Here we are at Week Four of the Zakka 2.0 Sew Along.  This week my project is an ode to Denyse Schmidt, the fabric designer.  The majority of the prints in this jazzy little apron are by Denyse Schmidt, I used three of her fabric lines, and I think they blend so well.  The little bits of "kitchen scenes and chickens" featured in the pocket quilt blocks are various designers, but everything else is by her.  The quilt blocks feature fabric from the Quilter's Quarters sold at JoAnn Fabrics, this fabric was also used as the binding on top of the pocket.  The body of the apron is a home dec/canvas print from the Country Fair line, I've been hoarding this fabric for quite a while.  The straps are from her Flea Market Fancy Legacy line.  See, I told you it was an ode to her!

I actually made the quilt blocks last week, and instead of using the templates that were in the book, I just measured and used my clear quilter's ruler.  This method worked out great, especially for fussy cutting since I could see through the ruler.  I sewed them all together and then they just sat there staring at me for the majority of the week.  I couldn't decide whether I wanted to make the apron or something else.  Well obviously the apron won out, and I am so glad that I went that route in the end.

I used a cheapo muslin for the back of the blocks/pocket lining, and did a simple straight line quilting on the pocket.  I did change the way the author suggested finishing up the top binding on the pocket.  I sewed it on the way she suggested, but then she suggested hand stitching it down on the backside (inside of the pocket.)  Well I was way to lazy for that and just stitched in the ditch right at the top of the pocket/binding, thus sealing it on the backside.  If you look closely at the block above you can see my stitching right on the line, or below it.  That was a huge time and sanity saver.

The book suggested using a twill fabric for the body of the apron, but I wanted to use stash and after a bit of digging, unearthed this home dec fabric and decided to go for it.  Wild and crazy?  Yes, a bit, but I love it, and I feel that the pocket stands out on the dark background fabric.

I am a petite gal, so I chopped off 1" on the bottom of the apron, just to shorten it a bit, which was perfect, thus instead of placing the pocket 2.75" from the bottom edge, I placed it 2" from the bottom edge.  I also created two pockets instead of one, simply by stitching in between two of the blocks.  So the first quilt block is one pocket, and the last two combined are the second pocket.  This way pencils and such won't get lost in a huge open pocket.  You can also see in the photo below the reinforcement stitching that I did on the spot where the ties meet the apron body.  This way I know they won't be coming off.  The book called for you to cut the ties at 34" long, but since I cut them with the width of the fabric, which was around 42", I just left them at that length.  A little extra length never hurt anybody, right?  I don't think so.

I am pleased as punch with this little apron and look forward to using it in the kitchen and if I ever tackle any other craft fairs, I can use it there too!

Details of the Sew Along:
Book:  Patchwork, Please! by Ayumi Takahashi
Sew Along: Hosted by LRstitched and A Quilter's Table
Project: Polka Dot Cafe Apron
Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/patchworkplease/

Here we are at the end of Chapter One.  Thus, the end of the "cross" blocks.  The number 14 block is a bit wonky, I guess those long skinny center strips are a bit off, but it isn't too bad.  Once again these three were straight forward and easy, oh and fun!  I used every print from the Constellations collection, with the exception of one in the first 15 blocks, and aim to try and distribute each of the prints through each chapter evenly.  I hope by doing so at the end I don't have a ton of blocks that look really similar, you know?  Well I better run, I've got to cut out next weeks blocks!

Wondering what all of this is about?  Here are the details:
Book:  City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks by Tula Pink
Quilt Along:  Hosted by Sara over at Sew Sweetness
Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/citysamplerquiltalong/
Blocks:  6.5" x 6.5" Featuring the fabric line Constellations by Lizzy House.

Week Three of the Zakka Along 2.0!  This week features both a Lettered Tea Cozy and a Teabag Pouch.  I didn't make the tea cozy, but I did take the time to make the teabag pouch, except not.  We do drink tea, both hot and cold, but it isn't a ritual, but rather teabags thrown in a glass jar, so I knew that I didn't want to use the pouch to hold tea, so i decided to use it for sewing supplies!  Originally I thought I would use it to hold my hand sewing needles, but after seeing this version HERE I knew that I would use it for machine needles instead!  I thought it was such a great idea!

Once I had decided it would be a sewing pouch, I figured, why not use up some of my sewing themed fabric!  I dug through my stash and found a print that featured small sewing items, gathered up a few solid scraps, a scrap of ribbon, a random button, and I was good to go!  This was a quick and super easy project, simple directions and straight forward.  I added the stitching around the outside just to "finish it off" and I like that look, it looks polished and neat.  Now it holds my little cases of sewing machine needles, all organized and tidy in my sewing box.  No more digging around for the different sizes, they are all in one place now.

