It is Blogger's Quilt Festival time again!  My regular followers have seen this quilt before, earlier this year, but for those of you who are visiting for the first time, hello and thank you for visiting!  I chose to feature this quilt for the festival because it is my favorite quilt I have made this year and one of the first quilts that I actually started and finished in a timely manner.  Normally it takes me a year to finish a quilt, but this one was done within a month, a new record for me!  I won't bog you down with all the details because I have blogged about this quilt before and you can read the extended story of this quilt HERE.

This quilt was my entry into the Patchwork Prism Quilt Along hosted by Sweet Diesel Designs, though I didn't place in that contest, I was very honored to be a finalist In the Summer Sewing Contest over at Ellison Lane Quilts, though I didn't win that contest either.  Aww... do you feel bad for me yet.  Ha, I'm sure you don't and shouldn't because this quilt is a winner!  A few weeks ago I entered this quilt into the Cottonport, LA Festival of Quilts and placed first!  I was beyond thrilled to see that blue ribbon on my quilt, even though it was displayed sideways (I'll get over it.)  It was so nice to receive a ribbon for my work and even more honored to be displayed and judged against so many beautiful quilts.  There were 98 entries into the Festival of Quilts and I'll share some of those other beautiful quilts in a future post. 

The photo above illustrates both the machine quilting that was done around each "prism of solid color" and the hand quilting that was done inside of each prism.  I really love the combination of both machine and hand quilting, it gives the quilt the best of both worlds, in my opinion!

Quilt Specifications:
Pattern - Patchwork Prism by Anna Maria Horner for Janome
Size - Wall Hanging 24.5" x 27.5"
Fabrics - No duplicates with the exception of the solid "prisms" and mostly from a 5" charm swap of designer cottons that I participated in earlier this year.
Batting - Cotton/Poly 80/20 Blend
Backing - Cotton floral print by Alexander Henry
Quilting - Machine quilted with tan thread. Hand quilted with pearl cotton in the "prisms", all quilting was done by yours truly.
Binding - Lisette sateen print from JoAnn Fabrics
Special Techniques - A combination of machine and hand quilting.  I also added four small ribbon loops to the top of the back (sewn in with the binding) in order to hang it on the wall.

Category - ROYGBIV (Color Wheel) Quilt, Wall Hanging

Be sure to head over to Amy's Creative Side and visit all of the other fabulous entries into the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

My latest work in progress, an example block for my Always Bee Learning bee mates.  I'm the "Queen Bee" this month and these are the packets they will be receiving.  This block is from the book "Fresh Quilting" by Malka Dubrawsky.  It is the Modern Baby Quilt pattern, and is constructed entirely out of Y seams.  I will honestly say that this is my new favorite technique, and I absolutely loved putting it together.  Hopefully my bee mates agree with me!  The fabric is from Kate Spain and is one of her new lines, Cuzco.  The "solid" is by Laura Gunn and is called Painters Canvas, I just love the look of these fabrics with such great texture.  I personally think this quilt will be one of my new favorites, what do you think?

Linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Today is the start of Kids Clothes Week Challenge over at Elsie Marley.  Basically you sew clothes for your kids for one hour a day.  I have a busy week ahead, so I don't know that I'll be able to devote as much time as I'd like, but I am going to try!  I have the pattern, Sewing for Boys, Goodnight, Sweetheart Pajamas.  I have the fabrics washed and notions picked out, which is a pretty good start for me.  I might actually cut them out today too, which would be amazing.  I am going to make a short sleeved version out of the upper pirate fabric since it is a lightweight cotton.  The bottom two are flannel and will be a smaller size for my youngest and a larger size for my oldest, both to be worn next winter, not this winter.  Preparing for the future folks!  I decided to make the same pajamas I showed off lately (the Star Wars pair) simply because they turned out so great and the pattern is fresh in my head and should whip up quickly.  Fingers crossed!

Hello and TGIF!  I just wanted to share my little guest posting over at Sew Sweetness this week.  You can go to the original post HERE, my contribution to the Tula Pink Sew Along was this past Wednesday.  I was so excited to be a contributor in this Sew Along, and so excited to get to make such an awesome quilt for my sweet little boy!  Thanks so much to Sara for having me!

