The Carpenter's Daughter Who Quilts

Tag: Zen Chic

Looking Glass Quilt Blog Hop and Pattern Giveaway

Hi, My name is Shelley and welcome to my blog, The Carpenter’s Daughter who Quilts. Today, I am the last stop on the Looking Glass Quilt Blog Hop. I hope all my US Readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday.

I was asked by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs if I would like to pattern test her latest quilt design, Looking Glass. I have developed a friendship with Cheryl for over a year now, since purchasing some of her other wonderful quilt patterns. Cheryl is the one who suggested to me to start this blog. I jumped at the chance to be able to play with her new design, Looking Glass. It’s a neat design that can be made from charm squares or layer cake squares, or if you want to cut your own squares from fat quarters. It can be made in all sizes from baby to queen size. The pattern goes together so nicely. It is very easy to assemble with chain piecing. Cheryl shows how to press your seams on your blocks and rows and everything joins up nicely in the end. I love that Cheryl’s patterns have numerous charts and tells you how many strips etc for each size of quilt you choose to make and the directions are in one spot so you can easily keep track of what you need to cut out.

I chose to make the Queen size version of Looking Glass. It ends up being 90 inches by 89.5 inches. I chose to make my top out of the Zen Chic Comma line of fabrics. I love the bold graphics and typography. These are colors that are not usually in my comfort zone. I am usually stuck in a “blue” color scheme. I used Zen Chic’s Barcelona line last year to make my Dad a quilt using Cheryl’s Adding Up Nicely pattern. The Zen Chic fabrics just have such a nice feel to them. It was a joy to sew with them. I had 5 of the Comma charm packs in my fabric stash saved for making a quilt for our bed and when I decided I wanted to use them to make Looking Glass, I had to do a major hunt online to still be able to find additional charm packs. There was not much of the Comma line available anymore.

My quilt top is not quilted yet. With it being a queen size, it will be one of the larger quilts that I have had to quilt. I think I am leaning towards using rows of a curvy, scalloped scrolling pattern (if that makes sense.) I unfortunately do not FMQ yet, but will be working on that in the new year. Since this will be one of the first quilts I have saved in years to go on our own bed, I have time to make sure I pick out the right way to quilt my top.

I do have a pieced back made for this quilt all ready. Cheryl’s instructions leave a few charm squares for you to add to your backing in a fun way, if you choose.

I added gray, black and white solids to make large color bands. Here is a close up of my pieced charm square center.

Now that I have shown you my version of Looking Glass, Cheryl has given all of us pattern testers a copy of Looking Glass to giveaway to one of our blog readers.

To enter the pattern giveaway, please leave a comment telling me an item that you are making for a Christmas gift this year. If you are a no-blogger, be sure to leave your email address so we can contact you.

For a second chance entry, let me know if you are a new or old follower of my blog. On the front page of my blog, there are links to email, Bloglovin, and Facebook. Let me know which way you are following in a second comment.

The giveaway will run til Friday, December 5th. If you can not wait to test your chances of winning, you can purchase the pattern on Craftsy or Etsy on sale for $5.50 til December 6th. If the chosen winner by chance has all ready purchased the pattern, their purchase price will be refunded to them.

And if you want additional chances to win check out the other stops on the hop.

Friday Nov. 21st: Cheryl @ Meadow Mist Designs
Saturday Nov. 22nd: Lin @ Lin’s Quilts
Sunday Nov. 23rd: Beth @ Cooking Up Quilts
Monday Nov. 24th: Michelle @ From Bolt to Beauty
Monday Nov. 24th: Anna @ Fresh Dew Drops
Tuesday Nov. 25th: Chelsea @ Patch the Giraffe
Wednesday Nov. 26th: Shauna @ Shauna’s World
Friday Nov. 28th: Shelley @ The Carpenter’s Daughter Who Quilts (You are here.)

Thanks for stopping by and good luck on winning a copy of Looking Glass.

