Poppy Monroe

The Home Stretch! Huge thank you to Colleen for helping me out and writing two weeks in a row My family was hit with the terrible flu that was going around. It is now week 3 and I am still going to bed fairly early, but at least I'm up and about! This week's prize for participants is a cute little Retreat Bag. I made this from a free pattern by Emmaline Bags . It is the small size, with internal wire frames installed (you can also purchase them locally at Mad About Patchwork or Fabric Crush. It's a quick and simple project that everyone here could complete with ease. I love how multi-functional they are, and serve as fantastic gifts! Let's take inventory! Together, we have covered many transferable skills in this sew-a-long. I think we should take a moment to celebrate what we've learned so far: Source supplies for a quilt top (fabrics, threads, the difference between yardage and precuts and how to decide how much we need) What a half square tr

See below for more from Colleen in Weeks 7 & 8 Sew Ottawa! Sew-a-Long Week 8 Welcome to Week 8 of the quilt-a-long! Thank you all for sharing your beautiful blocks with us last week! You guys are doing amazing! Are you finding it’s getting easier to get your points lined up? It’s all starting to come together! Last week our prize was a Moda Charm Pack and Mini Charm Pack. Our winner was Erica Prince! Congratulations Erica! This week our prize is this cute little hexi pillow cushion cover pattern (pattern only) from Tania. Tania  and I are working on the Mug Rug Tutorial – we are going to tie it into the blog post about binding your quilt – you can’t make a mug rug until you know how to bind a quilt! Lots of fun stuff coming up for you all! Have you thought at all about the back of your quilt? What are you going to put on the back of this pretty that you have spent 3 months working on? There are a lot of options! I am a sheet junkie, as in, I see a pretty she

Welcome to Week 6! You have some serious quilt real estate happening now. You might feel equally excited because things are looking "quilty" and overwhelmed because there has been so much work and still no snuggly blanket! Keep at it, we'll soon get to talking about putting the top together and the whole quilting process. Last week, Colleen generously offered up a Frixion Pen and Colour Catchers! I use these in my in sewing room often. I use Colour Catchers with each wash of new fabrics. I also gift one sheet with every quilt I gift with a little note. Speaking of gifted quilts - have you considered adding a quilt tag to your finished project? I love adding these to mine as that final personal touch. If this interests you, start thinking about what you might want to do. You can just hand write a message, sign and date using a fabric marker (I thought this one was cute). You can use your printer and freezer paper as another method. You could contact someone like La

Hi all! Colleen has an awesome week 5 prepared for you all.  From Colleen at Sewing for Sawyer .  Welcome to week 5! You guys are doing so amazing and your quilts are coming together nicely! At this point we should have all have 5 blocks and we will be adding 2 more this week – almost halfway there if you aren’t quite caught up yet that’s ok, we will have some time at the end to get caught up. Last week we had a wonderful prize donated from Jenna-Rae at  Fabric Crush . Thank you Jenna-Rae! The winner was Christa Fine with her beautiful Purple blocks! This week our prize is a box of  Shout Colour Catchers  and two  FriXion  pens – perfect for all the HSTs we are doing!! This week we are going to talk about lining up points and keeping seams lined up. It has been brought up a lot on the weekly threads so I thought we could go over a few tips. Cutting and Sewing. Make sure you are starting with your 3.5″ blocks and they are not misshaped or the wrong size, a 1/16th of an inch