Yorkshire Park Blog Tour

Note: The Quilters Newsletter magazine and fat quarter bundle winner is Audrey and the winner of my patterns is Karen of Karen-Quilts etc. Both liked Mini-Garden Paths!  Thanks to everyone who commented!

Hi everyone!  Today is the first day of the Quilters Newsletter's Best Fat Quarter Quilts 2014 blog tour.  Don't you love fat quarter quilts?  They are so fun and easy to choose fabric for!  Quilters Newletter has giveaways scheduled for the entire week (and mine is at the end of this post) so keep your eyes peeled!

My quilt for this issue is Yorkshire Park.  The original was made in Topiary.

But I've been playing around with it tonight and I like it in Modern Lace, my new collection for Blend Fabrics, as well (plus a little green from Topiary for the leaves).  What do you think?

Or maybe with a navy background, but with light blue leaves?

We'll have two winners for the giveaway, ok?  The first will win a copy of the magazine and a fat quarter bundle of Silvia’s Sonnet by Silvia Vassileva from P&B Textiles, courtesy of Quilters Newsletter.  The second will win a copy of three of my newest patterns: Mini Blossoms, Mini Garden Paths, and Chantilly.  To, enter, let me know which one is your favorite of these patterns )(shown below) by commenting on this post sometime today (Monday, November 9th).  You can enter until midnight Mountain Time.

Make sure to visit Quilters Newsletter throughout the week for fun prizes!

Happy sewing!
Amanda

Garden Spot - in Quiltmaker! (plus 2 giveaways)

Note:  This giveaway is now closed.  Carrie P. is the winner.  Congratulations, Carrie!

Today I'll be talking over on Quiltmaker's blog, Quilty Pleasures, about a quilt I designed for their July/August 2014 issue using my Topiary line for Blend Fabrics called "Garden Spot".

It is really fun to make and a great way to try a couple of different appliqué techniques!

To celebrate, we are doing a joint giveaway on my blog and theirs of a fat quarter bundle of Topiary, plus two of my recent patterns from that line - Love Birds and Forever.

To enter, leave a comment here telling me something you are looking forward to doing this summer.  For a second chance to win, be sure to visit Quilty Pleasures.  Deadline to enter in both places is end of day Saturday, June 14th.

Happy quilting!
Amanda

Ladybug Picnic! (And a giveaway too)

The winner of this giveaway is Kathy S., who likes lilacs.  Thanks to everyone for participating!

Well, it is day 4 of Sew We Quilt's Perfect Picnic blog hop and it is my day to post!

We had a "Ladybug Picnic"!  (Does any other child of the seventies remember a song by that name?  I think it was on Sesame Street maybe?)

This quilt was inspired by the ladybugs that always make their way into our daughter's room for two week in the spring.  They love her sunny window but drive her crazy!

I was interested in contrasting the traditional appliqué ladybugs and blooms with something really modern and came up with a herringbone idea.  I wanted the herringbone blocks to lead your eye travel around the quilt and be bold in scale - really quite different from the style of the appliqué.  (I thought about doing the herringbone blocks scrappy, but in the end I decided to make them symmetrical.  One could really do it either way.)

Because the motifs were fairly bold, I kept the colors soft.  The fabrics are from my Bella, Topiary, and Bonjour Mon Ami lines for Blend Fabrics, and some Vanessa Christenson prints, all thrown together.  I'm thinking that I might put this together as a PDF-only pattern - what do you think?

Riley Blake makes this wonderful polka-dot laminate in a variety of colors. The aqua matches perfectly.  I pieced it and turned under the edges and tacked it on the back of the quilt.  That way I can just remove it when it might need a wash!

For our picnic we had homemade lattes and sweet potato apple muffins!

And of course you have to choose a game that matches your quilt so it had to be Quads... (You can see the embroidered accents on the ladybugs in this shot.)

Now for the giveaway.  I'm going to be giving away a copy of my new pattern, "Flower Power".  Just leave me a comment on this post telling me what your favorite flower is, okay?  Deadline is the end of the blog hop - Monday the 9th at midnight.

Thanks so much to Cori from Chitter Chatter Designs, Mary from I Piece 2-Mary, Riley Blake Designs, and Madame Samm of Sew We Quilt for making this blog hop possible.  Don't forget to stop by and see all of the wonderful entries on the bloghop!

Monday June 2

Sew Incredibly Crazy

How Art You?

The Reluctant Quilter at Hazelnut Deux

GrammieQ's

I Piece 2 -Mary

Pig Tales and Quilts

Tuesday June 3

Ridge Top Quilts

A Stitch in Time

Quilting in a Not Shell

Just Let Me Quilt

Creativity Amongst Chaos

Wednesday June 4

Quilt Taffy

Pampered Pettit

Creatin' in the Sticks

Miss Priss Quilts

Life in the Scrapatch

That's Sew Julie

Thursday June 5

Ella and Nesta's Little Room

Thimblemouse and Spouse

Jane's Quilting

Amanda Murphy Design

Quilting Quietly

Words & Stitches

Childlike Fascination

Friday June 6

Quiltscapes

More Stars in Comanche

Stitchin' By The Lake

Life, Quilts and a Cat Too

Kris Loves Fabric

In The Boon Docks

Living with Purpose

Monday June 9

Cherry Blossoms

The Quilting Queen Online

Mad Quilter's Disease

Daisy Days

Buzzing and Bumbling

From My Carolina Home

Sew We Quilt

Happy sewing!
Amanda

Ornamental" - a Topiary Table Topper

I was so excited when I opened my mail yesterday and found my "Ornamental" table topper design in my Topiary line for Blend Fabrics in the July/August issue of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting!  It is such a fun (and quick) design to sew and - guess what - they will be offerings a kit!!!  (I don't think it is up yet, but soon!  Magazines will be on newsstands in mid-June.)

