Monday, April 27, 2015

Bright Lights, Big City Quilt and a Giveaway

I finally finished this quilt and pattern called Bright Lights, Big City the other day. (b/c it reminds me of a skyline. Or color crayons. But mostly a skyline.) ;)



It started out with this Riley Blake solids FQ pack, and a few Riley Blake neon prints that I found online.




Then I used some Triangles on a Roll paper to make the QSTs which I had never tried before, and it worked out great.  The directions are printed on the paper.



And it makes it super quick, and precise to sew up and trim.



I have a really really hard time with matching points, (remember the quilt I made my hub that was eventually named Triangle Massacre?) but with the paper, most of them look like this.  




Which is great for a point-matching-challenged person like me! :) And although they sell a few of my patterns on their website, and occasionally ask me to try their products, they don't pay me to say this stuff!  I just truly love using their papers, b/c perfect points hate me!!  lol  And with the papers, I can make them look like that green one more often than not! :) There's still the occasional rogue point, b/c that's just me, but it's not stressful anymore. :)

And the really, really fun news is that Pat wants to hang it in her Triangles on a Roll booth in Houston in the fall and I'm so excited! Because I get to go, too! :)  EEP!! And if that wasn't enough, she has asked me to be a featured artist in her booth, and come up with new designs using her different products, to show, along with some of the ones I've already made.  I need to be pinched..hard. After I pick myself up off the floor. After the smelling salts wake me up! I get to use something I love, to make things I love, and then share them. It doesn't get much better than that. And to look more official and business-like, I made a fun little logo to put on my patterns. He looks like he needs stitches, no? :)




But as exciting as it is, it's also a little scary and intimidating! I don't want to let her down. Yikes! *plunges face back into paper bag to breathe*

It's all super fun though, and I have lots of ideas to work on all summer that will keep me busy, but I will share what I can.  :) 

In the meantime, Bright Lights Big City is in my Craftsy and Etsy shops. 



If anyone gives it a try out there I hope they will share their finish with me! :)  There is also a twin option as well showing what it would look like in prints with a light background.



For the giveaway.. The Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks blog hop is coming again, on May 4-8. (It will be here on the 4th.) There will be some good prizes up for grabs! :) But for today, I just got some sample copies in the mail, so if you leave a comment on this post, I will pick a winner on Friday to send a copy to. :)




Thanks for popping in! Happy Colorful Monday!!

xoxo
Monday, April 6, 2015

Quilted First Communion Banner

A few months ago, my friend Tori asked me to do something special for her son, Lochlan. We've known them since preschool. He is eight and will be having his first communion coming up, and she asked me if it was possible to make a quilted first communion banner.  I said, "Sure!" not knowing anything about said banners as although I'm Christian, I wasn't raised Catholic. My husband, who grew up in the Catholic faith, didn't remember having a banner so some googling was in order. :)  





I learned from Tori that it had to include his name, and the rest she left up to me.  It was slightly stressful, b/c with the creative license left all up to me, (and not knowing anything about the banners prior) I really wanted Tori and her family, and especially Mr. Lochlan to like it! Luckily, there are tons of pics on Pinterest and online.

But.. nearly all, if not all, of the ones I saw were made of felt, and each parish has its own set of rules re: size, who makes it, etc. Some required the children to make them, some required them all to be on one uniform color and size of felt, etc.  

So after finding out all of the specifics, the only rule at their parish being the size, I set out to figure out how to piece Lochlan's name into a 19 x 30-ish banner..




..and what else to put on it.  I settled on the challis and bread, which I had noticed was on a lot of the ones I saw online.



At first I tried to draw out a loaf of bread, which looked hilarious, not something you want your banner to be. ;) So that kind of morphed into the wafer-ish/round bread that I had noticed on some of the online pics. 

Then I drew up a stained glass window-y cross.




I used saturated and dark colors b/c Lochlan's not a "light blue" or pastel color-type kid.  In preschool, most of his pictures were dark colors, and by that I mean black.  He went through the black crayons in preschool like it was nobody's business.  And he's always been a heavy colorer.  You know, the kind of kid who smashes that crayon onto the page when he's coloring.

I sent what I had drawn out to his mom and she showed him, and they both gave the thumbs up, and the rest is history.  It took about a weekend to put together from start to finish and I just used fabric and scraps I had already.



The back is very "Lochlan", too with black chevrons, and I used some thick black ribbon, and inserted a thin dowel into the top binding pocket so it hangs straight when he carries it.










The best part is that his mom got a little teary when she saw it, and loved it, and Lochlan loves it too. 



Here's a pic of our boys when they were in preschool together with their other two friends.  I can't believe they are eight now! That's Loch on the right in the red.



Their friend in the blue superhero suit moved away that year, and here are the boys saying goodbye to each other. Their foursome became a threesome that day, and when they erupted into a spontaneous group hug, I think all of us moms nearly cried. AHHH, where has the time gone!!! 



Thanks for asking me to be a part of Loch's special day, Tori!!

xoxo

p.s. for Patti's comment below (I couldn't answer via email, there was no return email address) I'm so sorry, I was not implying that Catholics aren't Christians.  I was just saying that although I am Christian, I wasn't raised as a Catholic so had no knowledge of the traditions that go with first communion.  So a LOT of googling and research was done. :) I will reword it a little, so it's more clear.
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