Spirited Look Book - The Quilts

Spirited Look Book - The Quilts

This week, Art Gallery Fabrics released the Spirited fabric collection Look Book and I can’t wait for you to see how my new fabric collection comes to life in this virtual magazine.

Because I contributed many different projects to the Look Book and took many of the images used in it I thought it would be nice to break it down into subjects over a few blog posts and give you a personal tour of this virtual magazine. Go take a look at the entire catalog HERE and then come back for more views that didn’t make it into the magazine.

The Quilts

Blossom

Blossom by Sharon Holland

The largest quilt of the Spirited Look Book is my Blossom quilt of 72’’ square. This is my newest pattern release and now available in my SHOP. I labeled this quilt a Confident Beginner because it uses A/B blocks to achieve the overall design. What you get is the perfect canvas for showing off your selected prints and a lovely chain effect that connects the blocks. I even added a Controlling Directional Prints video to my You Tube channel especially for this quilt so you can tame those directional prints and be the boss of how they go together.

My beautiful daughter is the clothing model and quilt wrangler in these images. I’m not sure if it shows at all in the photos but it was a cold day. I draped the quilt over her shoulders to keep her warm between shoots and it was so pretty—I had the capture this scene! It’s one of my many favorite shots from the photography shoot.

Normally I machine quilt my quilts but because I had a heavy sew-list of makes and not much sew time I decided to make things simple for myself and send this quilt out to be long armed. I’m sure glad I did farm out the quilting to Brooke Becker of Lady Belle Fabrics. She did a beautiful job and with a quick turn around!

Brooke is wonderful to work with and she has a wide variety of super cool quilt designs to choose from. She helped me pick out this Garden Trellis pattern and I love how it echos the shape of the quilt blocks.

Lady Belle Fabrics is also a fabric shop and Brooke is carrying my Spirited collection along with many of your favorite AGF collections. She sells by the bundle and fabric by the yard—all at great prices!

Giveaway Alert!

For those of you that follow me @sharonhollanddesigns or Lady Belle Fabrics on Instagram we have a heads up for you that on Friday, December 6 Brooke and I are collaborating on a Spirited fabrics giveaway! Be sure to stop by IG on Friday and enter on my Instagram giveaway post.

Inside my quilt I used my favorite Hobbs Tuscany Silk batting. Silk handles much like traditional cotton batting but has a blend of 10% Polyester to help keep it from shrinking and the combination blend is light weight yet warm. The drape is wonderful as well with beautiful stitch definition.

This quilt looks right at home on the prairie as it does inside on a bed. If you love this quilt as much as I do, Lady Belle Fabrics will be exclusively carrying quilt kits to make a Blossom quilt just like the one you see here.

Free Range

Free Range quilt by Sharon Holland

With every Art Gallery Fabrics collection there’s an accompanying free quilt pattern. The Free Range quilt was designed by me (Sharon Holland) and made and machine quilted by the AGF Studio. This is the perfect size for a baby quilt at 42’’ square. I love how you can use a lot of your favorite prints in the half-square triangles and still have the large areas of hour glass blocks to break up the busyness. I even have you use the left over scraps for a scrappy binding—it all adds to the boho vibe of the collection.

Peppermint Twist

Peppermint Twist by Sharon Holland

The Peppermint Twist pattern could be my most popular design and you can find the pattern on my SHOP page. As you can tell by it’s name, I’ve always shown it in Christmas prints and the pattern comes in a table runner and large throw size.

I’ve been wanting to remake this quilt for some time now in non-holiday prints. I love the dramatic look of the dark Pure PE-482 Forest Night solid to pop the Spirited prints. I made less blocks than called for in the large throw and added some half blocks to the top and bottom edges (which were later cut off for a straight edge) and came up with a baby quilt size. The pattern does not reflect this baby size quilt but rather I’m showing you how to make a variation on the existing pattern and customize to the size you’d like.

Another change I made to this baby quilt was to keep the pinwheels all one print rather than two prints as in the original pattern. I love the movement of this quilt block and it shows off the prints really well.

