I decided I wanted something red and white and simple for the beds in Sweden.  A checkerboard quilt seemed perfect, so I cut  a bunch of 2″ strips from my red and white fabrics and sewed them together.  Then I cut them in 2″ segments.

I hauled them to a retreat with me!

Then it was just a matter of sewing them together into longer and longer strips.

You know the drill.  Once the strips were long enough it was time to sew them together.

Here’s the first one when I finished it at the retreat and spread it on my bed.

In keeping with the “simple” theme, I just quilted diagonally with wavy lines.

But I didn’t go all the way in one direction, I did more of a chevron pattern.

I was really pleased with the way it turned out.

I found this cute bird print for the back.

Each quilt was 40 squares by 50 squares, or 2000 squares!  (Scary when you say it that way!)

Yes, I said “each quilt” because I made two of them!

Here’s Bob getting his.  I gave it to him before we left home so he could put it in his suitcase!

When we first got to Sweden, we had to sleep upstairs because our bedroom wasn’t remodeled yet.

But once the remodel was finished, we brought the bed—and the quilts—downstairs to their new home.

I didn’t like the way the Dala horses showed through the wallpaper.  It looked like they were in jail!  So, I added some fabric to the back of the headboard.

Now I really must do something about pillows!

 

We have a winner in the “Name the Kids” contest for the Christmas Morning Redwork.  They are Bobby and Sally!  Here’s block 4.  Bobby and Sally are saying their prayers before bed on Christmas Eve.

It was so fun reading through all of the suggestions and I thank everyone who left comments.  I chose the names Bobby and Sally because they are my brother and sister!  Now they’re tucked in bed, waiting for Christmas Morning!

The first person to suggest each name has won a Christmas Morning panel.  Thanks again to all who participated.

 

In June I posted a tutorial for String Piecing for A Quilt Block A Day.

Finally, I’ve finished 100 blocks.  Now I just have to decide how to put them together!

My first thought was to set them in a Chevron pattern.

It didn’t look as good on the design wall as it did in my mind, so I went more traditional, with X’s and O’s.

Hmmm……I’m liking that, but I just had to try one more setting.  I call this Exploding Diamonds.

Oh, wait!  Just one more…….  How about if I do Offset Diamonds!?!

Oh, too many decisions.  What do you think?  Leave me a comment and let me know your favorite setting.  I’ll enter your name in a drawing to be held November 28.  The winner will win 100 fabric strips to get you started on your own string pieced quilt!

We have a winner in the Name The Quilt Contest!

The winning suggestion was Pretty Maids All In A Row.  It was suggested several times, but Linda was the first—so she wins a kit to make her own Pretty Maids quilt.

I also used a random number generator to pick a second winner.  There were 138 entries.  The number generator chose #86, so a second quilt kit will go to Emilee in England!  Congratulations to both winners and thanks to all of you who left comments.  To order a kit of your own, CLICK HERE!

This is Josie, who works in the kitchen at Falls Creek.  She is a hoot!  She always asks if she can share show-and-tell…

…then borrow something from one of the retreaters, trying to convince me that she made it.  Finally, I’m on to her!

Sue shared this fabulous row quilt.

She also made this Turning Twenty.

Sharon said she made this during her Nine-Patch phase!

She also made this quilt with tulip blocks from a block swap.

Kathy made this “Man Cave’ quilt for her husband.

This colorful quilt was made by Mary T.

She also made this snuggle star quilt.

Isn’t the touch of green great in this black and white quilt she made.

Karen V. shared these cute snap bags.

She made these placemats while trying to improve her machine binding skills.  What a great idea!

Karen V also made this table runner…

…and this stunning quilt.

Karen V

 

Marsha showed her pretty star quilt.

Patty amazing Carpenter’s Star quilt.

Jean shared this great medallion quilt…

…and this fun animal print quilt.

She also made this stack of Sunbonnet Sue quilts.

Annie shared this quilt.

She brought back these two quilts that she started at the last retreat

This is also her Sampler Quilt.

Annie’s.

This is my Dear Dorothy quilt.

I got to be Guest Blogger at SewTimeless this week! I was asked to create a project from my new Red, White and True Blue fabric collection and came up with these quilt-as-you-go placemats.  There’s a complete step-by-step photo tutorial.

Once I finished them, I knew I had to invite my sister’s Charmin’ Chatty over for a tea party!

