My Enchanted Voyage LookBook is out!

I'm so excited to share the LookBook for my brand new collection with Art Gallery Fabrics, Enchanted Voyage and I hope you all love it just as much as I do!



Inside you'll find dozens of inspirational projects from quilts & home decor to lots of beautiful garments & bags made myself, my friends & AGF makers! Today I want to introduce the LookBook here on the blog and showcase the quilt projects I made to get you inspired for beautiful Enchanted Voyage sewing! I especially LOVED making quilts with this collection, BIG quilts and I hope you will, too!



As always, with each collection comes a free companion Quilt Pattern PDF created with just the collection prints in mind and for Enchanted Voyage I designed Polar Compass, a graphic quilt with a center design that looks stunning on a bed and will keep you warm in style this winter! The Polar Compass quilt pattern makes a large throw size measuring 72" x 72" and was such an enjoyable quilt to sew that I'm hoping to make another soon combining a few Enchanted Voyage prints with a few wintry prints from my past collections mixed in. I've seen a few folks who have already finished their own Enchanted Voyage versions and shared them on Instagram, so be sure to let me know if you give it a go, too!

As soon as I finished this quilt top and the Destination quilt top that's in the LookBook (that I'll share more about soon) I sent them both to Brooke Becker of Lady Belle Quilting & Lady Belle Fabric to work her longarm quilting magic and she did such a phenomenal job!

This is an up-close look of the allover quilt design that we chose called Gemma by Karlee Porter. Isn't it perfect? I love it so much!



It added so much wonderful texture to the quilt which I think is so lovely on a simple quilt pattern like this one!



I think what I love most about Polar Compass is the way it showcases the color palette of my Enchanted Voyage collection. It's a collection full of pretty blues paired with some of my favorite soft shades of pink, peach and creams. This is also my first true stripe print in all of my eleven collections. I love a good nautical stripe and creating this print was such a great way to marry all the colors I chose for my palette.



I'll be back soon to share another one of the quilts that I made for the LookBook, along with some maker projects and new projects ideas to get you inspired to sew with this new collection! 

Thank you all for your continued support, encouragement & love!

xo Maureen   

Mad for Plaid & Nightfall : :

Since those big, beautiful snowflakes resulted in an early school dismissal yesterday, followed by a two-hour delay for school this morning, I didn't have the productive sewing day I was hoping for. I did however take the time to unbox and admire a special delivery from Art Gallery Fabrics that I'm super excited to show you!

Introducing Mad Plaid, a rich line of plaids with a modern twist to play with from AGF's new CAPSULES division!





As I folded each beautiful print I noticed right away how the variety of colors and designs worked so perfectly with my Nightfall collection, see...





And because I have always loved plaid so much, of course these brand new Capsules have stolen my heart! I'm already thinking ahead to pillow and quilt projects I'd like to make to feature these along side my own fabric designs!



Mad Plaid will be hitting stores a little later this month. I hope you'll enjoy getting to know these new AGF divisions and collections and might feel inspired by these same fabrics that are inspiring me!

♡ Maureen

A Collection Quilt Plan : :

It's beautiful this morning. Outside huge, fluffy snowflakes are falling and I'm inside warm & excited to begin my first quilt of the New Year!



On Friday, I had shared on my Instagram that my BIG goal for over the weekend was to design a new quilt pattern suitable for using all of my Art Gallery Fabrics collections. That's Wild & Free + Fleet & Flourish + Nightfall + Garden Dreamer -- sixty-eight prints total! While we were up in New York for one last holiday celebration with my husband's family, I worked here and there on my design, but in the end decided the best pattern for this project was to remake one of my favorites -- my Winter's Garden quilt, just bigger!



In the original Winter's Garden quilt design, each block features three different prints with a narrow, solid border that I could easily change to use a blender print. Or perhaps I'll just make a larger quilt, including twenty blocks rather than sixteen. The scrappy sashing is ideal for including my low volume prints, and the center area of each block perfect for the main prints that I've designed for each collection!

What do you think?



So there we have it, a project plan to begin right after I finish up the tutorial for my Reverse Appliqué Love Garden pillow!

I Can't wait! ♡ Maureen      

Options : :

Thank you all for your input on my Lost Ship post from last week, as always, your comments were incredibly helpful. These days, due to a nasty cold I've had since New Years, I'm working much slower than I'd like. I had hoped to have a finished quilt top by now, but instead I'm here again today with more options to share! After taking the photos that I blogged last week, I continued with making blocks until I had twenty four, a much better amount to play with layout choices. I knew right away that regardless which one I chose, I'd need to make quite a few more blocks to create a balanced quilt. To help me determine just how many, I started experimenting, using both straight and on-point settings and discovered several possible variations for each. Still, the two options I mentioned last week were definitely my very favorites. Since many of you mentioned how nice it would be to see more than just the four blocks put together to help you decide, I'm excited to share more of each today. Especially for those of you who mentioned wanting to make these same blocks!

First, I arranged the blocks via the Country Living image.



While I like the look and think it would make for a beautiful quilt, allowing each individual print to shine. As the designer of these fabrics, of course a part of me LOVES that! Overall, I think it would have worked much better had I chosen to create my blocks with a consistent light and dark contrast, rather than simply choosing the color combo of cream + peach + coral to pair up with aqua + blue. As mentioned within the comments, I agree that more neutrals and a calmer color palette would work much better with this layout!



After making my very first block, this next layout is the one I envisioned and is the one that felt the most me.



This center pattern that is created when four blocks are placed together is exactly what I had in mind when I started this quilt!



It was the secondary pattern that emerged that I was most unsure about.



Now this is where I surprised myself and ended up agreeing with the majority of opinions shared last week -- the diamonds or squares that form within this layout are now my very favorite parts of this option! I had mentioned that I would be tempted to add in a little more pattern to break up the big diamonds, most likely by adding in more of the blue and aqua prints to form smaller center diamonds.

Well, I was wrong!



Over the weekend I made twelve more Lost Ship blocks to add one more final row. Before I sew them together to finish up my quilt top I have to work on the symmetry and balance within this quilt layout, but I really love it!

How about you? Now that I've shared more, which option do you prefer?

Scrap Happy : :

Late last night, as I attempted to straighten up my sewing room before heading off to bed, I noticed piles of scraps everywhere, again. It happens fast around here! Usually I bundle them up to destash, but last night I decided it was time to begin a simple quilt, using only scraps, right then and there!



The fabrics are a mash-up of all the collections I've been working with lately. Artisan, Bound, Cultivate, with a few older project leftovers mixed in here and there. I'm using mostly 2.5 inch wide strips, cut to various lengths, joining them just as I did when making my recent scrappy pillow. I had mentioned when I shared that new pillow how much I'd love to make a quilt in this scrappy saw-tooth style and here I go!



I began by sewing two strips together, a neutral low volume print with one of the colorful scraps, the same way I do when making quilt binding, piecing each strip with a diagonal seam. Once I had enough strips sewn together, I sewed them to a panel of batting one after the other using my go-to quilt as you go method, staggering them to create a zig-zag like pattern.





Easy, fun, and I'll have a beautiful scrap-busting quilt at the end. The scraps are being used, and I am happy!

♡ Maureen

A New Plan : :

Is anyone else having trouble with Flickr lately? It took hours of trying to upload photos again this morning, but I finally just gave up. It's very strange and frustrating and I'm wondering if it's just me or something every user is experiencing?

Well, this week my Bound fabric sewing was off to a good start! Aren't these colors pretty?!



I began to work on my idea, the one I had shared last week, but after finishing the first block I had a very blah response. Still I continued on, making another to see if my feelings improved. Nope!





I couldn't imagine this idea working out at all like I had hoped, and so, I let it go. And, right away I put a new plan into action that I'm much more excited about!