Because of the small size I decided to hand quilt this quilt and used DMC Perlé Cotton thread in size 8. I backed it with the Tender Arrangement print from my Art Gallery Fabrics Signature collection. I love that there’s so many of my past collection prints that coordinate well with Spirited. If you already have some of my fabrics in your collection then you’ll love adding Spirited in the mix!

More Quilts

The stunning quilts in the above collage are made and designed by: AGF Studio (Dream Catcher and Izel Blocks), Harvest Star by Elaine Bergman, and Blooming Prairie Quilt by Marija Vujcic. See more of these beauties in the Look Book and on their blogs.

Spirited quilting cottons, knits, and rayons are shipping to quilt shops everywhere. I’ve started a stock lists of online shops for this collection on my FABRICS page and will continue to add links as more shops get their listings up. If your local quilt shop hasn’t ordered it yet, let them know you’d like to sew with these prints and feel the AGF difference for yourself at your favorite shop.

When you do make a project with my fabrics, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram @sharonhollanddesigns because I love to see what you’re sewing! And tag the Spirited collection as well with #AGFSpirited.

—Happy sewing!

I am an Amazon Associate site and earn from qualifying purchases on the products I’ve linked below. The helpful products selected are the same or similar to materials used to make the project(s) in this blog post. Thank you!

Hold Tight Petite Sew Along - Finishing

Hold Tight Petite Sew Along - Finishing

It’s the final week of the Hold Tight Petite Sew Along and today’s post will cover assembling the blocks in a Quilt As You Go (QAYG) quilt sandwich or assembling the top and making a traditional quilt sandwich, quilting, hand quilting and binding.

As Blair Stocker’s Wise Craft Ruby Ruler™ Ambassador series August Ruby Ambassador (Read my interview by Blair—here) I thought what better way than collaborate with Blair on the Petite Sew Along and use her rulers to help navigate color and value in a fun quilt project.

Here’s what we’ve accomplished in three weeks:

Blair’s ruby-hued artist’s viewfinder tools the Ruby Ruler™ and Ruby Minder™ where invaluable tools in the first week’s study on Color and Value. I blogged about how, as a designer, I go about selecting colors for my fabric collections or a color story for a quilt and how I used the Ruby Minder™ to check my selections of Art Gallery Fabric Pure Solids. If you missed the first week, read more here. Plus you’ll find additional color theory materials covered on Week #1 and Week #2 of the original Hold Tight sew along as well as in the skill-building demonstration videos. Find these helpful videos on my Sew Along page which are available for viewing any time.

To catch up on what happened during week 2, read my Cutting & Piecing blog post here. Use templates to cut out shapes and sew curves with ease. Find out how with my videos for Week #2, #3 Part 1, and #3 Part 2 on the Sew Along page.

During the Hold Tight Petite sew along, Blair Stocker will be following up my Wednesday morning blog posts with a Facebook Live session. This workshop-like experience with Blair on Facebook is a huge bonus along with connecting with more than 1,500 other quilter’s via Blairs private Facebook group! Blair will host live sessions to support my sew along blog posts and share with you her expertise. Note: Blair’s FB group is free to join by answering three questions when requesting to be added to the group. If you can’t join in the live sessions—no problem—the videos are available for replay and ready to view when you are!

Hold Tight Petite quilt by Sharon Holland

This sew along is free to join—no sign up forms—just follow along and have fun. You’ll will need, however, the Hold Tight quit pattern. If you don't have my Hold Tight quilt pattern already, you'll want to purchase the Hold Tight PDF pattern from my Shop page. The Hold Tight pattern now includes two sizes—the original over-sized throw and the new petite crib-size quilt. The material lists, cutting requirements, coloring sheet, and full-size templates are part of the fully illustrated PDF pattern. These sew along blog posts serve to supplement the PDF but don't provide the detailed pattern information that you'll find in the PDF available for purchase. If you’ve purchased the original PDF prior to August 5, 2019 and didn’t receive a special newsletter email from this blog sharing the link to the Petite Add-On download, see my SEW ALONG page to get your copy of the bonus size. You’ll find the Add-On download that contains the crib-size material list, cutting guide, and coloring sheet. Note: You’ll still need the original Hold Tight pattern for quilt details. The current PDF in my shop has been updated with both quilt sizes so patterns purchased after August 5, 2019 include both quilt sizes—no add-on necessary.

