Simply Colorful II is finally here

Pre-cuts and Yardage of Simply Colorful II should be hitting your local quilt store now!! 

 Here are a few of the things we made with it thus far:

beautiful dress made for my daughter by Snickerdoodle Stew

Catherdral windows made in linen and the purple mini charms from the Simply Colorful II line

Small wedge zipper bag in the Sewing weekend Essentials Bag pattern

Hop Skip Jump quilt pattern

Serendipity quilt pattern

butterfly kisses quilt pattern

Sewing Weekend Essentials 3 Bags pattern

 This is by far one of my favorite fabric lines. I hope to see on the flip side what you make with it!!

We'll talk soon!

V and Co InstaFriday

Welcome to Insta Friday. Where I show off some of my favorite pictures from my Instagram acct here on the blog. First we have a picture of my Color Theory Dress. I had a wonderful friend who just happens to be an amazing seamstress make me a dress that she pinned and drafted and made just for me. she followed New Look # 6223  pattern but made alterations to fit me perfectly. It's one of my most favorite dresses. (PS: my husband always asks why I have buoys hanging around my neck every time I wear this necklace…and also asks if my neck hurts when I wear it…perhaps sometimes my neck does feel a little strained...don't care still love it.) (PPS: I am very white in this picture…apparently I didn't get as much sun as most other summers…I blame it on too much work not enough play...)

Next is another Color Theory project! This one is probably one of my most favorite! Look at that adorable dog. Seriously, he's like want to eat him so cute! This was one of The Village Haberdashery's customer Chrisblanshard who made this dog bed using the All People Quilts FREE Tutorial on their site.

Also I haven't really talked lately (I've been super busy!!) about the fact that Simply Color: Green Book is out and available for purchase!!! (you can also purchase RED, ORANGE, and YELLOW.) This wonderful picture was taken by my great friend Chris the Tattooed Quilter his pictures are always just so inspiring and fun to look at.

I'm so excited to have BLUE and PURPLE show up in the coming months to complete the whole box set!!

But I have to Gush…I looooove the green book like a lot…it's sort of my favorite color (well along with blue) But this is one of my favorite quilts in the GREEN book.  It's called Green Bean and it's proudly displayed in my house. It's made up of mostly scraps of greens from all sorts of shades and tints and values, to make log cabins...I heart it a lot.
Okay...
SOOOOO…remember Wednesday?
Yeah she finished:

Isn't this AAMAZING? 340 Hexagons, ready to be quilted...If you are going to Quilt Market Nicole's Ombre Hexagons will be hanging out in my booth in the Moda section. I'm beyond excited. :)
Have a great weekend.
Happy fall.
We'll talk soon.

Insta Friday…on Wednesday

Hexagons made out of V and Co Ombre 

 Well, how about that…I totally miss and mess up my first INSTA FRIDAY back this last week. I have a good excuse. Well, not really I guess…my mom came into town and I was just getting everything ready. BUT! This just means that I'll have more pictures to show you in a couple days again. Because Instagram is a hopping with pictures! SO FUN!
Today lets highlight these pictures! Modern HandCraft is so amazing with her Modern Hexies. If you haven't seen these work of art with fabric, you need to go check it out now….so amazing!

We sent her some fabric so she could work her magic and sure enough she hasn't disappointed. Here is her FREE TUTORIAL. 

 Next up was this really pretty quilt made by Quilt Jane using our Color Theory Fabric with Moda. Please don't ask me what the quilt pattern is, I know she made it up..and perhaps there will be a pattern for it someday…but what I can tell you is that she made it for a wonderful friend of ours, Penny (who's husband just recently passed away unexpectedly).
It's a gorgeous quilt and their friendship is equally as beautiful. I pray that this quilt and their friendship will give her comfort in this trial-some time. We love you Penny.

And Last one for now are these gorgeous Butterfly Paper Pieced Quilt blocks by Sariditty. She used Lillyella's pattern and she used our Simply Colorful Green Blue Purple Fabric with Moda (WHICH SHIPS SOON!!!! YAY!!)  for the butterflies. The finished quilt is amazing!!! I'll show that off more later next week!!! :)
Okay off to keep working. Market is around the corner and I have a few things that need to get done…and FAST!
We'll talk soon, I promise I'll post some more fun Instagram pictures on Friday!!!

