Mad About Patchwork Giveaway Winner

It's time to announce the winner of the Kona Fat Quarter Bundle. Thank you to Mad About Patchwork for sponsoring this giveaway!

The winner is...

Gunilla please contact me with your information!

Thank you to everyone who entered.

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On a side note, I'm sorry for the lack of a Scrap Sunday post this past weekend. My Brother & SIL brought the kids down to visit for the weekend and we were having so much fun that I lost track of time. I'm also headed up to LA today to spend a few days with them so it might be quiet on here again for a few days. :-)

© Blog post written by Julie Herman

© Photos by Karin Herman

For more information visit http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/

Photos from NCQA Lecture

On Monday I gave my first guild presentation since moving to California. It was great to get back into presenting.  The North County Quilter's Association was great group of quilters.  Tomorrow I'll be doing a workshop with the guild. My parents were nice enough to join me at the lecture. Mom took care of preparing and organizing all my patterns for sale while my dad took all the photos you see below. I really appreciate having such supportive and amazing parents. Love you!

Chit Chat before the presentation.

Explaining how I got into quilting.
This particular lecture was all about The Big Finish, backings, bindings and labels.

The back of Square City. This was one of the first pieced backs I made back in late 2009. These two guys were my fantastic assistants provided by the guild.

The back of Dot Party. Another one of my early pieced backs.

The back of Celebrate Dr. Seuss


Pink Chopsticks
I brought both the pink and the blue, and showed how I did a different back on each one.

Explaining the details in Home at Last

Lots of laughs at the end while showing Radio Way

Last but not least was Come What May

The guild was great at making me feel very comfortable and welcome.  Thank you!
If you have a guild or a shop & are interested in having me present a lecture or workshop please contact me for more information.



© Blog post written by Julie Herman
For more information visit http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/

Sponsored Giveaway: Featuring Mad About Patchwork!

disclosure: this is a sponsored giveaway by Mad About Patchwork

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Ready for another giveaway?Today Mad About Patchwork is here with some yummy fabric for you to drool over!!
Mad About Patchwork is a great online shop in Canada.{They ship to US & Internationally as well}

One of my favorite things about the shop is that they have over 150 colors of Kona in stock. They also sell custom fat quarter bundles, and have a custom cutting option for charms and strips in the color of your choice! That is what I call service!

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Another really cool thing is that they created City Quilts kits to go with many of the amazing quilts in City Quilts by Cherri House. The kits have all the great Kona solids you'll need!

City Aviation

City Green

City Lights

{Photos are from Cherri House's visit to the Philadelphia Modern Quilt Guild last year.}

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So what is the prize?

The winner will receive a Kona Classic Fat Quarter Bundle! It has 25 beautiful colors in it!

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the rules
leave ONE comment to enter.
make sure your contact info is in your profile or that you leave it in the comment.
Check out Mad About Patchwork's page of  "Kona Bundles" & let me know which bundle is your favorite! I know which one is my favorite... today at least!

Simple as that!!
You have till 9PM PST on Friday the 23rd to enter.Winners will be selected by True Random Number Generator.
Giveaway now closed.Winner announced here.
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*Note*

A large number of people have commented on giveaways recently without leaving their contact information. If you have your settings set to "no-reply" please leave your e-mail address in the comment or change your settings. Many have also said "pick me" and not answered the question. I like to keep giveaways as simple & fun as possible, but if you don't follow the rules you will not be eligible to win.

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© Blog post written by Julie Herman
For more information visit http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/

Scrap Sunday - Using my scraps

Welcome to Scrap Sunday.  Every Sunday I'll be posting what I'm doing in scrapbooking... or what scrappy quilt project I'm working on.  If you are working on Project Life, scrapbooking, or a scrappy quilt please link up at the end of this post.

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Today I'm going to actually sew with my scraps. I've pulled out a bunch of fabric scraps, batting scraps & my bag of extra bindings. My plan is to create a few mug rugs using only scraps. I'll let you know in a few days how it all works out!

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If you are working on Project Life, scrapbooking, or a scrappy quilt share a link here!

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Here's a button for you!

© Blog post written by Julie Herman

For more information visit http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/

Size Options

I like size options in quilt patterns. When I used to work in a quilt shop those were the patterns I typically purchased. Most patterns don't have size options. It takes more time to work out all the numbers and more pages to give all the information.

People who know me well know I'm a math nerd. Numbers fascinate me & I like to work with them. Put all that together, and it is only logical that I'd provide size options with my Quilt Patterns.

I've received a number of e-mails over the years asking why a certain pattern doesn't have a specific size option. I've answered these e-mails over the years and decided I'd put all that information together into a post and share it with everyone. My answer is never because I didn't like that size or because I didn't feel like it. The answer varies from quilt to quilt.

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Lack of Size Options
Of the 14 quilt patterns I've released, 10 have size options. {I have a bunch of new ones in the works and they all have size options too!}

These are the 4 patterns without size options. Interestingly all of the quilts that I've made without size options have borders. I'm very particular about the scale of a border to the blocks in a quilt. Sometimes using the same size border on a quilt with twice as many blocks doesn't look right.

Dance Floor is one size because of the layout and design of the blocks. Firecracker has one size because of the block construction layout and border size. Carnival has one size because of the scale of the borders to the blocks. Plaid Parade has one size because of the fabric requirements and placement. Plaid Parade could have had other sizes & I'm considering re-releasing it with size options later this year.

