Super Scrappy Pineapple Block Quilt

To say that I love my latest quilt is an understatement. The block is the old fashioned pineapple block and I've made it super scrappy with loads of different fabrics and mixed prints. Add in all 42 super, cute, fussy cut centers, the most perfect floral on a happy, yellow backing and a binding that seems to frame it all perfectly, and it's got me grinning ear-to-ear every time I see it.

I hosted an informal quilt along over on Instagram and you can see all the great quilts being made by browsing the hashtag #superscrappypineapple .

-dana

P.S. Ever thought of making one? I used the Pineapple Trim Tool from Creative Grids and it was like magic! It made precision easy with these blocks. I highly recommend it. And, Creative Grids has no idea who I am, I just really thought the ruler was a game changer. Nearly every time I trimmed a round on my blocks it blew my mind with it's awesomeness.

May Moda Skill Builder Blocks

May 1st means it's time to make to May Moda Skill Builder Blocks.  Twelve flying geese blocks made into three blocks. Done!

I'll revisit this project on June 1st. Maybe then I'll list all the Moda Bella fabric colors that I'm using in mine.

-dana

February Moda Skill Builder Blocks

Maybe I should have titled this "Why I'm Participating in the Fat Quarter Shop's Moda Skill Builder Quilt Along" because the reasons are many. Back in 2015, I made a 90 block sampler quilt and loved the process. I look back at that and marvel at how much that quilt taught me and changed me as a quilter. The tiny blocks with tons of pieces definitely sharpened my skills but the whole process changed the way I approach quilting, the way I buy fabric and shifted my focus on what I want to make. That huge sampler quilt really was a game changer for me and taking on a new one seems like a no brainer.

Also, this Moda Skill Builder Quilt is an easy commitment. Once a month I have to make a few blocks. February through November. By the end of the year I'll have a new quilt. Easy peasy.

Finally, my oldest daughter chose the fabrics. The color palette is not one I've worked with before and I really, really love it. She chose the fabrics and will see me work on these blocks throughout the year and the resulting quilt will feel like a super cool collaboration that we are both really excited about. That's a win, win!

So, on the first of each month, Fat Quarter Shop is releasing the Moda Skill Builder blocks on their blog for that month. For February, I had to make three total kaleidoscope blocks.

Boom! Done!

I'll revisit this in March.

-dana

Craftsy Class Coupon Code

So, I've never taken an online class on Craftsy. I've been on their website many times and thought about it but I always find myself thinking that if I have free time, I want to sew rather than taking a class about sewing. Know what I mean?

Well, a few weeks ago I was sewing with my friend Lee Monroe and I mentioned that I have never taken a Craftsy class. I think she almost spit her drink out of her mouth. She thought I was kidding . . . probably because she had filmed a Craftsy class earlier this year. And because I like to tease her about her growing celebrity status in the quilting world. However, I wasn't kidding. I explained that my free time is precious and signing up for a class would feel like another obligation. Lee set me straight as she explained that the class is mine forever and I can start a video any time on any device and watch whenever I want. She often has a video playing while she is sewing. Wait! What? I'd never thought of that!

Hi Lee!

I've watched the trailer to her class called Quilt Faster: Accurate, Streamlined Piecing and today I'm starting it! I've sat at a table sewing with Lee in real life. She's always quick to offer tips, hilarious stories, help to troubleshoot a problem and encouragement when I have 684 more seams to sew. And I have a strong suspicion that her class will be like having her in my home.

And, because Lee is awesome, she has given me a coupon code for her class to share with all of you! Instead of $40, her class will be $20 if you use this code: 

     https://www.craftsy.com/quilting/classes/quilt-faster-accurate-streamlined-piecing/59097

Let me know if you sign up too. Then we can chat about it and maybe, just maybe, it will feel like I'm sewing with friends instead of all by my lonesome.

-dana

Pony club quilt progress. And a sale.

I finished all 90 blocks and am now working on putting the quilt top together. Soon. Very soon. And then I will fret on how to quilt it. As of this second I'm leaning towards an all over design. That, of course, probably will may change.

This weekend I'll be in Knoxville, Tennessee teaching local Modern Quilt Guild members how to make Posy Patrol from my book Imagine Quilts. AND, since I just got more books in for the event, I thought I'd run a little sale on them. I'm offering them 25% off for a bit. You can use the link in the right hand sidebar to purchase one for $17.25 plus shipping. Thanks for your support.

Have any thoughts on how I should quilt my sampler quilt?

-dana

You ask. I answer. Volume I

I get emailed all the time with questions usually relating to something I've said here.  Though sometimes it's because of something I've posted on Pinterest or Twitter or Instagram. Some questions are easy to answer, others I have to google, some are strange, and others are repeatedly asked.  I think that every now and then I will share some of those questions and answers here.  Mostly it will be the ones that I'm asked often.  And of course sometimes it will be the strange ones.

