Designing With Quilts

Quilts are great because there is always somewhere to put them. Here are a few inspiring pictures from Ann McEuen's house.

Christmas Chickens

French General for Moda came out with this great Christmas line, "Fa La La La La."

The colors are beautiful and for Christmas fabric it's really rather subtle. I think my Christmas Chickens quilt is cute enough to be a year round quilt.

Some Fun Pictures

My sister finished her awesome quilt! This was her first sewing project ever! She did such a good job but now she's going to put a border on it so it will fit her bed better. Amy Ellis' pattern from Modern Basics is such a great quilt for beginners and is beautiful and functional which makes a a perfect first project.

I use this quilt for my beginning quilting class and the quilt top is finished by the end of the fourth class! This months dates for beginning quilting are Aug. 16, 18, 23, 25 from 6-8 at Seasons of Home. It's $45 for the class, $23 for the book and $50 for the kit.


This is a beautiful quilt kit we have in the store and online. I just love it, but then I like anything done in Sew Cherry by Riley.

Beautiful flowers are so inspiring. I hope you find something to inspire you today.

P.S. Take a picture.

Cutesy Baby Quilt Yet!

Seriously, this turned out so cute. The pattern is by Blue Meadow Design, the same designers as the Monkey Business baby quilt and I did it in Seasons of Home's newest fabric line Paris Apartment. I starch appliqued the baby carriage and then for fun I added the ruffle to the canopy and the pink ric rac. The ruffle around the edge was an afterthought but I couldn't deny it's necessity so I sort of had to finagle it. It's the perfect thing to finish this quilt off.

Monkey Business Done

Well, Monkey Business the quilt is done but my life is still full of monkeys. They love this new quilt and were really excited to take it to show Grandma at Seasons of Home. It is now hanging on a wall at the store and you can buy the kit and/or the pattern in the store. The pattern is available online at seasonsofhome.com and the kit will be available online soon. All fabric used is Riley Blake from their "Sew Cherry" fabric. I will be entering it in the Riley Blake contest so go there and vote for me on August 19th. If you'd like to look at the entries before that you can go to http://www.rileyblakedesigns.com/cutting-corners/contest/

Happy quilting!

First Quilt Success

I recently had the pleasure of teaching and helping my sister-in-law, Heidi, start her first quilt. She's never done one before but was totally in love with "Oh MY!" by Sanae for moda so she wanted to make a quilt for her bed. My brother came by Seasons of Home and actually helped us pick out fabric, he's pretty awesome. The pattern is Amy Ellis' "Posie Patch" from Modern Basics and is one I just did with my beginning quilting class. It is so fun and easy and it comes together so fast. It's a great introduction to quilting. We cut the squares bigger than called for, the pattern is layer cake friendly so 10 in. squares but we did ours 13 1/2 because they wanted it big.


I'm so jealous. This has been one of my favorite fabric lines but I haven't done anything out of it yet and our bolts are getting low. Stock up now if you like this line because it's almost through. Love it!

Oh, actually I'm making a skirt out of this fabric but it's not done yet, just all cut up and waiting for me.

Modern Baby Blanket

I finished a baby blanket for my sister-in-law. It was so easy and fun you really should do one.

You will need one panel of white flannel about 40 by 40 inches. Seven or more prints in a variety of colors. I had two, 5 in. squares leftover from a charm pack and three pieces big enough to get an 6 1/2 in., eight in. and a nine in. circle from and a few smaller pieces. I starched them 4-6 times, using my iron ( no steam) to dry them in-between each application. when they were nice and stiff I laid them on the flannel and decided where I wanted them. Then I used my disappearing glue stick just around the edges and pressed them firmly in place on the flannel. To secure them in place, I used the blanket stitch on my sewing machine and went around each circle using white thread, or you can use different colors to compliment each printed fabric circle.

I didn't quilt it, I just cut the minkee backing to match the top, approximately 30 by 35 and sewed that cute polka dot flannel binding on to complete the quilt. I machine sewed the binding on the back and then flipped it to the front and used the quilt edge as a guide to get as straight a line as I could. It's little bit of a fudging process but if you stay as consistent as possible you will be very happy with it. I pinned quite a bit when I sewed the binding on because without quilting, the front and the back need a lot more help to stay together.