Jay McCarroll Habitat Challenge

Have you guys heard of the Jay McCarroll Habitat Challenge put on by Free Spirit and The Modern Quilt Guild? Well, all of the members of our little PMQG were given a fat eight bundle of some Jay McCarroll Habitat fabrics and asked to make a 12.5" square block adding only solid fabrics to the Habitat. These will then be assembled into a quilt for a local charity. I think this is a great challenge and was eager to participate. I knew I wanted to design a block for this challenge, and this is what I came up with:


I took my Habitat and added 2 aquas and 2 yellows, and started cutting and sewing curves (yikes). Super bias-y and stretchy. OK, so this block won't be going viral or anything, but I like how it looks, and I hope quilting will flatten it out. (Sorry Nancy.) Check out the Flickr group for the challenges from all the different Mod Quilt Guilds!



Then I played around with how these blocks would look as a quilt:


I kind of like it (lots)...but I don't know if I want to sew it. Hope you're all having a great quilt-y day!

Cheers, Jill!

A Busy Summer, and Some New Pillows

Summers are pretty busy around here... camp, beach trips, fairs, swimming, birthday parties, yard work, construction projects, friends and family visiting from out of town, brew fests. You get the picture. It's hard to fit sewing into that schedule - but surprisingly I have found some time.

I tend to do things backwards. We (ok, I) decided to re-do our family room. This involved some demo, some wall building, and dry walling. Really, I had the vision in my head awhile ago, so I decided to make some throw pillows for our newly revamped space before I started the revamping.


I wanted to use these pillow to try out mini-samples for some quilts I have in my head. The first one is the squares in descending sizes, I have a plan for a twin quilt with a similar pattern (in much different colors).


The second was this apple core pattern. Which I have to say was kind of a beast to sew together. (I'm new at curves.) It turned out looking fine, but I quilted the heck out of it. I think I will not want to deal with a whole quilt of apple cores.


I backed them both in chocolate Alexander Henry Heath, which I love. I also quilted the back which gives them such a nice sturdiness and texture. I'll make 2 more in these colors for our final family room re-do. I think maybe a tumbler pattern, and maybe something else with curves?

I really love my new pillows!

Pillows are great little projects, I love the sense of accomplishment I get from finishing something. I did the square one in 1 day, while wrangling the kiddos - and the apple core took maybe 2 or 3 days between kid antics.

Hope you're all enjoying your summer!!

Cheers, Jill