About two months ago I was contacted by the lovely people over at Andover Fabrics with an idea they had for a rainbow wall of mini quilts at QuiltCon this year. They would send me the fabric in a specific colorway and I would send them a mini quilt to hang in their booth during the event. I have been very sick, and haven’t had the energy to finish anything large, but I figured I could hand sew most of the mini so I said “yes!”

They sent me the gorgeous bundle of blue and white fabric shown above, which arrived right at the beginning of the blizzard we had. The majority of the fat quarters were either by Lizzy House or Alison Glass. The rest was from various other lines with Andover (I really should look in to them because they were all beautiful).

I decided to hand sew this mini using the technique called English Paper Piecing. I’ve talked about it loads on here before, but usually I just sew hexagons. I’ve been branching out in to other shapes lately and I’m just dying to show you all where it’s taken me. This piece of course being the first one. It took me about a week and a half to baste and piece, and then one day to matchstick quilt.

As you can see if this photo, I tried something new and did matchstick quilting (super close quilting) in various directions to kind of break up the design a bit. I also quilted to middle in a grid pattern to separate it from the rest of the design.

The finished piece ended up being 18″ across, and I am over the moon happy with how this piece turned out! I really can’t wait to mess with this idea a bit more. Would anyone be interested in a pattern? I number all the pieces and have a legend already to go, since that’s the way I work.

Added Bonus: Here’s a shot of my mini surrounded by all of the other pieces made for their booth!! (photo by @giucy_giuce on IG . One of the faces behind this project btw) How gorgeous are they?!? I feel so honored to be included in this group full of peers and friends. I really wish i could of been there to see it all in person, byt that just wasn’t in the cards this year. Next year however I WILL be there,no matter what!

Check out the Sizzix Blog for more details.

It was a cute tree that had a slight Scandinavian look to it. I can only picture it in white for some reason, but I bet it could be used in many ways. I painted a border of them on the bottom of a dress I made using their stencil vinyl.

The dress is made using Made By Rae’s Geranium Dress pattern and the fabric is Andover Fabric’s chambray in black.

I am so in love with this dress and I want to make so many more! The pattern has 3 options for sleeves, 2 options for the skirt (pleated or gathered), 3 neckline options AND an optional pocket! Plus you can make it as a dress OR a top. Seriously, SO MANY OPTIONS. Plus it went together in just two hours on my first try and the instructions were so easy. It fit her really well too! I can see CT’s closest packed full of these within a year, you guys will be so sick of seeing them, maybe…

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!!!