When Laura from Adventures of a Quilting Diva asked for volunteers to design itty bitty mini paper pieced houses for her Mini House-Along, I thought it would be fun. Little did I know exactly how much fun! I had such a blast sketching out and piecing this little Mini Snail House, and I’m a bit afraid I may be hooked on mini houses!
This mini house block finishes at 5″x5″ (5.5″x5.5″ unfinished) and was super fun to piece. I think it was the smallest block I’ve ever made, and being comprised of five foundation pieces made the itty bitty fun even more extreme! Next time I think I will use a smaller print pink scrap, or maybe even sketch or solid for the snail, but overall I kind of love it! I honestly didn’t think I’d be all about the itty bitty paper piecing, but it was so fun. These mini house blocks are a fabulous way to use up those tiny scraps you know you’ve been saving.
This block is available for free in my Craftsy shop, as the October block for the Mini House-Along. While typically one might think of haunted houses being more fitting for October, I think this works perfectly: it’s a snail dressing up as a house. Or maybe a house dressing up as a snail? Either way, we’ve got Halloween covered.
You can download the previous blocks in Laura’s Mini House-Along here:
or visit Laura’s blog for more details about the inspiration and design of the previous blocks in the Mini House-Along.
Design Inspiration
This block was heavily inspired by Suzy Ultman‘s fabric collection Suzy’s Dollhouse for Robert Kaufman. Once I agreed to design a miniature house, I started looking for house styles, sizes, shapes, and features everywhere. I found my inspiration right in my very own fabric stash!
Suzy Ultman fabric line Suzy’s Dollhouse was my inspiration for this mini snail house block.
This past weekend we were treated with a surprise, hot, summery day. We took advantage and spent the day in Bar Harbor, enjoying the warm sun, gorgeous late summer flowers, and wading barefoot in tide pools left on the sand bar bridge to Bar Island. Today’s color inspiration palettes are a fleeting last glimpse at summer. I am saving two more for next week, after which the more earthy, subdued tones will appear (or maybe fiery autumn hues!?)
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right: Steel, Rafia, Coal, Lilac, Pepper, Iron
I love the wavy quilt lines left on the sandbar by the retreating tide. Speckled by bits of shell and stone, the little troughs make for fun exploration for both the eye and little hands and toes.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Purple, Magenta, Pepper, Cerise, Violet, Thistle
I couldn’t resist this last burst of color. Do you ever tire of gorgeously colorful flower photos? I don’t. I sure hope you don’t either!
Here are a few more shots from our sand bar adventure in Bar Harbor:
I am holding onto the last hot days of summer (when the rare treat day above 70 happens), but I do love the crispness of autumn, too. The other day my four year old daughter went outside and said, “I love this season, mom.” I replied, “Oh, you do? Why do you love it?” and she said, “It smells so fresh outside! Do you remember this season, mom? Do you remember?” I do remember, and as much as I love summer, I’m happily anticipating the turning leaves, crisp, fresh air, and earthy-root veggie stew season that’s upon us!
Wow, that’s a mouthful!! Friday Finish Fishies Foundation Paper Piecing Panel Pattern. If you can say that three times fast, you can have the pattern for free! Thank goodness for abbreviations. (FPP stands for Foundation Paper Piecing, for those who don’t have a full arsenal of quilting jargon).
Fabric pull for testing out my new paper pieced pattern.
This pattern began as a pillow pattern (in the fabric pull above, the bottom fabric is intended as binding and the second-from-bottom is the backing fabric), but as I pieced it and envisioned it more, I realized it would make a great center panel for a baby quilt or underwater nursery wall hanging, too. I decided to offer the pattern simply as a panel pattern so that the end product can be left to your creative desires. The pattern includes foundation paper piecing patterns for three different sized fish, finishing at 2″x9.5″ (large), 1.5″x7″ (medium), and 1″x4.75″ (small), as well as cutting instructions and a piecing diagram for a full 16″x16″ finished panel (16.5″x16.5″ unfinished).
