I don’t know about y’all, but I LOVE fall. Everything about it. The crisp air, football, leaves turning orange, and of course, pumpkins! I designed this block a few weeks ago and worked one up, but then got distracted by other projects. My friend Emily of Sew ET decided to work up a few of the blocks herself this past weekend, and I think it turned out adorable! Her pairing of fabric and the darker background really compliment the bright orange pumpkins. You can check out her blog post here. She also sells that yummy Peppered Cotton in Charcoal if y’all are interested.

I’m hoping I get to work a little bit on some fall themed projects this weekend in between sewing Christmas presents…I need a longer period of time between autumn and Christmas! It seems like I can’t ever enjoy my favorite seasons before my OTHER favorite season rolls around.

You can either click on the photo above to get to my Craftsy Shop for the Pumpkin Pattern, or you can Click Here. 🙂  Have fun and enjoy the season!

I’m so excited to announce my Texas Forever pattern is available in my Craftsy Shop!

Back in February I was playing around with the idea of opening an Etsy Shop to sell wall art. I had initially designed some prints that were a combination of local maps, colored in and saved in the shape of the state within which they were located. It was around the time I was finishing up my Heart Quilt Pattern, so I decided to play around and see if I could design abstract state shapes with triangles. I designed Texas and Virginia and was hooked. I have both drafts printed and hanging up behind my computer at work.

Once I had designed the states in half-square triangles, YOU KNOW, I had to make quilts. At the Austin Modern Quilt Guild’s Summer retreat I spent all my time making 8 trillion HST’s and got most of the two states completed. I’m still adding borders to Virginia to make it “Hokie-fied.” Here is a pic of my WIP Texas:

My finished Texas quilt will be going up on my dining room wall. The pattern gives instructions for a small and large quilt.  I think the design is perfect for gifts for the upcoming holidays! I’m thinking about mocking the design up in Christmas colors to send out as my Christmas cards this year. If I do, I’ll make sure to share a photo. 🙂  Here is a closer look at the quilting:

My favorite part about these state quilts is how versatile they are. You can applique a heart over your favorite city, change the colors to reflect who you are, add a couple more borders in your school colors to make it collegiate, the possibilities are endless! I can’t wait to see what people come up with. I’m hoping to have Virginia published soon. I have California and Ohio designed and waiting in the wings. What other states would you all like to see? Let me know and I can move them to the top of my list!

I hope everyone is having a great autumn so far! Linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.

Piece Out!

Corinne

It’s hard to believe I’ve been quilting about three years now. I remember starting my first quilt and can’t believe how much you can learn in such a short time frame! My first quilt was a simple nine-patch queen size quilt. It took about a year to complete, because the quilt bug didn’t bite until the top was finished. After I had the quilt top done I felt a sense of accomplishment and quickly started several more quilts and haven’t stopped since! Here is a pic of my very first quilt:

That sucker is still on my bed and I love it just as much as I did when I first made it. After I quilted this top I started looking around for other quilty folks in the Austin area. My mom had suggested I do a little research to see if Austin had a Modern Quilt Guild, as she thought I might “vibe” better with that crowd versus the local traditional guild. I finally talked myself into joining and am so thankful I did. I’ve met some wonderful people, many of them my age who are new to quilting. I absolutely love the enthusiasm and attitude of the quilters in the guild, and it’s fun learning new things alongside them and sharing things we learn along the way. The Austin MQG is still growing and finding its footing, and I know the officers work hard to keep our group evolving, as it seems to get better and better. Just this past meeting our wonderful new board gave sewn gifts to the old board members. I was super excited to receive a gift from Kim Place of Dream Stitch Designs. She made me the most wonderful placemat that is soooo me! I just adore the hand-quilting. Check out her awesome work! It’s going to go on my new entryway dresser.

After I had been quilting for a while I decided it was time to expand my sew-cial life and I decided to join the Austin Area Quilt Guild. At first I was very intimidated because the guild is huge – 500 members – and it was a bit overwhelming walking into a giant meeting full of people who had been quilting for years. I was extremely fortunate to join at precisely the right time. The person in charge of membership happened to live near my neck of the woods AND she had just formed a new sewing bee that met once a month on weekends. She kindly asked if I’d be interested and I was thrilled! The group of folks in the bee are all the nicest, most encouraging people and I’m truly lucky to spend time sewing with them. We all have very different styles, but one of our favorite things at each bee is to Ohhhhh and Ahhhhh over the beautiful work everyone is doing. Even if it isn’t our style, we can appreciate the skill and effort that goes into the pieces we work on. I like to think I bring a modern slant to the group, and we’ve had some great conversations about the modern versus traditional world…but that is another blog post in and of itself!