WEEK #3 - QAYG and Finishing

I like options, don’t you? I also like to be able to quilt my own quilts. The original large throw-size Hold Tight quilt and the new Petite crib-size quilts are both nice size quilts for trying machine quilting on your sewing machine as well as adding some decorative hand quilting for the balloon strings.

Hold Tight quilt throw-size by Sharon Holland

For tips on how to machine quilt a traditional quilt sandwich (quilt top, batting, and backing sandwich), like the quilts from my first Sew Along (above), see Hold Tight Sew Along Week #4 blog post.

For those wanting to try Quilt As You Go (QAYG) keep reading as I walk you through how I finished my Petite Hold Tight quilt.

QAYG

Hold Tight Petite by Sharon Holland

My QAYG finishing method is a hybrid of QAYG and traditional quilting to secure block rows to a batting and backing sandwich. Once the horizontal rows have been stitched down to the batting/backing in a QAYG row assembly, the finishing of the quilt is more traditional with the addition of machine or hand stitching.

The quilting on my Petite crib quilt is minimal. The quilting stitches are about 4’’ apart and I could get away with this because I used Hobbs Tuscany Premium Polyester Batting for my batting. The beautiful loft of Hobbs Tuscany Polyester adds to the puffy balloon look and makes for a snuggly-warm quilt and doesn’t shrink.

Securing Horizontal Rows in QAYG

Once all the block are made and squared up see Week 2, sew the blocks into horizontal rows. This is the same for either size quilt.

Cut and piece backing according to the pattern directions and for the size quilt you’ve selected. I selected Paper Flowers Aurora from my Tapestry collection for Art Gallery Fabrics as the print for my backing. Cut batting to size indicated on pattern. Hand or spray baste batting to backing to prepare for QAYG assembly. See Sewcial Bee Sampler Quilt Finishing post for spray basting batting to backing.

Just as if you were assembling a quilt top, place the first two rows to be stitched right sides together, seams nested and edges matched. Pin at seams.

You can start from the bottom and working your way up, like I did (see above illustration) or begin from the top of the quilt and work down—the results will be the same. Center the pinned rows onto the batting/backing near the bottom if working up or at the top if working down. Pin row assembly to backing/batting. Stitch with a 1/4’’ seam allowance through all layers, removing pins as you sew.

Carefully press the top row open and pin the flipped row down to hold flat. I like to roll the quilt batting/backing for easier handling.

Hold Tight Petite QAYG Assembly

Continue adding additional rows in the same manner. Press rows open as you go and continually check that the quilt top is flat and the backing is smooth with each row addition. Remove basting stitches if you hand basted the batting/backing layers.

After all the horizontal rows have been added, machine or hand baste around the outside edge of the quilt with an 1/8’’ seam allowance to secure the outside block edges. Note: Leave the excess batting/backing until all the quilting is finished.

At this point you have the top secured to the batting and backing but will need to add more quilting. You’ve basically better-than-basted your top to the batting and backing. Quilt as desired or you can go minimal like I did and machine or hand quilt in the ditch along the vertical seams. I hand quilted my vertical seams with 40 wt. cotton thread so it wouldn’t be very noticeable. You can just see some stitches if you look at the orange balloon in the above photo. You’ve now secured all the blocks down in a grid.

For the rest of the quilt I selected four DMC Perle cotton threads and hand stitched 1/4’’ from the seam lines to echo the balloon shapes. I love how Blair’s Ruby Minder™ ruler also doubles as a thread minder!

To determine where my balloon strings should go and to avoid having to put marks on my quilt to get the straight guide lines, I used tape to mask out my lines. Watch how to hand quilt using floss and how to use tape as a guide, here.

Once all the quilting is completed, add binding according to the pattern’s instructions. Trim batting and backing to edge of binding. Turn binding to the back of the quilt and hand or machine stitch to finish.

