It’s the first of the month, which means it’s time for another series of Awkward Animal Portraits to be released in to the wild!

Just as a recap:

Samarra came up with a bunch of fantastically awkward pixelated animal illustrations and I took them and transformed them in to quilt patterns. There was a lot of back and forth about things like colors, placement, which animals to release when, etc etc. So you know your getting the best product we could think of.

Samarra came up with a bunch of fantastically awkward pixelated animal illustrations and I took them and transformed them in to quilt patterns. There was a lot of back and forth about things like colors, placement, which animals to release when, etc etc. So you know your getting the best product we could think of.

The second quilt this month is the Dog. He looks super excited and looks like her just wants to lick your face. The quilt measures 40″x52″ and is also made using Kona Cotton and Essex Yarn Dyed Linen.

I have a block or two to share from the book, along with all the information to enter the Well Wishes Charity Bee Quilt raffle AND I’m giving away a copy of the book. This is a jam-packed blog post, so make sure you read to the end!

The Book:

Let me start out by saying how much I love this book! I am a huge collector of instructional quilting books and this is one of those super useful ones. The ones you can refer back to when you need a little something extra for a project, or you just want to up your triangle making game.

Modern Triangle Quilts includes 70 layouts. Some are for Equilateral, Right Angle and Isosceles triangles. Some are pieced traditionally, some are paper pieced and a handful have some neat tips and tricks to make a unique block each time. She also includes 11 sampler layouts to help you decide how you want to use all of your new fancy triangles.

(all photos in the above section, along with the next photo, were provided by Bryan house Quilts | Rebecca Bryan for promotional use)

The Projects I Made:

This blog hop is a little different than most. Rebecca decided instead of us just making a project and sharing it, we would make one equilateral triangle block using the predetermined color scheme above and then send it to her. She then would take all of the blocks and make a quilt to raffle off (which I talk about later on in this post).

I made Block #2 from the Equilateral Triangle section. It was my first time using the technique shared in the book, and I am loving it. I think I want to do one of the included layouts just using this style block. Imagine what it would look like in Halloween fabric? They could be mummy triangles!

Sadly, due to reasons that were totally my fault, the block didn’t make it to Rebecca on time. So it was not included in the charity quilt. It MIGHT show up later down the road in another project. Who knows!

I decided to also make Block #12 from the Right Angle Triangle section because I felt like it would be fantastic for a large zipper pouch.

That’s whats so great about this book, since its mostly about the blocks and not the quilt layout, you can mix and match these to fit your exact needs. Mine just happened to be a zipper pouch to hold some tools. This one was foundation paper pieced and the template was super easy to copy on my home printer.

Plus I feel like the shape worked really well with all the neon I used since it has those classic 80′s angles and shapes.

The Charity Quilt & Raffle:

As I mentioned above, Rebecca took all of the Equilateral triangles she received in the gorgeous blue colorway above and turned them into a quilt.

How pretty is this?!? It’s been named the Well Wishes Quilt and you could win it!

Rebecca will be running a raffle by selling a limited time pattern for this quilt through her shop. The pattern is $5 and people can purchase the pattern as many times as they like. Each purchase equals one entry. All proceeds of the sales from the Well Wishes PDF pattern will go directly to Living Water International. You can read all of the details over on the Bryan House Quilts blog. Entries are open for the duration of the Blog Tour (April 2 – April 18) and the pattern will be removed from the shop at that time.

This really is a great idea and I hope that you all buy at least one pattern!

Blog Hop Tour Schedule:

Make sure to check out all of the other awesome quilters who will be showing off even more blocks throughout the month. The list is fantastic.

Book Giveaway:

Rebecca Bryan and Stash Books / C&T Publishing was kind of enough to offer one copy of Modern Triangle Quilts to one of my readers!

To enter just leave a comment below telling me your favorite color combos.

You can get a bonus entry by signing up for our newsletter. I send out newsletters sporadically and no more than twice a month. Newsletters include sales, new product notices and soon will include tips and tricks and video links.

Fine Print: One entry per person, per day. Entries that don’t follow this rule will be deleted. You must include your email address, otherwise I won’t be able to contact you if you win! The winning book will be sent by C&T and only addresses within the U.S. receive a hard copy of the book. Due to the extreme cost of international shipping, international winners receive the e-book version. Entries are now open and will close April 18th, 2017 with winners chosen and contacted by the 21st.

I believe most of the blog hop participants will also be giving away a copy of the book, so you can up your odds by checking out all of their posts throughout the month too! the Schedule and links are in this post.

Ok, whew! I think I remembered everything. There was just too much awesome stuff to talk about, I was worried. Good luck to anyone who enters the raffle and/or giveaway, and I hope you all have a wonderful day!

