Pure Solids Granny Square Pillows!

Earlier this Summer Art Gallery Fabrics came out with a vibrant assortment of gorgeous new Pure Solids including twenty new colors and I was so excited to get them in my hands to make something for their Pure Solids Fabric LookBook. Take a look at this gorgeous stack!



From these twenty new colors I chose nine to make a set of Granny Square pillows using the quilt block tutorial found in AGF's Quilt Block Collection and I really enjoyed making this block! I can't remember having made this one before, add to that I'm a fabric designer and therefore work with lots and lots of prints, so this project felt like a fun departure for me. Although next time I make this block I'll most likely use some of my own fabrics, I certainly love how the Granny Square looks in all solids. The colors really pop!



To make one or a colorful set of pillows just like mine, all you need to do is follow the Granny Square Block PDF and add an 1.5" border to all four sides to make a 15" square pillow top once quilted and then squared up. I finished mine with an envelope style back, then added binding just as I do to my quilts and stuffed it with a 16" insert to keep it nice and full. Pulling the yellow from the center to add the border and using the same Ruby red in my block as the binding really tied the whole thing together, don't you think?!



I kept with the same pattern for the blue version, using the Lemon Tart yellow again and pulling the bright Cozumel Blue for my binding. Sticking with the same pattern is really what makes these two pillows such a nice pair!





And now you'll have to let me know which one is your favorite!

xo Maureen

A Bountiful Sewing Day -- Bountiful Holiday Blog Tour!

The Bountiful Holiday Blog Tour started November 1st, organized by my good friend Sharon Holland to get you inspired for holiday sewing with her beautiful Art Gallery Fabrics collection, Bountiful! Sharon + Me + ten wonderful, talented designers have joined the tour to share fast, fun, inspiring projects! Here's the list of names and dates so you can catch up,  join us and follow along!

11-01  Mathew Boudreaux  Mister Domestic

11-02  AnneMarie Chany  Gen X Quilters

11-03  Brooke Sellmann  Silly Mama Quilts

11-06  Blair Stocker  Wise Craft Handmade

11-07  Silvia Sutters  A Stranger View

11-08  Peta Peace  She Quilts A Lot

11-09  Sharon Holland  Sharon Holland Designs

11-10  Heather Andrus  Quilt Story

11-13  Maureen Cracknell  Maureen Cracknell Handmade

11-14  Anjeanette Klinder  Anjeanettek

11-15  Alexis Wright  My Sweet Sunshine Studio

11-16  Katie Skoog  The Simple Life Company

I couldn't decide on just one Bountiful project to make and share today, so last week I had myself a Bountiful sewing day! I went to my studio early and spent the entire work day sewing with this pretty collection. My to-make list included a variety of pillows and bags and I'm so happy with each of the things I was able to make!

Each of the four finished projects I have to share today started with cutting several 1.5" x wof strips from the dozen or so Bountiful prints I had in my stash. First up is my Bountiful Shine Pillow -- a mini remake of my Soulful QAYG!



For this 18" pillow I separated the Bountiful blues from the coral and yellow prints to create this pretty diamond pattern that looks to radiate from the center!



For my second pillow project I used more of the same narrow strips to create one of my Herringbone qayg pillows, adding in AGF denims and keeping like colors together to create a pretty rainbow order pattern!







Using up the trimmed away length scraps from my two pillow projects, I stitched up two Bountiful zipper bags in the perfect size for art supplies or cosmetics. The pattern used for this first one again is my herringbone qayg pattern with a fun yellow zipper and tassel detail.



This Bountiful bag reverses to an identical pattern on the back side. I picked up a dozen or so of these tassel keychains on clearance when I was shopping last Spring and they have been perfect for adding to my new zipper pouch obsession!



This next bag and final Bountiful project is a larger size bag with boxy corners perfect for carrying larger items such as notecards and markers or a hair brush and hair accessories. I love using up scraps when making these zipper pouches & bags and experimenting with different quilt patterns & sizes. They are so much fun to make!





I LOVED my Bountiful sewing day! If you haven't yet added this collection to your stash, you can find it available in my sponsor's shop Fat Quarter Shop, Lady Belle Fabrics and Fabric.com + Sharon has organized two Giveaways for the holiday tour -- one on her blog Sharon Holland Designs at the end of the tour, thanks to Fat Quarter Shop: Bountiful Harvest Giveaway, and one on Instagram for sharing maker's posts of your favorite tour projects. Pop over to Sharon's IG for chances to win there!