V and Co: How to make a little string block pincushion

One thing is for sure, you can never have enough pin cushions. Okay maybe you can and I just lied, whatever the case, you can't have enough CUTE pincushions. Am I right? Yep, thought so.

This little guy finishes at 4" x 4" and uses up any of those favorite little scraps you have left behind from a project. 

For this particular pincushion I used Amanda Jean's- Crazy Mom Quilts- new fabric line called Good Neighbors.

Materials Needed:

- scraps of material to make 1/2" strips 

- 1 white square with measurements of 5"x5"

- 1 charm square (5" x 5") for the back of the pincushion.

1. Cut the white square into 4- 2 1/2" squares. 

2. Cut scraps into strips with the width of 1/2" and with enough length to reach across diagonally from point to point of your 2 1/2" square.

 3. Place your first strip with right side facing up diagonally on your square.

4. Place a second strip directly on top of the first strip with wrong side facing up (and right sides together)

5. There's no way we can do a 1/4" seam so use 1/8" or less to sew your strips together (we want this to look scrappy and not perfect so sometimes use 1/8" seam and other times use less, this way you can achieve this not perfect look)

6. Press open with an iron.

7. Repeat on the second strip

8. Continue until you get close to the corner. Find a slightly larger piece of scrap fabric and continue to place right sides together for the last time making sure it covers all of the corner.

9. Flip the block around so you can start sewing more strips onto the other side, starting with your very first middle strip again. Repeat what you did on the first side to this new side.

10. You should end up with this mess of a thing. Don't worry we will make it pretty next.

11. Flip over your sewn block, and align your foundation block to 2 1/2" on the square ruler

 12. Trim off the excess strips

13. Flip around the block and again align and square up to the 2 1/2" mark and trim off excess strips

 14. Turn it over you now have a perfect 2 1/2" string block.

 15. Make three more to make 4 total string blocks

16. With right sides together sew the top two squares together and then repeat on the bottom two squares.
17. With right sides together sew the two top squares to the two bottom squares to create a 4 1/2" block

 18. Square down your back fabric (charm square) to 4 1/2" place right sides together and using 1/4" sew around all four sides leaving an opening on one side to be able to pull inside out and fill with filling.
**(What you put inside is up to you, you can do crushed clams, sand, seeds, and so forth. These are just a few options! I went with seeds.)
19. Hand stitch close your side opening.

Enjoy your cute pincushion!
And now:
Winner of our charm pack giveaway is:
Vicki H!
We'll talk soon!

V and Co: Insta Friday

Julie of Jaybird Quilting shows off some Simply Color and Ombre fabric in her Night Sky Quilt pattern placemats

I am on instagram daily it seems. It's so great with the hashtags and the @'s because it's so easy to find things and feature other peoples work with my fabric or patterns. So easy! BUT, I'm aware some of you don't have Instagram and really don't want another thing to have to check. So...IDEA! I'll feature here a few of my favorites from instagram (hopefully weekly) so all of you who just check the blog can see what is going on in other places other than the blog! And also I've been missing this outlet lately…so what better way to start with some fun features and pretty pictures from Instagram.
I will be making sure we link back to people we feature here, if there is no way to link back I will link back to my or their instagram account where there will be a link back.

So lets begin with our first Insta Friday with this 1st lovely picture. I'm so in love with Julies placemats she made for her home using some of our first fabric line (Simply Color) and the V and Co Ombre . She made one of her Night Sky Quilt pattern blocks and quilted it and bound it. Brilliant idea and so so pretty.

 



 

Next, this adorable butterfly made by MRSSOPHIE (her instagram handle) and was made with our Simply Colorful Orange Ombre that is out and available for purchase. The butterfly pattern is an amazing pattern by Lillyella this free pattern is amazing! The text fabric is by Andover Fabric

 Earlier this week I played around with my V and Co Ombre again and decided that it needed to be finished with 1/4" straight line quilting. It turned out perfect in my eyes and I love it. :)

And last but not least I need to highlight and shout from the roof top this GORGEOUS Quilt that Nydia made using all 20 of my new ombre's. This pattern is called Tessalation Quilt which Nydia designed for Alison Glass. I sent some Ombre fabric to Nydia to play around with and she made this new version just this week. It's mind blowing to me that this is a quilt. Nydia is a genius when it comes to color placement and design. If you are interested in pre-ordering our 20 Ombre colors please visit the Fat Quarter Shop. The fabric ships January, but you can at least rest assured that you will get your hands on it if you preorder now!  But seriously isn't this quilt amazing??