Anywho, the reason I’m recounting my guild history today is because I finally entered my very first Quilt Show! The Austin Area Guild holds a large quilt show every other year, and this year I decided to enter a couple of pieces. They had just introduced a new “Modern ” category, which I felt was right up my alley. I entered my Modern Trellis quilt and feverishly made a “Sunset” version of my Water/Waves quilt. I had wanted to enter my “I Heart My Stash” quilt, but sadly didn’t get it finished in time. It was already down to the wire and my good friend Emily of Sew ET even came over the night before they were due to help me sew on the sleeves. Thank you Emily!!!!

The show has anywhere from 350-400 quilts each year, and the work is amazing.  I am super proud to announce I won first and second place in the modern category!!! I was seriously shocked and so excited to be recognized amongst a group of such talent. Here is a pic of my two quilts hanging in the show:

Sorry for the brag-post, I just had to share! I’ll post more info and photos of the Sunset quilt as soon as I get some decent photos.

Piece Out!

Corinne

This summer has been quite the whirlwind, I can’t believe it’s just about over! I have been feverishly trying to finish three quilts for a quilt show and I still have a ways to go. Looks like late nights for me until Tuesday! Despite the looming deadline I decided to go to the Virginia Tech – Ohio State football game this weekend, which leads me to my first WIP, my upcoming HST Virginia pattern! (I’m also finishing up a Texas pattern I hope to have in my shop next week…the VA one is taking a bit longer).

While I hope to keep adding patterns to my shop, I also want to keep offering free content. One of my favorite things about the quilting community are the free tutorials and patterns you can find online. Today I am finally ready to post my Grand Granny Tutorial!

This quilt actually started as something larger, and I tweaked the pattern and worked it down to the baby quilt size. Let’s first take a look at the block and how the quilt works up:

Fabric Requirements and Cutting:

4 Teal Fat Eighths  |  5 Orange Fat Eighths  |  1/2 Yard White

Piecing Triangle Units:

You are going to piece your orange and teal squares the same way. I’m going to refer to teal, just duplicate the steps with your orange squares.

1) Take 2 different teal prints and place them right sides together. Draw a diagonal line from one corner to the next on one of the squares. Sew 1/4 inch on both sides of the line.

2) Rotary cut up the center diagonal that you drew. Open and Press.

3) Rotary cut up the diagonal of each square, as shown below. Repeat these steps for your orange and teal squares. Teal pairs with teal, orange pairs with orange.

Piecing your block:

1) Take your white square and mark the center of each side. I like to fold and iron a small crease. Take two of your triangle units and match the center seam to the center you just marked on your white square. Sew 1/4 inch along sides. Open and Press.

2) Take two more triangle units and repeat step 1 on the remaining sides. 

Piecing the Top:

See breakdown of quilt blocks below.

Sew your blocks together and you have a Grand Granny baby quilt! 

The fun thing about this block is you can play around with the arrangement of colors and make larger quilts. Here is a picture of where I was originally going with this quilt. It has been sitting on my shelf for months, waiting to be quilted. I’ll get around to it eventually!

Here is a coloring sheet just in case you want to play around with making a larger version quilt with these blocks. Enjoy!

I finally finished! 🙂  Thank you to those of you requesting the pattern, I appreciate your patience! I have officially posted it to my Craftsy Pattern Store. It involves quite a few pieces and steps, so I went ahead and labeled it as intermediate. I did illustrate almost every step, so hopefully just about anyone can make one! If you do, please let me know! I’d love to see how other people interpret the pattern with their own fabric choices.

Speaking of fabric choices, I’ve been super excited to see folks making quilts from my Water/Waves pattern! Check out Lisa’s version over at Shiner’s View, and Tracey’s MSU tribute on her Instagram. I am actually working on a new version of this quilt for an upcoming quilt show. The show is just two weeks away and I have sooooo much left to get done before it’s time to turn in our quilts. I decided to “matchstick quilt” this one and I don’t think it will ever end. Once it is all done I’ll post a little more info about the fabrics/threads/process. For now here is a pic of what it looked like prior to basting/quilting. I’m calling this one “Sunset.”

Linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday. Within the next week I plan on finally getting around to posting a tutorial for my Grand Granny Baby Quilt. Until then, Piece Out!