I used 28 wt. Aurifil thread for the appliqué and 50 wt. for the quilting.

On Friday I will show you some sneak peeks from my next line!

Happy sewing!
Amanda

Sundance Quilt: Part 4

This weekend I took the opportunity to make my flying geese blocks for Step 4 of my Sundance quilt pattern, available exclusively through BERNINA dealers.  This time I'm making it in my Topiary collection for Blend Fabrics.  (Last year I made the original using my "Bonjour, Mon Ami" collection.)

The original "Sundance" quilt.

I wanted to make something in a completely different color story this time. I and worked up three different options using Topiary.  I ended up using the one with a pink border.  SKU information for all three options, as well as the original option, can be found here, but the directions are only available though BERNINA.

The fabrics for Flying Geese block (the third Topiary option)

And the finished block!

I entered this quilt into Blogger's Quilt Festival - make sure to stop by because there are some fabulous quilts over there to look at all the great entries!  They are taking viewers choice nominations now and voting starts on the 24th.

Next month will be appliqué!

Happy sewing!
Amanda

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 9

Announcement:  The winner of the fat quarter bundle and magazine over here is Amy DeCesare and the winner over on my instagram account is crazyquiltlena.  Congratulations, ladies!  Send me your snail mail addresses and I'll get them out to you.  Thanks to everyone for the helpful comments - you've given me so many ideas!

It is Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks time again and today is my day blog about my block and have a giveaway!

Can you guess the inspiration for my block?  It kind of knocks you over the head, doesn't it? It is my fabric line, "Topiary" for Blend Fabrics, which, in turn, is inspired by the gardens of the South. (I'd show you a picture of my garden, but I have whatever is opposite of a green thumb, so that's no fun...)

I wanted to do a  simple-to-sew appliqué block so I chose one of the trees I drew for this line and enlarged it quite a bit, then added borders and corners so that it would create a diamond pattern when joined with its neighbors.

So... onto the giveaway.  Quiltmaker is giving a copy of the magazine to one of you and I'm throwing in a fat quarter bundle of Topiary!  To enter, leave me a comment letting me know what colors you'd most like to see in a quilt collection for a boy.  (I know this is off-topic considering the style of the fabric in this block... but I'm curious.)  And I'll also be picking an additional winner from my instagram followers so if you don't follow me there already please consider it.  (My user name over there is amandamurphydesign.)  The deadline to enter is this Friday, May 2nd, at midnight.

They have lots of other great prizes over on the Quiltmaker blog so make sure to stop by!  (Including a grand prize at the end of the week that has both my books, as well as all sorts of other goodies!)

Happy sewing.

Sundance Quilt: Part 3

Hi there!  I hope everyone had a happy Easter.  I was able to squeeze in a little bit of sewing today (right in time for this post) and I hope you were too!

Luckily it was really simple.  I put together the embroidered blocks for my new Sundance quilt (available through your BERNINA dealer) - this time I'm sewing in my Topiary line for Blend Fabrics.  The final quilt will look like this...

The SKUs for this quilt are listed as "Option 3" here, in case you are interested.  I decided to embroider the central block using more pink to draw one's eye.

I got so excited to see them sewn together I forgot to wash out the water-soluble stabilizer before hitting them with an iron.  Whoops!  So there is a little puckering but it will wash out of the final piece.

I can't wait to make the rest of the quilt! And if you're sewing along, I'd love to see yours.  Post to Instagram with the hashtags #berninausa #sundancequilt.

Happy sewing!
Amanda

Sundance Quilt: Part 2

This month I started the embroideries for my new version of the Sundance quilt in my Topiary collection for Blend Fabrics!  (Remember, this quilt was developed for BERNINA so visit your local dealer to get instructions!)  I was going to do the blue version but so many people voted for this pink version I was persuaded… (SKUs can be found in this post.)

I gathered together some threads I thought might work for the project.  I wanted the blues and greens I used in the original quilt, but I also wanted to bring in some of the pink from my Topiary fabrics.  (The embroidery itself is done on 115.104.05.1 Everbloom Ivory from that collection.)

The first pass is the intricate scroll motifs - it is the most dominant part of the overall design.  I chose to use Isacord 4610 Deep Aqua.

The second color is used for the blossom leaves.  I chose 5730 Apple Greeen.  It is nice and bright and will stand up well to the other strong colors in the quilt, I think.

The third pass is for the central motif and the fourth is for the blossoms.  I opted to use Isacord 2152 Heather Pink for both.

After taking another look at my digital mockup at the top of this post, I decided to do the central embroidery a little differently and switch out the pinks and blues so that the pink was a little more dominant, since it will be surrounded by blue in the piecing.  So I used the Heather Pink for the first pass, the green for the second, the Deep Aqua for the third, and 4740 Aquamarine for the fourth.

Early on I had decided to forego the little cornerstone flour de lis embroideries in favor of fussy-cutting the little Topiary motifs from 115.104.01.1 Arbor Walk Light Pink.  I loved the embroideries in the original but I just couldn't resist fussy-cutting the little garden motifs from this collection!

I carefully cut around the bigger motifs in the same print, hoping to use them for another project.  Any suggestions?

Next month I'll begin piecing my first blocks.  I can't wait!  (If you are sewing along don't forget to post on Instagram using #berninausa #sundancequilt.)  Happy quilting!

Amanda