Pageant Highlight Reel / Beauties Pageant 62

The presents have been opened, the carols have been sung, and the cookies have been eaten (like, in their entirety, before our holiday guests even arrived!). But my dining room is still a dining room and won’t see any sewing for a few more days. So I present to you today some highlights from Beauties Pageants past ...

Tubak, of Den syende himmel, followed a tutorial on the Bernina site to make this adorable kitty pouch. The zigzag eyes are her own addition to the pattern, and they’re brilliant. It’s impossible to look at pictures of her project without smiling!

As a mama to two boys, I flipped over Janine’s Chicago skyline baby quilt. Check out her blog, Quilts from the Little House, for lots more pictures and a blow-by-blow description of her creative process.

And Allison, at New Every Morning Patchwork and Quilting, revealed her Modern Chains. This pattern appears in a recent issue of Quilt Now, and it features everything I love in a modern quilt—an oversize, off-center design with negative space. Beautiful!

If you’ve been able to tear yourself away from holiday revelry enough to finish something, we want to know about it. Link up below!

Although I love the low-key days we’ve had at From Bolt to Beauty world headquarters this past week, it’s rare for me to go more than a few days without sewing. I miss the hum of my machine and the feel of fabric beneath my fingers. Here’s hoping the new year includes a lot of sewing and quilting. : )

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The pageant rules are simple:

• 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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Variations on a Theme / Beauties Pageant 61

Without a moment to spare, I have three Christmas minis bound, wrapped, and ready to share!

These projects were fun opportunities to blow through scraps—of both Christmas fabrics and random whites/low-volume prints—and by playing with the palette and layout, each of the three has its own personality.

Some highlights include this sweet cabin, whose polka-dotted fabric looks like falling snow ...

This holly branch, which is the perfect combination of a scrappy foreground and a scrappy background ...

And this overall color combination ...

I love Christmas palettes with surprises, and the blue here doesn’t disappoint!

I’m not sure whether these three minis are the end of me and this pattern collection (available here, from Sterling Sewn). Heaven knows I have the necessary bits and pieces to continue, but these log cabins start off with 1.5-inch strips, so although they eat up scraps, they do so at a slow pace. : )

If you have a favorite holiday-themed pattern, I am always on the lookout for new ideas. Please share them in the comments below! (And, by the way, I have four Christmas quilts planned for the new year. Christmas sewing at From Bolt to Beauty world headquarters may last until spring!)

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The pageant rules are simple:

• 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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

And Then There Were 19 / Beauties Pageant 60

I am slowly whittling down my WIP list. What was 21 items long a few weeks ago, is down to a whopping 19. Yikes! The way I see it, slow but steady will win this quilty race, and I celebrate each finish, no matter how big or how small.

Here is my latest finish, what I am calling my Little Lady Quilt. It’s a feminine take on Camille Roskelley’s Little Man Quilt, from her Simplify book. The novelty fabrics are from Rae Ritchie's Seaside Carnival. The remaining bits are Kona Cottons in a variety of colors, a random Art Gallery print, and strippy scraps of an ocean-themed Janet Clare fabric. The real takeaway, however, is that everything came from my stash. (Insert fist bump here.)

Even the backing fabric, a purple-y Anna Maria Horner print that plays off the tiniest bit of orchid from the quilt top, was already owned by me.

This is my fourth (but not final) version of this pattern. You can see my others in these posts:

• Little Man in Orange and Blue
• Little Man in Blue and Brown
• Little Farmer

I know some of you have finishes to celebrate, too. Please link up in the Beauties Pageant below!

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The pageant rules are simple:

• 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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Ho, Ho, Snow / Beauties Pageant 59

For some of us in New England, last weekend’s Thanksgiving break was extended two days due to the arrival of 18-plus inches of snow. We were given ample time to prepare for this storm both logistically and emotionally, but I was not ready. Usually the snow season starts with a few inches here and there, which can often melt with a warm day or two. That way, we ease into winter. But there’s no turning back from a foot and a half of snow. Farewell, lawn! I’ll see you in April!

Luckily, I had a project that was easily worked on in the short spurts of sewing my family affords me on snow days.

This project is Sterling Sewn’s new Log Cabin Home for the Holidays pattern, which I tested back in October. I plan to make a few mini-quilts with this pattern and gift them at Christmas. I especially like the one I’ve completed in its entirety over those snowy days (see the picture at the top of the post). The palette has a vintage quality to it—with a red and green that’s not the typical holiday red and green and the introduction of a pale blue. I continued this effect in the scrappy background with off-whites, bits of Grunge in paper white, and cream.

It’s a treat to work on smaller projects. Mini-quilts and table runners allow me more opportunities to develop palettes and fabric pulls, which is the most enjoyable part of sewing for me. (WHAT?! I never would have said that five years ago. I definitely need to delve deeper into that in a future post.)

I don’t know how many of these minis I’ll be able to wrap up in time for gift giving. A second mini, already quilted and ready to be bound (see pics above and below), is in more traditional holiday colors. I hope to start a third this weekend in a yet-to-be developed color combination.

Who else has a finish to share for the past two weeks? Please upload it to this week’s Beauties Pageant!

By the way, my apologies for being a no-show last Friday. I reserve the right to flake out every so often, and instead of posting something then, I worked on submitting projects to QuiltCon and Paducah. It was annoying and I would have rather spent the time writing a post, but the submissions are done, done, done!

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The pageant rules are simple:

• 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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter