Quilt-Along | 7. Finishing your quilt!

I know it's been a while since my last wonky block tutorial -- thanks for sticking with me. I hope you've all been having fun wonking away on your quilt blocks. Based on all of the great pictures in the Flickr pool, it looks like you've all really embraced the technique! I am blown away by both the awesomeness and the sheer quantity of quilts you guys are pulling together. Great job!

I wanted to be sure to wrap up the quilt-along with some resources on finishing your quilt. I was going to prepare a post with basting, quilting, and binding tips, but then realized this has already been done ... and done much better than I could ever hope to do it myself.

So, when you're finished making your wonky quilt blocks and are ready to begin assembling, be sure to refer to Dana's very thorough and easy-to-follow tutorials below:

How to assemble your quilt top
Free motion quilting tutorial
How to bind a quilt

Thanks again to all of you for your continued support and feedback throughout this quilt-along. It was tons of fun and, who knows?, I might be able to be convinced to do another one in the (maybe not so near) future!

Back again soon with some stuff I've been working on ... ... ...

AllModern.com Giveaway Winner!

Thank you all for your many entries to the AllModern.com giveaway. I had to laugh at how many of you said you'd give those finger puppets to your children or grandchildren when I KNOW you'd probably keep them for yourselves!! : )

With the help of the trusty random integer generator over at Random.org, we have a winner. (Sorry, I can't show a screen shot because I'm on my janky Windows machine : ( Oh, and my IE has already crashed twice while trying to write this post. Grrrr ... I think I'll stick to my Linux and Mac machines, thankyouverymuch.)

The winner is lucky #13, Liz, who blogs at Teeny Tiny Quilts and wrote:

Goddess in Progress said...
Oh my goodness, how cute are those?! My two-year-olds would get such a kick out of those finger puppets.

The coolest part? Like me, Liz is the parent of twins! I am SO excited that a fellow sleep-deprived, stressed out parent of mutiples won this prize. We deserve some extra special treament sometimes, don't we Liz? : )

Congrats, Liz. Shoot me an email with your mailing address and I'll have your prizes sent to you ASAP.

Thanks again to Jamie at AllModern.com for sponsoring such a fun giveaway.

I'll be back tomorrow (I hope!) to wrap up the wonky log cabin quilt-along. And I'm also behind on sharing my September quilting bee blocks. I've been crazy busy with work lately, so all else seems to be falling behind ... ... ...

Pillow + Puppet Giveaway

Blogging has been such a great thing for me for so many reasons, but I think the best thing is that it has given me a vehicle to meet so many great people that I never would have met otherwise. Recently, I connected with Jamie from AllModern.com, a really cool site for contemporary furniture and housewares. (I've even been checking out their modern and contemporary bedding sections for some inspiration for my Pillow Talk Swap project ... more on that soon ... )

And speaking of pillows ...

Jamie is such a big fan of Quilt Dad and my readers that he offered to let me host a giveaway! There will be two prizes this time (edited to add: both will go to one lucky winner!). The first is this adorable DwellStudio sparrow pillow -- an item that I knew all of you quilters and crafters (and lovers of anything bird-related!) would love.


With all of the pillow buzz happening around Flickr-land lately, I knew this would be a perfect prize.

The second is this awesome set of five DwellStudio finger puppets:





I think I need to snag a set of these myself for a nephew that we're expecting in December!

What do you think? Pretty nice prizes, huh? By the way, I also love AllModern's selection of Alessi houseware items -- I wish I had known about those kitchen tools when Mrs. Quilt Dad and I made our wedding registry! Look at this salt & pepper set! Super cool stuff. Great for bridal shower (or Christmas) gifts, I think ...

Some fine print ...

Unfortunately, due to shipping costs, this giveaway is only open to my U.S. readers. Sorry about that!

You know the drill: simply leave a comment on this post, and I'll select one random number as the winner of both prizes.

I'll leave the giveaway open until next Wednesday, October 21st.

Good luck!

Blogger's Quilt Festival 2009

OK, so I am a little late to the party, but I couldn't miss Amy's 2nd annual Blogger's Quilt Festival, hosted on her ParkCityGirl blog! Truth is, I've been traveling like a madman for work lately, and haven't had much time for sewing, stitching, blogging, Flickr-ing, and the like. However, I am very excited to share a quilt that I recently finished and would like to highlight for the festival!

Now, for the story:

A few weeks back, Mrs. Quilt Dad and I were enjoying a late breakfast on a Sunday morning and catching up on both the week past and the week to come (which we often don't get to do during the hectic weeks themselves!) My wife was scheduled to attend a cousin's baby shower the following Sunday, and she began to express how nice it would be to give her cousin something homemade as a gift ...

You can see where this is going, can't you?

I had 6 days to make a baby quilt, from start to finish, amidst the many other life demands over the course of the week. But of course, I was up for the challenge. Especially because a baby quilt gave me the perfect opportunity to play with "Hushabye" by Tula Pink!

The pattern itself is nothing too advanced -- I had two charm packs and just had to supplement them with some border, binding, and backing fabrics.

As many of you have so astutely noted, I tend to avoid working on -- and especially finishing -- large-sized quilts. I free-motion quilted this one -- with only one pucker! -- and bound it in one evening. Even I couldn't believe how much the speed at which I'm able to bind has improved!

So the reason why this quilt is so special to me and why I've decided to highlight it for the festival is that I feel that it truly represents just how far I've come in my skills and abilities over the last year. True, I spend a lot of my time working on blocks and smaller projects, but this quilt has proven to me that I can make a quilt, soup to nuts, when I want to.

Oh, and the mom-to-be loved it ... what more can I ask for?

Be sure to check out all of the other wonderful quilts and bloggers highlighted on Amy's blog -- there are over 500 links and counting! WOW!! And be sure to thank Amy for all of her hard work while you're there.