I have yet another FREE Quilt Pattern for you as a collaboration with Michael Miller Fabrics. This one was made specifically for their Guppies For Lunch fabric line and looks great as intended OR in solids. Your choice.

You can find it here.

Keep your eyes peeled for more free downloads coming soon! I have been working on so many patterns for different companies and myself. I can’t wait to share it all!

The pattern is the Super Tote by Noodlehead. It’s $8 and can be purchased in her shop. It is seriously the perfect bag! It has a few customization options and goes together rather quickly.

This bag is part of a promotion going on to show off Alison Glass’ Handcrafted fabrics at QuiltCon called ‘Share Your Handcrafted’. Handcrafted is a newer line by Alison that is a form of Batik, which means each and every yard is unique and has slight differences. Alison explains the story, process and more on her own blog. It’s a good read.

Andover Fabrics so generously sent over a bundle of Handcrafted and some more Sunprint 2015 fabric (because they know how much I love that stuff) for this project. I then used Andover black chambray for the sides, various strap pieces and for the top section of the interior. Chambray is a little on the thinner side (since it’s main use is apparel) so I used extra interfacing to stabilize it a bit more.

This bag lays a bit different than the first one I made, mostly because of the different weight fabrics. I like that. It helps me justify the fact that I made TWO bags for one trip. One is a bit stiff with loads of open pockets and one is a bit more relaxed with a bunch of zipper pockets. PERFECT!

I just had to photograph these awesome gussets again! They make the bag roomy, but not too bulky, plus they just look so neat! I had purchased this Anxiety patch from the New Woodsman and felt like it looked at home on the bags strap. My husband said it made it look more punk. Ha!

I was unable to get a good photo of the front inside pocket, but it’s exactly the same as my last super tote. I was inspired by From the Blue Chair to add a little organizer inside to help keep my phone and such close at hand.

Now here’s where the two bags differ, a bunch. I did not add a main zipper closure, instead I left it open and free. To help keep things organized a bit more and secure valuables (since theres no top zipper) I added TWO zipper pockets inside, one on each side. I even made them extra fancy by having one magenta and one plum. oooooh. I also only included one divided elastic pocket, instead of two, this time because I didn’t think I needed them.

The inside of this bag isn’t as pretty as the last one. I messed up a bit on the inside gusset. Instead of sewing with a 1/2″ seam allowance, I used a 1/4″. So I added some extra pleats on the side to make up for the extra 1″ total going around. Plus I forgot to iron it all before attached them outside and inside pieces. whoops.

The outside design was totally a trial and error situation. I had those hexagon templates laying around for months waiting to be turned into something else. Then when I laid them out in my original configuration I had pieces covering the white triangles, which I did not like. So I moved pieces around, made new hexagons, etc etc, until I was happy with the outcome! I like how it kind of looks like a city with mountains in the background. It’s unique, just the way I like things.

I’m saving this bag for Saturday at QuiltCon, because I want it to be all fresh and pretty looking.So if you’re walking around that day, look for the girl with purple hair holding this bag!!

I had so much fun designing and making this project! I wrote up a full tutorial, with pictures, over on Silhouette America’s blog. Trust me when I say, this project was way easier to make than it looks!

++++++

 Also, if you are new here and would like to keep up on all the new projects I will be posting then please add me on BlogLovin!

I’ve been a huge mess lately preparing for BlytheCon (2 WEEKS LEFT TO PREP) and working on my Silhouette America projects so I can focus on that BlytheCon stuff, so I haven’t been able to play with all this fabric uninterrupted.

I did attempt to make a pretty, kinda chevron looking pillow out of the new 1Canoe2 line. Halfway through though I realized I had cut a bunch of pieces wrong and now I am reassembling what I can into pot holders. Luckily the line has food related items in it, which actually makes it PERFECT for potholders. Why didn’t I think of potholders before? I’ll share the finished set soon!

I also attacked the Chillingsworth charm packs and made a couple huge piles of hexies. They have already been pieced together and are just in the queue waiting to be quilted. (I like to do all my quilting at once. I may be a weirdo like that) Just like the potholders, I hope to share  the finished piece soon.

I also have BIG plans for those fat quarter bundles shown in the background of the first photo. I’m just not ready to share yet.

So, on a slightly different note, this post is just a sweet reminder of the changes I’ve made in how I spend my days! I can now sit down and sew, draw, bake and more without all the stress involved with what I was previously doing. I feel like I’m actually making progress in my goals I talked about last month and I have learned so much in that time too. I’m happier and a bit less stressed (I’ll be even more stress free after BlytheCon).

So I’d like to say thank you to everyone who encouraged me and has been supportive along the way.

You are all awesome!!!