Quick Christmas Gifts / Beauties Pageant 156

One of my crafting specialties is making a small project into a big project. I mean, I truly excel at this. All I do is find a project that can be easily tackled in an hour or two—it could be a pouch or a tote bag or something—and then I make that project a half-dozen times. Or a full dozen times. Or if I’m experiencing serious delusions of crafty grandeur, say, 27 times!

Want to join me on this crazy crafting train? First, pick your own project. I recommend all of those pictured here, including tiny drawstring pouches, pin cushions, and tissue cozies.

Then write up a list of recipients—like a half-dozen new guild board members or a dozen elementary teachers or the 27 staff members at your kid’s preschool (true story). Now multiply that number by two ... just in case. : )

 

To be honest, I am not making any gifts for holiday giving this Christmas, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enable your frenzied, last-minute sewing and quilting! For more on the projects pictured here, including links to the corresponding tutorials or patterns, click below ...

• Tiny drawstring pouches
  
• Pin cushions
  
• Tissue cozies
• More simple gift ideas   

Heads up: The following two Fridays fall on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, so I won’t be back until January with the next Beauties Pageant. Until then, fill us in on what you’ve been up to in this week’s linky. Wishing you all the loveliest of holidays!

 

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Packages Tied Up with Strings / Beauties Pageant 155

Did you see my Monday post? I’m giving away my stash of Denyse Schmidt fabrics, and I couldn’t be more excited about it! I’ve had a long run with some of these fabrics—and certain designs I’ve bought again and again—but it’s time for some turnover with my stash (and, let’s be honest, an excuse to buy Denyse’s more recent collections!).

I knew that chipping away at my stash and cleaning up my sewing space would be a delight. What I wasn’t expecting was how fun it would be to cut up yardage and scraps, assemble them into sweet little piles, and tie them up with string. But it was, and now these cuties are ready to be listed in my Etsy shop between 7 and 9 p.m. tonight for $7 apiece, including shipping.

If you’re interested in a bundle for yourself, I want to temper your expectations. These bundles are small, just 4.5 to 5 ounces each, and there are only a handful of them. I hope to list a few more in the new year, after I finish my Random Hearts quilt.

I’ve had a lot of success with selling yardage and scraps. (I recommend using FeelGood Fibers for destashing like that. Read about my experience with FGF here.) If this idea of giving away fabric and asking people to pay just shipping inspires you, go for it! The next-best thing to buying fabric yourself is giving it to someone who you know will appreciate and use it!

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Giving Away My Denyse Schmidt Stash!

 

One of my pandemic goals (aside from not contracting Covid!) has been to use up my stash of Denyse Schmidt fabrics, and I’m officially in the home stretch. I’m working on a Random Hearts quilt and invite you to join me!

I’m not hosting an official quilt-along or anything. Instead, I’ve decided to give away my remaining DS stash. I’ll be cutting what’s left into 4.5- and 5-inch strips, the perfect size for making Random Hearts blocks, and asking people to pick up the cost of shipping.

Bundles will be sold for the cost of first-class shipping through my Etsy shop. Keep tabs on my IG feed for an announcement about when the listings will go live.

I feel like Santa Claus—you know, if old Saint Nick were a 40-something mom and quilt maker living in Massachusetts and gifted fabric!

Related links:

• A Last Hurrah with My DS stash
• Random Hearts block tutorial from Make Things. Grow
• From Bolt to Beauty on Instagram
• From Bolt to Beauty on Etsy
  

Plaid-ish / Beauties Pageant 154

Hey, there—long time, no post! I’m happy to be back on my blog after an unplanned break that included a month’s worth of appointments compressed into a week, a visit with my in-laws, and Thanksgiving with my side of the family. Aside from one deadline-driven project I’m working on, I’m hoping to mostly coast through the end of the year. Lucky for me, I have projects close enough to the finish line that I will still have fun stuff to share, even though sewing is in low gear for me through the new year. : )

Pictured here is one of those finishes! It’s my first Plaid-ish quilt. It’s also my only Plaid-ish quilt—until I finish my Gypsy Wife quilt. I’ve decided that feat will earn me a second Plaid-ish. What makes this pattern so much fun? It’s the fabric pull, friends. I love sitting down with my scraps and stash, and developing a palette. It’s almost as much fun as designing patterns. What makes Plaid-ish extra satisfying is that it uses no background fabric, so it busts through a ton of fabric.

 

And there are so many good fabrics in this beauty. Two collections from Kate Spain—Aria and Canyon—set the stage color-wise. (I had bits left over from this quilt and this quilt and this quilt.) I built the palette from there, focusing on salmon, periwinkle, grassy green, aqua, navy, and gray. There are selections from Alison Glass, 1Canoe2, Lizzy House, Janet Clare, and other fabulous designers. The pattern, a freebie from Erica Jackman, of Kitchen Table Quilting, is built around low, medium, and dark tones. If you’ve never played with value before, it’s a blast—you’ve got to find the time to sew a Plaid-ish!

I splurged and sent this project to Narda at Maz Q’s Sewing and Quilting Studio for an edge-to-edge panto. I like to quilt my tops myself and considered stippling this one, but it’s an oversize throw and I knew Narda’s work would give it a polish that my domestic and I couldn’t. 

We have so much to catch up on! Please share your finishes from the past few weeks (more than one upload is encouraged!) in the linky below. It’s nice to be back. : )

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A Last Hurrah with My DS Stash / Beauties Pageant 153

I’ve come to realize that there are two ways to clean up my sewing space: the fast way and the slow way. The fast way is tossing fabric bits that are too small to use, selling no-longer-loved bundles, and passing orphan blocks to friends who will do something with them. The slow way is by finishing projects—ha! I go through spurts when I sort and organize to determine what stays and what goes, but always in the background are the slow projects, chugging along and waiting to be pushed to the head of the queue.