Be sure to visit Quilt Story to see the pretty Bountiful dress she made and to stop by Anjeanette Klinder to see tomorrow's inspirational project! I can't wait!

Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you enjoy my Bountiful projects! xx Maureen

A New Favorite Pillow Set : :

I am so excited to finally be able to share these pillows with you - they are a set that I made for my Mom to gift my sister-in-law Anne for Christmas. And they're also my favorite finish from my holiday break sewing! I loved making this heart pillow project so very much that I'm wondering if I should put together a tutorial to share? Let me know if you're interested!



The pattern was completely inspired by my new Love Garden panel print from my Garden Dreamer collection. The large scale print includes a big heart, perfect for raw edge applique! Shown here is the Calm coloring of Love Garden with AGF's denim underneath quilted with Aurifil!



I used my go-to Quick Quilt As You Go to create the entire pillow top combining additional denims, linen, & Aurifil quilting, finishing with denim binding in my favorite color, Cool Foilage!

To include with the heart pillow I made two, big herringbone pillow covers. Again using my Quick Quilt As You Go technique, choosing several matching prints from both Garden Dreamer and Nightfall. I love how these two collections play together!



These herringbone pillows inspired me to finally get all of my collection together - Wild & Free + Fleet & Flourish + Nightfall + Garden Dreamer to start dreaming up a new quilt design that I can make using all of them together! If you have any pattern suggestions, do let me know!



I can't think of a better way to start a new year of quilting than this!  ♡ Maureen  

A Holiday Sample Sale : :

I'm having a special Sample Sale for holiday gift giving! Now through Friday use Coupon Code: FLASH20 for an extra 20% off ANY purchase in my Etsy shop --quilts, pillows, scrap bundles, stockings & more! Here are just a few of my favorites!

















Thanks for looking and have a great day! ♡ Maureen  

From Scraps : :

I've always stored my fabric scraps in one big basket. All of the collections I use and all of the colors mix together. It has never once occurred to me to store them any differently. When the basket looks full, I bundle up the scraps to offer in a destash. Waste not, want not, right?! Well, when you love making stuff, as I clearly do, it doesn't take long for a big basket of scraps to become a heaping mess. So in an effort to control the overflow, I've decided that with each newly finish quilt top, I'll make a matching pillow from scraps before moving onto the next collection and project. I'm not sure how long this will last, but I promise to give it a good try!

First up, an Observer pillow!



I still had several 8" HST units leftover from making two new quilt tops using this collection -- Diamond Trails and Chevron Angle, in case you missed them! Using those scraps, along with the Observer drawstring backpack scraps and a variation of one of my favorite pillow patterns, the the Hip Holiday Quilted Patchwork Pillow tutorial I designed for ThermoWeb, I made a large 18" quilted pillow cover.



I love the colors of this collection so much! The smoky blue and mustard yellow combo will forever be one of my favorites. Since the Observer HST scraps that I used for the pillow top had just one yellow print, I decided to quilt this pillow using the same yellow color Aurifil 50wt thread from my Bohemian Garden thread collection to match!



I finished the pillow with a very scrappy pieced together back, including the very last of those HSTs, hooray!



Art Gallery's Solid Smooth Denims pair so perfectly with this collection, I decided to finish this pillow off with quilt binding in my personal favorite denim, Cool Foliage!



This pillow is being added to the pile of finished pillows I've been collecting to offer in a sale a little closer to the holidays. I really love how it turned out and it makes me extra delighted knowing I made it all from scraps!

Happy sewing!  ♡ Maureen  

HST Pillow Set : :

I decided to finish last week's Nightfall & HST blocks into a set of pillows!



For a minute I considered making two more blocks to add to the pair I had already finished. This pattern would certainly make a beautiful & eye-catching center for a new quilt! Since each of the blocks I made contains just six 3" squares of my Nightfall prints to thirty HST's, I was concerned the prints would get lost in the sea of half square triangles, and so pillows were the perfect choice to keep the focus on the prints!



These pillows are for Quilt Market next month in Salt Lake, where I'll showcase my new fabric collection Nightfall, due in stores this August!



The HST's are made using Art Gallery Pure Element solids in some of the colors I picked for the new line ~ peachy pink, moody blues, aqua, navy, yellow, and eggplant.



