Tag Archives: Fabric

American Made Brand West Virginia License Plate

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Welcome to the West Virginia stop of the American Made Brand 50 States Blog Tour! For this tour, a quilting blogger from each state was asked to make a license plate.  Each of the finished plates will be sewn together to form one fantastic quilt. I was asked to create a license plate for my home state of West Virginia, and this is what I came up with:

American Made Brand WV License Plate Complete

I’ll post a tutorial tomorrow, although please keep in mind that I am NOT a pattern designer.  (If you are also NOT a pattern designer but wouldn’t mind creating stuff from your own ideas from time to time, you may be interested in some of the tools and techniques I used.)

When I was first asked to create a license tag for West Virginia, I knew that I wanted to represent the land somehow, and the way West Virginians feel about our home state.  (We love it here!)  I also really wanted it to look like it could be used as a license plate, if an especially “quilty” one.  I kept it simple with English paper pieced hexagons, easy applique and hand embroidery.  Also, West Virginia has had kind of a rough time of it lately (did you hear about our water crisis?), so I added a little rainbow-ish border to represent better days ahead.  When this plate is stitched into the quilt with the others, it’ll have a thin band of color all around it.

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few of my favorite things from around West Virginia.  You may recognize Fiestaware and Blenko Glass, two West Virginia companies whose products I see in my own home and from coast to coast whenever I travel.

West Virginia Collage

American Made Brand is giving away a set of eight fat quarters just to thank you for visiting this blog!  To enter, just leave a  comment by Sunday evening at midnight (Eastern), June 15.  (If you comment before I get up Monday morning, I’ll probably leave you in the running, but I do get up awfully darn early and I don’t want you to miss out.)  If you have no idea what to say, just tell me what state you’re from.  Actually, this is open to anyone around the world, but if you’re not in the USA they’ll ship to me and I’ll ship to you, so please be patient with us and allow a little time if that’s the case.  These are wonderful fabrics, so please enter and get a chance to try them for free!

I was also told that I could give away the leftover fabric once I created my license plate.  As a quilter though, I’m used to making something out of the fabric first, then giving it away.  So I made placemats (following this tutorial) and a friend of mine is going to deliver them on her regular route with Meals On Wheels.

American Made Brand Placemats

Giving the fabric away as placemats to people receiving meals seemed like an especially appropriate way to share American Made Brand fabrics.  I just picture all the Americans involved in the creation of this fabric, from the farmers to the weavers, dyers and even the truck drivers making sure it all gets where it’s going — surely they’d all be happy to know they helped put a smile on an elderly someone’s face, along with good food in their belly.  And placemats are a great way to show off more of the colors in the American Made Brand spectrum, aren’t they?

American Made Brand Fabrics Patchwork Placemats

So, be sure to comment below for a chance to win eight fat quarters of American Made Brand fabrics, and check back tomorrow if you’d like instructions to make a West Virginia plate of your own!

Update: Giveaway has now ended.

American Made Brand WV License Plate

sarahsigres

WIP: Deer Baby Quilt

Beginning

Deer Quilt in Progress

Deer Quilt, Medium Tone Added, Not Yet Sewn

My current work in progress is a sweet little deer baby quilt.  I’ll post more about it when it’s finished, but I thought you might like a peek of how it looks right now.  In the last photo, the medium tone fabric isn’t yet sewn down, it’s just laying on the white.  (Oh, what a challenge that is going to be!)  There will be one more layer of darker fabric to add a little more detail and dimension.

sarahsigres

From Fabric Swatches to Paint Colors

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Untitled

Our plan for the weekend is to begin painting our dining room.  One wall will be stenciled with a design that looks very similar to a quilt I’ve considered making.  Because of this and to make choosing colors a little easier I’m sticking with what I know — fabrics.  Most of the colors come directly from my current quilting project because I just love it.  I’m going to take these scraps with me to pick similar colors from paint swatches or have them color match directly from the fabrics.  Wish me luck, we have textured walls and that always adds a degree of difficulty.

One note, I did swap out the cerise (the color between the greens and blues) for a bright tomato red.  Much better!

I hope to be sharing project pictures soon!

sarahsigres

Quilt Top Finished

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Lava Meets Sea Quilt Top Finished

Finally, the top for Lava Meets Sea is finished!  I still need to drop it off at the quilt shop, but I’m so glad to finally see what it’s going to look like.  With limited floor space and no design wall, I’ve just seen parts of it at a time.  I’m so pleased to see it looks just like I imagined it would!

Lava Meets Sea Backside

While I waited for the sun to go behind the clouds so I could get a better picture, I lifted the bottom of the quilt up to keep the top stitches from having to hold the weight of it.  I even love looking at it like this!  I’ll share more of the story behind this one when I have it finished.

sarahsigres

An Ombre Baby Quilt: Ansley’s Diamonds

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Ansley's Diamonds Texture

Lucy and Chad are having a baby.  This means that Skylar is going to be a big sister, so when I made a baby quilt, I saved the leftover squares and made a little doll quilt for the soon-to-be big sister.  While Mom takes care of baby, Skylar can be right beside her, caring for her own little beanie baby, or whatever toddlers play with now.

Finished Ansley's Diamonds and Skylar's Quilt

While the baby quilt looks like squares on point, it’s actually made from the exact same hourglass blocks in the doll quilt, just arranged differently.  The tops are pieced from just two yards of ombre fabrics, one in green and one in pink.  I wanted the colors to flow in opposite directions, so it moves from dark green/light pink to light green/dark pink.  I love the effect!  Sometimes it even seems that the colors are “floating” one over the other.  If you want the same fabrics, I used Simply Color by V and Co. for Moda.  (Click the link to view the ombre jelly rolls — someday I MUST get my hands on one!  How gorgeous is that?!  I may need an aqua and gray quilt of my own … )

And oh, the crinkle!

Ansley's Diamonds Baby Quilt

This fabric was a joy!  And now that Ansley’s little diamond quilt is finished, it’s time to move on to new/old projects.  Thankfully, it just never seems to end!

sarahsigres