Snapshots Quilt Along With Fat Quarter Shop!

Next month I'll be joining in a quilt-a-long with Fat Quarter Shop for a special cause! FQS are raising money in support of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Their aim is to advance cures and means of prevention for catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Each month FQS are releasing a free pattern to make up the quilt, they are encouraging everyone to join in the sewing fun and donate a suggested $5 for each pattern to help raise the funds. The good news is, Fat Quarter Shop and Moda Fabrics will match up to $10,000 of donations raised for this amazing cause!! 

So, these are the super fun blocks you'll be offered each month. Aren't they so cute! I'm especially excited about that sewing machine ;-) 

Yep. I need them all now. How about you? Below are us blogger's who are joining in. Be sure to follow our updates on Instagram too, with the hashtag #fqssnapshots 

Which block is your favourite? 

Camille Roskelley of Thimble Blossoms
Bonnie Olaveson of Cotton Way
Lori Holt of Bee in My Bonnet

Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life

Melissa Corry of Happy Quilting

Thelma Childers of Cupcakes N' Daisies

Pam Viera-McGinnis of Pam Kitty Morning

Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs
Stephanie Kendron of The Modern Sewciety

Natalia Bonner of Piece N Quilt
Greg Jones of Grey Dogwood Studios
Jessie Fincham of Messy Jesse

Find out all the details of the QAL including ordering quilt kits from Fat Quarter Shop on their official page here. Oh, and you have to watch the video too; Bonnie & Camille and Kimberly are the sweetest. So I'll be checking back on January 15th with my first block, the CAKE! Yumm, can't wait.

Naturally Nautical Quilt Finish!

I'm SO pleased to share a finish with you today! I've been itching to complete my Naturally Nautical quilt, but soon after I started making a few blocks a bunch of commissions piled up so sure enough, it dropped to the bottom of my to do list. I've had some free time recently so I've been beavering away with the quilting and managed to get it done and dusted a couple of weeks ago. I pulled it out at the weekend for a little photoshoot in Mousehole, a quaint little fishing village 3 miles from my house. 

A perfect location for such a seaside'y fun quilt! The day I visited was the same day they turn on their famous Christmas lights, which has become quite a popular event here over the years. You might spot the 'Mousehole Harbour Lights' sign in the photo above. The whole village lights up with pretty Christmas decorations, which everyone enjoys.

OK, back to the quilt. It finishes up 64" x 78", it almost ended up smaller when I finished the top and basted it only to realise I had forgotten to add the 4.5" borders! I wanted the boats to float on the quilt so I knew I had to go back and re-add them :-/ I added a border around my backing fabric too, in order to make up the difference. I used scrappy fabrics and it ended up making a nice feature for the back, but I forgot to photograph it, as my very helpful prop assistant was getting cold ;-)

I loooved the original version of this quilt (find the free pattern here) so I stayed close to the simple blue theme. I chose some great nautical fabrics I had on hand from Sew and Quilt, and even managed to fussy cut some ships in a few of the blocks! Also, this is my FIRST free-motion-quilted quilt! Wow, it was a slog... and a steep, steep learning curve but I got there in the end. I chose baptist fans to echo a wave'y style that would work well with the design. Plus baptist fans are pretty amazing, and work well on every quilt, I think. It's certainly not perfect, by any means! But I'm really pleased I managed to do it, as I'm one of those quilter's that moan "I can't FMQ" without ever giving it a proper go! ;-) I think we've all been there, yep? So if I can do it, anyone can. Really.

There's been some great quilter's quilting along with me, if you're on Instagram (I'm @messyjesse1) you can use follow using the hashtag #naturallynauticalquiltalong, there you can see some other fabulous nautical quilts! Don't forget to use the hashtag if you decide to join too, so I can find you :-) Hope you're all having a good week. xo

Catch Up with the latest books at Sew & Quilt

Lot's to catch up on! I haven't done a 'normal' blog post in so long, and gosh I've missed it. 

First up, The Moda Modern Building Blocks quilt. We got our second delivery of these popular quilt patterns at Sew and Quilt right after we got back from our honeymoon. Last week I finally found some time to start the marathon cutting session and get all the blocks cut ready for a lot of chain sewing…. however I pulled a muscle in my side over-doing it with the rotary cutter! Oops, I've given it a rest since then, but I'm SO close for it all being cut and ready to sew! Maybe this weekend I'll finish off? ;-) 

If you're making, it really helps if you label all the blocks by number. I'm also using Kona solids instead of the Bella solids from the pattern so I also laid out all my fabrics first with their corresponding colour name and code. Trust me, you need to do this - less headache later. I'm thinking of putting some kits together for Sew and Quilt shop, would you be interested? 

Next up, here's a super quick Christmas decoration I made for Sizzix as part of my monthly guest blog post - you can find all my posts here. Isn't he the cutest? I'm excited to decorate now! 

Umm… guys I got a COVER! That's my Christmas Log Cabin Wreath quilt on the front of Quilt Now magazine!! (Issue #4) I'm still grinning about this :-) 

I'm absolutely proud as punch to have my first quilt design featured in print, and to get the cover! I'm head over heels in love with the design and I can't wait to get it back so I can hang it for Christmas. I should note a small pattern update from print: the four smaller low volume border pieces - it says cut 2, please cut 4 instead. 

Also I've been beavering away recently to finally finish my Naturally Nautical quilt! There are a few people who have joined in the boating fun on Instagram so you can follow the progress by searching #naturallynauticalquiltalong. I am planning a little photoshoot this weekend so you can see it in all it's glory! Watch this space… Oh and you can find the free pattern to make this here.

I also made up this Christmassy table runner recently! I looove Christmas sewing, and I was dying to cut into some of my new fabrics I picked up whilst quilt shopping on holiday, yay! For what I thought was a really simple pattern, it turned into a quilt math nightmare?! Lot's of wrong measurements, I guess I wasn't on my game that day! I got there in the end though. I had planned to do a pattern available on the blog, but I still haven't figured out how to use Touchdraw, agh! I got Photoshop recently too, don't even ask me about that, we're not on speaking terms ;-) side note - if anyone know's how to use the pen tool to re-draw some scanned-in text I would be forever grateful for some helpful tips? See you next week! xo