Hold Tight Petite by Sharon Holland

I hope you’ve enjoyed this petite quilt along and a further chance to play with with fun pattern, learn more about working with color and value, and sewing with curves. The Hold Tight Petite quilt is the perfect crib-size quilt and I love the puffy batting for it’s warmth and drape. My grandson needs a second quilt that he can drag around and snuggle with and he’ll be getting this one when I see him next month.

I’m excited to see Blair’s finished quilt and would love to see yours too! If you’re on Instagram, tag me @sharonhollanddesigns and Blair @blairs use the #holdtightquilt or #holdtightsewalong hashtag so we can follow your progress. If you’re sewing with Art Gallery Fabrics be sure to tag #artgalleryfabrics too! Don’t forget that you can join Blair’s Facebook group and meet others working on this quilt along with value and color insights from Blair’s expert knowledge of the subject.

Thanks for sewing with us!

Hold Tight Petite Sew Along, Begins!

Hold Tight Petite Sew Along, Begins!

You’ve heard right, I’m hosting a sew along and it starts, today!

As part of Blair Stocker’s Wise Craft Ruby Ruler™ Ambassador series and being August’s Ruby Ambassador (Read my interview by Blair—here), I thought it would be a fun collaboration to merge my Hold Tight quilt and Blair’s ruby-viewer into a sew along workshop-like experience!

Hosting a new sew along is the perfect way to introduce you to Blair’s ruby-hued artist’s viewfinder tools the Ruby Ruler™ and Ruby Minder™ and to continue our exploration of selecting color and value for your quilts that we started in the first Hold Tight Sew Along. The extra bonus to this sew along is the opportunity to connect you to more than 1,500 other quilter’s via Blairs private Facebook group where Blair will have live workshop-like sessions to support my sew along blog posts. Note: Blair’s FB group is free to join by answering three questions when requesting to be added to the group. If you can’t join in the live sessions—no problem—the videos are available for replay and ready to view when you are!

Wise Craft Ruby Ruler™

This sew along is also free to join—no sign up forms—just follow along and have fun. You’ll will need, however, my the Hold Tight pattern. If you don't have my Hold Tight quilt pattern already, you'll want to purchase the Hold Tight PDF pattern from my Shop page. The Hold Tight pattern now includes two sizes—the original over-sized throw and the new petite crib-size quilt. The material lists, cutting requirements, coloring sheet, and full-size templates are part of the fully illustrated PDF pattern. These sew along blog posts serve to supplement the PDF but don't provide the detailed pattern information that you'll find in the PDF available for purchase. If you’ve purchased the original PDF prior to August 5, 2019 and didn’t receive a special newsletter email from this blog sharing the link to the Petite Add-On download, see my SEW ALONG page to get your copy of the bonus size. You’ll find the Add-On download that contains the crib-size material list, cutting guide, and coloring sheet. Note: You’ll still need the original Hold Tight pattern for quilt details. The current PDF in my shop has been updated with both quilt sizes so patterns purchased after August 5, 2019 include both quilt sizes—no add-on necessary.

Week #1 - Color and Value

Welcome to Week #1 of the Hold Tight Petite Sew Along! For this blog post and the following two posts, I'll share tips and tutorials to bring your quilting skills to a new level. In three weeks you’ll no longer be hesitant about working with color and become confident about stitching a quilt with curves!

From now until August 21, 2019 I'll break down the key components of the Hold Tight quilt pattern into three manageable tutorial blog posts. These tutorials will be useful to anyone working with fabric and patchwork regardless what quilt you’re stitching. In addition to my written posts, I’ve adding skill-building demonstration videos from the first Hold Tight sew along. Find these helpful videos on my Sew Along page and can be accessed at any time. Plus, for this Hold Tight Petite sew along, Blair Stocker will be following up my Wednesday morning blog posts with a Facebook Live session at 3:30pm PDT covering the same topic that same afternoon!

For this sew along I’ve designed a 6-balloon Hold Tight quilt using Art Gallery Fabrics Pure Solids. This crib-perfect size is not only quicker to make than the original quilt because there’s fewer blocks but also has a manageable number of colors needed to achieve the balloon shapes and transparency effects between balloons. Either size you choose to make the principles of color selection and construction are the same.

