New Patterns Available

Happy New Year to everyone!!! For those interested, I've made two patterns available in my Craftsy shop.

The first is my Dream Diamond quilt that first appeared in American Quilter earlier last year. You can find the pattern for this quilt here.

The second is a free pattern for the quilt block I used to make this baby quilt. Yup, this one is free! The pattern for this one can be found here.

Both of them are paper pieced patterns. If you're new to paper piecing and want a free tutorial, check out the pattern and tutorial section of my blog for a free how-to and some of my favorite resources. 

Giveaway Day

Welcome to my blog! For those of your just stopping by, here are a few quilts I made this year. 

For Sew Mama Sew's giveaway day, I'm offering a few things up to a lucky winner!

First up is an Amy Butler Weekender pattern. When we were doing the Weekender sew-along, I accidentally bought a pattern when I already had one. You could benefit from my oops! 

Second, the winner will receive a PDF of one of my quilt patterns of their choosing. 

Finally, the winner will also receive a copy of McCall's quilting, where my Framed Up quilt is featured. 

  

And I'll also throw in a few surprise items for the winner, like some thread or zippers, or maybe even some fabric!

You have four (4) chances to win. I will announce the winner on Friday, December 13th. International entrants are welcome. If you're a no-reply blogger, please leave your email address so that I have a way of reaching you. 

1. Leave a comment on this blog telling me what your favorite quilt pattern is. (one entry).

2. Follow my blog (via Bloglovin, Google Friend Connect, email, RSS, etc.) and let me know in a comment. If you're already a follower, leave me a comment letting me know (one entry).

3. Follow me on Instagram (@aquiltingjewel) and leave me a comment letting me know. If you already follow me on Instagram, leave a comment letting me know (one entry). 

4. Like me on Facebook and leave me a comment letting me know. If you have already liked me on Facebook, let me know in a comment (one entry).

Framed Up - McCall's Quilting January/February 2014

Last night I arrived home and found a quilt on my doorstep. Not just any quilt, it was my Framed Up quilt that I had finished in January and sent off to McCall's Quilting this summer to be featured in their January/February 2014 issue. That's right, I have a quilt in McCall's Quilting Magazine!

 

I originally designed and made this quilt last year, sending it off to the talented Angela Walters to machine quilt it for me. I knew I wanted to try and get this pattern published, so I held off sharing it on my blog. Problem is, I wasn't really sure about how to go about submitting it. Luckily, QuiltCon was right around the corner and there was a session on submitting to magazines!

I sent of my submission to McCall's shortly after returning from QuiltCon. Why McCall's, well it was the first magazine I subscribed to 11 or 12 years ago when I first started quilting. But I also submitted quilts to other magazines over the next few months. Some were accepted and others weren't. Why am I telling you this? To encourage everyone that's thinking about submitting a quilt to a show or magazine to do it if you really want. Not every quilt is meant for every show or magazine. But when it's the right fit, it's an awesome feeling.

Regular readers of my blog know that I love paper piecing, so of course this quilt is paper pieced. I would consider this an intermediate paper pieced pattern for those that know how to paper piece. There are a number of points that you need to line up when piecing blocks together, but that's pretty much the most difficult part.

I gave Angela pretty much free reign when quilting this quilt. I don't know about you, but I think she did a really great job.

The folks at McCall's agreed and included another page, in addition to the pattern, talking all about the quilting.

In addition, Quilters Newsletter posted a recent video on Modern Quilting, which featured Framed Up as one of the examples. Check out the video below. They begin talking about Framed Up at the 4:30 mark.

This issue of McCall's Quilting hits newsstands next week, but if you have a subscription, it should be in your mailbox any day if you haven't already received it. 

Pinwheel Party

I can officially call this quilt - Pinwheel Delight - finished! It was my goal to finish this one as part of A Lovely Year of Finishes, and I'm happy to report that my goal was met.

This isn't my usual color pallet - especially the mustard yellow. I am in love with this color pallet and might just need to make another one of these for myself. Or make another quilt in these same colors.

This quilt will be shipped off to my partner in the Modern She Made Swap this weekend. I'll be sad to see it go, but know it will be going to a good home. I've been a part of this swap since round one and have been impressed with the items created by the folks participating. There's always a catch - some element we need to incorporate into our items. This round we needed to include a star somewhere in our item.

I designed this block a while ago, so when the theme of stars was announced, I knew I wanted to make this quilt. I really love all of the secondary designs that are formed when you put multiple blocks together.

Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out. All of the fabrics were from my stash but include: Kona Cotton, Quilters Linen, Oval Elements and Curious Nature.

