Red love

Here's a little bit of red love to get you in the holiday spirit if you're not there yet. I saw this beautiful quilt by Grace Hawley last summer at the Busy Bee Quilt Show in Monroe, WA. I love Hawaiian quilts anyway but this one was a beauty - and in my favorite color, no less!



"More Hibiscus" by Grace Hawley

 Completely original and done by hand. The craftsmanship - or should I say, craftwomanship - on this was amazing. Thank you for sharing Ms. Hawley and giving us something to aspire to!

If you're in the area next summer, check out their show. Great location and lots of great quilting happening there.

Happy holiday stitching,

Tonya

All dressed up for Houston!

First time to Houston! Well, kind of anyway...While it's definitely on my wish-list to get to Houston Quilt Market I haven't made it yet. This year for the first time one of my patterns got there without me. My "All I Want for Christmas" tree skirt was hanging in the QuiltWoman booth during Market. Yeah!

Quiltwoman.com booth at Houston Quilt Market

Of course, for such a fancy affair, I needed to jazz it up a bit so I added ***rhinestones***! Actually, this is a new product that QuiltWoman will be carrying and asked me to **bling** a sample of my tree skirt so here's how it turned out...


 

Super-cute if you ask me and I'm not usually a "bling-girl". I'm not sure of the name of the product since they were sent kind of pre-market but it's a fusible rhinestone product that comes in sheets and you can cut to size. I opted to go with all Kona solids and bling the ribbons on the packages with the jewel-tone colored rhinestones I received and I'm pretty happy with the result. Because my pattern uses a quilt-as-you-go method, I even fused the rhinestones through all three layers - top, batting, and backing - and it worked just fine. Easy-peasy.

I may be a bling convert!

Happy stitching,

Tonya

Christmas in July and a new pattern

I really wonder sometimes why I feel like working on different projects at odd times of the year. Halloween quilt in February, sure. Red, white and blue in April, yep. Christmas in July, you bet! This project actually had some other deadlines attached so that may explain part of it but I am thrilled to show you my first pattern design!

It's a Christmas tree skirt pattern called "All I Want for Christmas" and it's in stores locally now and available nationally through QuiltWoman.com for retail and wholesale distribution (Pattern #TA-101). Here's a link to Fabric-Etc's blog post about it with a picture of the sample that Tracey made for the shop and to help me test the pattern. (Thanks Tracey!) Check out my pattern page for more info on where you can find it.

It was a really fun project to work on although I have to admit that I procrastinated on actually finally making it! My sister had asked for a tree skirt (about five years ago...) and I hemmed and hawed until the idea came together. Like most of my designs, the idea comes first and then I have to figure out how to make it work!

I tackled this project like eating a pie - one slice at a time! It's broken down into 8 wedges that you piece and quilt individually and then sash them together at the end. It's pretty big - measures 60" in diameter for the very simple reason that we have really big Christmas trees in our family! Also, I figure if I'm going to make such a cool tree skirt I want to be able to see it, not have it shoved all the way under the tree!

If you're new to paper piecing or free motion quilting, this may be just the project for you. The paper foundation piecing is very basic and suitable for a beginner. Also, it lends itself to experimentation with FMQ because you are always working with very manageable sized sections - and let's face it, this will end up under a tree on the floor so cut yourself some slack and have fun!

Happy stitching,

Tonya