Where to Begin When Choosing Colors

The Ruby Ruler™ and Ruby Minder™ rulers are perfect for helping to see values between colors by reducing hues to gray scale—allowing you to see value changes. But what does it mean when I say, value?

Value is the darkness or lightness of a color (hue). A high value change between colors can also be called contrast. Black and white have high contrast. A low value change between colors can be called tonal, making the changes (or steps) between the colors subtle and less noticeable.

Let’s assume you’re NOT working with a kit or fabric collection that a designer has already determined the color story. Most of you will be working from your stash of solids and/or purchasing fabrics for your Hold Tight quilt. Where do you begin in selecting colors and how do you get the transparency effect?

The answer is to think like a designer and artist. So as not to overlap too much on the great information I’ve already covered on Week #1 and Week #2 of the original Hold Tight sew along, I’ll cover aspects of color and value as I use them in my surface pattern design, artwork, and quilts. Be sure to take a look at those earlier posts if you’re wanting more insights into Color.

My Process

I’ve introduced you to the trick of using inspiration images for color selection on the Community Sampler Week #1 post and like I said, on Week #2 Hold Tight Sew Along. I used this same approach when selecting the colors for my fabric collections and my finished Hold Tight Petite quilt. Now, let me walk you through the process….

Spirited by Sharon Holland

My next Art Gallery Fabrics fabric collection Spirited comes out November 2019. Before I even begin designing prints I consider the season the fabric collection will be released—in this case fall. Then I think about the mood of the collection or what sort of story I want to tell—this very much influences color, values, and of course print designs. When you’re selecting fabrics for a quilt you may subconsciously be asking these same sort of questions: What room will I be using this in, who is this quilt for and do they have favorite colors, what story or mood, energy, or feeling should this quilt have.

After I have my brief or concept from those initial questions, I then go to my iPad and start poking around on Pinterest. I start a private folder to gather my ideas and allow myself to go down that rabbit hole. For your assignment, I want you to do the same thing but try not to think literally (like in this case, balloons) —just explore a wide range of images. You’re bound to have a couple beautiful images jump out at you that check off all the boxes in those initial questions. You’re golden when you can find one or two—that’s all you need—that sum up your vision in that image. Here’s the four Pinterest-pulled images that were the color and storyline inspiration for Spirited. You can view all the prints from the collection, here.

Storyboard images pulled from Pinterest

I used this exact same concept to develop the palette for my Hold Tight Petite quilt and I’ll go further into exactly how I extracted the colors from my inspiration images for my collection and for my quilt.

Inspiration images pulled from Pinterest

Because I’m heavily influenced by my upcoming fabric collection and craving fall colors (my favorite season) I found myself wanting earthy hues and an ethereal, muted palette and had that as part of my brief. Nature has always been an inspiration for me in my art so I started a search on butterflies and found these two images that I thought would make a nice color story. It’s a rather limited palette of chartreuse, gold, burnt orange, rust, cornflower blue, and lavender. I could’ve easily extracted the green in these images but instead decided not to introduce that color into the analogous/complimentary scheme that was happening already.

An analogous palette is one where shades (black added), tints (white added), tones (gray added) of hues (colors) lie next to each other on the color wheel. Complimentary colors are two hues directly opposite each other on the color wheel and include the shade, tint, or tone of those hues.

Knowing that the 6-balloon quilt has spots for four transparencies I was conscious to select colors that if mixed could yield plausible transparency colors. See Hold Tight Sew Along Week #1 post from the first sew along—it talks all about color mixing.

Extracting Colors

I’m fortunate to have a lot of design tools in my bag of tricks and I use Illustrator or Photoshop to extract colors from images. I don’t have any specific suggestions but I’m certain there’s many wonderful apps available that you can do on your phone and get the same sort of results—just do some looking around.

I import my images into my program and use the eye-dropper tool to extract a color I like from the image. Of course one could go crazy pulling colors so I limited my pull to eight on my initial pull—knowing my background was going to be off-white, I didn’t need to include that in my selection.