I can see this pattern being created with any number of fabric color and pattern vs. solid combinations, as well as different layouts. For color, I’m itching to make a version with a scrappy low volume background and rainbow fish. I could also see using the fish individually for other smaller projects, maybe fabric bins for a playroom, kids’ place mats, or even at the bottom of a little girl’s dress.
While the specific instructions for making this panel into a pillow or baby quilt are not included in this pattern, I included a “project inspiration page” with different color possibilities and a rough sketch of one way this panel would work in a baby quilt.
Yes, I said it was rough! It’s in creating patterns like this that I really wish I had EQ! It gets the idea across, though, which is what matters… right? On IG, @onceuponadonkey suggested cutting this finished panel into a fishbowl shape to be used on a baby quilt panel. How adorable would that be?!
This Fishies Foundation Paper Piecing Panel pattern is available in my Craftsy shop. I plan to list additional patterns with step-by-step instructions for making the panel into a pillow and perhaps for making the baby quilt shown above in the near future. What would you make with the pattern?
Today’s color inspiration is noticeably autumnal, as the garden shifts from colorful abundance to the muted tones of the tail end of the growing season. Palettes, as usual, are created using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 and my photographs.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right: Peridot, Pewter, Geranium, Coal, Titanium, Slate
To be honest, this color palette surprised me. It seems so soft and pastel, when I was expecting a more bold, red and green-led palette. I debated playing around with the color dots to change the palette to fit my expectations, but decided to leave it as is. It’s a very gentle, soft palette that would work well in just about any quilt.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right: Citrus, Wasabi, Palm, Bonsai, Kelly, Yarrow
Here’s another sunny palette created from some lingering flowers. I love the combinations of yellow and green paired with a pop of blue and orange. I’m not sure how accurate the Kelly kona match would be; I think Everglade would match better. It’s fun that the Wasabi kona cotton makes an appearance here, though!
I absolutely love the fact that the Palette Builder 2.1 matches the corresponding kona cottons for each palette. It’s always fun to see where each kona color appears in the photograph. I think the time is nearing for me to choose one of my palettes and create a quilt from it and its kona cottons.
Welcome to rural Maine, your next stop on the Around the World Blog Hop! Stephanie from Late Night Quiltertagged me last week, and as she explained, the hop is like a giant blogosphere tag game where those tagged can share a bit about their creative process as well as what they are working on. Sounds like fun!
I met Stephanie less than a year ago, but I already feel like we’re sewing soul sisters. To start, we have completely unplanned, practically identical blog names that pretty much describe our lives. Since meeting Stephanie, we’ve teamed up (with Michelle, too!) on a number of fun ventures, such as starting up the Late Night Quilters Club on facebook, opening a Late Night Baby Etsy shop, and planning an awesome time at QuiltCon in February 2015! Stephanie is an awesome writer and quilter, and recently started a longarm quilting and pattern design business with her other half, Michelle.
Rainbow jellyrolly quilt top.Pink and grey baby plus quilt.
I’ve also been making some (secret) progress on my July Supernova Swap blocks, but can’t show you any more than this tiny peek:
Sneak peek at my July Supernova Swap blocks.
In my pattern design world, I’ve finished the sketch out phase of a new pattern, completed the fabric pull for the testing phase, and then realized I forgot to make the paper piecing pattern a mirror image before printing. Oops!
Fabric pull for testing out my new paper pieced pillow pattern.My IG post when I realized I had forgotten to mirror-image my pattern before testing. Fishie swimming against the current… oops!
As is my nature, I am working on quite a few projects in addition to these, including my first foray into English Paper Piecing (to be a table runner one day), a couple other paper piecing patterns in the early design phases, the very first quilt I’m making for myself, and about five+ projects that I’m itching to begin but haven’t truly started yet.
How does my work differ from others in its genre?