I think these pinwheel blocks are a first for me, I can't recall ever making them before. They're fun to make, and fast! I'm using my go-to "make four HST's at a time" method that I always use when making half square triangle units. These will be just one style of block pattern in my new idea. I'll be back soon to share more! ♡ Maureen

Bound : :

This week a beautiful bundle of Bound, April Rhodes' newest collection for Art Gallery Fabrics, arrived at my door! Without planning it April's gorgeous fabrics have certainly become a feature this week on my blog! Having just finished the Arizona Herringbone Quilt that I shared on Monday, made using April's debut Limited Edition Arizona collection for AGF, and today's sewing time has been dedicated to making new quilt plans for Bound!



With the Morning Palette colorway still neatly tied with a strand of wool yarn and my sketchbook before me, I first sketched out a quick and simple idea of improv squares and rectangles, inspired by the idea of random stamped blocks. I love this idea, but imagine my bricks of patchwork to be framed in very light neutrals. Since several of the prints are very light, low volumes, I'm thinking this idea might work best for a fabric collection more saturated with color.





My next idea is something still very geometric, still very inspired by this idea of stamped shapes, but this time I started sketching out random broken hexagon shapes. I loved it immediately!



After taking a closer look at my favorite Bound prints, I'm even more inspired to give this idea a try! I especially love this two-tone section of the Bound in Homebody stripe!



And, the beautiful colors of this Painting Celebration print will surely influence which solids I'll use!



I can't wait to begin! ♡ Maureen

Summer Sewing : :

Yesterday I took and shared this photo, after entering my sewing room for the first time in ten days, with a smile and thought that one of the very best parts of going away for a long vacation, is the coming home again.



I really missed this space and had been missing it even before we left. The busy Summer days never leave much time for sewing, do they? It's been a struggle to keep up with my shop, deadlines, and this blog these last several weeks, more so then I remember previous Summers being. I'm always reminding myself how generous the long Winter's are for work & sewing time, when I start to miss it or feel behind. These sweet days of Summer are not forever, they are happening now, and I need to enjoy them.



But today, since afternoon rain and thunderstorms are on the way, I will be sewing! I truly need it. I plan to head straight to the Monthly Sparks bundle I shared last week!



I've already decided on a simple, easy quilt. A quilt that isn't needed, that has no deadline to be finished, and no set pattern even. If at the end of today, I have a new quilt start to share tomorrow, that will be lovely. But really, in this particular case, a finished object will just be a bonus. It's the sewing that I'm really after, and the sewing itself that is precisely what I need and am so grateful for!

♥ Maureen

Begin Again : :

Back in March, when it was still chilly and thoughts of colorful Summer flowers and days still felt distant, it was those musings combined with my first Monthly Sparks blogger bundle -- a bright collection of fabrics turned into dozens of flying geese that inspired the beginnings of my Modern Chrysanthemum quilt block!









I was so excited about where I was headed with this one and somehow still managed to bury it!

Then this morning I brought it out again, gave it and my remaining sixty flying geese units a good press, took lots of pictures to share today, all so I can begin a new plan for it.









There's a long drive ahead of us as we head to North Caroline tomorrow for our annual family vacation. I'm excited for the time to sketch out a final design plan and to have this beautiful beginning out awaiting my return!

♡ Maureen

Something New : :

This morning, after a busy, beautiful, fun, exhausting long weekend, our regular routine returns. The weather's warm and cloudy and I do love Spring mornings like this, when it's so quiet and dim. After a few long days where much-needed yard work replaced any chance of sewing time, and since I'm still waiting on the backing and binding fabrics to arrive so I can finish up my new Diamond Crisscross quilt, this morning feels like the perfect time to begin something new. A few years ago, around this very same time, I put together a bundle of soft grays, blues, corals, yellows, and aquas called Sweet Summer Dreams. These fabrics became the quilt I made to share my very first quilt-as-you-go tutorial and is one of my most favorite color combinations and quilts to date.



This morning I can't get these same colors out of my head. Pretty little piles left on my desk from the kids crafting are inspiring me to start pulling fabrics in this color palette once again!



Plus, for once everything's all nice and organized! That never lasts too long in this room!



I'll be back to share what I come up with soon!

Happy quilt planning & sewing to you! ♥ Maureen