The photos that are here on my blog today are the "outtakes" from the photo shoot, you know the ones that didn't quite make the cut.  To be completely honest, I was really disappointed with this photo shoot all-together.  I think that even though I was on a ladder (much higher than I'm comfortable with) the quilt is just too large to fit into the frame well.  I think I would have needed to be on the roof!  Oh well, live and learn.  The wrinkles in the quilt are killing me too, but once again, with a quilt this size I ironed it several times, but the wrinkles just didn't seem to go away.  Yuck.  What is done is done, right?  Below is a shot of my binding all ready to go, I just need to make the backing and quilt it first! HA!  I am just thrilled with this quilt and can't wait to finish it up so that it can eventually go on my son's "big boy" bed (I know, I still have a while, he is only 8 months old!)  I hope he loves it as much as I do!

You still have plenty of time to make an item from a Tula Pink pattern or using Tula Pink's fabric and enter it into the Sew Along contest.  You can join the Flickr group HERE and get all of the information and details.  There are a ton of great prizes to be had!  Go ahead, join and get sewing!

See, I told you, pretty busy huh.  Oh well, that is me...busy!  I recently made a new tablecloth for our dining table.  It is a patchwork tablecloth that includes the fabric lines Echo, Simpatico, Hope Chest, Summerlove, Loulouthi and Modern Meadow.  Quite the eclectic collection!  I bought a fat quarter bundle of Hope Chest by Josephine Kimberling, cut the fat quarter into 4 pieces, added from my stash any fabric that I liked and matched, and presto...patchwork tablecloth!  I just love it, so pretty and so "me!"

This summer I participated in Rachel's Hand Stitched Class over at Stitched in Color.  One of the last projects of the class were some great hand quilted cloth napkins.  Well you can see those above.  I made eight and hand quilted each one with pearl cotton.  They are trimmed in ric rac and I just love them.  I have them folded into squares and nestled into the Fiesta Ware bowls, so I could show them off, they deserve special attention, don't you think?

The centerpiece of this crazy wild table are fabric stuffed fruit and vegetables that I made a few years ago for my first son to play with and to help him learn about fruit and veg.  Once they were completed my husband said they were too nice to be toys, so even though my kids do play with them, a lot of the time they work as a great centerpiece on our table.

Above you can see those cloth napkins in greater detail here.  I used a DS Quilts print from JoAnn Fabrics on one side and a Kona cotton on the back.  Below you can see a closer shot of the centerpiece, all the fruit and veg are nestled in a simple wire basket.  This collection contains two different types of squash, a carrot, banana, cabbage, egg plant, tomato, orange, pear, beet, corn, apple and string beans!  Can you spot each one?

I am entering this "tablescape" into the Sew, Mama, Sew! contest.  I stitched, then set it up, and now I get to enjoy this wild and crazy table.  Though I will admit, my plates, silverware and glasses do not stay out day to day.  I have two small children for goodness sake, I don't want to think about that kind of disaster that can happen by leaving out all those breakables!  Just keeping it real folks!  I also have handmade place mats that I could have added to this hot mess, but honestly, you have to draw the line somewhere!

I am also linking up to Tuesday at the Table over at A Quilter"s Table.  Make sure to stop by, get some great recipes and visit all the other link ups!

It's time for this month's bee blocks!  I'm glad to have them done on time... woo hoo!  First up is a block for Leanne "shecanquilt" in the Modern Blocks Bee.  Leanne asked us to make the "Stonehenge" block, designed by Amy Ellis found on pages 182-183.  She sent us fabric from Tula Pink's Birds and Bees line, oh so pretty!  I love the simplicity of this block and really look forward to seeing what great modern quilt Leanne creates with them.  This block measures 12.5" x 12.5".

I will start by saying that these blocks were a little time consuming and on the "harder" scale of blocks, but I will say the effort was worth it and boy these are stunning. "Watch Meesh Run" asked us to create two New York Beauty blocks in the Always Bee Learning group.  I think I remember these being blocks number 1 and 7, and you can find the patterns for them HERE.  This is going to be an all purple quilt and I think it is going to be FABULOUS, especially since purple is my favorite color, just saying.  These blocks measure 8.5" x 8.5", and are paper pieced with the exception of the curves.

Last but not least are three simple Snowball blocks for a special charity project.  You can find the tutorial HERE, these blocks measure 8" x 8".  We had the option of using green, red, or black fabrics, which I thought for sure I had plenty in my stash.  Well you can see from these three blocks that apparently I only have black in my stash, no true green or red.  I guess I know what I need to buy next...