Have a great weekend. Enjoy the weather (it's going to feel a little bit more like fall for us and I have mixed feelings about that…but I'll survive.)

Remember to enter the chance to win fabric to make this adorable pin cushion I made with Amanda Jean's New fabric line called "Good Neighbors" And on Monday I'll be showing you how to make this adorable pincushion. :) Talk to you soon.

V and Co: Good Neighbors Pincushion Party

 Well Hello! Today is my day on this fun good neighbors pincushion party! Amanda Jean's blog was one of the very first blogs I ever followed and commented on (what seems like a bazillion years ago!) But the coolest thing was that she actually then came and visited my blog and commented on my post, and all I could think was…Geez that's super swell and nice! Quickly we became friends and a few years later we met at Quilt Market, and it was as if we were good neighbors just meeting up in Minnesota to check out some quilts. She just has this way of making you feel like you've known each other for years. And well now we have known each other for years and I'm so excited to help celebrate Amanda's new fabric line Good Neighbors with Connecting Threads!

 Amanda is so great at putting color and fabrics together in her many many maaaaaaaany quilts she creates so it's no surprise that her fabric line is so good together!  For my pin cushion I wanted to use almost all if could in one pincushion to show off all the fabrics together!

 So a little string block pincushion is what I made!

Next week I'll do a little tutorial on how I made it. :) Thank you Amanda for the wonderful chance to work with your fabric! I love it and its so bright and fun and well, kind of just like you!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Remember to come back next week for the how to on how to make this little guy! 

and make sure you check out all the other pincushions as well!

Date	Blogger Name	Blog URL
9/1/2015	Amanda Jean	http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/
9/2/2015	Anna	http://www.noodle-head.com/
9/3/2015	Mary	http://maryonlakepulaski.blogspot.com/
9/4/2015	Svetlana	http://sotakhandmade.blogspot.com/
9/5/2015	Debbie	http://www.eschhousequilts.com/
9/6/2015	Holly	http://www.bijoulovelydesigns.com/
9/7/2015	Carla	http://carla-graceandfavour.blogspot.com/
9/8/2015	Faith	www.FreshLemonsQuilts.com
9/9/2015	Vanessa	http://www.vanessachristenson.com/
9/10/2015	Anna	http://www.thimbleanna.com/
9/11/2015	Krista	http://poppyprintcreates.blogspot.com/
9/12/2015	Erin	http://whynotsew.blogspot.com/
9/13/2015	Lee	http://www.maychappell.com/
9/14/2015	Alex	http://teaginnydesigns.blogspot.com/
9/15/2015	Cheryl	http://naptimequilter.blogspot.com/
9/16/2015	Penny	http://sewtakeahike.typepad.com/
9/17/2015	Amy	http://duringquiettime.com/
9/18/2015	Debbie	http://aquilterstable.blogspot.com/
9/19/2015	Anne	http://www.springleafstudios.com/
9/20/2015	Melissa Corry	http://www.happyquiltingmelissa.com/
9/21/2015	Amber	http://www.oneshabbychick.typepad.com/
9/22/2015	Nettie	http://aquiltisnice.blogspot.com/
9/23/2015	Adrianne	http://www.littlebluebell.com/
9/24/2015	Cindy	http://www.liveacolorfullife.net/
9/25/2015	Amy	http://www.diaryofaquilter.com/
9/26/2015	Chase	http://quarterinchmark.blogspot.com/
9/27/2015	Rene	http://www.renecreates.com/
9/28/2015	Erin	http://www.houseonhillroad.com/
9/29/2015	Nicole	http://modernhandcraft.com/
9/30/2015	Teri	http://blog.connectingthreads.com/

Also If you  would like a chance to win a charm pack of this fabric please just leave a comment with someway to contact you through email thanks.