Little bags

Sometimes after making quilt after quilt, I get the urge to do something a bit different.  This year I wanted to try to become more comfortable putting in zippers.  I looked around- especially at Pinterest and found a lot of free tutorials for making little bags.  I took some of my leftover fabric and made these little bags.

Fabrics are a new collection that will be launched at Spring Quilt Market this year - this is a sneak peak!

This was really fun!  Little bags make great gifts and really don't take all that long to make.  It's fun to embellish with yo yo's and buttons, etc.

Give it a try!

March Mini Madness

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors are all making a mini quilt using Island Batik fabrics, to celebrate March Mini Madness.  I debated what kind of mini quilt to make- I love to make minis!  My last book Little Gems is all 12" x 12" quilts- so those are minis.   I could make another quilt that size...

Images from Little Gems by Connie Kauffman Martingale 2015
Used by Permission.  Photos by Brent Kane  All rights reserved

I finally decided to go really small and make a mini of a mini!  Which quilt from the book should I try to make even smaller....hum...I finally decided on Serenity

Images from Little Gems by Connie Kauffman Martingale 2015
Photos by Brent Kane.   All rights reserved

This quilt is a great pattern.  Because of the small size of the pieces and using a good variety of fabrics- this is a great quilt for using up leftover 2 1/2" strip packs.  I told in the book how it is a great quilt for using up scraps and how there is really no right or wrong placement of colors.  It would be a great quilt to enlarge the pattern and make as a lap quilt or larger.  I never thought about making it smaller, but now I was curious how small I could go and what it might look like.

I decided to use an assortment of 14 different London Fog Island Batiks that I had leftover from another project (the more fabrics the better!).

Click here to see the whole line of London Fog.

Here is my mini of the quilt Serenity- 6" x 6"

Here is a photo of the blocks before it was all sewn together.  See the coin for an idea of the size.

And here it is beside the 12" x 12" version.  Notice the great Ackfeld Wire stands the quilts are on. I love to display my quilts on these stands

The pattern pieces were 1" finished.  That's pretty small- even for me!  Here are a couple hints that are especially helpful for making very small blocks.

1.  Use thin paper for printing your patterns
2.  Trim seams to about 1/8"
3.  Use glue stick to attach the first piece so that the pin doesn't distort the whole paper
4.  Use a very thin batting (I used Hobbs Thermore Batting)

Have you ever made a mini quilt?  Give it a try!

World Wide Quilting Day

Today is Worldwide Quilting Day!  Let's all celebrate and do something quilty!

Island Batik Blog Hop

Island Batik is having another great Blog Hop.  This hop is all about Wendy Sheppard's new book called Creative New Quilts & Projects from Precuts or Stash.



Check out the daily blog posts to see how the Ambassadors recreated Wendy's quilts using Island Batik fabrics.

Monday, March 14 – Island Batik
Tuesday, March 15 – Crossings Quilt, The Fit Quilter
Wednesday, March 16 – Flight of Colors Pillows, Pamela Quilts
Thursday, March 17 – Care for a Cuppa Quilt, MooseStash Quilting
Friday, March 18 – Birds of a Feather Placemats, Bejeweled Quilts

Monday, March 21 – Birds of Feather Runner, One Quilting Circle
Tuesday, March 22 – Childhood Memories Quilt, Beaquilter
Wednesday, March 23 – Winter Blues Quilt, Freemotion by the River ANDKISSed Quilts
Thursday, March 24 – Stars Over Columbia Quilt, Mary Mack Made Mine
Friday, March 25 – Count My Blessings Quilt, Lemon Tree Snippets

Indiana Bicentennial Barn quilt

This past year I was contacted by the The Indiana Barn Foundation about helping to design a quilt for them tied into the Indiana Bicentennial.  The Indiana Barn Foundation helps provide grants to barn owners to help them preserve their old barns.  Their motto is: Preserving Indiana's Heritage, One Barn At A Time.  This is a wonderful foundation.  Our old barns are lovely and I'm grateful there is a foundation like this to help them restore and keep them for future generations.  For more information you can go to /www.indianabarns.org/

They wanted to create a quilt with a block from every county in the state - that would be 92 blocks!  Each block would showcase a barn from a specific county.  This was a lovely idea - but a huge project!  I was happy to design the quilt and create a block for my county - Elkhart County.   I made a block representing The Round Barn Theater in Nappanee Indiana.  This was the first block submitted and I never saw any of the other blocks until the quilt was finished.

On Feb 27  all the people that made blocks as well as some of the owners of barns depicted in blocks were invited to a special unveiling of the quilt at the restored Morris-Butler House in Indianapolis.  

Here is a photo of the unveiled quilt- it has a bit of sunshine behind it!  The quilt turned out lovely. The blocks were very creative and each block had a story behind it.  The Indiana Barn Foundation created posters and a lovely book that has photos of each block and stories behind many of the blocks.  They also included a short bio or information from the creator of each block.  So much work was put into this lovely quilt!

The quilt will tour Indiana this year at various venues.  You can request it be displayed near you by contacting the foundation at the website above.

Island Batik and Blog Hop Winner

If you watch my blog posts you will know that I am a big fan of batik fabrics.  This is the third year I've had the privilege and joy to be an Ambassador for Island Batik Fabrics.  Their fabrics are beautiful and inspiring to work with.  Last week I received this box from Island Batik- it's like Christmas in March!  These are fabrics and threads (Aurifil and Superior Threads) that you will be seeing me post about in the next few months, so stay tuned!

The winner from my post on the Planes, Trains and Automobile Blog Hop is Emily C (drawn from Random.Org).  She said that she would love to visit Florida.  Isn't that just perfect when I used the Florida Oranges fabric on my post!  She has been contacted and her fabrics are on the way.

You may want to revisit the blogs of Island Batik Ambassadors this month as we are all participating in  Mini Madness in the month of March.  Each Ambassador will be making a miniature quilt using some of the Island Batik fabrics.  If you like miniatures- these are especially for you!