HST Sampler Quilt | Block #3: Contrary Wife

PATTERN SHEET: HST Sampler Quilt – BLOCK3

Happy Wednesday, Friends!!

Continuing on with my HST Sampler Quilt Along, here is the third block in the series for you to make! This one is called the Contrary Wife Block!

To be honest with you, I struggled to find some decent historical information on this one to include in the pattern sheet. Bummer! I’m sure there is a fascinating story behind it! If you know any fun little facts about this block, please comment below – I would love to know more!!

All of the measurements and cutting info, along with the fabrics* I’ve used to piece this block together are in the pattern sheet linked at the top of this post! If you would like to use the same 12.5″ set square as me, you can find it here: June Tailor Get-Squared 12.5″ Ruler.

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Block four in the series will be ready for you on Friday (hopefully on time – I have a long awaited appointment to see the Dentist on Friday afternoon! Wisdom teeth suck!) The block that we will be making is a fun little favourite and is very appropriate for our little community that we have going on here! And that block is the Friendship Star!

Don’t forget to share all of your blocks with me and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask at any time! 🙂

See ya on Friday, Friends!

xx

*A big thanks to Australian wholesale supplier and fabric distributer Dayview Textiles for supplying me with such beautiful fabrics! If you want to see all of the fabrics I’ll be using in this Quilt Along, check out this post where I share them all with you!

Introducing Quilt-Along Series #2 | HST Sampler Quilt!

Happy Day! The time has finally come to introduce to you my next Quilt-Along-With-Me series on my YouTube channel! Yay!

This time around we’ll be doing a HST* Sampler Quilt!

The quilt will be made up of nine 12″ blocks that all feature HSTs in their design. Most of the blocks are quite simple to piece together with only a small handful that may challenge you! So if you’re a lover of HSTs, a hater of HSTs who wants to learn to love them or simply have issues piecing HSTs, then this is the perfect project for you to follow along with!

The blocks we’ll be making are (in order of release): Formal Garden, Morning Star, Contrary Wife, Friendship Star, Shoo-Fly, Mill Wheel, Churn Dash, Open Window (a new variation) and the Windblown Square.

In each block tutorial I’ll let you know all of the measurements and cutting info like I usually do, along with what fabrics I’m using for that block. An information sheet will also be available for you to print off and follow along with at home! (These will be available to download from my blog.)

For this series, I’ll be using a range of fabrics from RJR Fabrics and Cotton+Steel. The main collection is one called The Sultan’s Garden designed by Mary McGuire and soon as I saw it, I knew it was perfect for this series!

The fabrics I’ve chosen are from the Apricot/Turquoise edition of the collection (there’s also a Berry edition featuring beautiful shades of purples and pinks!).

Here’s a list of each of the fabrics I’ll be using, along with it’s name and where it’ll feature in this Sampler Quilt.

Tulips

FABRIC NAME: Tulips. This fabric will used in two of the blocks.

Melisa

FABRIC NAME: Melisa. This fabric will be used in one of the blocks.

Minaret

FABRIC NAME: Minaret. This fabric will be used in one of the blocks.

Mosaic

FABRIC NAME: Mosaic. This fabric will be used in one of the blocks.

Leila

FABRIC NAME: Leila. This fabric will used in two of the blocks.

Blossom

FABRIC NAME: Blossom. This fabric will be used in three of the blocks.

Stripe

FABRIC NAME: Stripe. This fabric will be used as the binding for the quilt.

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To accompany these prints, I’ve also mixed in two matching XOXO Basics fabrics from Cotton+Steel.

PinkCheeks

FABRIC NAME: Pink Cheeks. This fabric will be used in three of the blocks.

Dandelion

FABRIC NAME: Dandelion. This fabric will be used in one of the blocks.

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To balance out the prints, I’m also using two Cotton Supreme Solids from RJR Fabrics.

FABRIC NAME: Elephantastic Pink (on the left). This fabric will used in two of the blocks.

SupremeSolids

FABRIC NAME: Blue Skies (on the right). This fabric will be used as the background fabric in all nine blocks as well as for the sashing and borders. (NB: This fabric doesn’t photograph well: in real life it doesn’t look this grey and boring!)

