to make a prototype and write up a tutorial. Eeek! Suffice it to say, I’m going for a twist on a vintage block. I bet that’s a surprise, eh?
I DO love a good challenge. Which is probably why I’m behind the wheel for The Grand Rapids Modern Quilter’s Challenge/Charity project for this quarter. We’re making a quilt for the Grand Rapids Veteran’s Home, to be given at Christmas. I’ve ordered some fabric from Hawthorne Threads. They’re a great source for modern-leaning fabrics in general, and also have a gorgeous collection of “house designs.” The latter are digitally printed, which was a new experience for me. But I fell in love with the “Mariner” line, and thought it was also a good choice for this project.
When you order these, they print just exactly has much fabric as you asked for. The edges are white, because the printer needs a little maneuvering room. Thus:
Love this print. It’s called “Pier Pressure.”
I trimmed off the white fabric, then cut a fat 16th for each block. I’d ordered 3 different prints, and each participant will get one fat quarter, as well as a small bit of the multicolored print to help with color choices.
I’m looking forward to seeing what everybody creates. Since I’m slightly evil, the piece provided isn’t nearly big enough to make a whole block from. Other fabrics of each quilter’s choice will have to make up the rest.
One other thing I noticed was that the weave on this fabric is quite a bit tighter than standard quilting cottons. I took a close up of some of the trimmed white fabric to compare with one of the Cloud 9 solids.
I’ve saved those trimmings, as I think they’ll be wonderful for lining pincushions and emery cushions, too. I have plans for that – check back soon!