Awhile ago I said that we drink raw milk, and I get asked about that at least a couple of times a month. Back in 2008 when we first found a source for raw milk we drank it and enjoyed it for several years. Then that farmer stopped milking and we were out of a regular source for awhile.  However, we've recently found a new farmer and are happily drinking the milk, enjoying the cream and the amazing biscuits it helps make, making butter and thinking about learning to make cheese this summer. Probably mozzarella because I've heard it's easy.  Any recipes you want to share?

Back in 2009, I hosted a quilt along that taught each step in making a quilt.  I still get a ton of traffic to those posts and end up fielding lots of questions about the quilt making process.  I love that! I love turning people into quilters!

When I first started quilting in 2006/07 I learned most everything I knew at an area quilt shop and from ladies from a long-standing traditional quilt guild in my area.  I remember the little lady that taught me how to bind a quilt and she explained that her mother taught her, and her grandmother taught her mother.  She taught me to bind in the exact way that I outline in my tutorial . . . and the way the ends meet up with the end tucking into the other was purposeful.  She explained that quilts got lots of loving and daily use and bindings often needed repaired or replaced over the years and that's the way they liked to do it. I honored that tradition and taught that same method during that quilt along in 2009. Whenever I sat and stitched with those ladies it garnered lots of approving nods and knowing looks of respect when they saw I was doing it the same way.  But, to answer your question, somewhere over the years since then I've stopped doing it that way and now connect the two ends of the binding before stitching it down.  I've gone back and forth on whether to amend the original tutorial but always decide to keep it as is.  It just feels like the right way to honor the woman that taught me and those that taught her.

-dana

Want to Quilt Along? Round 15 Starting Soon!

Back in 2009 I hosted a quilt along and started a Flickr group for people to share photos, ask questions and offer encouragement throughout the process.  Since that time the quilt along group has continued and quilted along for fourteen different quilts.  Ready for fifteen??  Visit the Flickr group to find out more and join in the fun! My friend Dolores is leading this round and it promises to be a scrap buster and lightening fast.  So whatcha' waitin' for?

-dana

And so it begins

Started this scrappy trip around the world quilt a few days ago due to an impromptu and impossible to resist quilt along started over on Instagram.  Search #scrappytripalong to see the photos of lots of others making one too.  I'm oldredbarnco if you care to find me on Instagram.

As the earliest morning light streamed through the corners of the shades this morning, I began writing this post in my mind.  Wanting to sum up the holidays and describe my feelings of a brand new January. 

Humans are brilliant for establishing calenders but even more so for holidays and traditions.  For it is the guaranteed passing of days in anticipation of holidays and associated traditions that makes memories.

No photo captures the warm fuzzy feelings that bubble out of me as my family sits around the kitchen table playing cards.  Or the spontaneous jam session of voices, hands, tapping feet and clinking glasses as we listen to a jug band Christmas station on Pandora.  I couldn't capture with a lens the swell of love I feel for my mother as I watch her roll sheet after sheet of cookie dough out for my girls to decorate with sprinkles.  Or the sigh of reluctant acceptance of a rainy, rainy December causing more muddy dog feet wiping than hot tub soaking.

More strips cut for more scrappy trip around the world blocks.

The kids go back to school tomorrow and my gym card will be swiped for the first time in three weeks.  I will come home to an empty house and take comfort in the fresh deposit to my memory bank.

And attempt to vacuum up the last sparkle of holiday glitter.  My how that stuff has a way of avoiding a broom, mop or vacuum.

-dana

Quilt Challenge Throwdown!

Visit Old Red Barn Co. Quilt Along on Flickr to join the challenge.  Here are the deets:

• GIST:
  Choose a color palette from any of the several color palette generators or websites with preselected color palettes meant for inspiration and then make a quilt that interprets that color palette. ALSO, provide a 40 - 60 word explanation as to how the quilt embodies that color palette.
  
  Don't have a clue what I'm talking about? Visit these sites to learn more about color palettes:
  
  design-seeds.com/
  www.colourlovers.com/
  
  Of course google "color palette" and you'll see lots more.
  
  RULES:
  1. Submit your quilt, color palette and brief explanation by October 31, 2012.
  2. Please submit a photo of your color palette right along with your quilt so that our judge can see the palette and determine how well your interpreted it into a quilt.
  3. There are three categories that you can enter: (a) mini quilt; (b) lap quilt or wall hanging; or (c) twin sized quilt or larger
  4. Guest judge will evaluate each category based on creativity and integration of color palette. Elaborateness or plain-ness is not a factor. It's really going to be based on the gut instinct of our guest judge. :)
  
  PRIZES:
  The winner in each category will receive a prize pack from www.oldredbarnco.com valued at $25. Also, the winner in each category will receive a custom digital "winners badge" to be displayed on their blog/Facebook/Twitter/Flickr accounts if desired.
  
  Have I forgotten anything?
  
  Yes I have!
  