The hearts made with Denyse Schmidt fabric that you see at the top of the post are one of those slow projects. I’ve always loved Denyse’s designs. In fact, I’d say that I came to modern quilting through the DS door, and for the first few years, it was rare that I’d finish a project without at least one of her fabrics in it. And then two years ago, I decided to use up my DS stash once and for all. I was going to make several quilts and then sell off whatever scraps and yardage I had left over. It was time for some turnover in my stash!

That decision resulted in Farmhouse Chic, a quilt of concentric squares that uses fabrics from Denyse’s Eastham and New Bedford lines, along with scraps from other designers ...

To read more about Farmhouse Chic, click here.

It also led to two Ship’s Ladder quilts, as well as a version of Stepping Stones ...

This is the throw-size Ship’s Ladder. Read about it here.

Read more about Stepping Stones in this post.

Now I’m happy to say that I’m on my last quilt with my current DS stash. It’s a catch-all project and comprises many DS lines, for both independent quilt shops and big-box stores. I’m using this tutorial, called Random Hearts. Of course, I finished 15 blocks and then had to set them aside to take care of higher-priority projects, but the project has already proved to be a fun, fast sew.

Are you a fellow fan of Denyse Schmidt? If so, I’d love to hear about it in the comments—or better yet, post a project using her fabric or one of her patterns in the linky. DS finishes old and new are welcome!

 

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An Ombre Jelly Roll Giveaway / Beauties Pageant 152

Hello all you lovely quilters! A month ago, I posted pics of a finished quilt top on Instagram (and here on the blog) that pretty much blew up my feed. The response to my Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt rendered in V and Co’s Ombre Fairy Dust was so positive that I couldn’t help but follow up with a giveaway. So when I needed a little more in my cart at the Fat Quarter Shop recently to get free shipping, I picked up another ombre jelly roll. I’m giving this precut, along with a PDF copy of my Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt, to one lucky winner, just to say thanks!

All entries to the giveaway are being accepted on Instagram. Head to my IG feed, and look for the giveaway picture for more details. (BTW ... This giveaway is open internationally.)

As your friendly neighborhood fabric enabler, I have to add that Ombre Fairy Dust jelly rolls are still available at some online retailers. Check out the Fat Quarter Shop, Lark Cottons, and Shabby Fabrics. ; )

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• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

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Yes, Another Economy Block Quilt! / Beauties Pageant 151

When I realized that my first economy block quilt (unveiled last week in this post) used more than 7 yards of stash and scraps, I started cutting a second. How could I resist? Culling through the Art Gallery fabrics I had on hand was a lot of fun. There were some fabrics I thought I would never find the right project for, but once I realized the sheer amount of eggplant, green, and peach in my Art Gallery stash, a palette quickly coalesced. And the results? Pretty, pretty, pretty!

I quilted last week’s finish with my walking foot, reasoning that it would be silly not to straight-line quilt a project whose seams offered the luxury of quilting without marking any lines. With this second project, though, I pulled out my darning foot for some stippling. The more I free-motion quilt, the more I like it—although I’d be lying if I said I were 100% satisfied with the results. (To be honest, though, I say the same about my straight-line quilting!)

I especially like the pieced back on this project. It combines some brand-new yardage with some well-aged fat quarters. That serene green, pictured above and below, is from Sharon Holland’s recent Lilliput collection. The owls, however, are from Maureen Cracknell’s Nightfall line, released in 2016. I could not bear to hack those beautiful creatures into smaller bits for piecing. They are the perfectly highlighted in this backing, though. (I actually won all of Nightfall in fat quarters. See what I made with the lion’s share from the bundle here.)

Between this quilt and last week’s finish, my stash is 15 yards lighter. I think that means it’s time to go fabric shopping. : )

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An Economy Block Finish / Beauties Pageant 150

The un-blogged-about, yet-to-be-photographed finishes are starting to pile up at From Bolt to Beauty world headquarters. It’s a good position for me, as a blogger, to be in, and I look forward to sharing a long string of finishes with you in the upcoming weeks!

Today I’m revealing an Art Gallery economy block quilt that I made as part of a guild challenge. (For details on the challenge and the tutorial I used to piece these blocks, see this post.) It’s a lovely throw-size project that busted through more than 7 yards of stash and scraps, and it is made of 100 percent Art Gallery prints and Pure Solids.

I had a lot of fun playing with these fabrics. Some of them, truth be told, were slated for destashing—I just couldn’t foresee using them in projects. In the end, however, even those questionable prints—including the hopscotch design and the tire swing fabric in the pictures above and below—were useful to the mix here.

This project is my favorite kind to sew. There are so many prints in it and no background fabric. The fun, then, is really in the fabric pull and seeing how the quilt comes together with the fabric I have on hand. (Plaid-ish is similarly fun. In fact, I hope to sew another one in the next few months.)

Although I couldn’t be happier with the results I achieved with this project, I’m pleased to send it out into the world. I’m getting to the point with quilts that I don’t feel the need to keep all of them. I mean, I have always gifted the majority of my projects, but I’m starting to realize that if I keep, say, five quilts each year, I’ll soon be bursting at the seams with quilts. A quick count tells me I have kept at least 20 quilts during my quilting career, received 3 others as gifts, and finished another 5 that will be gifted or sold in the near future. (Only one of the 20 keepers was completed this year: It’s the American flag Love Boldly I made during my quilt-along.)

This lovely is headed to a mini quilt show with my guild and then will be donated to charity. : )

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