I kept the quilting quite simple given the complexity of the front. Because so many pieces meet in one place at times, sewing over those areas would likely have resulted in a broken needle. You can really see the quilting on the back.

I created a pattern for this quilt with a 6" finished block like I used here in this quilt or a 12" finished block if you want to make something a bit bigger. You can find my pattern and others here:

• Craftsy
• Etsy
• Threadbias
• PatternSpot

Quilt Stats:

Pinwheel Party by Jen Sorenson of A Quilting Jewel

Finished Size: 18" x 18"

Fabric: Kona Cotton, Oval Elements, Quilters Linen, Curious Nature

Batting: Warm and Natural

Thread: Aurifil 50wt 2610

Sew-vivor Season 2: Round 1 Entry - Sunrise Delight

I'd like to introduce you to my entry in the Sew-vivor Competition Season 2: Round 1: Sunrise Delight

Check out my quilt below and hop on over to Family Ever After and vote for your favorite project (wink, wink, nudge, nudge -- Mine maybe?).  And if you're looking to make your own version of Sunrise Delight, check out my Craftsy store where I have posted a pattern for this quilt.

This quilt reminds me of a beautiful sunrise with the soft butter yellow background and the early morning pink sky before the rich sky blue and earthy greens emerge. The sound of that just makes me happy.

I designed this paper pieced quilt pattern after being inspired by all sorts of kaleidoscope quilts in cyber space. But, like most things that I do, I couldn't just leave this as a simple kaleidoscope, I needed to add my own twist. So, I altered the diamonds or the tips of the stars to add more interest. I created my own paper pieced pattern and went to town.

For this round of the competition, we had to use emerald green - the Pantone color of the year.  As I designed this quilt, I knew I wanted to use the Lizzy House Pearl Bracelets in Emerald.  After going to multiple shops that carry Lizzy House, I couldn't find that print and I didn't have enough time to order it online.  I settled for the Kelly Green Remix print by Ann Kelle instead.  Most of us had a hard time finding a true emerald green, so it was decided that any shade of green would be acceptable for this challenge.

I was fortunate to have  the Boston Modern Quilt Guild retreat last weekend, which enabled me to spend time making this.  And boy was I determined to make this quilt during the retreat.  I started cutting and sewing the first day and put the final stitch on the binding (by hand, no less) at 1:00am that morning (or should I say, the following morning). I think I worked on this quilt for about 15-18 hours straight, stopping only to have a quick lunch and dinner. After retreat, I swung by my parent's beach house and took these pictures.

I machine quilted this quilt in a concentric circle.

I picked this quilting pattern for three reasons.

1. I have wanted to do this on a quilt for a while now and this seemed like the perfect quilt to do it.
2. I had limited time to get this project completed - less than a week! An all over quilting design was the only option if I had any chance of finishing on time.
3. I wanted to highlight the secondary design that was created when all of the blocks were pieced together - the circle shape.

This quilt measures 36" x 36" square. There are nine paper pieced blocks and a total of 200 different pieces in this wall hanging.

For the back, I went with a Joel Dewberry Chestnut Hill print I got on sale that had the same beautiful rich blue and soft yellow.  For the binding, I went with the same Navy from Simply Color by V & Co.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Sunrise Delight by Jen Sorenson (me!)
Finished Size: 36" x 36"
Fabric Used: Kona Cotton, Remix, Oval Elements, Simply Color and Lucky Penny, Chestnut Hill
Thread: So Fine #50 517
Batting: Warm and Natural

BMQG Mini Quilt Challenge - Dazzling Diamonds

The Boston Modern Quilt Guild is having a mini quilt challenge for its members to create mini quilts, no more than 24" on any side, in the colors of QuiltCon, the inaugural conference and show for The Modern Quilt Guild.  The quilts will be displayed at our special exhibit at the Lowell Quilt Festival this year.  I designed a 6" quilt block for my quilt and made a mini quilt that measures 24" square for the challenge that I call Dazzling Diamonds.

Of course it's paper pieced, my favorite quilting technique.  I wanted to do something with diamonds on the diagonal, but I also wanted something more than just diamonds.  I love stars as well, so I thought about incorporating some sort of star into the block as well.  I determined that if I made the diamond fat, a nice star was formed when you put multiple blocks together.  I thought a giant diamond with a star in between would be boring, so I framed the diamond and added yet another star point to the block.  Voila, you have the block that you see above and below.

Here is the finished quilt top.  I really love how this turned out.  The colors in the above photo are the closest to what they really are. I'm not a huge fan of orange, but used in the right way, I don't mind it.  In this quilt, I actually really like it. 