~Corinne

First, I want to thank everyone who has posted kind comments regarding my Michael Miller Challenge Quilt, Modern Trellis. I truly appreciate everyone’s positive feedback and I’m so happy the quilt has been well-received. It was fun to make from start to finish. There is nothing quite like starting with design doodles and ending up with a finished quilt that actually turns out better than you expected! For all those interested, I am currently working on the pattern and hope to have it on Craftsy in the next couple of weeks. I want to make sure the directions are easy to follow, but I’ll be sure to announce when it is ready.

There were over 300 entries for the Michael Miller Challenge, and it was so inspiring to look through the forum at the different ways people used the fabric. The MQG released their top nine and the winners a couple weeks ago, and I’d like to offer congratulations to those selected! There were so many great entries and I’d like to go ahead and highlight some of my favorites that didn’t make the cut this time. Here they are in no particular order!

First up, Pinwheel Pods by Jessica of A Blue Sky Kind of Life. I noticed a lot of folks tried using negative space that wasn’t white, and I think Jessica was really successful using the greys. I love how she paired the colors of the pinwheel squares and used the white sashing…I just overall loved it all.

Next up is a gorgeous quilt by Victoria of the Roanoke MQG. Unfortunately I don’t have any other details or a blog name, but the quilt was too pretty not to share!

Courthouse Petals by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs is another great example of someone who used grey successfully. I love the classic quilt with the modern fabrics, great job Cheryl!

This next quilt reminded me of my days as a lifeguard and pool manager. Is it just me or does the quilt make you want to jump into a pool and toss around some beach balls? Even the quilting reminds me of rippling water! This quilt was made by Emma Thomas-McGinnis of Quilties.

Another quilt with no blog or extra info 😦  This one is by Neva and was posted to the forums. I absolutely love the way she pieced the shards of fabric and quilted it to make it look like the fabric is exploding! Great effect and example of how quilting can add a new twist on the pieced top.

I love slanted lines when quilting and think Angie of the St. Louis MQG composed a beautiful modern quilt. The darker grey/black really makes the fabric pop with this design. Visit her blog at Sew Crazy for Quilts to check out her work.

Last up is this beautiful quilt by Betty Seinfeld, again, no blog or extra info. This one reminds me of my days back in design school playing with gridwork.

That’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed these folks’ beautiful work as much as I did. Check out their blogs and leave them some love.

Piece Out!

~Corinne

I’m excited to finally have another finished project to show y’all. I belong to the Austin Modern Quilt Guild and recently completed my Michael Miller Challenge quilt. The past two years, Michael Miller Fabrics has sent out fat eighth bundles to the various members and guilds of the national Modern Quilt Guild. We are then free to make whatever we want and post in the Modern Quilt Guild’s community website for a chance to win prizes. I was very new to quilting and the guild for last year’s Madrona Road challenge, so I was super excited to get another shot at participating this year. My anticipation quickly doubled when they announced the fabrics we were going to use, they are SO my style. Then again, I love almost every line MM produces, so that doesn’t come as much of a shock.

MM provided fabric from their Petal Pinwheel line, and prints from several other MM collections coordinate perfectly. I knew I wanted to make a lap/picnic size quilt, so I bought additional fabrics from local quilt shops and online. Once I had my extended stash, I went to work on a design! I knew I wanted to go modern, to stretch myself beyond my modern traditional leanings. I decided to play with gridwork on a slant, and so I messed around in Illustrator for a while and came up with this:

Next came the fun part…and by fun I mean the part that gives me heartburn. Math! I printed out several copies of the Illustrator pattern, looked up a few math calculations for triangles I had long forgotten, and went to work figuring out the easiest way to make this sucker. Naturally, I decided strip piecing was in order, and I sewed and cut a bunch of the prints to some solid white fabric.

I managed to finish the top a couple weeks ago before I went on vacation. I had hoped to finish the quilting prior to my trip back home to DC, but there is only so much time in a day! When I got back last week I quickly got back to work quilting. Here is a pic of the quilt I posted on Instagram before it was trimmed and quilted:

For the quilting I decided to do nice clean, straight lines. I love the look and generally don’t stray from straight lines when quilting on my domestic. I did diagonal lines along the large continuous trellis pieces, and vertical lines for the “background.” This weekend I got the binding on and am so happy with the outcome! The quilt ended up around 50×60 inches.

I used Mod Pod fabric by Michael Miller for the backing…I bought it just for this project, it is so yummy! Here is a pic of the back that shows off the quilting a little more, with help from my sister’s cat.

