Who wants a color card?? A Sewing Summit Giveaway!

*** This Giveaway is now closed***

As I mentioned yesterday, I had sooo much fun at the sewing summit. One of the great things about it was all of the swag I got to bring home! I’m looking forward to trying some new thread, batting, and using other goodies I got! At the end of Jeni’s class on fabric selection, we were lucky enough to all get Kona color cards. These are so useful when trying to find solids for a project, and I love the one I already have. Now that I have 2, I thought this would be the perfect thing to share with one of you! After all, I can’t talk about how great the sewing summit was without sharing something with you all!

I found the Kona color card to be VERY helpful when working on a project such as this:

Matching all of those solid fabrics is SO much easier when you can see an actual swatch in person!
So, if you’d like to enter to win the Kona color card, leave me a comment on this post, and introduce yourself (that is, if I don’t already know you!). Say hi, tell me where you’re from or if you have a blog, or any little thing. I had so much fun meeting up with my bloggy friends this past weekend that I’d like to keep it going and get to know you all a little more!
I’ll leave the comments open until Sunday at 1pm, at which time I’ll pick a winner.

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I won!

I was so surprised and thrilled to find out that I won the Robert Kaufman “No Prints Allowed” challenge held through the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild! There were so many amazing quilts made by members of the guild, it was hard to choose a favorite! There were 2 winners– my quilt was chosen by our judges, Marny and Jill from Modern Quilt Relish, and Jenna’s quilt was voted as favorite by the guild! I also loved Jenna’s quilt, and could definitely see making one like it in the future.

The judges provided thoughtful feedback about each of the quilts, and about mine they wrote “It is a remarkably simple, yet visually rewarding, creative quilt. There is a masterful use of value as a design tool. The negative spaces and the unique layout make a very modern statement.”
Thanks so much, Marny and Jill!

You can see all of the quilts made by the A2MQG on flickr. Just click here!

My quilt front:

And the back:

I also am linking up to Gen X Quilter’s summer fair. Head over there to see a great array of quilts and recipes!

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Swap time!

I recently participated in my first sewing swap! It was hosted through flickr, and was called “spicing up the kitchen.” Everyone was assigned a secret partner, and a little information about your partners kitchen and favorite fabrics was provided to help when making a few kitchen items to send to them.

My partner wanted a kitchen mat that would coordinate with the orange accents in her kitchen, so I used a disappearing 9-patch pattern to whip this up. I used 2 layers of batting to make it nice and cushy, and home dec weight fabric to make it sturdy.

I also whipped up a set of coordinating kitchen towels. My partner seemed to like her things, and I was so happy!

Then… I got my package in the mail! My partner was totally awesome and made me a set of 4 placemats, using a combination of bright colors (and some of my favorite fabrics!) and linen. I also received a few linen tea towels, and a few small packs of fabric! I wasn’t so sure about the swap when I signed up for it, but it turned out great.

And, if that wasn’t enough, I found out that I won a bonus giveaway– anyone who had their swap package ready and sent on time was entered in a drawing for an apron, made by Erin (from two more seconds) who hosted the swap. I was so surprised that I won, and am very excited about getting my new apron. Thanks so much, Erin!

And then, because I couldn’t help myself, I signed up for another swap. This one is called “for the love of solids,” and I just couldn’t resist. I had so much fun making this quilt for the kona solids challenge for the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild, and I have been building up my stash of solids. I’m excited to get to work on it! I thought I could squeeze in one more thing this summer!

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Modern Quilt Guild Challenge

Last week it was finally time to share our kona cotton solids only challenge quilts at the meeting of the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild! I could hardly wait– I had my quilt finished a couple of weeks ago, and I was dying to see what others had done with their fabrics. There were some gorgeous quilts there– as soon as the photos are all up on the internet, I’ll share a link to them. But in the meantime, here’s my quilt!

I called it “reflection,” and I was trying to emphasize the graduated shifts in color value by grouping together similar shades of color, but splitting them at the dividing line into the lighter and darker colors. To emphasize this split, I surrounded the darker values with a light grey, and the lighter values with the dark grey. I quilted it with organic looking (aka, purposefully not straight or evenly spaced) lines, and I matched thread color to the color of the rows I was quilting to subtly extend each color line the length of the quilt. It’s a little hard to see in the photos, but it’s there!

For the back, I used the scraps to piece a strip of color, and I added the solid whites and greys in a row to emphasize some of the negative space. I bound the quilt using Kona raisin. I’m happy with how it turned out– I believe I’ll be hanging it in my office soon, and I would love to some day make a larger version that focuses on one or two color families! I’m going to try to get to that in my spare time (if you know me, you know that’s a little bit of a joke. I like to pack my days full!)

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