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The Numbers
Sometimes a specific block size doesn't work out to a specific finished quilt size. Many people will add a border or take a border away to "make a quilt fit," but that just has never been my style. Most of my quilts don't have borders in the first place which was part of the inspiration for writing my book, Skip the Borders.

This chart shows all of my quilt patterns and the sizes available in the pattern. Most as you see have the Lap size since this is the most "flexible" size option. Bed sizes have less flexibility since beds come in standard sizes. Informal polling that I did provided information that Baby & Youth sizes were more in demand than Full Bed size. My later patterns represent that request.

Examples that just didn't work.

Off the Rail - The queen worked out to be 94" x 94" and I felt this wasn't big enough for a Queen size quilt. Radio Way - The queen worked out to be 90" x 90" which was also too small. Taffy is square and when I made it a rectangle to create the bed sizes I decided that the design needed to be square. I could go on & on, but hopefully you get what I'm explaining here.

If you want to make one of my quilts in a size that isn't listed you have a few options. Start with the directions for the size that is closest. Add/Subtract a row or column of blocks. Keep in mind that if I didn't list the size I didn't think it was ideal, but that doesn't mean you can't make it work. You can also add a border to a smaller size quilt to make it larger.

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I'd like to know your thoughts. 
Do you like having size options?
Does the inclusion of size options make you more inclined to buy a pattern vs. one that doesn't have size options?
Are you interested in Plaid Parade in other sizes & in new fabrics?
Do you want to see full size as a size option again?
What size is most important to you?

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts! I really appreciate it.

© Blog post written by Julie Herman
For more information visit http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/

Ann Kelle Slicker Giveaway Winner

It was really interesting for me to see your comments on the giveaway post. I started to wonder which color was getting more votes, so I decided to make a pie chart. The black section represents all of the "other" colors picked. Blue beat out green by just two votes.

I asked Kelle why Pink was her favorite color. Here is her response...

I have never officially declared pink as my favorite color (stop rolling your eyes, Julie). Yes, all my running shoes have pink in them. I'd love to have a pink house one day. And my luggage is hot pink. It's true, I think pink can do no wrong. But, to be fair to all the other colors, I can't pick just one. Pink just makes me the happiest. When I see it, I'm flooded with the playful, carefree feeling of being a kid again.

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It's time to announce the winner of the Ann Kelle slicker fabric. Thank you to Robert Kaufman fabrics for donating the fabric!

The winner is...

Sandra please send me your information!
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© Blog post written by Julie Herman
For more information visit http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/

Scrap Sunday - Organizing Scraps

Welcome to Scrap Sunday.  Every Sunday I'll be posting what I'm doing in scrapbooking... or what scrappy quilt project I'm working on.  If you are working on Project Life, scrapbooking, or a scrappy quilt please link up at the end of this post.

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Today's post is about organizing fabric scraps. Do you organize your scraps? If so I want to know how you do & if your system is working for you.

Last year before I knew I was moving I did a few posts on organization. Part 1 & Part 2. Organizing by color worked for me back then. Once we decided to move I made a GIANT purge of my scraps to guild members. Almost 100% of the fabric in the colored scrap bins didn't make the move so I knew I'd need to start a new system here.

I did keep my "pre-cut" scraps.
What I mean by this is leftovers from pre-cut bundles. This includes 2 1/2" strips, 1 1/2" strips, 5" squares, and 10" squares.

I've got a bin of strips.

Most of them ate 2 1/2" strips

And then a small amount are 1 1/2" strips

This bin is all my black & white scraps, regardless of size.

This bin holds 10" squares, 5" squares and some charm packs.

I also keep scraps by project. I'm not really sure why I do this, since I can't ever remember going back and using them all together.

Another bag of scraps from a project. I have way more of these bags than I want to count!

I also keep leftover binding together.

I also have a few small messy bins of random scraps, but I'm getting better at not saving every little tiny scrap. 

So let me know how your organize! Also do you use your scraps? I don't make scrappy quilts often so I'm not really sure why I spend so much time organizing my scraps!

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If you are working on Project Life, scrapbooking, or a scrappy quilt share a link here!

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Here's a button for you!

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and just a quick reminder...you have till 9PM PST tonight to enter the giveaway for ann kelle's slicker fabric.


© Blog post written by Julie Herman
For more information visit http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/

Sponsored Giveaway: Featuring Ann Kelle!

disclosure: this is a sponsored giveaway by Robert Kaufman Fabrics

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First I want to thank you all for your support of my big news this week! :-)

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The great team over at Robert Kaufman have a great giveaway for you today. They know I'm a big fan of Ann Kelle designs.

with Kelle at Spring Market last year

Her designs were originally printed on quilting cotton.  Now they come on cotton, flannel, corduroy & slicker!!  Oh the possibilities!  

some of Ann Kelle's cool cords

I was quite excited when RK added slicker fabrics to the mix. The slicker fabric is 60" wide. There are so many possibilities of what to make with these including the placemats I made back in January.

So what is the giveaway?  One yard of each of these two prints!  Since this fabric sells for around $19-$20 a yard that is a rocking prize!

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the rules
leave ONE comment to enter.
make sure your contact info is in your profile or that you leave it in the comment.
Answer this question:What is your favorite color & why?
Simple as that!!
Kelle's favorite color is Pink... but I wonder why?  ...and my favorite color is Orange. It probably has something to do with Halloween being my favorite holiday as a kid.

You have till 9PM PST on Sunday the 11th to enter.Giveaway now closed.Winner announced here.

Winners will be selected by True Random Number Generator.

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© Blog post written by Julie Herman
For more information visit http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/