oakshott scandinavia + a bartow baby quilt

The lovely team at Sew Mama Sew recently sent me a bundle of fabrics from Oakshott Fabrics' Scandinavia collection. When they asked that I create something Scandinavian-inspired, I immediately thought of the interiors of Scandinavian homes I'd seen on Pinterest and Design*Sponge, and wanted to create something that would fit into those clean, modern spaces. When I received the stack of shot cottons, I experimented with a few different quilt blocks based on Scandinavian surface patterns---including improv curves and plus signs---but none of them seemed quite right.

While continuing to brainstorm ideas, the Bartow Quilt pattern by Carolyn Friedlander came to mind. The clean lines and simple layout of this free pattern for Robert Kaufman suggested to me that it would be right at home in a modern interior, so I set to work cutting strips from each of the pastel fabrics to create a baby quilt.

I used a combination of cream shot cotton and white cotton for the top's background, and I backed the quilt with a soft Melody Miller linen-cotton print that I picked up in Japan last year, which included many of the colors from the bundle: baby pink, lavender and mint green.

I used cream thread for the cross-hatch quilting, and I machine bound the quilt with leftover Oakshott scraps, using my newest favorite method for binding.

Many thanks to Sew Mama Sew and Oakshott Fabrics for this beautiful fabric bundle! I enjoyed working in a new-to-me color palette and taking on a fun challenge.

Be sure to check out the beautiful projects made from the same bundle of fabric by these other talented makers: 

Jessica Skultety from Quilty Habit
Jennifer Fullerton from Never Just Jennifer

Mary Kolb from Mary on Lake Pulaski
Casey York from The Studiolo
Deborah Fisher from Fish Museum and Circus

P.S. A winner was selected for the Modern Sampler Quilt pattern giveaway and announced in the last post. There's still time to grab a pattern from the Zakka Workshop store for 20% off with the code QUILTALONG, and sew your first block for the Modern Sampler Quilt Along by the end of the month!

metal frame clutch

I've always loved the look of metal frame clutches, but was always too intimidated to learn how to make one (I tend to veer away from any project that involve fabric glue for fear of making a mistake and winding up with glue on everything). So when I heard that Kelly would be teaching a metal frame clutch class at Sewing Summit, back in October, I jumped at the chance to learn something new.

The clutch was relatively simple to construct, and I used Melody Miller fabric I had leftover from my log cabin napkins for both the outside and the lining.

Kelly helped me during the gluing stage, which turned out to be not so scary or messy, and I thought the end result was very cute.

This year, I hope to continue tackling sewing projects with new, sometimes intimidating, techniques. How about you? Are there any techniques you're hoping to learn?

quilt market

Detail from Melody Miller's booth at the 2012 International Quilt Market, Houston

This past weekend, I went to Quilt Market for the very first time for work. It was a quick trip (and I only managed to take one picture!), but I did see many exciting, soon-to-be released fabric collections, discover a few new fabric companies (like this one, out of Japan), meet friendly people, and buy a few things at the Sample Spree. Did any of you go this year? What was your favorite part?

P.S. Thank you to everyone who donated to our team for the Walk to End Alzheimer's! I was so disappointed not to be able to attend because of my last-minute trip to Houston, but my husband still went to represent our team on Saturday, and thanks to your support, we were able to raise $2,000!