It's Beacon Quilt Pattern Release Day!

My Beacon quilt pattern is now available in my shop! AND it's 25% OFF now thru Cyper Monday 12/2!!

First up, a little bit about it's name!

When you look up the definition of Beacon you'll read in it's meaning "a fire or other signal for guidance; a source of light of inspiration." It's this part that made me choose this word to name my new quilt pattern, Beacon. This year has been a very tough one for me with lots of health issues, a couple bad injuries and some personal struggles that I'm still working through, but now that I'm mostly on the other side of all of that, I can look back with gratitude for the solace quilting brought and continues to bring me. For me, quilting is something that I trust, it feels safe and therapeutic, is uplifting and motivating. So, for my very first quilt pattern on this new journey of offering my quilt patterns for sale, Beacon feels like a pretty perfect beginning!



My Beacon Quilt Pattern is a beginner friendly, downloadable PDF pattern including instructions to make a 60" throw size quilt. It's an easy-to-piece quilt made using pinwheel variation blocks with fabric placement of the background colors that creates a secondary pattern. It's chain-piece friendly making it super fast and very fun! I've already made FIVE versions, all of which I'll share in details in the days ahead, but since I chose my most recent fabric collection, Enchanted Voyage, to make my cover quilt, I'm starting with this beauty today!



All five of the Beacon quilts that I made were long arm quilted by Brooke Becker of Lady Belle Fabric & Quilting and she always does such an incredible job! I love that I can pick a digital quilting pattern from her catalog of designs and it adds another layer of design and artistry to my quilts!



I bound this Enchanted Voyage version in my North Star Shine print, a pretty peachy cantaloupe color that I love so much!



To see more variations you can follow me on my Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/maureencracknell/ where I share the most these days, PLUS you can check out #BeaconQuilt to see the Beacon quilts made by my amazing testers!

I'm also so excited to share that I've been collaborating with two different shops to offer a variety of Beacon Quilt Kits!

The cover quilt that features my Enchanted Voyage fabric collection for Art Gallery Fabrics is available as a kit at Lady Belle Fabric, as well as additional kits for versions made using the Merry & Bright Collective by select designers including myself for AGF and the Holiday Magic version that I made for Brooke with the Holiday Magic custom bundle available only in her wonderful shop!

For those of you who snagged the Winter Woods bundle by Fabric Stork, I'll have a Beacon to share using that Winter Woods Bundle and Nuria of Fabric Stork also made her very own Beacon with Sharon Holland's new Spirited collection that is SO stunning and will be available as a quilt kit only at Fabric Stork!

But first, you NEED this pattern! So head to my shop and grab the pattern while it's on sale for 25% OFF!



After the holidays, in early 2020, I have a Beacon quilt-along planned that will be full of fun and prizes, but I wanted to offer this pattern in time for making for the holidays because it's that fast that you could totally get one done in time to gift or use!



I sincerely hope you love this pattern as much as I do! I cannot wait to see all the beautiful Beacon quilts to be made, so be sure to tag me and use the hashtag #BeaconQuilt when you share!

xo Maureen

Boho Flower Child & Herringbone Patchwork Zipper Bags!

Ever since I found this amazing deal for a bulk order of colorful 9" zippers I've been on a zipper pouch kick, making the occasional batch whenever I get the urge and time. Now, whenever it comes time to begin making new items to offer in my yearly holiday sales, zipper pouches are #1 on my list!



Inspired by my love of Sharon Holland's brand new collection for AGF, Spirited, I pulled together a pretty boho fabric combination that includes her new prints with a few of my own and whipped up TWO dozen bags over the past week, and I LOVE how they turned out!



The front side of one dozen bags feature one of my Flower Child Flown Crown ladies and the second dozen is the herringbone qayg pattern I teach in my Craftsy class and use so often in a variety of the projects I make from bags to pillows to full size quilts. It will forever be my go-to for pretty much everything! I love sewing using this technique and I love the scrappy style of this pattern, especially when using thin strips of prints the way I did for these new zipper bags!



Each bag has a cushiony layer of Hobbs cotton batting, a colorful zipper, denim side loop to add your own embellishments to the Flower Child bags and the Herringbone Bags come with an amazing Anthropologie Tassel Charm attached, suede zipper pulls and each bag is lined with an AGF cotton denim for a really nice finish!



Each bag reverses to a striping of the same prints used for the bag fronts. I just can't get enough of this fabric combination. I think I'll make a few Spirited fabric pillows next!





Both the Flower Child and Boho Herringbone bags measure a little bigger than 8" x 8" finished and have a boxy bottom making them perfect for makeup, travel, art supplies, knitting & epp project, and more!





I've added all the bags that remain to My Etsy Shop and you can also email me at maureencracknell@hotmail.com if you're interested in ordering directly from me anytime and I'm more than happy to avoid the etsy fees by sending a Paypal invoice! :)

As always,  a BIG thanks to everyone who purchases my handmakes this holiday season! I appreciate your support more than I can ever share!

xo Maureen

Campsite Gift Sets : :

Last month I shared this post gushing over Art Gallery Fabrics brand new capsules collection, Campsite. Full of foxes, feathers, wildflowers, stars and so many more adorable motifs made this ten piece collection perfect for creating something special for anyone that loves woodland themed prints just as much as I do! Right away I got to work on a new small run, limited edition gift set inspired by this adorable collection!