A winner has been chosen: Sarah Craig.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

November 27, 2014
Looking Glass Flimsy in Zen Chic Comma prints

Hi, I would like to share today my completed Looking Glass quilt flimsy. I am pattern testing the Looking Glass pattern for Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs. I made the queen size version which ends up being 90 by 89.5 inches. It fits nicely over the top of our full size bed. The pattern used 7 charm packs and I used Zen Chic’s Comma. I had 5 charm packs in my stash and had to do some serious searching online to find anymore charm packs available. I found some at a quilt shop in Minnesota.

The pattern instructions were great and everything went together smoothly. I loved being able to chain piece the blocks and only having two seams to worry about matching. The only problem I had putting together the quilt was adding the long sashing. I had added a sash to the top and bottom of the bottom pieced strip and when I went to add the next pieced strip, after sewing 3/4 of the way across, I saw that I was going to be short. I almost wanted to cry when I had to tear out 75 inches of stitching. I ended up figuring out that I was going to have to pin each end and a few places across the center and then everything went together smoothly. There is nothing wrong with the instructions, just need to allow the sewing machine to ease in sashing to the pieced rows. I really like how the quilt design worked out. I really love Zen Chic’s fabrics. They have such a nice feel to them. This is my second time sewing with that fabric line and I hope to be able to use more of her fabrics. Comma was especially fun since there were 40 different prints in the 42 charm pieces.

I have to make a back for the quilt yet. I am looking at using the solid gray and black and somehow include the 14 extra charms left from the 7 charm packs to make up a pieced design. I have found an orange, yellow and lime green solids to add into the mix for interest. I am still thinking over how I want to quilt this. Maybe rows of a scalloped stitch.

Thank you for looking at my quilt top. Please check out Cheryl’s blog as she will be offering up for sale the Looking Glass pattern in the very near future.

I will be linking up this finish with various weekend linky parties.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

November 8, 2014
Looking Glass Pattern Testing

Hi, This week I am pattern testing for my friend, Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs. She has a new quilt design in the works called Looking Glass.

I am working on sewing up the Queen sized version. I have made a few of Cheryl’s designs before on my own, but this is the first time I have pattern tested for her. I am using my stash of Zen Chic’s Comma charm squares. I had 5 charm packs stashed away for quite awhile, and managed to purchase what may have been some of the last Comma charm squares that were available online to make up the 7 charm packs I needed to make up the Queen size Looking Glass quilt.

Here are eight of the blocks sewn together and laid out with the sashing.

I have everything pieced and pressed to finish up making the 70 blocks I need for this quilt. I really like how the design goes together so nicely. Being able to chain piece everything and only have two seams to worry about matching when making the blocks is making this a fun project.

I am working on making a pieced quilt back pulling the black and gray and adding accents of yellow, orange and lime green. I was given a deadline of November 21st, so I am looking good at completing this before that date.

I have another quilt pattern I will be testing before Christmas for a different designer that I am working on pulling fabrics for this week too.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my quilts. I will be linking up my work in progress with this week’s linky parties.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

November 5, 2014
Adding Up Nicely: A Finish and A WIP, Once Not Enough

I have a great love for Cross and Plus type quilt blocks. I have been Pinning all sorts of possible quilt designs using these type of blocks to my Pinterest quilt boards.

I made an Adding Up Nicely quilt using Meadow Mist Designs pattern for a Christmas gift for my Dad this past year. I had a major dilemna in choosing fabrics to make my Dad a quilt. I was not sure what he might like. My Mom had passed away a few months earlier. I knew she loved everything blue and that was what she decorated their house in. They were married for almost 50 years and I am sure she ran the show on how the house was decorated. I did alot of looking at all kinds of fabric lines. I had seen alot of Zen Chic fabrics on Pinterest and lots of quilts made with them and loved them. I came across Zen Chic’s Barcelona line of fabrics. It had a nice range of colors from blues, greens, some black and orange. It was modern and had some really geometric designs. I especially liked the one that looks like a city map. I needed my fabric fast as I had a fast approaching deadline. I chose to purchase from Pink Chalk. I was a first time shopper and loved the idea of a kit of two charm packs and a coordinating set of solids od generous fat eighths (were actually 10 inches wide instead of 9 inches.) The fabric came in the mail in just a few short days so I was ever so thankful.

