A Summer Bag for Sharon Holland's Everlasting Blog Tour!

Today I'm excited to share my project for my talented friend, Sharon Holland's Everlasting Blog Tour!





Sharon is a dear friend, who I've mentioned quite a bit here on the blog as we've co-hosted a few different events together, and she's also a fellow Art Gallery Fabrics designer. Everlasting is her seventh fabric collection, full of romantic, summer-inspired prints with a classic palette of navy, red, turquoise, and blush. It's so pretty!



I had the pleasure of sewing up a few different samples for the Everlasting LookBook back in May and for this blog tour project I chose several of my favorite Everlasting prints to make a variation of this Summer Bag using my go-to Quick Quilt As You Go and I love how it turned out!



Following the Summer Bag pattern, I used the same size blocks that are suggested only I had I to use different size pieces of Everlasting fabrics since I was working with what I had left from making the LookBook projects. Using qayg, I densely stitched each fabric to a cushiony layer of Hobbs Tuscany cotton batting with a pretty turquoise Aurifil 50wt, assembled the bag according to the instructions with just slightly wider bag straps, and then I finished with a lining made in my pretty Sun Kissed Canvas!



This pattern makes a HUGE tote-style bag that is perfect for Summer outings! The extra quilting, layer of batting, and canvas lining make this a sturdy bag while keeping it still very soft. I just LOVE how good Sharon's Everlasting fabrics are for quilt as you go patchwork!



I hope you're inspired by my stop on Sharon's Everlasting Tour! It's such an honor to be amongst this amazing line up of designers:

THE EVERLASTING BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE

Friday, July 12 - Sharon Holland
Monday, July 15 - Marija Vujcic
Tuesday, July 16 - Carolina Moore
Wednesday, July 17 - Dana Willard
Thursday, July 18 - Lisa Ruble
Friday, July 19 - Dritz Sewing
Monday, July 22 - Eleri Kerian
Tuesday, July 23 - Marisa Wilhelmi
Wednesday, July 24 - Sharon McConnell
Thursday, July 25 - Modernly Morgan
Friday, July 26 - Alexis Wright
Monday, July 29 - Priscilla Geissler
Tuesday, July 30 - ME
Wednesday, July 31 - Elina Temmes
___________________



xo Maureen

An Hourglass Quilted Pillow {Tutorial} & News!

Hiya friends,

Today my intention was to simply share this new tutorial with you all, as I've finally been back to sewing for about a week now after badly injuring my knee and then my finger, but unfortunately now I'm dealing with more troubles. On Saturday evening around 7pm I was scrolling through my personal Facebook feed when I received a pop-up that read, "session has timed out." I immediately  tried to log back in and it said that my account had been disabled. I then panicked and went to my Instagram app and I was logged out of there, as well, and my login info was coming up "no user." While I restarted my phone, I opened my laptop and tried to login with no luck still, so I checked my email and at 6:46pm I had received a Login Alert Facebook email that showed a suspicious login from "near Elk Grove Village, IL" and I live in Pennsylvania. I read and followed all of the proper dispute claims for being hacked and/or mistakenly disabled through both social media platforms and I finally heard back yesterday morning that both accounts were permanently disabled. What??!! I attempted to respond to that email and I received one final email saying that "your account has been permanently disabled for not following the community standards. Unfortunately, we won't be able to reactivate it for any reason. This will be our last email regarding your account." Now if you read through what one would have to do to have their account permanently disabled, please believe that in NO WAY have I ever or would I ever do anything harmful to anyone on social media! I have simply used it as a way to stay connected to family & friends and now all those videos and photos of my growing three children are gone. I used as a way to build community through a shared love of fabric and sewing and now all 131,000+ Maureen Cracknell Handmade Facebook Page followers are gone. I used it to post pretty pictures and to share news, new fabric & projects of my own work and the work of so many wonderful makers and now all 30,200+ Maureen Cracknell Instagram followers are gone. Years of memories, friendships and hard work. Gone. It's heartbreaking to say the least. I'm trying to hold onto hope that somehow it will all be restored, but I've also decided to move forward with a new Instagram @MaureenCracknellHandmade and I hope you'll find me there! Please, please everyone add two-step verification to your social media accounts. I was not cautious and I have lost everything I've shared for the past ten years!

