Granny Square Quilt

I finished quilting this Granny Square quilt this week and I'm in LOVE with it! My mom pieced this quilt probably a year ago when the Granny Square Quilt Along was happening.  Google Granny Square quilt and you can find all sorts of different tutorials.  I wanted to share some photos of the quilt and all of the quilting I did.  I chose to FMQ very densely and create all sorts of texture. 

I love that she did a pieced border on this quilt, it ties in the quilt beautifully!!

I quilted straight lines in between the granny square blocks to create a secondary pattern.

I quilted flower petals inside of the granny square blocks.

I quilted tear drop shapes to fill in everything in between.

I just love how this turned out and how bright and cheery it is! Hopefully it will bring some warmth throughout the country with ALL of this cold weather everyone is having!!!

If you're interested in my quilting services, feel free to email me at Jamie@sunflower-quilts.com

Christmas Quilts

I promised that I would blog about some quilts that I've recently done.

The two quilts I'm going to share today were quilts I made 100% for two different people for Christmas.  They both came to me with quilt ideas for their spouses for Christmas and I couldn't be more please with how they turned out!

The first one is for a couple at my church who also happens to be my sister-in-laws grandparents.  If I lost you, long story short, my husband's younger sister is adopted and her grandparents go to our church. Grandpa asked me to make a quilt for Grandma with all of the grandkids names and birthdays on it.  I have free reign over the entire thing.  Her favorite colors are red and purple so I went with it.  I embroidered all of the names inside of the stars and I just love how bright and cheery it is! This was the first actual quilt that I quilted on my new longarm. I stuck with a simple all over pattern since the quilt had a lot going on itself. 

The second quilt is a Cardinals baseball quilt I made 100% for my friend Marilyn's husband.  Marilyn's husband is the Dean of Education at the college I graduated from and Marilyn was a counselor whom I because close with!  Their daughter also teaches with my husband, so I love this family!  She told me that her husband loves the Cardinals and that they were redoing their guest room in a Cardinals theme! PERFECT!  I did an all over swirl with a little extra at the top to resemble a cardinal bird's head. Here is what I came up with:

If you're interested in my longarm quilting services please email me at jamie@sunflower-quilts.com 

and make sure you follow me on Instagram; jamiemueller0522

Brick Road Sew Along Week 4

Everyone's blocks are looking great!! You still have plenty of time to catch up if you're behind, or if you're just joining us! This week we will add sashing, borders and assemble our entire quilt top! Let's get started!

 

Cutting the Sashing:

1. From the sashing/border fabric cut:

          20-1 1/2" X WOF (width of fabric) strips.

          2-7" strips

 

2. Take 6- 1 1/2" X WOF and subcut:

           36- 1 1/2" X 7" pieces

 

3. From the 2-7" X WOF strips subcut:

          8-6 3/4" X 7" pieces

 

Sewing the Sashing:

1. Choose 6 blocks and lay them out vertically with the shorter sides on top and bottom. Sew a 1 1/2" X 7" sashing strip to the bottom 7" side of the first block. Press sashing to block. Continue sewing a 1 1/2" X 7" sashing strip to the bottom of the next 4 blocks. *There should be sashing attached to 5 of the 6 blocks.

2. Sew all 6 blocks together in a vertical row along the 7" sides. Press sashings to blocks. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to make a total of 4 vertical rows that measure 7" X 74 1/2".

3. Choose 5 blocks and lay them out vertically with 7" sides on top and bottom. Sew a 1 1/2" X 7" sashing strip to the bottom 7" side of the first block. Press sashing to block. Continue sewing a 1 1/2" X 7" sashing strip to the bottom of the next 3 blocks. *There should be sashing attached to 4 of the 5 blocks.

4. Sew all 5 blocks together vertically along the 7" sides. Press sashing towards blocks. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to make a total of 4 vertical rows that measure 7" X 62".

5. Take a 6 3/4" X 7" piece and attach one to the top and one to the bottom of 1- 7" X 62" vertical row along the 7" side.  Press towards blocks.  Repeat on remaining 7" X 62" vertical rows. You should now have 8- 7" X 74 1/2" rows.

6. Take the 14- 1 1/2" X WOF strips and sew two together along the short 1 1/2" sides to make one continuous strip. Repeat with remaining strips until you have 7- 1 1/2" X 84" strips. (Be sure to cut the selvedges off first)

7. Measure all rows and cut 7- 1 1/2" sashing strips to that measurement. (Should be around 74 1/2") As long as your rows are all the same size, it doesn't matter if your measurement is a little off from mine, but it should be close to 74 1/2".

8. Lay out the rows alternating as shown.

9. Sew a 1 1/2" sashing strip to the RIGHT side of rows 1-7. Press to sashing strip.

    

10. Sew vertical rows 1-4 together.

11. Sew vertical rows 5-8 together.

12. Sew all rows together from steps 10 & 11.

Outer Border:
1. Cutting the border fabric, cut 7- 2 1/2" X WOF strips.
2. Take one 2 1/2" strip and cut in half. Sew one half along the short 2 1/2" end of 2 WOF strips. You will now have 2- 2 1/2" X 63" strips.
3.Measure the center width of the quilt top and cut two strips to that measurement. Sew top and bottom strips on. Press to border.

4. Sew 2 strips together along the short 2 1/2" ends. Measure center length of the quilt top and cut strip to that measurement. Repeat with 2 more strips.  Sew one strip to each side of the quilt and press to border.

