Sewing Ideas Inspired by Summer + Finished Checkered Garden Quilt

Greetings friends!

I hope summer is treating you well (at least you northern-hemisphere folks).

Looking for some sunshine-y project inspiration? I've got LOTS of gorgeous quilt ideas to share with you today as well as pictures of my latest quilt finish and a great tutorial with a quilt block piecing shortcut!

The Finished Checkered Garden Quilt

New on the blog this week, the finished Checkered Garden Quilt. If you've been reading along over the past few months, you will have seen this quilt in progress.

This was such a fun one to make! Click the button below for all of the details, link to the free pattern, fabric and quilting information, etc.

Summer-Inspired Sewing and Quilting Projects

I keep finding really fun summer-themed sewing and quilting projects and decided to update the list of many of my favorites all in one place.

This list includes a variety of choices - everything from quilts, to simpler projects like coasters, mini quilts, or tote bags and even a cute quilted t-shirt idea.

Even if you're not looking to start a new project right now, just scrolling through these sunny, colorful projects will cheer you up! Click below for full list.

One of my favorite Quilting Short-cuts!

I love quilting shortcuts. You've probably heard of "Chain-Piecing" but have you heard of "Web-Piecing"?

Guest contributor Lisa Donnelly shares a tutorial for piecing multiple rows at once. It's one of my favorite quilting hacks - I use it all the time. Click below to get the details:

Fun Finds on the Web - Foundation Paper Piecing:

Have you tried Foundation Paper-Piecing (FPP)? FPP is something I've really grown to enjoy more and more over the past year. It's definitely a different ball game from traditional piecing and takes some practice to get the hang of this new way of piecing.

But once you do, there are SO many places you can go with this technique to make some really detailed designs with fabric. The paper-foundation means that you can accurately create complex shapes that would be very difficult to make piecing them traditionally.

Here are a few FPP tutorials and patterns:

Liza Taylor walks through the basics of Foundation Paper Piecing in this introduction to the process.

For another great introduction and basic patterns for starting, visit Leila Gardunia's Guide to Foundation Paper Piecing.

​The Fat Quarter Shop has a large variety of paper templates for foundation-piecing traditional quilt blocks. Here's a look at a quilt I made with their Woven Star blocks that was so much fun.

Kristina at Center Street Quilts has a free FPP Heart block (in multiple sizes) that is a great practice block for getting started with Foundation Paper Piecing. Kristina also has lots of beautiful FPP patterns in her Etsy Shop.

If you're already a confident Foundation Paper-Piecing: the strawberry and heart block patterns below are by Susan of Quilty Pie - she's got a variety of adorable FPP patterns in a range of difficulty levels.

And for extra intense piecing AND beauty check out the work of Berene at Happy Sew Lucky. Her Sew Like A Boss pattern is amazing!

Last week we hit one of my favorite hiking trails with an end destination of seasonal falls. I always try to hit this spot in June while the snow run-off is feeding the falls as they'll dry up a lot by later in the summer.

I'm still not in as good of shape as I've been in years past. But I'm trying to get out and rebuild some stamina so I can do more hikes this summer.

Getting into the mountains definitely cuts into my sewing time in the summer, but it's worth it to enjoy this season while it's here! Also, for me, the sound of running water is one of the most healing and therapeutic things there is. It's so grounding - something I can always use more of.

Hope you have a wonderful week. As always, thanks for stopping by. xo

Amy

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