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Now in regards to how much fabric you’ll need will all depend on if you’re going to use as many fabrics as I am. If you are, I would recommend in getting no more than a half metre or half yard cut of fabric for each print you’ll be using in your blocks. You possibly could get away with using Fat Quarters, but if you make a mistake with a certain block, you may come up short and I don’t want that to happen to you! For the background fabric, you’ll need at least two metres (2 yards) and no more than 1 metre (1 yard) of fabric for the binding. Once the quilt top has been completed, I’ll share how much backing and batting you’ll need to finish it off!

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Now luckily for me, a wonderful Australian wholesale supplier and fabric distributer know as Dayview Textiles very kindly sourced and supplied these beautiful fabrics to me which I am very grateful for! If you’re in Australia and are keen on using the same fabrics as me, pop over to their website to find the nearest quilt store to you that they distribute fabrics to!

If you’re not in Aussie-Land, here are a few places you can purchase these fabrics online… (OH MY GOSH! Fabric.com has everything!)

Fabric.com – The Sultan’s Garden

Fabric.com – XOXO Basics

Fabric.com – Cotton Supreme Solids

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I’m so excited about this little series finally starting and I can’t wait to see all of your lovely blocks and potentially beautiful quilts over the next coming weeks!

The video tutorial for block #1 will be out on Wednesday, with block #2 out on Friday!

See you then!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

xx

P.S If there’s any vital information you think I’ve missed, comment below and I’ll add it in!

P.P.S I also uploaded this video to my YouTube channel introducing the series if you’re interested in watching it!

*HST = Half-Square Triangles

Two Little Baby Quilts

I know I’ve possibly overshared these two little beauties throughout the past few weeks but I just wanted to wrap it all up by showing you the final finished quilts in all their glory before being posted to their final homes!

And aren’t they just lovely!!

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Words really can’t describe just how happy I am by how darling they’ve come out! Everything just works. The blocks, the fabrics, the colours, the quilting, even the binding and backing I chose to use. They all just work so well together! Never have I had a brief go so well and match exactly to what I was planning in my head! I love it when that happens! Yay! 😀

So, shall we do a quick low-down of each quilt? Just so we can say goodbye together…

Let’s start with the Granny Squares Block Quilt.

GrannySquaresBlockQuilt

This was the first time I had ever attempted to make a Granny Squares Block. I had always looked at it and thought, ‘Geeze, that looks complicated!’ But after delving more into how the block was pieced together, I realised just how incredibly simple it was to make and I literally jumped straight into it!

You can check out the block tutorial I made right here!

I loved matching the adorable Cotton+Steel Basics fabric with some of the similar coloured Art Gallery Fabrics (AGF) that I already had in my stash. The direction and shapes in the prints added such a great depth of character, movement and sweetness to the quilt so much that every time I stepped back to observe it, a squeal of delight came out my mouth!

Then, the way that I quilted it made me fall in love even harder! I decided to do a grid-like-pattern that was sewn off-set to the squares in the block.

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To make it easier for me to get sharp and precise straight lines, I used my Clover Hera Marker to ‘score’ or ‘bruise’ my ‘to-quit line’ on the top of the quilt. I then simply followed this line as I quilted, resulting in this lovely even design!

GrannyDuo

When basting this quilt, I also came across a beautiful batting that I’ve always wanted to use, but always thought it was too expensive to buy. The one that I was recommended to use by my always-so-helpful friend Bitza at my local Spotlight, was a bamboo/cotton blend batting made by Legacy that didn’t cost the earth or empty out the balance of my bank account!

BambooBlendBatting

It was such a delightful batting to work with! Super soft to the touch, lightweight and dreamy, easy to baste and quite literally glided like butter through my machine! Oh. My. Gosh. I was in love! It’s going to be really hard to now go back to using an all cotton batting!

GrannySqauresBack

To finish this little delight, I backed it with a darling lime pin-spot fabric and used the leftover ‘Hello Bear’ black spot fabric from AGF for the binding. It simply came out perfect!

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PinwheelQuilt

Oh. The Pinwheel Quilt! This came together so quickly and perfectly that I could almost cry at the ease of it!

I always love a good little pinwheel and I think they’re just so ideal for little kid quilts! They’re super-easy to piece together and are the perfect block to use up all of those leftover HSTs you’ve got floating around your sewing room!

You can check out the tutorial for this block here!