In addition to all these solid quilting cottons, I'm really loving the combination of Nightfall with AGF's new line of denim! The colors of this collection work so perfectly with all of the solid smooth denims. I don't think there has been a single project that I've made for Quilt Market since they arrived that didn't incorporate denim in some way!



For this set of pillows I added a narrow border of linen to each block to bump the size up to finish for 20" pillow forms. I backed each pillow in the heavier weight Evergreen Slate and for the binding I used a lighter weight, the darkest shade of the solid smooth, Wicked Sky. This color and Cool Foliage are my current competing favorites! If you plan to buy Nightfall, I highly recommend you stash some of these denim colors, too!



I can't wait to see these pillows in my booth at Market in just a few weeks! I finalized my big plans last week and now I just have to get everything made! The sewing project on my to-make list for today is inspired by my dragonfly Nox Iridescence print, I hope to be back tomorrow with it all finished & photographed to share!



Happy sewing! ♡ Maureen

A Whole Cloth Pillow : :

Some fabric, I think, looks just as lovely left whole rather than all chopped up into little patchwork pieces. And, sometimes it's nice to just keep things simple, don't you think? In my sewing room there's a vintage metal rolling cart that houses all the pillow forms that I'd love to free up as soon as possible to use in the kitchen or out on the deck as a bar cart this Summer. So, yesterday I made the first of several whole cloth pillows -- The perfect quick & beautiful solution to turn those pillow forms into something cozy to use and admire!



I decided to start by making a new quilted Fletching Chant pillow cover. The last one was made the night before I packed up and left for Quilt Market, using what remained of my arrow print strike-off. Since returning back from Market it's been a favorite pillow around the house, has seen lots of wear, and never had that special, beautiful feel that only Art Gallery Fabrics have since strike-offs aren't printed on their Pima cotton. You can see the first one in this photo that I shared just before packing up and hitting the road!



As I'm typing this I'm realizing just how sentimental a print can be. Just thinking about this pillow takes me back to what an amazing experience Quilt Market was for me!



To add to my "keep it simple" plan for this pillow I auditioned the quilt binding scraps I had laying around for finishing.



I added a bit more quilting this time, using a white Aurifil 50 weight, to add a bit more sturdiness and durability in hopes this one holds up better than the first one.



I chose my Midnight Roof metallic stars print for the back and my scrap of Squared Elements binding was just enough to finish one raw edge of each backing piece for a neat but quick envelope finish!



I know I'm going to love digging through my stash to choose what other prints to use for these whole cloth pillows!

♡ Maureen

Improv Gemstones Pillow : :

Thank you for all the Birthday wishes last week, it was very special! Besides all of the wonderful "Happy Birthday's," I felt encouraged by your comments to turn my first three gemstone blocks into a new, quilty pillow!



I love the way it turned out, and I got my coral fix by using these sweet Cultivate fabrics with the addition of peachy-coral AGF Pure and Prisma Elements!



I finished this one again in my new favorite long, lumbar size of 14" x 28" with straight-line quilting every 1/4" using both a pale peach and light pink Aurifil 50wt. I framed it with a peachy coral binding and backed it with a durable Robert Kaufman Essex Yarn Dyed linen in Sand. 



I'm only just getting started with this gemstone idea! I plan to pull a stack of low volumes to add to these Cultivate prints for more gemstone block making this week! Many of you were curious if these gemstone blocks are paper pieced. They are! I simply sketched out a new gemstone with slightly different dimensions, for each of the three blocks I made so far. I'm not looking for precision with these, the sketch was just my guide, but the paper foundation was necessary for me to make these gemstones with so many teeny pieces and sharp angles. Each block finishes at just a 10" square.



Paper piecing isn't something I'm very knowledgeable about. It always feels like experiment. Even when I finish whatever it is I've set out to make, I always wonder if I've done it right. My only real tips to share would be to 1. Shorten your stitch length quite a bit. The first time I ever attempted to paper piece I left the standard stitch length of 2.40 set on my Janome, and when I removed the paper, sadly I had loosened several seams. And, 2. Tracing paper is my personal favorite paper to use! It's translucent so you can actually see what you're doing, it's smooth, tears away easily, and we always have it on hand. I've never printed on it, since I hand draw everything, but I imagine it's compatible with most inkjet printers.

How about you, have you tried paper piecing blocks? Any words of advice from the paper piecing experts out there?