I don't know that I will attempt to rebuild on Facebook for several reasons, but my making and sharing will continue and it does feel pretty perfect that I just so happened to have a brand new tutorial prepared to share today!



My dear friend and fellow AGF fabric designer, Sharon Holland, has a stunning new collection just hitting stores with a LookBook due out later today for, Everlasting! I'm so happy to have been back to sewing just in time to make this set of pillows to contribute and I hope you love them as much as I do!



What you'll need:

• 8  - 6" charms of fabrics of your choosing, four blue/navy and four red/peach/cream
• 2 - 11.5" X 15" cuts for the pillow backing fabric
•  Hobbs Tuscany Cotton Batting for pillow front and back pieces
• 1/4 yd of binding for finishing the pillow 
• 1 - 14" pillow insert
• Coordinating Thread
• Rotary Cutter/Mat/Ruler

Steps: 

1. Cut eight 6" charm squares from the fabrics you've chosen for the pillow front





2. With right sides facing, pin and sew together two blue prints using a 1/4″ seam allowance. Repeat with the two remaining blue squares, pressing all seams open as you go



3. Sew the two sets of two blue squares together, with rights sides facing to create a four patch block. Repeat this for the second set of four red/peach/cream 6" charm squares. When finished you'll have two, four patch blocks



4. With right sides facing, place the two four patch blocks together, pin and sew around all four edges sewing a 1/4" from the very out edge



5. Use a ruler and place it across the middle of the sewn square. Be sure to position the ruler to ensure the cutting will pass through the point where the stitches meet at each opposing corner. Once the ruler is in place, make the cut using a rotary cutter. Repeat across the other direction to create four triangles





6. Press with seams open, trim away any exposed seam allowances, and square up each block to make four nice and neat 8" hourglass blocks



7. Arrange the four blocks in a layout keeping the blue/navy prints at the center and the red/peach/cream on the outside or visa versa. With right sides facing, pin and sew using a 1/4″ seam allowance two blocks together using a straight stitch. Repeat with the two remaining blocks, pressing all seams open as you go



8. Sew the two sets of two blocks together, with rights sides facing to create the patchwork pillow front and place the pieced pillow front onto a piece of batting so the wrong side of the pillow front is facing the right side of the batting. Baste using your preference with spray or pins



9. With stitches space a 1/2" a part, quilt the pillow front to the batting. Trim away excess batting to finish a pillow top that measures a 15" square



10.  To prepare back pieces, using one of the pillow back fabrics measuring 11.5" x 15", baste to a piece of cotton batting measuring the same size and fold over one of the sides measuring 15" a 1/4", press, fold over again a 1/4", press. Sew along inner folded edge and along the outer edge, staying close to the fold. This will create the double seam finish. Repeat this step with the other pillow back fabric



11. Place the pillow backing fabrics onto the wrong side of the quilted pillow front. Sew a basting stitch all the way around the very outer edge of the pillow layers to attach them. Finish the pillow using the 1/4 yd of binding just as you would adding binding to a quilt



Insert your pillow form and now you have a very cute Hourglass Quilted Pillow!





I hope you love these hourglass quilted pillows as much as I do, but honestly with Sharon's Everlasting fabrics it's impossible not to create something you'll love! My Everlasting sewing didn't stop with this pretty pair of pillows, I'll have another project in the LookBook that I'll be back to share this week! If you give this tutorial a try and you post on your social media, don't forget to share with me on my new Instagram @MaureenCracknellHandmade!

xo, Maureen