Again, for this quilt I used a mixture of the Cotton+Steel and AGF fabrics paired with an off-white solid. I also chose to incorporate another dominate type border sash around the blocks to ‘frame’ the main focus of the quilt.

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With this quilt, I tried my best to really ‘echo’ or be inspired by the shape of the pinwheel in my quilting. As you may know by now, I love to quilt my quilts using straight lines. And with this, I always love to challenge and stretch my self with the different ways I can do that by exploring direction, shape and density. I think you can really see that with this quilt, especially around the outside border and corners. (BTW: I love doing those little fan-like-designs in the corners, they look so Art Deco-y!) To help achieve the beautiful lines in this quilt, I again used my Clover Hera Marker to create lines in the right positions before quilting over them.

PinwheelFront&Back

To finish this little lovely, I backed it using a teal and creamy white stripe fabric and used a AGF fabric with little triangles on it for the binding.

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TwoLittleBabyQuilts

I’ve had so much fun making these gorgeous little quilts and I’ve loved sharing every single step along the way with you! It also makes me cringe-worthy happy that I’ve even inspired some of you to make these blocks and turn them into beautiful quilts for yourselves!

Thanks to everyone for all of your lovely comments and encouragements throughout the last few weeks when it came to these quilts! It truly means a whole lot!! 🙂

So now, let’s all say ‘cheers’ and wish the lucky little bubbas and mummas-to-be all the best!!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

xx

An Update from my Sewing Room… #2

I can tell you a secret?

(Well, it’s not really a secret. More of a thought, actually.)

I really loved having the opportunity to sit, write and share what had been happening in my Sewing Room last time and the response to that post was really encouraging and supportive! So because of that, I’ve decided to make this into a bit of a series to explore and to use as a ‘newsletter’ type thing, keeping you updated on things that I don’t share so much on YouTube, Instagram or any other of my social networky places. Sound good? Good!

And also, I like writing these types of posts as I love to be able to go back and read about what I was up to this time last year (yes, I am the type of blogger that actually likes to re-read what they wrote a year ago!), or to re-fresh my memory on the progress I made with quilts-in-the-making. I especially like looking back on posts about quilts that I give away, remembering what they looked like and re-living the thoughts (and struggles) I was facing when making them.

So, where to start off this time… Hmm…

Let’s start here!

The other day I did share this completed quilt top on Instagram of one of the commissioned baby quilts I’m making for a friend.

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I’m completely over the moon with how well it’s all come together! I absolutely loved how the fabrics shone, glimmered and danced in the winter sunshine and soft breeze on the day I shot these photos! It was a beautiful moment where my crazy quilt-nerdisms went into hyper-drive and I squealed and giggled to myself over its cuteness!

GrannySquaresQuiltTopDuo

All up, I made five Granny Squares Blocks and had a hard time deciding whether to leave in the top left yellow spot block or this green spot block (ie. the first block I made at beginning!)

My First Granny Squares Block!
My First Granny Squares Block!

I ended up using the yellow spot block as it seemed to balance out all of the mint-green fabrics I had used. It seemed to give the quilt an over-all subtlety and softness that I really like.

Moving on to baby quilt number two. This time around I’m making a small bunch of 5.5″ Pinwheels using the left over 3.5″ squares I over cut for the Granny Squares Blocks. (They really are super adorable!)

Pinwheels1

I’ll also be using up any left over 2″ sashing I used on the previous quilt to sash the Pinwheels together. I think I’ll then add the same kind of border I did to the other one as well, but instead use the soft yellow spot fabric in place of the green strip border.

PinwheelsDuo

Yesterday afternoon I spent some down time finishing the piecing of the Pinwheels and then begun sashing the blocks together. I’m now at the stage where I can quite easily finish the quilt top in one afternoon or evening sewing session. (That’ll either happen today or tomorrow!)

I’ve set myself a goal to have both baby quilt tops finished for the start of next week so I can concentrate on getting them quilted. I think I’ll stick to some pretty basic quilting lines – nothing as intense as my Geo Dreams Quilt or Amelia’s Baby Quilt – as I think it’ll really compliment the softness and simpleness that each of these quilts already radiate.

(Here’s a piece of behind the scenes trivia for you: While piecing the Pinwheel Blocks together, instead listening to music like I usually do, I played season four of Adventure Time in the background! It helped tremendously to make those tedious steps of squaring up HSTs and pressing tricky seams a lot more bearable and fun! Math!)