This is such a tricky questions, since no two quilts or quilters are the same. How do you define a quilt’s genre? There is so much debate about what makes a modern quilt, and honestly I’d rather be sewing than debating whether I’m sewing a modern quilt or not! I’m not sure I’ve decided on my quilting style just yet, and perhaps I never will. I definitely am drawn to more “modern” quilt designs, and I LOVE modern fabric. I still feel like a lot of my work embraces the traditional, and my paper piecing patterns are inspired by nature and my love of aesthetic flow. It reminds me of what my brother said about me in high school: You’re a jock, nerd, geek who listens to punk music and wears preppy clothes. Basically, I’m me. And my quilts are mine.
As for my blogging, my love of nature and photography can been seen weekly with my Color Inspiration Thursday posts, where I create a color palette from some of my photographs. Nature geek photographer, meet quilting.
An example color palette from my weekly Color Inspiration Thursday posts.
I’ve also started having fun blogging about my forays into pairing wine and fabric. You know you want to check out those posts! There are many more to come, don’t you worry.
Find the perfect fabric for this wine? Don’t mind if I do…
Why do I write/create what I do?
My Let’s Get Acquainted blog post from a few months ago answers this question fairly well. The bottom line is that I’m a stay at home mom of a two year old and a four year old, and I’ve discovered that I must create something each day in order to stay sane (at least somewhat sane). Taking time to sew and blogging about it forces me to take a little bit of time for myself, even if it’s only 20 minutes a day. Thank you, blogosphere, for holding me accountable for doing something for me: quilting.
How does my writing/creative process work?
I have a rapid fire mind that is constantly thinking of new ideas of fun projects, things to make, patterns to design, etc. I’ve always been a creative person, and quilting is just one more outlet for that creativity. As far as pattern design, I start off with inspiration, which can come from literally anywhere–a pattern on a building, a sight along a walk, a burst of color–, it becomes an idea in my head, then I sketch it out in my grid notebook, tweak it a bit until I’m satisfied with it, scan it, pull it up in Inkscape, and turn it into a pattern. I usually have fabric already in mind in that original vision, so that part’s all taken care of from the get-go, too (for better or for worse, as you’ll see below).
Inspiration for my buoy 1, 2 & 3 patterns.
As for making quilts, I’m very drawn to the aesthetic flow of a quilt, especially relating to color. Usually it’s a color combination or flow that draws me to a pattern, and then I go from there. I’m really bad at following patterns to their fruition, and usually just use them as a jumping-off place. Choosing fabrics for a project is the hardest part for me, I think in part due to the fact that I typically already have the “perfect” fabric in mind before heading to the quilt shop. Maybe I need to just design fabric, too?
Now that you’ve visited my design space in rural Maine, I’m tagging these three awesome bloggers. Go check them out!
Laura from Adventures of a Quilting Diva: Laura is my partner for the Supernova Friendship Block Swap, and a fellow paper piecing and quilt pattern designer. She’s also the mastermind behind the #quiltspiration365 group of bloggers with a mission to provide inspiration every day of the year.
Anne from Play Crafts: I use Anne’s Palette Builder 2.1 every single week to create my Color Inspiration Thursday posts. She’s a computer programmer AND a quilt designer, and creates some awesomely beautiful stuff. Anne is one of my quilting superstars, who I’ve been following from my very first foray into quilty blogging.
Yanic from Family, Faith, Food, and Fabric: While not a strictly quilting blog, Yanic blogs from the heart about many things I relate to and enjoy reading about. Her blog name sums it up well.
To check out more of the stops in this wild, world-wide blog hop, here’s an easy link to a google search for posts: Around the World Blog Hop blog posts. Enjoy hopping!
This week’s color inspiration brings us back to the garden and the late summer blooms that abound. There always seems to be something flowering in our garden, and even with the harvest of fruits and veggies swelling, now is no exception. Color palettes are created using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 and my own photographs, taken today.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right: Sunny, Yarrow, Gold, Black, Corn Yellow, Paprika
I don’t think I’ll ever tire of these beauties. Bright golden yellow black-eyed susans are scattered throughout our garden and fields and seem to flower for much of the summer. While I can’t see myself making a quilt that’s entirely yellow, it’s an awfully cheerful color palette.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Charcoal, Purple, Magenta, Violet, Dark Violet, Cerise
This palette features my favorite seasonal colors: radiant orchid and magenta. I love the range of purples in this palette and can definitely see it making its way into a quilt of the future!