 

And now your quilt top is done! I'm sure they look awesome! I can't wait to see all of the tops so don't forget to upload photos to my Flickr Group!

 

Here is the rest of the schedule...see you next week for backing!

 

Week 5-May 6th: Prepare Backing/Basting

Week 6-May 13th: Quilting/Binding

Week 7-May 20th: Winners Announced

 

Also, be sure to check out my Mirror Ball Dot Blog Hop Post HERE for a chance to win some fabric!

 



Mirror Ball Dot Blog Hop & giveaway!

Hello and welcome to the 2nd stop on the Mirror Ball Blog Hop!

 

I think people know my LOVE for the awesome Mirror Ball Dot fabric by the wonderful designer Mark Hordyszynski for Michael Miller Fabrics, but in case you don't I LOVE THEM!!!

 

The first round of MBD came out all the way back in 2007 with about 40 colors. I missed them the first round,I was graduating from college and getting married, so needless to say my plate was full! I saw them and instantly fell in love with them. I believe I came across a few bolts at a local quilt shop. I then began scouring the Internet trying to find as many colors that I possibly could. Then at Quilt Market back in Fall 2010 I "flirted" as much as I could with the President of Michael Miller Fabrics to get them reprinted. He said if I got enough people interested that he would consider it!  I went home that night at started a Flickr Group, made a paper petition as well and asked all of our loyal customers that came into the old shop (thanks again by the way and I miss all of you!) to sign it!  Then, about a year ago, I believe it was March 2012 I received an email from Mark telling me that they just introduced 5 colors of MBD and they were planning on launching 20 new colors!!  I can't begin to tell you how excited I was to get that email, I probably came close to peeing myself from excitement, that and being sleep deprived from having a newborn!!

 

Anywho, I am so honored that Mark asked me to join the Mirror Ball Blog Hop and hope that ya'll like my projects! Plus, there's a chance for you to win some MBD awesomeness yourself!

 Here is the info for the blog hop straight from Mark's blog:

"The concept was to get six designer/artists/bloggers - all Mirror Ball Dot enthusiasts - to work with the new color palette that was released last year. I limited the participants to four fat quarters of Mirror Ball Dot and one-quarter yard of 3 colors of Michael Miller Fabric's Cotton Couture. They were sent 1 yard of each color of Cotton Couture and were allowed to use their discretion in using it but just the same, I tried to limit what they were allowed to work with. The backing, batting, binding or other incidental materials were left to their choosing. Over the next 8 weeks we're going to share ideas, thoughts and tips on working with the shimmery, glimmery, pearlized, iridescent geometric fabric call Mirror Ball Dot. Each MBD Enthusiast will post on their respective blogs, so you're going to have to "hop" around, and at each stop you'll have an opportunity to win a Mirror Ball Dot color card and one Fat Quarter of 5 colors of your choosing of Mirror Ball Dot fabric. "

 

For the MBD Challenge I came up with these fun iPhone Cases!

 

The fabrics I chose were MBD: Princess, Citron, Luna and Starlight; Cotton Couture: Mist, plus Neon Lemon and Neon Pink

I made 8 iPhone cases so I could showcase all of the fabrics I requested. I just love how they turned out and they go together really quickly! On the inside of the case, there is a place to hold your iPhone using elastic and there are pockets on the other side to hold your ID, credit cards and some cash. Then it folds up nicely to cover your iPhone while you're not using it. There is Peltex on the inside of the case to make it extra safe for your iPhone, since those suckers are make of glass! These are great for going out and holding all of your essential items without the hassle of carrying you huge purse.

If you want to make one for yourself and all of your friends, you can purchase a pattern HERE! If you make one, send me a picture OR add a picture to my Flickr Group so everyone can see it!

 

I love working with the Mirror Ball Dot fabrics! They are cotton quilting fabrics and the metallic shine is to die for and just simply stunning! When cutting them with a rotary cutter, the blade just glides through them like butter! I also liked working with the Cotton Couture and new Neons. The neon colors are so bright and fun and worked well for my project. The only thing is that they are pretty stiff. Being stiff actually worked very well for the iPhone case and I'm very pleased with the results! I didn't prewash them so I'm sure they would soften up if you did.

 

I couldn't just make one thing for the Mirror Ball Blog Hop, so I also made a quilt using a FQ Bundle I had been hoarding for a while.

 

This quilt is called Brick Road and I'm actually in the middle of the Brick Road Sew Along on my blog now! If you want to make one using your MBD fabrics, jump on in and sew along with us you still have plenty of time! There is a link in my header to hook you up with all of the instructions so far. It's just a quilt top right now, but I will be doing a tutorial on my blog on how to quilt it in two weeks as part of my sew along, so make sure to come back and check that out!

 

Here are more photos of the projects I came up with:

 

 

Ok, now is YOUR chance to get your hands on some MBD fabrics! What's up for grabs you say?

There will be two lucky winners:

1. will receive a MBD color card and 5 MBD Fat Quarters in your choice of colors!

2. will receive a FREE iPhone case PDF pattern

 

Simply leave a comment on this blog post and I will chose a winner next Sunday May 5th!

Thanks for hopping to my blog and be sure to stop by all the other blogs during the Mirror Ball Blog Hop! HERE is a link to Mark's post with a list of all the blogs!