  PROMOTE IT FOR ANOTHER CHANCE TO WIN:
  If you'd like to promote this throw down via whatever means you see fit, please do so! If you do promote it, send me an email at dana at oldredbarnco dot com with a link to your promotion and you will be entered for a chance at a random drawing for an additional prize pack from www.oldredbarnco.com. This "I helped promote the quilt challenge" prize will be valued at $50 and can be redeemed by you or your selected gift recipient.

Something tells me that our guest judge Jennifer from Ellison Lane Quilts is gonna have some tough decisions on her hand.

Ready. Set. Go!

-dana

Glorious Autumn Block Party

Over 15 weeks, 45 designers will create 12" blocks for the Glorious Autumn Block Party. These blocks will be featured, three per week, on the Quilting Gallery site starting September 4th. In addition to the blocks, there will be Super Deals for Quilters from our favorite online retailers. Also, be sure to check each designer's post, as many will be offering give-aways on their own site that everyone can participate in.

Check out these designers this week:
Pat Sloan
Benita of Victoriana Quilt Designs
Lenna Green of Stitching Cow

I'll be sharing a block pattern on December 6, 2012.  Hope you'll join the fun!

-dana

A happy dance full circle moment

First of all, these quilts are not mine.  Rather they were made by Julie of  Distant Pickles.  And here's the happy dance full circle moment thing . . .

The other day on Twitter Julie told me that the first quilt she ever made was with my quilt along back in 2009.  She said that she was home with a new baby and wanted to make a quilt and found my blog and quilt along and in her words, "the rest was history!"

So now she's designing patterns and selling them and stuff.  Specifically this Mod Pop pattern.  Which I have just purchased and will be making pronto! 

You can find this pattern and template set at Julie Pickles Designs.

That's one seriously spine tingling, goose bump inducing, chest puffing with pride full circle moment.

-dana

Granny Square Quilt Along

If you spend much time in blog land than you have no doubt run across pictures of this amazing Granny Square quilt from Blue Elephant Stitches.  Something about it seems to resonate with me and many, many others.  The scrappy patchwork-ness about it.  The bright happy colors.  The fact that it indeed looks like crocheted granny squares and yet it's a sewn patchwork quilt.

As we were kicking around ideas for the next quilt along over in my flickr group (By the way, to date we've made eleven quilts over there. My stars! Eleven!) Quilt Dad, John, suggested this quilt and we all immediately jumped on the idea.  I contacted Jolene at Blue Elephant Stitches to see if she minded we do a quilt along with her block tutorial and she was gracious enough to encourage it.

Please say you'll join me and the 1,600 others in our flickr group as we start our Granny Square Quilt Along on March 1, 2012.  There are already some options and fabric requirements listed so get on over there and check it out!

A special thank you to Jolene for letting our group attack this quilt like a bunch of hungry hyenas.  It's going to be a blast.

-dana

Free Motion Quilting Quilt Along

This is free motion quilting from Debby Brown Quilts on Flickr

Two years ago I started a group over on Flickr to showcase quilts being made during a quilt along I was doing here.  Since that time the Flickr group has continued to grow and we've continued to make quilts together.  We've made ten quilts and have over 1500 members.

Ten quilts is a hefty amount of quilts.  And you can still find links to instructions and tutorials for each and every one. 

Starting soon Debby Brown Quilts is will teach us better free motion quilting techniques via video.  She has separate videos to demonstrate straight line quilting,  C-curved quilting, loopy quilting, S-curved quilting and curl quilting.  The photo above shows examples of all of those.

And just looking at that photo makes me start to hyperventilate.

From both excitement and nerves.

Hope you can stop by the Old Red Barn Co. Quilt Along Flickr group and join us!

-dana

Ferris Wheel Quilt . . . Squeal!

I've said before how I live in the sticks.  I do. I really do.  But the weirdest thing. 

On my street, on someones private property, is a Ferris wheel.  Just sitting there. 

I pass it each and every time I leave my house.  And I look at it each of those times.  And always end up wondering why it's there and creating little scenes in my head of it spinning round and round and balloons and cotton candy and tents and flags and . . .  you get the idea.

Well, Round 9 of the Old Red Barn Co. Quilt Along over on Flickr is the ticker tape quilt made famous by Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts.  Dee had been planning on teaching us how to make a ticker tape quilt for several months now and for all this time an idea of a Ferris wheel ticker tape quilt has been percolating in my brain.

Squeal!!

I used free motion quilting to attach each fabric scrap.

And  even used quilting to make the wheel and spokes of the Ferris wheel itself.

The black spokes aren't so pretty on the back side of the quilt but I can live with that since this is more of a wall hanging type quilt than a lay-on-the-couch-and-try-to-snuggle-under-it kind of quilt.  So, no one will see the back anyway.

Ah.  I love it when something in my mind turns out just as I'd imagined it in fabric.

-dana

Stash

Newest member of my fabric stash.  ::swoon::

What I'm thinking about for the next Old Red Barn Co. Quilt Along on Flickr.

-dana