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Palm, Laurel, Coal, Crocus, Iron, Raffia
This year I’m thrilled that I got my dahlias into the ground in time for flowers. The gorgeous blooms have been brightening our kitchen table for the past week or so, and they just keep coming. These colors are stunning together, but my favorite part about this photo is the inch worm explorer; do you see him?
Quiltspiration 365
For those of you who are looking for quilty inspiration for every day of the year, I’ve teamed up with a group of quilting bloggers to provide exactly that. Search for tag #quiltspiration365 on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to see new inspiration each day, or visit these Quiltspiration bloggers:
Welcome to Color Inspiration Thursday. It’s a two-posts-in-one-day kind of day here, so I will keep this one aesthetic. Color palettes are made using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 and my photographs. Your inspiration this week comes from two very different locales. The first photos are from more of my garden harvest. We have had tomatoes galore, which means fresh tomato on everything, salsa, salsa, more salsa, and tomato sauce!
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Black, Poppy, Chocolate, Smoke, Taupe, Paprika
Add a helpful two-year old and your palette changes a bit:
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Black, Taupe, Earth, Coal, Paprika, Mahogany
The next photos are from Holbrook Island, off the coast of Maine.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Coal, Steel, Ash, Black, Windsor, Pewter
Sometimes simple, “plain” things are beautiful. I found this roof-to-wall transition quite aesthetically pleasing, and I love the combination of violets and seafoam greens that result. The seafoam green is a bit lost in the Kona matches, but I might tweak my fabric choices if using this palette in the future so that the green is more prominent.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Basil, Grass Green, Moss, Spring, Espresso, Steel
With beautiful beaches on the outskirts, deep dark pine forest on the inside, Holbrook Island Sanctuary State Park is a gorgeous place to explore. The forest floor was covered with moss and lichens, which created another little world best seen from an inch or two away while laying on your belly.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Steel, Charcoal, Ash, Buttercup, Deep Rose, Denim
These rainbow strings were washed up on the rocky beach, which adds a fun pop of color to an otherwise stony palette. I kind of love this one!
As summer drags to its end, harvest time picks up speed. We’ve been picking veggies galore from our garden over the past weeks, and preserving as much and as fast as we can. Our garlic and blueberries have done especially well this year, and are slowly filling our pantry and freezer. We’ve made a batch of salsa from garden tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, and cilantro, and I’m hoping to make pickles soon since our pickling cucumbers are multiplying quickly. Green beans and kale have been (or will be soon, in the case of kale) blanched and frozen, and we’ve eaten garden broccoli a few times already. I love this time of year.
This week your color inspiration comes from some of my garden harvest photos made into color palettes with Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1. May you be inspired to quilt, create, and grow healthy goodness in your own backyards!
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Ash, Steel, Baby Blue, Dresden Blue, Regal, Regatta
I love this palette, but I’m already a huge fan of blue. The grays paired with the range of beautiful blues makes this a palette that is sure to be seen in a project of mine someday in the future.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Mushroom, Steel, Black, Charcoal, Shadow, Slate
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Black, Evergreen, Ash, Silver, Ivy, Mushroom
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Parchment, Mocha, Espresso, Coal, Stone, Taupe
Earthy palettes galore today. Kona earthy neutrals have really been prominent in my garden photos, and I love it! I’m all about a bright rainbow quilt any day, but there is something sophisticated and soothing about an earth-tone quilt with just a tad of natural color.
Have you made an earth-toned quilt? Do they make you as happy as brightly colored quilts?
