Aurifil Bag

I would like to Thank Everyone who has voted for my Sew Many Colors Rainbow Mini, and just in case you haven't and would like to you can hit this LINK and it will take you to the voting page.  Only 1 vote per person and I am number 12, just tap the heart.

Vote Here!

I took my Mini and turned it into a Bag, made a little tutorial for you if you would like to make one as well.

Warm colored side.

Cool colored side

You can get the free Sew Many Colors Mini pattern here.

To make your own bag, make the mini, I used Fat Quarter Shop's easy tutorial for using the backing fabric as your binding.  And now let's make the zipper closure.
2- 14" Separating Zippers (in Greece they call them Jacket zippers)
4- 2" x 15" pieces of fabric

 We are going to take the fabric and fold them like we would when making binding, first fold the short ends in by 1/4", then fold lengthwise in half (press with an iron) and then open out and fold it into the middle, you will end up with a thing strip of fabric like the one on the right.

I found it easier to unzip the zippers and then opened the fabric strip up aligning one edge and sewing as close as I could to the zipper.  Folding the fabric back around the edge of the zipper and then sewing it down again, getting the back side.

Be careful when sewing around zippers, I always change my needle to an old one, and leave a long tail of thread at the end so I can go back and hand sew a few extra stitches for where I tucked in the head of the zipper.

Start at the seam of where the Paper Pieced A is.

Wrap it around the sides, you can put a handle in if you like, mine is the selvedge (2) 2.5" x 9"

Place handles 1" from the seam created by piecing C and D together.

Hand sew the zipper to the binding just like you would when sewing on binding by hand.

If you have any questions let me know, it's a pretty easy adaption to the pattern and can open up fully and you can even put it back up on the wall, this picture was taken after adding the zipper and you can't even tell it's there.

And from the backside

It fits my box of Aurifil perfectly and I will be making a little fabric tray to go next to it, perfect for taking along on sewing retreats.
Would you like to have an Aurifil Bag? What colors would you use?

Easy Easter Table Runner

This is a free pattern from Me and My Sister Designs, I used a mini jelly roll of V and Co. Ombre Color Theory solids with a few prints from their Spectrum fabric line.  Originally I was going to applique a bunny onto the runner, but then I thought that would limit the table runner to being only used during Easter.

Or course Aurifil was used and since I was using Ombre fabric, what better than ombre thread (aka. variegated)

4660 Pink Taffy, 3320 Spring Green, 4662 Spotted, 4669 Stonewash blues, 4670 Silver Fox

I also changed the pattern slightly to do a little bit QAYG (Quilt As You Go) style, since I have a hard time keeping my batting to stay in place while sewing (read here: I hate pinning)  So I sewed the 5 color groupings together and then sewed each one onto the batting.
Above you can see the Pink is down using wonder clips, I sewed just an 1/8 of an inch to the right of each seam and when I got to the 5th strip, I sewed on my light green (5) strips, right sides together, flipped it over, gave it a good iron and then continued by sewing just a smidge to the right of each seam and when I finished the light green I added the blue green and etc.
Then I followed the directions to add on the back/sides of the table runner.  I used the dark blue V and Co ombre for that.

It fits my table perfectly!

Just making a few more Easter things for the table and we will be ready for a great holiday, kids start school break this Friday for 2 weeks.

The cute Easter bunny basket is a pattern Hack from Molly and Mama's Darling Daisy Bag, find more information here.
I just might make an Easy Table runner for all the seasons, mmm.... summer hear we come!
Check out the hashtags #meandmysisterdesigns #easytablerunner or #12contestmeandmysisterdesigns on IG to see what other people have made

Sew Many Colors Mini

Sew Many Colors Rainbow Mini

I love Aurifil and I just so happen to have a ton of Kona Cotton Solids.

I picked out my Rainbow of Aurifil and matched them up with the Kona, now in case you don't have 100 FQ's of Kona laying around or even Aurifil laying around you can always check with Play Crafts Palette Builder wonderful color tool, to find the perfect match!

Now my favorite Yellow and Pink from Aurifil is their Variegated thread, so I made my spools out of multiple fabrics for those spools.

4660 Pink Taffy, I use so much of this thread, it's crazy!

4658 Limoni di Monterosso

But my all time favorite color is Dove #2600

2600 Dove, works with everything, can only get one color get this one!

Did you notice I changed background fabric, yup, I was working along using Kona Snow (my favorite "white" fabric to use) and then when I was auditioning fabrics to represent Aurifil #6736 (my new favorite dark thread) it was up against my color blue and I realized that Kona Graphite made all the pretty rainbow colors POP!

Colors Pop off of the Graphite Background and the Aurifil #6736 matches very well

Sadly the only other color that I know for sure of as far as the Kona goes is my light blue color, that is Robin Egg, my all time favorite Kona blue color and I matched it with Aurifil #2805.

Mara's Thread Collection Box

 In my Thread collection you will find:
Red: 2250
Orange: 1133
Yellow Variegated: 4658
Green: 5016
Light Blue: 2805
Dark Blue: 6738
Purple: 2520
Pink Variegated : 4660
Grey: 2600
White: 2021
Dark Blue Grey: 6736
and for things I want to be invisible Aurifil Monofilament

If you would like to make your own box of Aurifil you can get one with Busy Needle Quilting, what will you put in your's?

