Makers Gonna Make!

This weekend the fabulous folks at Gather Here hosted another party, this time to celebrate three awesome years of making.  I feel so lucky to be part of such an incredibly creative community... and they really do have the most amazing collection of fabrics & yarns.

The S'mores bar lived up to the hype!!!  Fabric and toasted coconut marshmallows... heaven;-)  I think I'm going to be taking a trip to Lowell in the very near future so I can try the raspberry.

Throw in brunch with some of my favorite quilty peeps and it was an absolutely perfect day!!!

Congratulations to lucky comment # 8, sfredette, the winner of my French General scraps in my Use It Or Lose It challenge.  I can't wait to see what you make with them!!!  This month I'll be making with this Central Park layer cake.  Check back next month for the chance to win what's left.

What are you going to make?

Plus One

I couldn't resist one last French General project!!!  This was what was left on my design wall after I made Add It Up.  I loved the negative space and decided I had one more Rouenneries quilt left in me:-)

This was actually a bit harder to construct .  The "easy" approach is just to make 2 1/2" blocks with the background fabric and sew everything together that way.  I didn't want to do that so there was math involved to calculate the size of the background pieces.  It worked out pretty well and I only had to do one partial seam to get it all together.

And now I can add this to my "to be quilted" pile:-)

As promised, the rest is up for grabs.  Get your French General fix here...  There's about 5 yards yardage plus scraps, leftover jellyroll and honeybun strips and more.  Leave me a comment on this post by midnight Sunday, February 16th and I'll pick a winner on Monday.

Check out who else is sewing at this week's W.i.P. Wednesday:-)

Add It Up

To kick off my Use It or Lose It campaign to tame my stash of pre-cuts I started with one of my all time favorite collections, Rouenneries by French General.  It coordinates perfectly with my decor so I already have a quilt, table topper and a set napkins so this time I went for a wall hanging.

I used a mash up of these awesome tutorials by In Color Order and For the Love of George and then adapted them to use a jellyroll.  For each cross I cut 2, 2 1/2" squares and a 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" strip and arranged them according to the diagram.  Once it's all laid out it's easy enough to sew together the rows.

For the quilting I outlined each cross.  It was a little tedious with all the starts and stops and turning but I like the finished effect.  I used Aurifil grey spool/28 wt to give the quilting a little extra definition.

I pushed myself to get it quilted and get the binding on so I'd have some handwork for the Patriot's playoff game last Sunday.  It helps to keep my hands busy sewing rather than snacking;-)

I'm still playing with my scraps but anything not sewn together at the end of the month is up for grabs.  Come back next week for a giveway of all my French General leftovers!

Linking up to the fabulous Finish it Up Friday by Crazy Mom Quilts.

Quilt Stats:
Finished quilt is 26" x 26"
Fabrics: Rouenneries Deux by French General for Moda, stash
Batting: Quilter's Dream Orient
Thread: Aruifil 2310 28wt (grey spool)

Use It Or Lose It!

I know you'll understand if I admit to being a bit of a fabric addict and confess that my fabric stash is taking over my sewing studio...  and don't even get me started on my pre-cut problem.  They're just so cute and fun!  What could be better than having a ready to use piece of every fabric in a collection?

The problem is there's never enough of what you need and it all looks to matchy-matchy using just a single collection.  I never end up actually using them so I've come up with a plan...

Use It or Lose It: each month I'm going to choose a collection to use and anything left at the end of the month is going in a box for a giveaway.  To kick things off I chopped up this Rouenneries Deux jellyroll for a plus quilt.  I love this collection and it goes really well in my house but I need to move on:-)

Stay tuned and spread the word to any French General lovers, in early February I'll hold a giveaway for all my leftovers, including yardage.  How are you taming your stash this year?