The instructions to Adding Up Nicely were great. I needed 80 charm squares to make the twin size quilt. I chose a nice medium gray solid for my sashing strips with a white background. I had one potentially big problem when sewing this quilt. It was all operator error and none of Cheryl’s instructions. I was using a new to me sewing machine that I had inherited from my Mom. I made the big mistake of not checking IF my seam allowances were right on to the needed 1/4 inch. I made up my cross blocks and they turned out nicely. The seams matched up nicely. Well, my blocks ended up smaller than my 5 inch charm squares. My seam allowance was just slightly larger so I kind of freaked out. I had to get this quilt top made. It was my major gift to my Dad. It had to work out and it had to be done like yesterday. I did not have time to completely unstitch all my blocks, so I had to do the unthinkable, and cut down my beautiful Barcelona charm squares to 4.5 inches. After carefully rotary cutting my charm squares to the needed size, my squares matched up nicely to my pieced blocks.

I chose to get creative with the coordinating solid color strips for the backing of my quilt. I pieced them together and sliced them up and pieced back together. I set them in with black solid and the matching gray from the front of the quilt. I really, really like the back of this quilt. My Mom had over 25 bobbins prewound for this machine in various colors. I decided to use every last one of them in the piecing of this quilt. I used the matching gray color as my needle thread. All of the other colors as bobbin colors did not show through, but I knew they were there and it was another way to include Mom in the quilt. I chose to just do simple Xs quilting through out my blocks. I love how quilts come out fresh from the wash and dryer. Love the wrinkly quilty goodness! I would have liked to get better photos but I was rushed to get it wrapped up and out the door for our Christmas Eve party with Dad. He loved the quilt even the back. He even asked great questions about the fabric choices. If I put the fabrics together myself, etc?

I am ever so thankful to have figured out my seam allowance problem, by talking over with Cheryl. With this machine, I have to use the inside of pressure foot and move the needle over a step.

Because I liked using this pattern for this quilt, I have decided to use it make quilts for my grandsons’ bunk beds. My youngest grandson is obsessed with Scooby Doo. I found this neat Scooby Doo fabric online, but was most happy to find it in my local Walmart store. I purchased what I think was the end of bolt around 5 yards. The Scooby dog pattern ended up larger than I had originally planned for in using this design. I guess the design looked smaller on my computer screen. Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs helped me enlarge the Adding Up Nicely block design. I am going to be enlarging my blocks up from the finished size of 5 inches to a finished size of 9.5 inches. This gives me a better way of using my grandson’s beloved Scooby Doo fabric, and not chop the poor dog up to pieces. This fabric has a lot of teal in it with black background. I usually use alot of white in my quilts, and I have learned it is impossible to keep clean with little boys. I chose to pick yellow as my cross blocks since there was so much of the teal and my daughter suggested pulling up the brown color of Scooby as the other color in my cross blocks.

I have my cross blocks all pieced for the first twin size quilt. I discovered I did not have enough of my brown so I had to search for more. I was not able to get back to the store I purchased the original brown solid from, so have chosen as close as a shade as I could for my other grandson’s quilt top. I have my new brown fabric cut out into the needed strips, and am in process of making additional blocks needed for the second quilt. I hope that these quilts will be used as bed spreads for their new bunk beds. I am looking to use a non standard choice for my quilt batting. I started quilting over 20 years ago, and for some of my quilts for nieces and nephews I chose to use a lightweight cotton fabric as batting. It was a way to save some money at that moment. I ended up enjoying the finished product. The kids quilts ended washing and wearing like iron. I did not have too much trouble sewing through the three layers of cotton. I have made quilts for my littlest grandson for each of his birthdays. He sleeps in a pile of blankets. I thought I might change things up and make these quilts more like a thin bedspread coverlet.

I will be posting updates in the future as my Scooby Doo Adding Up Nicely quilts progress. I have a deadline set of September 27th in time for little guy’s 3rd birthday party.

I am linking up with Can I get a Whoop Whoop? linky party , Sew Darn Crafty Linky Party , Anything Goes Mondays , Fabric Tuesday and

Show and Tell Tuesday.

September 6, 2014