Keeping with the outdoors adventure theme of Campsite I ordered supplies to include with these zipper pouch bags that would set the mood for some adventurous sketching -- a Rustic Branch Pencil and Handcrafted Journal were the perfect gift items to include tucked inside each cute bag!





Each Campsite Zipper Pouch Bag has a side loop perfect for adding a fun tassel, like this handmade wool felt tassel that I made as a quick experiment, or to hook on a handy wristlet strap to make these easy to carry on your wrist or shoulder while out adventuring.



For the zipper pull on each bag I added a length of genuine suede cording in a pretty light blue shade that coordinates perfect with the orange zipper and the colors of Campsite. I love getting creative and adding all of the little special details to each of these small run gift sets!



One side of these zipper pouch bags are a version of my herringbone quilt as you go that includes some larger fussy cut patches so I could feature Campsite's Sneaky Little Fox print The reverse side of each bag was designed to feature Fireflies Glow, a print with sparkling metallic painted fireflies circling a jelly jar with some captured fireflies. So cute!



I can't tell you how much I love making these gift sets! Since I moved out of my home studio into a much larger space, it has been so wonderful to think bigger when it comes to the things I can make. In the past I would typically make just one or sometimes two of each new idea I that had. These days I'm really enjoying having the option to make as many as I can of whatever new idea I have. My only restriction now that limits how many I'll make of something is the amount of supplies that I have on hand. It's so wonderful!



I hope you all love these new gift sets just as much as I do and that this project idea inspires your own sewing! If you're interested in purchasing one of my handmade items, you're welcome to visit my Etsy shop anytime to find most of the things that I make to share here on the blog. Mostly my hope is to excite those of you who stop by to sew with the collections that I love, as well as the collections that I design!

I'll have a new fabric collection to share with all of you later this week on my Instagram, so be sure to visit me there!



Happy Monday and happy sewing!  xo Maureen

Swan Journal Clutch Gift Sets!

I'm so thrilled with today's finish, a small batch collection of Swan Journal Clutch Gift Sets! It's taken me way longer than expected to get photos of these beauties, so I'm extra excited about today's blog.

A few weeks back I wrote how much I've been enjoying creating in my new studio space. After working there for just a couple of weeks, I knew more than anything that I just wanted to make all the things! For the first time I have a big studio to work in and a great space to keep organized and on display an endless amount of finished projects. It took a short time for me to decide that I would spend this year making small batches of unique handmade items to sell in My Shop.

So far my small batch project has included a variety of  boho zipper pouch bags that work wonderfully for carrying everything from EPP projects to make-up. But for this next collection I wanted to create something a bit more special, and these swan fabrics were the perfect inspiration!

Dabbling Swan Plum  *  Mystical Woods Solar  *  Flower Dancer  *  Luminaries Silver  *  Swanlings Bevy Nightfall  * Swanlings Bevy Peach  *  Petit Checks Midnight  *  Baltic Swans Sky  *  Splendid Oath Rain  *  Scatter Apricot  *  Tomahawk Stripe Cloud  *  Subtle Journey East  *  Dabbling Swan Sage  *  Your Heart Pink Metallic  *  Terra Firma Humid

It was pure luck that I stumbled upon these beautiful swan soft cover journals that go so beautiful with my fabric pull. Add in some fun fuzzy poof keychains and I had the makings of something really special!

My Swan Journal Clutch fronts are made using my Quick Quilt As You Go herringbone pattern, with pretty narrow strips sewn to a layer of soft cotton batting.

The reverse side features one of Bonnie Christine's beautiful swans from her Hello, Ollie collection surrounded by pretty patchwork made with the same prints that I used for these Swan Clutch fronts, all quilted with Aurifil 50wt cotton thread. 

Each bag has a soft sand linen side loop that's perfect for hanging these giant poof keychains and a baby blue suede zipper pull.

I love these bags so much, they're high up there with my favorite makes, ever!



These pretty swan journals are a great size, they each have 384 pages and measure 6.5" x 8.5" and are 1" thick! To ensure that the journals fit perfectly inside each swan clutches, I used these 12" zippers (affiliate link) to finish as the largest size zipper style bag that I've made yet!






This photo of the fuzzy poof keychain is definitely my favorite shot of the day! I was a little bummed that my photos look a little overcast, but still I love how these turned out and I just couldn't wait any long to share them with you all!



I'd love to know what you think of this small batch gift set idea?

So far I've received a wonderful response, these are selling fast! I have just three left, one of each of the fuzzy poof keychain colors -- cream, pink and grey. I've added what remains of these Swan Journal Clutch Gift Sets to My Shop if you're interested in taking a look.

I hope you're inspired by this swan themed set! Next up I'm using AGF's new Capsules collection, Campsite. I'll be back next week to share those, but in the meantime ne sure to stop back tomorrow for details on how to enter this week's Community Sampler Giveaway! As always, ALL are welcome to enter!



xo Maureen