Details of the Sew Along:
Book:  Patchwork, Please! by Ayumi Takahashi
Sew Along: Hosted by LRstitched and A Quilter's Table
Project: Teabag Pouch
Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/patchworkplease/

I am officially caught up!  You are probably sick of seeing blocks, so I promise this is my last City Sampler post this week!  These blocks were easy to make and really straight forward, but I will say that Block #12 is a tad wonky, if you really look that "cross" is a tiny bit twisted, but I decided to leave it, what does it matter in the grand scheme of things?  It doesn't!  These blocks are really fun to make and I am just tickled pink to be officially caught up!  Woo Hoo!

Wondering what all of this is about?  Here are the details:
Book:  City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks by Tula Pink
Quilt Along:  Hosted by Sara over at Sew Sweetness
Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/citysamplerquiltalong/
Blocks:  6.5" x 6.5" Featuring the fabric line Constellations by Lizzy House.

Quick pop in today to play a bit of catch up with my City Sampler blocks.  Today I am featuring blocks 4-9.  My favorite is number 9, I love those constellations.  I know this is a photo intensive post, sorry about that!  I have one more post to be officially "caught up" and then I'll hopefully be posting my three new blocks just once a week.

Just in case you are wondering what all of this is about, here are the details:
Book:  City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks by Tula Pink
Quilt Along:  Hosted by Sara over at Sew Sweetness
Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/citysamplerquiltalong/
Blocks:  6.5" x 6.5" Featuring the fabric line Constellations by Lizzy House.

The book above, Tula Pink's City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks, is the focus of a new quilt along being hosted by Sara over at Sew Sweetness.  It officially started up a few weeks ago, but I just got started on it last week, which is ok, it has been easy to catch up.  I'm running a tad bit behind because it took me forever to lock in what fabrics I wanted to use, but now that I have decided, I'm off and running.  I'll be using Constellations by Lizzy House, you can see those print fabrics on the bottom row in the photo below.  Once I had officially chosen that fabric line, I dug into my stash and pulled as many solids from my collection that matched.  I actually had way more matching solids than I thought, so all I bought was Kona black and I am all set!

Blocks 1,2 and 3.  I love all the blues with the touch of yellow thrown in every now and then.  These three blocks were fairly straight forward to make, though I did have to unpick parts on each of these because I somehow reversed certain pieces.  Even with the mistakes I originally made, these blocks were still quick and easy.  They measure 6.5" x 6.5", so these pieces are pretty tiny, which I honestly think makes it even more fun and maybe a tad challenging.  I really love this fabric line, so that means I really love these blocks, the scale of the prints are all small scale, which is one of the reasons I chose these fabrics for the quilt along,  The few prints from this collection that are a tad bit larger, I make sure to save for fussy cutting.  You can see what I am talking about in Block #3, that cute center fabric, see how perfect that works out.  Love it!

Here are the first three blocks, shown a different way.  Featured next to the block in the book.  Obviously, my fabrics will be drastically different than the book, but I aiming to keep the same value of fabrics (or at least try to maintain the light, medium and dark tones.)

I am playing catch up, so I hope to show you guys blocks 4-12 at some point this week because I have them sewn, photographed and ready to show off!

I decided to join in the super fun sew along, Zakka 2.0 that is currently being run by Debbie over at A Quilter's Table and Lindsey over at LRstitched.  The sew along is working through all of the projects in the book, Patchwork, Please! by Ayumi Takahashi.  It started up this week, and is going through each project in the book, in order, one project per week.  Before I start talking about this project, I just want to mention that I love this book.  It is the first in a while that I literally love all the projects and honestly do want to make them all, OK, maybe with the exception of one or two, but even those are super cute, just not very functional for me personally.  So needless to say, I am excited to get started with these projects!

This week, or first up are the Bell Pepper Coasters.  I think they turned out precious, cute idea, great construction method, super easy and pretty quick.  I turned these four out in an afternoon and honestly the hardest part was choosing the fabric.  Ayumi's instructions called for 5.5" fabric scraps, but I easily fit these onto charm squares, which was great because I have a LOT of charm squares.  I followed all of the instructions with the exception of one, the stem called for a piece of brown felt, which I had, but I wasn't in love with the color, so I opted for a stem of twill tape measure.  I thought it was fitting, especially since they are fabric bell peppers.

