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!

do. Good Stitches: A Circle of Geese Quilt

Every few months, it's my turn to select a pattern and color palette for a quilt for the members of the Wish Circle of do. Good Stitches to put together. Last week, I finally finished and photographed a quilt that our members started in May, and I'm completely smitten with it.

Using the Circle of Geese pattern---which Christina of Sometimes Crafter featured a paper-piecing tutorial for on her blog back in 2009---our circle members pieced together triangles in shades of mustard, pink, and black, using these two pins I shared for color inspiration.

After piecing the top, I assembled the back, surrounding two of the blocks with pink and black prints which have been sitting in my stash for many moons, waiting for the perfect project.

I quilted it in a one-inch cross-hatch grid, with various shades of pink thread, and bound it with a scrappy black binding.

Our quilt will soon be heading off to the Raleigh chapter of Project Linus, and my group members have already started assembling blocks for our next quilt, using this pretty color palette for inspiration.

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.

weekend sale!

It's sale time! Now through Monday, enjoy free shipping---domestic and international---on everything in the shop, including quilts, fabrics, and scrap packs. Just use the code "YAYFREESHIP" at checkout to receive the discount. Enjoy!

flying geese + feathers

This quilt has been a long time coming. Back when my husband and I got married, my dearest friend from my high school days gifted us with a beautiful, bed-size quilt. So when she got married in New York City last summer, I knew it was my chance to return the favor and make her and her new husband a quilt.

My friend loves purple (this wall quilt was for her), so I looked around on Design Seeds for purple inspiration. I wound up using this color palette to inspire my fabric pull. My friend had mentioned her love of Anna Maria Horner's feathers, so I knew I wanted to use those in the quilt. When I discovered how long it took to make each feather, and knew that I needed to wind up with a queen-size quilt, I decided to revise my plan a bit. I made stacks of feathers, flying geese, and half-square triangles, and then began piecing improvisationally, adding blocks of fabric as I went along to fill space.

The results were admittedly chaotic---so much randomness!---but completely different than anything I've done before.

Since it was so large, and I'd already done so much piecing, I decided to use a purple sheet for a seamless backing. I was pleasantly surprised with how soft it was! Lindsay of Eileen Quilts quilted it for me and I bound it with one of Carolyn Friedlander's cross-hatch prints. I added a hand-embroidered label with the couple's wedding date, along with a new leather Salty Oat tag.

I gifted it to my friend the weekend before last (over a year after her wedding---oops!), while visiting my parents in New Hampshire. The timing worked out well, since the changing fall foliage provided the perfect backdrop for photos.

triangle scraps + a finished quilt

I'm so excited to share today's quilt with you! I started this quilt earlier this year, on a quest to clear out my scrap bins---at least enough to fit the lids back on top.  While I didn't manage to do that---my scrap pile keeps growing!---I did fall in love with this scrappy quilt.

The quilt pattern is "Up, Up, and Away," by Amanda Jean Nyberg, and is found in the book Sunday Morning Quilts. I paired white, cream, and khaki squares with little triangles of color, ranging from vintage to modern fabrics. Piecing took forever---lots of trimming and experimenting with the layout---but I think it was well worth the effort.

I used a saturated and bold blue Marimekko print for the back and a coordinating cobalt-blue-and-white stripe for the binding. I stuck with my favorite cross-hatch quilting, which added a nice texture to the quilt.

 

This quilt is now listed for sale in the Salty Oat Etsy shop, and I'd love to know, what are your favorite scrap-busting projects?

All photos by Caroline Okun. 

keeping it simple

Though I finished this quilt last year (and am only getting around to blogging about it now!), I actually started it back in 2010, not long after we moved to Maryland. I made the blocks as part of the Stitch DC Mystery Quilt Along, and stashed them away until last year.

I stuck with a lime green and periwinkle color palette, using prints from Amy Butler, Heather Bailey, and Cloud9 Fabrics. Though I played around with numerous layouts and considered incorporating borders and sashing, I wound up laying out the blocks in a simple grid pattern, which I think suits it perfectly!

I selected a fun, bright Amy Butler print from my stash for the back and love how it coordinates with the front. For the binding, I used a light blue and white seersucker stripe for a pop of texture. After quilting and washing, the quilt came out so soft and squishy---perfect for snuggling.

It's so nice to finally have this quilt done! It's now for sale in the Salty Oat Etsy shop.

UPDATE 11/21/14: This quilt is now available for purchase at Cary Quilting Company, in downtown Cary, North Carolina.

All photos by Caroline Okun.