Pattern Drop and My Sewing Machine Quilt

Today is the day my pattern drops on Pattern Drop. 

Like that? It's as if Katie planned it that way. I'm sure she did. She is a lot of fun like that. (Katie from Swim, Bike, Quilt is behind Pattern Drop.)

Pattern Drop is a monthly subscription service where you get one new pattern and loads of inspiration delivered to your inbox. There is no way you could buy all these patterns for the cost of a subscription. And it is so easy for you! 12 amazing designers with 12 unique, bold patterns. Each pattern is tested, too, so no errors to worry about. I am pretty excited to see what else comes as the previous months produced some delicious quilts.

The Sewing Machine Quilt pattern is a perfect escape for us quilters, or the quilters in your life. I, myself, made this and it pulled me out of a huge creative slump. With options for precision piecing and improv blocks there is something for every quilter in this pattern. Not to mention two block sizes (small above, large below) and a wide number of layout options.

I'm thrilled to be working with Katie this month and share my Sewing Machine Quilt with a wider audience. Just look at what she has done in advance of this month!

To sign up for Pattern Drop visit the site and choose either a monthly or annual subscription (which, of course, gives you a better rate). You can get colouring pages, access to tutorials and forums, and meet a community of quilters working on similar projects. Each new pattern drops on the first Wednesday of the month.

Annual Subscriptions are US$6.99/month. (US$83.88) A monthly subscription is US$8.99/month. If you use this special code I am providing you essentially get 2 months free! (US$69.90)

Pattern Drop Coupon Code: CHERYL2FREE

For those of you joining me via Pattern Drop, Welcome! I am so glad to have you here. Grab a cup of tea and look around. 

Full confession: As a Pattern Drop designer I do have an affiliate link if you sign up through me. 

The Mug Club Mug Rug

Confession: I've never made a mug rug before.

If you know me at all you know I have a hard time working small. And a mug rug is very small. I absolutely could not resist, however, when Kerry Goulder at Kid Giddy asked me to participate in The Mug Club Sew Along. I'm rather an obsessive tea and hot chocolate drinker so capturing the best vessel seemed like fun.

There are 12 different patterns in the Mug Club. You can buy one or both series, each with six paper piecing patterns. Kerry sells Series 1 and Sue sells Series 2. They come in 6'' or 10'' finished sizes. Cozy tea time quilt anyone?

Did you know Kerry is a paper piecing master? It seems she can take nearly any shape or image and turn it into an easy to make paper piecing pattern. I'm in awe. Roller skates, Land of Magic, pugs, mugs, and more

I'm also in love with my little mug rug. I picked the Vardagen mug from Series 1. It reminded me of one of my favourite mugs, the kind you can wrap your hands around to warm yet not so big that the tea gets cold before you finish it. I picked the silliest of fabrics because that's just how my sense of humour works. Luchadores on a tea mug?!

Check out all the other mugs made during this sew-along by following the #TheMugClub or #TheMugClubSAL on Instagram.  Both Kerry and her sister, Sue, are leading a beautiful parade of mugs!

Lilla Quilt - a Testing Version Comes to Life

Testing, Testing

45'' x 45''

About 18 months ago I started working with Lotta Jansdotter on the Lilla quilt pattern. We wanted to time it so a pattern came out when her Lilla fabric line was launching. You can read more about the process here. Before I made anything with Lotta's fabric though I needed to test out the block designs and instructions.

How many of you have stacks of selected fabrics? Colour inspiration hits and you pull fabrics. Then the piles sit there until time or secondary inspiration suddenly appears. Well, when I needed to test the blocks I pulled one of those stacks at random. This particular one was chartreuse and navy, inspired by an outfit Lady Edith was wearing on Downton Abbey once. But as I made more blocks the chartreuse collection of fabric was clearly not going to be enough so I picked peach to play along.

As we tested I had to take pictures in greyscale so colour did not cloud our judgement. Always a useful step, no matter the project.  Once we were happy with all the blocks - some got swapped out at this point, I think I designed about 30 in total - I went straight to making them in Lotta's fabric. And the test blocks were set aside.

A few months ago I remembered the blocks and decided to put them all together. More accurately, I found the pile of blocks under a bunch of other stuff and suddenly remembered that they could be a quilt.

You see, the Lilla quilt pattern provides 25 different block patterns. The cover quilt on the pattern uses all 25 four times over. My version here uses each one once only. Queen size versus baby. Of course, you could only use a handful of the patterns instead of all of them too.

Then the quilt sat, basted, for a couple of months. I started the quilting, but it wasn't quite right. Neither was my machine. So I ripped and repaired the machine. Then, two weeks ago, I was looking at a photo of Lotta's original paper cuts that started us down this design path. Ah ha!! Quilting inspiration. A couple of Morning Make sessions later and the quilting was done.

The binding is this great Cotton and Steel. It happened to be sitting in a pile of fabric for another project, but it was too perfect here. And it matches the back perfectly, a piece of Anna Maria Horner's Loominous fabric. 

In all my years quilting I will fully admit to having a hard time following patterns. But once you start writing them you see things differently. Suddenly you get excited at the possibilities. No one says you have to make it exactly the way it was written, or the way the pattern cover shows. I think it is fantastic to see these two quilts side by side, to see the differences. And I made them both.

The Lilla pattern is a mix between improv and precision piecing. It provides guidelines for the improv work and walks you through it. If you are new to improv, this is a great introduction. There is just enough precision piecing to provide order to those who crave that too. Don't like a block design? Don't make it! Love one particular one? Make 30 of them. There is so much freedom of expression in this pattern. 

Pattern available wholesale and retail through C&T Publishing.

Summer Play - Improvisational Piecing With Solids

A little bit of this, a little bit of that. We sew when we can.

The Improv triangle work started as a class sample. Then I liked it so much I kept playing. Still, I play. I set some parameters for the play. This is always a good thing to do, especially if you find Improv Piecing overwhelming. These are mine:

• Two colour blocks, high contrast in value.
• Only solids.
• Fundamental construction revolves around the techniques I share in my Improv Triangles class.

I've invested in some more solids because my stash is minimal in that department. These are all a combination of Cloud 9 organic Cirrus Solids (so seriously dreamy) and Kona cottons. I work only 2 colours/1 block at a time. No rhyme or reason to my choices other than I think those two fabrics look fun together. 

Kids started summer vacation over the weekend. And we were going hard with activities until that Friday night. We are all totally pooped. The sum total of the sewing I've done (minus the quarter circles that got me on a tangent) in the last month is right there on my design wall. Hand sewing my Euroa quilt while still on pool decks and soccer pitches, and little Morning Make triangle bits slowly, ever so slowly adding up. Whether it is after dinner frisbee tossing or sewing triangles together, I'm having fun with this summer playtime.