I accidentally cut out one of the centers upside down, thus having to sew it on upside down also, but I think it looks just fine and you probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't said anything.  Would you?

I don't think I will be making every project in the book, at least not in keeping with the sew along, the week for each project deadline is just too stressful for me, but I do plan to make a good bit of the projects and look forward to it.  If you want to follow along, just click on the button below and it will bring you to the Flickr group where you can find so many awesome projects from the book made by others and you can find more information there too!

Whew....just in the nick of time, I finished it up.  What started out as these simple 8.5" x 8.5" string blocks made entirely out of Heather Bailey fabrics, seen in the photo to the left.  Twenty-two of these blocks were made by my Always Bee Learning Bee mates in the first round of this group, eight were made by yours truly.  Were then transformed into the roughly 13" x 13" blocks below, still featuring Heather Bailey fabrics, but with Kona White added in there too for a bit of contrast.  It was a lot of sewing and constructing of blocks, 30 in total.  I didn't think I would meet my deadline, but in the end these blocks were constructed into a throw quilt, and now she is together and transformed into a pretty cheerful quilt, if I do say so myself!  I love how she turned out.  So bright, happy, random and yet structured, such a nice combination of things.  It looks as good in person as it did in my head, and I just love when that happens.

This throw quilt measures 62" x 75" and is a great size, not too big, not too small.  I did something a bit odd with this quilt, and constructed it a tad bit differently than I normally would.  I sewed the finished blocks together with 3/8" seam allowance.  I did this for several reasons.  The main reason is that when you construct string blocks on paper as a foundation, like these were, when you tear off the paper, the edges of these blocks tend to get un-sewn a bit in spots.  Some of these blocks had strings that didn't quite go all the way to the edge once they were trimmed either.  Thus the 3/8" seam allowance fixed all these issues.  Any raw edges were totally sewn in and encased, and any unraveling ends aren't really an issue anymore.  This also explains why I left these blocks roughly 13" x 13", I was sorta (without any math involved) allowing for the extra seam allowance, which worked out great.

This was the type of quilt that as I was making the blocks I started dreading the process of sewing the blocks together in the end.  All these strings, so many seam allowances and the fear of the bulkiness involved.  Honestly, it wasn't bad, at all, in fact it went together so smoothly I was really surprised.  I stitched all these blocks together, yesterday, in about 2 hours, maybe not even that long.  I think that since the strings aren't supposed to match up, that the majority of the seams don't line up, thus the bulk I was so worried about, never really happened but in one or two places on the quilt.  That was a nice surprise that I did not expect.

I have the backing fabric, so I just need to get it ready, baste and quilt this one.  I am looking forward to quilting it, but am still unsure as to how I will quilt it.  I think I will sketch things out, but I do know that I want to free motion quilt it, and hopefully I will be able to use my recently cleaned up and restored vintage Singer 15-91that I have set up and dedicated to free motion quilting.  I have been dying to use this machine on a larger quilt, so I plan to quilt this one sooner than later!  So exciting for us quilt nerds! HA!

This quilt top is my entry into the Festival of Strings over at Stitched in Color.  Make sure to stop by and see all the other beautiful entries.

I know I have mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again, I belong to a Flickr group that swaps Postage Stamp Blocks.  Well, I haven't posted pictures of my finished blocks.  The first set of 10 above are for me to keep and add to the 10 or so I already have.  I strip/chain pieced these blocks to save time and these 10 are actually duplicates of 10 that I sent to swap.  The 20 blocks pictured below are the ones that I sent to FairlyMerry (the group leader and swap mama) in order for her to swap them with the other members and then send back 20 different blocks to me.  After this swap is finished I am hoping to have enough to put my quilt top together,  Excited to get this one laid out and finished up.  I am really looking forward to seeing what this one will look like finished.

Oh, and before I forget to post this...I have a winner for the fabric bundle and book from Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway Day!  Random.org picked number 198, which ended up being Michelle Smith!  I have already contacted Michelle, and since she has already returned my response, giveaway day is officially over.  Congratulations Michelle, enjoy your fabric and new book!

Laying out a quilt, of course, what were your thinking?  Trash, that is what you were thinking!  Shame, shame....

With the children tucked into their beds, I spent some time on the kitchen floor auditioning layouts.  I think this one won!  Hope to sew her up soon.  This picture is terrible and does not show off the true beauty of these fabrics, but this quilt will be stunning, if I do say so myself.

P.S.   To all you hard working, self sacrificing lovely mamas out there, Happy Mother's Day a tad bit early!