Say "Farewell Summer" With Craftsy!

Hi, all!

The days are growing shorter, temps are getting cooler, and that means it's time for crafting season to start!  And just in time, Craftsy's having a Farewell Summer Clearance Sale!  It's your last chance to save on some of Craftsy's most popular supplies - - - before they sail away (Sunday, 9/18 at 11:59 PM MDT).

How about this gorgeous Kona stash builder bundle (12.5 yards of fabric) for only $59.87?  That's less than half price!

Or this great kit - Tonga Treats 10" Squares and a Banana Split pattern to make a 51.5" square quilt for only $24.58?  What a great and quick gift quilt!

And look at this 20-piece Anthology Shibori Fat Quarter Bundle for only $31.27!  Oh, these colors make me drool - imagine the beautiful visual texture they would put into a quilt!  I may have to get a set of these myself.....

That's only a taste of the great items on clearance at Craftsy right now - with almost four hundred different items for you to choose from, you're sure to find something that makes your heart sing!

So call me an enabler - but when there's a good deal to be found, I like to share.  I hope you find something wonderful!  But don't hesitate - this sale ends at 11:59 PM MDT on Sunday, September 18th.

Hugs!

Sarah

FYI, I am an affiliate for Craftsy, so if you click on a link in this post and purchase something from them, I will make a little bit of money, which helps me pay my ridiculously high rural internet charges.  It doesn't cost you a penny more, and I appreciate you helping support this blog!

Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? Secrets Revealed...

Hi, all!

Welcome to Friday!  I know for some of you it means the work week has ended and it's time to play - hopefully in fabric!  It also means that it's time to share what we've been working on and do some whooping - are you ready? I know I am!  So let's get started!

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First of all, I've got something special to share!  If you read this blog regularly or follow me on Instagram, you know that I've been working on a secret project for the last month or so.  Well, I've finally been set free to tell you just what that is all about!  

When I was at the beach earlier this summer, I opened an exciting email from Westminster Fabrics asking if I wanted to be involved in the launch of a new Kaffe Fassett fabric line.  Wow!  Believe me when I tell you it didn't take me two minutes to type a quick response with my HECK YES answer!  Then I did a little happy dance (ok, a huge happy dance!) and started thinking about what I wanted to do for the fabric launch.  

Take a look at the beautiful fabrics in this collection!  Gorgeous warm tones of orange, yellow, pink, sky blue, turquoise, and gold....

Sophisticated cool colors in shades of deep blue, green, aqua, deep pink, and warm brown evoke an entirely different feeling...

This new line is called Artisan, and contains a wide variety of fabrics - quilting cottons, batiks, yarn-dyed wovens and trendy ikats.  These are gorgeous fabrics!!  They incorporate the wonderful colors we associate with Kaffe Fassett and beautiful prints that work well with the current craze for boho chic style!

And Westminster Fabrics has arranged a great way to introduce you to these lovelies - a blog hop showing off beautiful creations made using the fabrics in creative ways, all designed to inspire you to explore them for yourself!!  On each of the next seven Fridays, there will be a special blog post showing off these lovely fabrics.  Here's the schedule.....

September 16th - Introduction

September 23rd - Simple Simon and Company

September 30th - Craftsanity

October 7th - 100 Billion Stars

October 14th - Bijou Lovely

October 21st - Mrs. Schmenkman Quilts

October 28th - Confessions of a Fabric Addict (that's me!)

November 4th - Sarah Fielke

I'm so excited to be part of this fun group, and have really enjoyed playing with the beautiful fabrics in this collection.  I can't wait to show you what I've made, but there's lots to see before then!  Don't miss a stop on the blog hop!  I'll keep you updated each Friday as to the next stop on the hop. There will be giveaways each week, too! 

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And I had a finish this week!  This was a totally unplanned quilt, which is always a pleasant surprise.   When my Stash Builder Box arrived this past month, it had a pattern in it that just grabbed my attention, and I couldn't rest until I made it!  

This pattern is called Bundle Buster, and it was designed by Yvonne Fuchs @Quilting Jetgirl.  It takes 16 fat quarters and yields a 60" x 80" quilt with almost no waste at all!  

I had a bundle of Echo by Lotta Jansdotter that I had been hoarding from when I first started quilting, and when I went to check, miracle of miracles, it had sixteen fat quarters in it!  Meant to be!!  (And it makes this quilt another one for Sew My Stash 2016.)

Y'all, this is a great pattern - it literally took me three hours, from pulling out the fabric to hanging up the finished top, to get this one done!  Big blocks make it go really quickly, and a very well-written pattern makes it simple to cut and assemble.

And then I found the perfect fabric for the back - I love those birds!  A little purple binding to finish it off, and it's ready to snuggle under!

So - - - can I get a whoop whoop??

UPDATE:  I have had several people ask how they can get a copy of the pattern, so I wrote Yvonne Fuchs, the designer, to see when it would be available to the general public (it was sent to people with their Stash Builder Box in September) and this is what she replied:

"I will be releasing the stand alone pattern on Thursday, so if they follow me anywhere (Blog, IG, FB, Craftsy, Etsy), they will be able to buy a copy soon!"

Be sure to watch and get your own copy of this great pattern!!

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And now it's your turn!

What's got you whooping it up this week?

What's making you dance a little happy dance?

Share - we want to dance along with you -

And it's always more fun to dance with friends!

The party will stay open until Sunday midnight -

Hope to see you there!

Hugs!

Sarah

I May Have a Scrap Problem.... Dreaming!

Hi, all!

I'm so glad you all enjoyed the string quilts from last week!  They truly were inspiring, and I've been dreaming about strings since then.

So imagine my surprise on Friday when I received a huge box in the mail, and upon opening it, this was what I saw...

SQUEAL!!!!!!!  A wonderful box full of Latitude batik strings and off-cuts - my poor husband wasn't quite sure what to make of me!!!  There was a LOT of happy dancing going on.....  

I laid it all out on my sewing table - isn't that just a beautiful pile of color?  But of course, all that fabric needed to be pressed, folded and sorted before I can figure out what to do with it...

So Saturday morning I started pressing those strips and putting them into nice neat stacks... lots of nice neat stacks....

...and today I finally finished pressing it all!  There it is, nicely pressed, stacked and ready to be turned into some wonderful new quilts!  

So now I'm dreaming of gorgeous batik quilts!  There's a lot of the green and aqua pieces - and I'm dreaming of either a string quilt or maybe even a Storm at Sea for my own bed.  Probably a string quilt, since I would like to finish it in this lifetime!  And I'm thinking the reds would look stunning paired with some white grunge for a Christmas quilt.... So many possibilities!   And isn't that half the fun?  Thanks so much, Kate - in the words of that song from The Sound of Music, "somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good" to deserve such a wonderful surprise!!

There was another quilt from last week that caught my imagination, too - this one...

...and I couldn't figure out why it kept running through my head.  Then I remembered that my granddaughter requested a photo quilt for her annual (Christmas) quilt, and this design would be perfect!  So I opened up Numbers (the Mac equivalent of Excel) on my computer and started playing around with a layout.  

I'm planning on making it all from scrap, except for the photos which will be in the centers of the large and medium size blocks. It's a lot of sewing, but I figure I can make most of the small blocks a few at a time over the next few weeks, and then it's just a matter of making the big blocks and assembling it.  I love it in a riot of color, don't you?

So that's been my scrappy week - not much sewing because it's been wicked busy around here - but still plenty of thinking about scrap quilts going on!

Have you had any luck taming that scrap monster so far this month?

Hugs!

Sarah