Fancy Fun Paper-Piecing + Announcements

An information update on handwork and some fun announcements for upcoming (and current) events!

All winter I’ve been gradually working on my English Paper Piecing project using the  templates from Sue Daley’s Round We Go pattern. (The pattern is now out of print, but I’ve seen some templates and kits still available on Etsy.) This has been one of my favorite projects to work on ever! Each block feels like a fresh canvas and it’s own mini quilt where I can play with different color palettes.

I’m trying to make this quilt as wild and scrappy as possible – I’m trying to channel both Sue Daley in my EPP fussy cutting and Jen Kingwell for her wild, scrappy style as my muses on this one. (You can meet both Sue and Jen in this post.) I think one of the keys to Jen’s fabric choice magic is choosing some really wild and unpredictable prints. I tend to be traditional and on the predictable side, so I’ve LOVED getting the Stash pack from Amitie Fabrics (Jen’s shop) every other month with a wild assortment of prints that I would probably never choose on my own.

These prints have totally pushed me out of my traditional comfort zone and I love the effect they’re having on this project (and other projects too!) Each shipment contains 16 different Fat 16th yards selected by Jen. If you’re interested, you can find all of the Stash Club details here.

Here are all of the accumulated pieces so far. I have these sitting in a basket on my sewing table and love pulling from it to add zingers to my work. Most of the fabrics for these blocks have come from this stack. I’m going with more of the saturated colors for these Round We Go blocks and saving some of the lighter palette for my bucket list Green Tea and Sweet Beans quilt. (I started a block 4 years ago, so I’ve got one down…)

I’m especially proud of the fussy cutting on this block. *pats self on back*  I’ve now made over 20 blocks (my goal is 60) and thoroughly enjoyed each one, and so far I’m not worried about losing momentum. Plus, I love having a handwork project handy for the car or hanging out with the family. You can see some of my past blocks here.  Eventually I plan to applique them to background squares and then machine piece the blocks together.

If you want to learn more about English Paper Piecing, I’d suggest checking out Sue Daley’s video tutorials.

A few announcements on upcoming events. I’ve cut back on my teaching and traveling over the past year, but I am teaching at a couple of upcoming events this year.

This April I’ll be participating and teaching a make n’ take project at Sewtopia Salt Lake City. Featured teachers are standouts in the the modern quilting world,  Sherri Lynn Woods and Karen Lewis. I met Karen at a the Fat Quarterly retreat years ago and she is absolutely delightful and I’ve been fascinated with Sherri Lynn’s work ever since reading her Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters and would love to take a class from her! This is a great opportunity to learn from two expert modern quilters. And spend 3 days at your sewing machine.

More details about Sewtopia Salt Lake City here.

Riley Blake has announced Garden of Quilts a special Quilting event this September at the stunning Ashton Gardens here in Utah. This will include a quilt show in the spectacular gardens (this is on of my favorite places and I’m so excited to get to see it full of quilts!) as well as an all-star lineup of teachers teaching classes (you can hear more about many of the teachers here).

You can read all about the Garden of Quilts event here. I can’t wait!

I’ll be teaching on the Friday morning and will be announcing more details about my class.

Here are a few more things you don’t need a big budget or to travel for:

Amy Ellis of Amy’s Creative Side and Alicia of SewWhatAlicia are both hosting fun daily Instagram challenges this month. Amy Ellis is hosting her popular Instagram #IGQuiltfest with daily prompts to share.  Alicia is hosting a Daily Quilt Block challenge along with Fave Quilts. Both are offering fun prizes to participants.

If you have an Instagram account you can participate in the daily prompts for sharing your creative side. (I tend to be horrible at daily prompts, but love to jump in on some of them – and I love seeing what other people share!) You don’t have to share daily if you don’t want to, but if you see a date with a challenge that resonates, it might be fun to share something!

One more thing! Fickle Fabrics is a brand new mobile-friendly quilting website. It’s a great resource with tools for digitizing your fabric stash to play with building digital quilt blocks and layouts as well as a great resource for finding inspiring quilting content from many popular blogs

Because FickleFabrics.com is a brand new quilting resource and they’re looking for quilters to offer feedback as they continue to build their tools and features. Check it out and feel free to send them your thoughts at this email feedback@ficklefabrics.com. I love when people come up with cool new quilting resources!