donut quilt

This quilt has been in progress for what feels like forever, so I'm so excited to finally have a finish to share with you today!

The Donuts quilt pattern has been on my mind ever since I saw Amanda's Donut Quilt back in 2013. I loved the whimsical nature of the design---donuts!---and the staggered layout, so I bought a copy of the quilt pattern from The Workroom.

Knowing that this would be a quilt I would keep for myself, I chose to use a number of Maze & Vale panels that I'd been stockpiling for the donuts. Leslie's fabrics are gorgeous, and I was excited to sew with them and finally include them in a quilt. I used a blue Essex linen for the background, which paired beautifully with the screen-printed fabrics. According to Instagram, I made the blocks for this quilt a year ago.

I recently had a quilt to send off to Crinklelove for quilting, so I figured this was a great time to take the top out of the WIP pile, and finish it before the New Hampshire winter starts.

Sarah did a beautiful job quilting Denyse Schmidt-style loops across the top; I'm in love with the texture they created! I inadvertently made a Scandinavian backing for the quilt, pairing a large-scale Marrimekko dot print with a text print from Ikea.

I'm so excited to have finished this quilt---and the final result!---and am looking forward to adding it to the quilt rotation in our house. Do you have any quilt patterns that you love and are hoping to make yourself? I'd love to hear!

Quilt Stats
Finished dimensions: 50" x 61"
Fabrics used include: Various screen-printed panels by Maze & Vale; Essex linen-cotton blend by Robert Kaufman; large-circle print by Marimekko; Britten Nummer fabric by Ikea; and Herringbone in Pond by Joel Dewberry.
Quilt pattern: Donuts Quilt by Johanna Masko

new maze and vale fabric panels!

Happy Monday, all! I hope you all had a nice, relaxing weekend. I'm so excited to let you know that I've added six brand-new Maze and Vale designs to the shop! Leslie Keating, the talented woman behind Maze and Vale, is a prolific and popular independent fabric designer based in Australia. I first began stocking her fabrics this past winter, and they've proven to be quite popular!

Each batch of Maze and Vale fabric I carry is exclusive to Salty Oat; you won't be able to find these color combinations anywhere else. For this latest batch, I selected two different color base cloths and six different ink colors. While each panel works well on its own, I also decided to create two bundles within the group, which coordinate together well and could easily be used in the same project.

For the first bundle, I selected a spectrum of grays---pale gray, dove gray, and charcoal---printed on a white organic cotton base cloth. I personally love using low-volume prints in place of solid white in many of my quilts, and I had that in mind when I selected these prints and colors. Wouldn't they look beautiful in this Pow-Wow Quilt?

For the second bundle, I selected rich jewel tones---deep peacock, camellia, and eggplant---which were printed on an organic pale mushroom gray base cloth. These bold prints were inspired by fabrics I saw while visiting Japan more than a year ago, and I'd love to pair them with bits of rich leather to create zipper pouches. I think the large pink polka dots in particular would create an especially beautiful foldover clutch.

I hope you love these prints as much as I do! And please be sure to tag any projects you make with fabrics from the shop with the hashtag #saltyoat, so that I can see them and share them!

sunday morning low-volume throw quilt

I've really loved every quilt I've made using patterns from Sunday Morning Quilts (see: my Up, Up and Away quilt and my improv slab quilt), and this latest one is no exception. Pairing the book's namesake Sunday Morning pattern with my low-volume scraps and strings, I constructed my new go-to summer nap quilt.

I included an eclectic number of fabrics in the quilt, ranging from vintage ditsy prints to hand-printed linen to vintage sheets to digitally printed Spoonflower fabrics. There are also bits of double gauze, lawn, and shirting in there.

I really love the more muted palette of these fabrics; I think this pattern would also pair especially well with Maze and Vale's lovely fabrics.

I used a floral vintage sheet for the backing, which I found while thrifting in Maryland a few years ago. I love using vintage sheets for backings, both because they're usually super soft and also large enough that there's no need to do any extra piecing.

I stuck to quilting it with a large grid, and machine bound the quilt with a yellow-and-white binding, my current favorite color combo. 

Quilt Stats
Finished dimensions: 50" x 60"
Fabrics used include: Squared Elements in Honeycomb by Art Gallery Fabrics; vintage sheet
Quilt pattern: Sunday Morning by Cheryl Arkison 

now in stock: maze and vale

Though I posted about it on Instagram, I realized that I never shared the news here on the blog: I am now stocking a selection of five unique prints by Maze and Vale in the shop!

Leslie is the powerhouse behind Maze and Vale, designing and printing all of the fabrics that are sold by this Australia-based company. She is also the organizer of the yearly Handprinted: a fabric swap, which I've had the pleasure of participating in twice (blogged here and here).