This mini is fun and easy to make, if you would like the pattern you can get it here.

It was windy and off and on rainy as we took photos today, I was hoping for a real rainbow, but no luck there :)

I would also really like to Thank my friend CeLynn for sending me a Bobbin Winder, it was very helpful for making this mini.

I use Aurifil #2600 when quilting the Variegated Threads, I don't want to waste any of the pretty Variegated color in the bobbin.

Linking to the Sew Many Colors Contest with Aurifil
And you can vote for my mini here, if you would like, sadly only 1 vote per person, there are so many great one's good luck picking out your favorite.
Turn your mini into a Sewing Retreat bag, perfect for holding your Aurifil threads, Free tutorial can be found here. 

Blithe Quilt

Welcome to my Day on the Blog Tour, to see a list of everyone participating, please click here.

I was really thrilled about getting the chance to work with Katarina Roccella's Blithe fabrics from Art Gallery Fabrics.  I especially wanted to work with the Canvas from AGF, and like all AGF fabrics it is amazing "Feel the Difference" is as always the truth.  In fact it is so great, that when it came in the mail, my husband asked if I was making something for him, he loves the feel of it, and if you think this is a common comment from him, it's not, he doesn't like me sewing, so for him to approve of just fabric was truly amazing.

Another thing I love about Art Gallery Fabrics is that they always do a great job of telling you what blenders/solids go great with a fabric collection.  I picked up a few of the solids suggested Sweet Macademia, Quartz Pink (I love this color so much!!) and Mystic Grey, I had Ash and Moonstone on hand and think they look good with the fabric collection as well.

from back to front, Sweet Macademia, Mystic Grey, Ash and Moonstone

I also added a little bit of Katarina's first collection "Indelible"

For the binding I couldn't help but add another Art Gallery Fabric designer's fabric to the mix for the binding, using a flange binding technique with Quartz Pink as the solid, which looks beautiful against the canvas.

Blithe, Skopelos and Paperie

I was so happy to have Fat Quarter Shop's Orange Peel Templates, it helped a lot in the making of the feathers.

I ended up hand quilting it since I was having difficulties with my sewing machine, I like the way it turned out.

But I have a few more "white feathers" to hand quilt down and so I have not completed the quilt and I apologize about this.
With all of the hand quilting I needed to take breaks for my finger sakes, so I also created the Airport Sling from the book "On the Go Bags"

I will be donating this for the Auction #sendkarritokorea that is going on on IG, this weekend.

I will complete the quilt as soon as possible, Thank you for the chance to create using your fabrics Katarina!

Tell Me a Story Pillow

I joined Amy of During Quiet Time for the Tell Me a Story Holiday Pillow a version of her Tell Me A Story Quilt in her Intentional Piecing book.
I love the idea of this quilt, but I'm really bad at being "scrappy" and although there are tips on how to make it not so scrappy I still decided to make the color around the fussy cut squares all one color, plus I was using scraps from another Christmas project, so it was a win win situation.  Now to find the cutest center Christmas fabrics and along came Lucy of Charm About You blog, she sent me a FQ of the cutest Christmas fabric and I was able to make 6 blocks with it.
The Stories:

 Mr. Snowman was the fist to arrive in Santa's village, actually he never left since the elves made him last year.

This guy was next, he wanted to be there in case any of Santa's Reindeer ended up getting sick, his little bunny friend helped put lights up in his antler's, just in case it was Rudolf who got sick.

Little Nik ran ahead of his family he was so excited to see Santa coming.

Along came the rest of the Penguin family, little Katerina was wearing her new red scarf to show Santa.

The little red fox was also hoping to show off his new scarf to Santa.

Mr. Polar Bear brought several gifts for Santa to drop off with some of his family that had moved to Canada.

All six of these are from the same print, adorable right.  I even had extra of the fabric and sent it to another friend who lives in the States, so this FQ went from the UK, to Greece, to USA!
In Thanks, Tammy , sent me some cute fabrics she had been cutting up for her blocks.

I wanted the Santa that she had, it was perfect!

For the next block, this little elf was in charge of letting everyone know that Santa was coming, she told the bird's to spread the word in song, "Here Comes Santa Claus"

All the elves started to sing along.

Even Santa was singing along.
It makes a perfect pillow, with slight changes to the original plan and what is written in the book. (guilty look here, I'm horrible at following directions and sometimes think I know what will look best)
Here is the finished Pillow.

 Quilted with Red Aurifil #2250 and Blue Aurifil #6738

Tammy sent me so many cute fussy cut squared that I just had to make a second pillow,

 This one is based off of a Christmas Song, "Santa Clause is Coming to Town"  especially the line, who is naughty and nice.  I think the little girl above is on the naughty list and the one below is obviously on the nice list.

Again scrappy greens from a previous Christmas project, sadly I needed to order more of the grey fabric and even though I ordered it from the UK it did not make it here in time.  So these will continue after Christmas.