Color is everywhere. Sometimes, the coordination of complementary colors is what attracts your interest; sometimes the play of very different or unexpected colors stands out; and sometimes the complete saturation of one color is striking enough to draw your eye. This week’s color inspiration palettes come from color-rich scenes from a fairly common structure: a lighthouse. As always, my photographs are created into palettes using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Pewter, Earth, Cocoa, Poppy, Sienna, Taupe
Last weekend, my family and I took a lovely day trip to Owls Head, Maine, and began our day with a visit to the Owls Head Lighthouse. When entering the lighthouse, the red stairs circling up the red brick interior struck me as very beautiful. Having my camera ever at the ready, I took a few photos, carefully keeping the sunspots out of the frame. Subtle, earthy reds.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Delft, Ash, Everglade, Dresden Blue, Black, Chestnut
Once at the top, I was greeted with another beautiful sight. The bright blue sky and blue ocean, reflected through and by the lighthouse light made a peacefully blue-heavy scene. Ideally I would have loved to wait until some tall, gorgeous sailing ship was in the background, but there’s only so much one can do when two little kids are waiting. Beautiful lighthouse blues.
Do you prefer palettes created primarily from a single color, or those featuring multiple colors?
Search facebook, instagram & twitter for #quiltspiration365 for a quilting inspiration for every day of the year (more on this soon!)
Sometimes you see a burst of color so amazing, you just can’t let it go. That happened to me yesterday, when my cousin Kayley posted these amazing photos of glass sculptures created by Dale Chihuly, seen at Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle, Washington. Kayley is visiting our aunt in Seattle, and her photos are just amazing! They are taken with her camera phone, but the back-lit glass sculptures look so vibrant that I feel like I could reach out and touch them. Most of the photos are detail shots taken of a suspended 1,400-piece, 100-foot-long sculpture.
Part of Dale Chihuly’s suspended 1,400-piece, 100-foot-long sculpture in the Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle, Washington.
I think you will agree that these photos just begged to be turned into quilt-inspiration color palettes!
These beautiful palettes are created with Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 and photographs taken by my talented cousin Kayley Gallagher.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right: Tangerine, Lipstick, Ocean, Royal, Cedar, Citrus
I absolutely love this color palette! Consisting almost entirely of primary colors, it is bright and cheerful. I think it would make a great kids’ quilt.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right: Mahogany, Poppy, Lipstick, Plum, Surf, Hibiscus
This palette makes me think of the purple hat ladies. Purple hat ladies make me think of fun-loving, bold and beautiful women who do what they want without concerning themselves with what others may think. Can you tell that I hope to join their ranks someday? What fun! Passionate reds and purples, with a bit of rich mahogany make this another vibrant palette.
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right: Black, Sable, Cappuccino, Shadow, Parsley, Honey
This palette isn’t colorful, but sometimes we need to focus on neutrals. This earthy palette has a good balance of neutrals and achromatic colors and would make a lovely subtle quilt or foundation for a quilt with a splash of additional color (maybe a bright Leprechaun green to pull from that subtle kona Parsley?) Plus, what an amazing glass squid sculpture!
Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Slate, Lime, Wheat, Lipstick, Rose, Corn Yellow
I’ll leave you with one more rainbow color palette to cap off this week. This photo features all the colors of the rainbow, which is well represented in the resulting palette. I don’t know about you, but I’m on a definite rainbow gradient quilting kick lately. You can’t go wrong with rainbow!
Special thanks to Kayley this week for letting me use her photographs to help inspire more colorful creative works of art. Enjoy!
I grab a needle and thread once the kids are in bed
This mini house block finishes at 5″x5″ (5.5″x5.5″ unfinished) and was super fun to piece. I think it was the smallest block I’ve ever made, and being comprised of five foundation pieces made the itty bitty fun even more extreme! Next time I think I will use a smaller print pink scrap, or maybe even sketch or solid for the snail, but overall I kind of love it! I honestly didn’t think I’d be all about the itty bitty paper piecing, but it was so fun. These mini house blocks are a fabulous way to use up those tiny scraps you know you’ve been saving.
Night Quilter 