Guess I’m ready to upload to the Modern Quilt Guild website! The prize this year is a year’s worth of Michael Miller fabric, and competition is stiff. There are SO many awesome entries, the judges have their work cut out for them! I’m looking forward to checking out the gallery over the next several days as the deadline approaches this Friday. Has anyone else entered their quilts in the challenge? Comment and add links to your blog with your MM entry below! I’d love to see what y’all are entering.

For the past year I have been the VP of Events for the Austin Modern Quilt Guild. My absolute favorite part of belonging to the guild are our weekend retreats at Wimberley Quilt Ranch. Three weekends a year we book a long weekend at the ranch to quilt, socialize, and drink some wine. Anyone and everyone is welcome, with up to 12 spots available. The past couple retreats were pretty big (for us) at 10-11 folks a piece, but this past weekend we had a smaller crowd of 7, which meant more space for each of us! Here is a pic I snapped from my messy workspace.

I felt like the weekend flew by and can’t wait until our next one in August. I did accomplish a few things that I’ll share! First up, finally finished quilting Water/Waves. I’m thinking of making another one in oranges and reds, and then matchstick quilting it in different thread colors. Now I just have to bind this sucker for it to be done!

Next up is a variation of the baby quilt I shared a week or two ago. This was the original quilt idea, but I thought it was too big for a baby quilt. I’ll be expanding on the story behind this quilt in a later post, along with a tutorial for the block and different ways to arrange the block.

I recently bought a fat quarter set of Joel Dewberry’s Boutanique, and I really want to try to get out of my comfort zone and quilt with a neutral other than white. I pieced one of Camille Rosekelly’s Fireworks blocks with some natural Essex Linen, but I’m not thrilled with the way it is looking. I haven’t decided what to do about it yet, so it will sit on my shelf for a while.

I quilted a bajillion baby quilts I’ll share later this week once they are hopefully bound. Everyone I know is having babies, I think I need to just start keeping some on hand to give out as needed!

One of my favorite patterns is again by Camille Rosekelly. I have been wanting to piece an On A Whim quilt, but wanted to wait for the perfect fabric. I’ve had some of Josephine Kimberling’s Hope Chest fabric on my shelf for a while and I decided to try it out with the pattern. Again, not totally loving it. This is six of the eight fabrics in the collection I bought, and the quilt would be made up of two of each print. Someone on Instagram suggested I try a dark grey in the middle instead of the lighter grey, I might give that a go.

Finally, we had the quilt stand to take photos of finished quilts and I finally got a pic of my Cape Anne quilt, the second quilt I ever started! I used the Charming Stars pattern from Moda Bake Shop.

I can’t believe it has been TWO MONTHS since I last posted. Lots of stuff going on with life and work, but I do have a new show & tell, which I *hope* to follow with a tutorial later this week. I’m moving next week from my apartment into a house, so it might not get posted until next month, but it will get done!

This quilt has a looooong story behind the planning and layout of the pattern. I’ll share more on that in my tutorial post. More importantly, it is for a dear friend who just had her first baby. We met a couple years back at Stitch Lab, during a Sewcial Lounge, here in Austin, TX. A small group of 6 of us were chatting and it turned out my friend and I lived in the same apartment complex and were both fairly new to Austin. We started hanging out and crafting together soon after, and have been friends ever since! It seems like just yesterday she and I were talking about her starting a family with her hubby, and a couple of weeks ago they welcomed a perfect baby boy into their lives! They are going to be awesome parents, and he is a very lucky baby.

I think this quilt is perfectly sized for tummy time, and playtime! I actually machine-bound this one so they can throw it in the washing machine as many times as they like. I quilted the white squares with white thread diagonally, and quilted the teal and orange squares in their respective colors on the opposite diagonal.

My goodness, I have been a busy bee with a whole lot of nuthin to show for it! I found some backing fabric for the heart quilt, so hopefully I’ll start quilting that soon. I’m *almost* done quilting the Water/Waves quilt, only 12 inches left to go! I started cutting fabric for a baby quilt/tutorial I hope to post Monday (the quilt top will hopefully be done, the quilting for sure, will not!). Last, but not least, I’ve been working feverishly on designing some fabric to print on Spoonflower. I have 8 million ideas in my head, but last week settled on a theme for my first attempt. Flamingos! Here is a little sneak peek at two of the flamingo lovebirds:

I wish I had more quilty goodness to share, in the meantime, enjoy this picture of my adorable cat. 🙂