I love the idea of a pattern creating a secondary pattern.  In this instance, you have the diamonds that form the diagonal lines, the Orange stars, and the grey stars are formed when you put multiple blocks together.  In my quilt you also have the darker grey that forms a pinwheel.

In this mockup, I used one color for the background, which really makes the background stars pop.  I also turned the four center points around to create a medallion effect.

And in this mockup, I rotated the blocks so that the points of the stars inside the diamonds all pointed towards the corner instead of creating stars.  You lose the background star with this layout, but you get this really cool visual effect where you eye is automatically drawn to the center of the quilt.  As you can see, just playing with color and the layout of the block can really give it a different feel.

I'm off to go make another one of these blocks so that I can send it in for the QuiltCon block challenge.

I created a pattern for this quilt block and mini quilt which you can purchase on Craftsy.

Garden Party Blog Hop - My Block

This month Sewhooked has been hosting a blog hop with a new paper pieced pattern each day.  The theme of all of our blocks is "Garden Party."  To me, when I think of a garden party in the spring, the first thing that comes to mind is tulips.  I also picture a beautiful garden with twinkling lights strung across the trees for ambiance.  As a result, i created this great (well, I think it's great - humor me) tulip block.

The thing I love about this block is that the petals form a star in the middle.  The other great thing is that you can use one of the four quarters of the block and you have a great standalone 5" tulip block.  Versatility!  I love it.

I decided to take it one step further and turn this into a mini quilt.

I did a bunch of straight line quilting around the tulips and the border.  I intentionally spaced the straight lines at varying distances for a different look.  I like the way it came out.  

Here's the quilt on my coffee table for Easter. We hosted Easter dinner, and when I showed off the quilt to my parents, my Dad immediately claimed it for their kitchen.  I always take that as a good sign.

This one shows the quilting really well.

Here's the back.  I used an old print from my stash that I knew I wouldn't use for anything else.  I put two triangles in the upper corner to hold a dowel to hang the mini quilt. This is my favorite way of hanging mini quilts.  All you need to do is fold a square in half on the diagonal and when you machine sew the binding, you sew the hanging triangles right onto the quilt. 


Download the pattern here!  You need to print out four of these to make one 10" block. 

I'd love to see pictures if you make something with this pattern.   

How to Paper Piece Series - Books & Patterns

I'm continuing with my series on paper piecing.  Today I'll talk about books and patterns I recommend. You'll see a trend, mostly Carol Doak books and patterns.  Carol is the queen of paper piecing and does a fantastic job of explaining how to paper piece and comes up with some great patterns.  I'm not really a big fan of her fabric and color choices, but I look beyond that to the great patterns.  There are so many other books and patterns out there that I can't cover them all.  I'm only going to highlight a few that I find interesting. 

To view the first post on tools needed, click here.

To start, I would highly recommend that if you're interested in paper piecing to join the Carol Doak Yahoo group.  There's a link on the right rail of my blog to take you there.  On Carol's site she posts tons of free patterns, including blocks of the month series, holiday patters, milestone blocks, etc.  You can also learn tips and tricks from members and ask questions.  It's free to join and you can get a lot of great patterns and advice on here.

My favorite book right now is Carol Doak's Mariners Compass Stars book.

This is the book where I got the pattern for my Moonlit Sky quilt.

I like this book because it includes block patterns and shows you how to use the blocks in different quilt designs.

The next book I recommend is also Carol's.  It's 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars. 

I love this book because it has a lot of patterns that range in skill level.  Some blocks might have as few as 6 pieces per section (there might be 8 per block) and others have as many as 15-20+.  It's great for beginners and experts. This book was the first book I got on Paper piecing and used to make my first paper pieced quilt.

This is the quilt that stated it all.  I made one block in an intro to paper piecing class and made eight more because I was hooked.

Paper Piece the Quick-Strip Way is another good book.  While I haven't made anything from this book yet, I've used this book as a reference to strip piece and save time.  I don't follow the same technique, but I learned some tips and modified it to my preference.  There are some great patterns in here as well.

There are also many patterns out there for paper piecing.  I am currently working on the Fiesta! pattern by Possibilities.

The paper piecing directions are not very good in this pattern, but the actual pattern's provided are a great way to try a New York Beauty quilt.  There are a bunch of New York Beauty patterns out there using paper piecing, so look around to find a pattern that you like the best.

Google - Google is your friend when it comes to paper piecing patterns.  There are a TON of great paper piecing patterns out on the world wide web for free.  If you're looking for a free leaf pattern, just search for it.  I have found so many awesome patterns just by doing a search.