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Finn & Jake // IMAGE SOURCE

The next thing I wanted to share with you is a pattern that I’ve been swooning over for the past week! And it’s this one by Fat Quarter Shop

The Panda-Monium Mini Quilt!

Panda-Monium Mini Quilt by Fat Quarter Shop // SOURCE
Panda-Monium Mini Quilt by Fat Quarter Shop // IMAGE SOURCE

I’m dying to get stuck into making this sweet little mini but I just can’t… I already have my fingers in so many pies, so to speak, that I really need to calm myself down, put my patience pants on and begin it when I don’t already have so many other quilts to get finished!! (And seeing so many great versions of it being made on Instagram doesn’t help to calm my fever!!)

Oh, and I forget to mention – it’s a free pattern!! (Say what!?) Yep. A FREE pattern! I love a good freebie! Annndd, there’s also a YouTube tutorial on the Fat Quarter Shop channel showing you how to make it! How good is that?! 😀

And lastly, may I just say, how awesome is the Mollie Makes magazine?!

MollieMakes

If I could sum up everything that I want to be as quilter/sewer/crafter/whatever, this magazine is it! It’s 100% me but in pretty matte-pages form!

Although we’re a few issues behind here in Australia and you literally have to pay a small fortune for just one copy, it’s totes worth it, especially when you get cute freebies like pastel vintage buttons and DIY pincushion kits!!

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So that’s it this time ’round.

The weekend ahead, as usual, is full of sewing, creating, filming and editing!

I hope you’re weekend will be just as fun as mine!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

xx

TUTORIAL: Granny Squares Block

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Classic. Traditional. Modern. Simple. Fun.

…Are just a few words I would use to describe this sweet, sweet block!

Previous to this, I had never made a Granny Squares Block, whether in crochet or patchwork. It was those funny little triangle edges that always threw me off… I just couldn’t understand how this block was constructed to be able to achieve those odd angled squares and triangle-ly bits. It was only after a quick search on Pinterest, where I saw this simple picture, that I finally experienced that moment of: “Ohhhhh! That’s how you do it!!” It was legit a great moment and I immediately got into cutting and piecing my first block together…

My First Granny Squares Block!
My First Granny Squares Block!

I cannot express enough at just how quick and simple this block is to construct! It’s purely just piecing squares together (in the correct layout order), pressing the seams, sewing the rows together and then squaring the block up! So. Easy.

The reason why I’ve dived head-first into making Granny Squares is because of a commission I was recently ask to do for a friend. She has two friends who are expecting babies in the next few months and so asked me to make a baby quilt for each little bubba! This block will feature in one quilt and the other quilt is currently in the planning! Because both mums-to-be don’t know the gender of their babies, I’ve been sticking to a ‘gender-neutral’ colour palette of mint greens, creams, yellows and tans, with subtle, soft prints like polka-dots, little crosses and triangles. Some of the fabrics I’ve been using are from the Basics xoxo range from Cotton+Steel and the Hello Bear range by Art Gallery Fabrics. Both are such beautiful fabrics to use and blend in so nicely with each other throughout the other blocks I’ve made…

TrioOfGrannySquares

So smitten I was (and still am) by the Granny Squares block, I decided to make a tutorial for my YouTube channel on how to make one!

So here’s how you do it!

Measurements and Cutting info:
This block is made up of x25 3.5″ squares. (You can cut your squares bigger or smaller depending on how big you wish the final block size to be!)
The block is usually made using three to four fabrics. (I’ve chosen to use four.) But can also be completely scrappy if you wish!
Of each fabric you will need to cut:
~ x12 white squares for the background
~ x8 green squares for the outer section
~ x4 cream squares for the inner section
~ x1 mustard square for the centre

FINAL BLOCK SIZE: 13.5″ squared (approx.)

Fabric bought from Kelani Fabric Obsession
~ Natural Unseeded Homespun
~ Cotton+Steel Basic xoxo in Mint
~ Hello Bear by Art Gallery Fabrics: Firefly
~ Cotton+Steel Basic xoxo in Mustard

I hope you enjoy making this block just as much as I have and are able to create a beautiful quilt with them for someone special!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

xx