When I wrote my first book, Bundles of Fun, I designed each quilt to be made from twelve fat quarters.  So, all the quilts have names like Midnight Cowboy, A Dozen Roses and Twelve Step Program.

As it turns out, Twelve Step Program has been the most popular quilt in the book.  I did two versions for the book, this one out of batiks…

…this one…

…made with William Morris fabrics.  It’s much more bended looking because there isn’t as much contrast in the fabrics.

You can sure see the difference in this one, which has lots of contrast.  I just stumbled across this top I started from a class demo.  I wonder if I have the borders somewhere???

As you can see, this pattern lends itself to any fabrics!  Teri at Boardwalk Quilts made this one, and instead of steps, did a chevron!

Last Saturday, she offered a class on this quilt.  I stopped in just after lunch to see how everyone was doing.  It’s so much fun to see what fabrics everyone picked!

After sewing strips together…

…you sew one more seam to make a tube!

Then you do some more cutting and end up with lots of loops.

See what I mean about this working with lots of different fabrics!

I’m partial to the brights.

But the florals are strikingly pretty.

It’s hard to beat black and white with a touch of red!

One you cut have the loops, you start staggering the design.

Magically, you have stair steps!

Then it’s just a matter of sewing it all together.

This quilt goes together very quickly.  I took this picture at the class on Saturday…

…and when I saw Dianne on Monday, she had it all together!  I hope the ladies in the class will all send photos of their finished quilts.  When they do, I’ll be sure to post photos of them.

The following photo is from one of my retreats.  Here, the loops are pinned to a design wall.

Once the loops are cut in the proper places, it’s ready to sew.

Here are a couple more that friends brought to retreats for show-and-tell.  Another beautiful batik version.

Yummy colors here, and look at the fabulous border treatment.

Good, strong contrast in these blocks.

And I love the vintage-y feel to this one.  Notice the little ad I’m doing in the corner!  Shameless!

If you have photos of quilts you’ve made from any of my books, I’d love it if you’d share them with me.

And here they are……..On Friday, Margaret stopped by.  This is the quilt she did in class.  It turned out to be amazing!

She added a tiny flange between the quilt center and the first border.  If you don’t know what a flange is, it’s a 1/2″ strip of fabric, folded and sewn in, so it’s three dimensional.

And after Kathi saw this post, she stopped by on Saturday, during my open house, to show me three quilts that she had made with this pattern!

You can really see what I mean when I say this pattern looks good with any fabric combination!

 

Five or six years ago, I made this quilt.  It was to showcase my second fabric line, Wash Tub Butterflies.

When I was sorting through my scraps recently, I discovered I had some segments of the piano key border left, and some 1-1/2″ strips.  So, yesterday I sliced them up and put them back together.  Voila!  A doll quilt!

I think a red binding will finish it off perfectly!  And, as you can imagine, my scrap pile is now much smaller.

 

Well, I’m going to be on the radio–tomorrow!

Do you know about American Patchwork and Quilting Radio hosted by Pat Sloan?  It airs every Monday, and Pat usually has four guests.  Tomorrow, I’m one of them!  We’ll be chatting about fabric design, design inspiration—all kinds of things.  To listen live, tune in at:

4pm Eastern
3pm Central
2pm Mountain
1pm Pacific

I’ll be the third guest.

If you miss the live broadcast, you can download a podcast and listen later.  Just click this link to find all the info.

http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/radio/index.html

One of my current fabric lines is Christmas Memories.  It’s a small line, with an adorable panel and a companion snowflake fabric.  The line comes in Blue or Red.  When I got my sample fabric, I whipped up a quilt from the red colorway.  Much to my delight, today at our Redwork Club meeting I got to see a completed quilt top in blue!

Earlene did all the stitching on this one.

She did a fantastic job.

I just love how she did a little red in each block.

In some of them it’s quite obvious.

In others, you have to really look for it.

This wasn’t her original plan.

At first she did everything in blue…

…except this little dog’s tongue.

But once that was done…

…she thought every block should have a little red.

So she carefully unstitched a little bit in each block.

I think the result is fabulous!

Her are the two quilts, side-by-side.  It’s so funny, when I’m looking at the red one, I think I like it best, but when I’m looking at the blue one, I’m sure I like IT best!

Oh, I’m so fickle!