I worked with Leslie to select the designs and colorways you see in the shop, each of which are printed on an organic quilting-weight basecloth. These design-and-color combinations are completely unique to Salty Oat; you can't purchase them anywhere else! Additionally, Leslie recently announced that she'll be retiring two of the designs I stock---Gathering and Love Hearts---so now is definitely the time to grab them if you love them as much as I do.

Happy sewing!

annual holiday sale!

For those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had the most wonderful holiday yesterday with family and friends! 

I'm so thankful for all of you---friends, blog readers, and customers---and in celebration of you, I'm offering a special discount! Now through the end of the day on Monday, simply enter the code "THANKS" at checkout in the Salty Oat Etsy shop and receive 20% off your purchase. This is my biggest sale of the year, and it's the perfect time to snag a handmade quilt or stock up on fabrics for your own holiday gift-making. I just added some new swatch packs (grab one while you can!) and a custom, embroidered quilt label option to the shop, so I hope you'll stop by!

my go-to quilt pattern

Do you have a quilt pattern that you return to over and over again? I do. For the past year and a half, one of the patterns that I keep coming back to is for the Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt by Bonnie of Quiltville. Each quilt I've made from the pattern is different, and each time I've been able to experiment with fabric placement, color palettes, and block layouts.  I've used bright, colorful prints for one, and white and cream solids with pops of saturated colors for another.

For this most recent iteration, I pulled white, cream, and light blue strips from my scrap bins. I incorporated some unexpected fabrics, including a vintage eyelet, a hand-printed fabric I received in a swap, and a lightweight linen-cotton canvas.

I pieced the back using largish scraps from my stash, and quilted it in light blue thread with a cross-hatch pattern. It's now for sale in the Etsy shop, if you'd like to take a look.

And this is not my last pass at this pattern---I already have blocks made from bright solids ready to be turned into a quilt top!

All quilt photos by Caroline Okun.

new fabrics in the shop!

I'm so excited to share that I've added more fabrics to the shop! You can now find a selection of prints by the British textile designer, Sarah Waterhouse, on my virtual shelves. Sarah hand prints all of her beautiful designs onto organic cotton and hemp blends in her Sheffield, England, studio.

Sarah's prints are bright and bold, and great for so many projects, including throw pillows and zipper pouches. I've started on an improv quilt using swatches of her designs that I'm really excited about.

In addition to new fabrics, I've also added some finished goods to the sale section of my shop, in preparation for a move into a larger home studio next week. The less I have to move the better, and there are some great potential holiday gifts in there!

hand-printed hexagon wall quilt

English paper piecing has become my go-to project when I'm traveling, so after finishing my star blossoms quilt, I immediately switched over to a hexagon project I started ages ago, but had never finished. During plane rides this past fall to Salt Lake City for Sewing Summit and Houston for Quilt Market, I stitched away.

The main fabrics I used were hand-printed scraps by Sara Lee Parker, which I bought from her table at Crafty Bastards a few years ago. I paired her prints with an olive linen from my stash. I took an improv approach to the layout of the hexagons---I pulled basted hexagons from a pouch without looking, and stitched together whatever I pulled.

Once I'd stitched together all of the pieces I had, I decided to machine appliqué the entire shape to a rectangular scrap of muslin. I did echo quilting around the edges and then framed it all with a black binding.

I love how this piece turned out---and loved working with Sara's fabrics---and can't wait to hang it on my studio wall.

handprinted: a fabric swap III

For the second year in a row, I participated in the hand-printed fabric swap organized by Leslie from Maze and Vale (one of my favorite fabric designers!). You can see the triangle fabric I printed last year here.

For this year's fabric, I decided to use a stamp that I carved in a surface-printing workshop I took at Lotta Jansdotter's studio back in February. The bowl design is based on an image I found in a book in Lotta's studio, and reminds me of Cathrineholm enamelware. 

Using navy blue fabric ink, I printed the bowl on a few different fabrics: two types of linen and a quilting cotton. It was interesting to see how the fabric weave changed how the design printed. I mailed the four fat quarters to my swap partners in England and Australia, and have already received some great fabric from them in return.

I really love printing my own fabric, and am looking forward to trying out screen printing in an upcoming workshop at the Cloth Fiber Workshop in Asheville. My goal is to have enough hand-printed fabric by the end of the year to make a quilt!

handprinted: a fabric swap II

Lately, I've been wanting to try my hand at printing my own fabric, so when I heard about the hand-printed fabric swap organized by Leslie over at Maze and Vale back in June, I immediately knew I wanted to participate.

After a bit of brainstorming, research, and experimenting, I settled on a simple triangle design.

I created a stamp using adhesive-backed foam and a plastic cap for the base and stamped away using black, aqua, and coral fabric paint. I made four fat quarters for my four swap partners.

I was super happy with the results of this experiment in fabric stamping---and only wish I'd made a fifth to keep for myself!

You can see the beautiful fabric I received in return here, here, and here.