What I was aiming for in my initial eye-dropper extractions was a pleasing range of colors of similar value (darkness or lightness) to maintain my idea of etheral but yet, if I were to line up those selected colors from darkest to lightest there would be a noticeable change in value steps. In my fabric design, artwork, and quilting I try to have one or two value steps between colors that will be touching so they can stand out from each other. You can see that in my above example the colors almost step dark, light, dark, light….

Remember, my background is going to be off-white which in my quilt will be the lightest value. Any of the colors from my initial pull will have enough contrast next to the off-white fabric. So, if your quilt has a medium value background you will want to be pulling a lot of light and dark fabrics for the balloons.

From that initial pull I (with the use of my Adobe program) I then let the computer select the nearest Art Gallery Fabrics Pure Solid color (that I’d preloaded into my program). You can see the results of what the computer selected as the nearest equivalent. As for my textile designs I have all the Pantone colors preloaded into my program and do this exact same process on my first pass to creating a color story for a collection.

But what if you don’t have access to computer programs or apps? Go old-school and manually compare your fabric swatches. Here’s some ideas:

• Print out inspiration photos

• Take your own photos that could yield an interesting color story

• Use watercolors or paints

• Pull physical items from around your house that have colors you love

• Use a painting or colorful printed fabric

• Take a walk in a garden or museum

Getting Real

Now it’s time to get off the computer and start pulling fabrics in real life. I took my initial Pure Solids results to my sewing room and spread out my stash of Pure Solids to compare the print out to actual fabric. Here’s where your design instincts, the Ruby Ruler™, and your personal preference will go to work.

The Goldilocks Syndrom

1. The first photo is the fabric pull based on the initial computer generated AGF Pure Solids selection with two exceptions: The removal of PE-421 because it was too close in value to another fabric and PE-460 because it was too dark compared to the rest of the pull or too high of a contrast. I exchanged those fabrics with PE-485 and PE-457 and that’s what you’re viewing in this first photo. Colors don’t always translate perfectly from screen to reality, so it good to see them in person. I also wasn’t feeling the lavender (although its a gorgeous color and I so wanted it to work!). Viewing the lavender with the Ruby Minder™ I could see it was too bright or a pure a color (one without as much gray added) and not muted enough to play well with the vision for my color story. It threw a bit of a cog into my color wheel (ha ha).

2. The second image shows that I’ve replaced the lavender with a mid-tone gray but when viewing the new selection through my Ruby Minder™ the gray and the blue were too close in value—making it ineffective as a transparency choice.

3. For the third photo I selected PE-432, a lighter gray with a hint of yellow undertones so it related to the honeydew yellow. This color selection actually made more sense as a transparency color between the blue and the light yellow even though in reality mixing those two colors would produce a green—I wasn't going to bring green into my palette so this was my best neutral that would convincingly work as a transparency. A quick confirm with my Ruby Minder™ and it was just right!

I cut out all my pieces and put them up on my design wall to double-check my selections before starting to sew. It’s hard to see the off-white background pieces against my white design wall, but they’re there. I used my Ruby Minder™ again to negate color and view my pieces in gray scale to see if the transparencies and balance was cohesive. That’s when I did just a bit more tweaking to color placement from my original plan and added in a ninth balloon color of PE-484 for a smoother transparency between the lightest yellow balloon and the dark gold balloon.

Here’s my final fabric pull for my Hold Tight Petite quilt and I’m super happy with how it looks and relates back to my inspiration photos and brief for this quilt. I’m excited to see what Blair selects for her quilt and would love to see your inspiration for your color story and fabric pull, too! If you’re on Instagram, tag me @sharonhollanddesigns and Blair @blairs use the #holdtightquilt hashtag so we can follow your progress. If you’re sewing with Art Gallery Fabrics be sure to tag #artgalleryfabrics too! Don’t forget that you can join Blair’s Facebook group and meet others working on this quilt along with value and color insights from Blair’s expert knowledge of the subject.

Blair also has a wonderful online class, Make Modern Scrap Quilts Using Color Value which is an evergreen class—you buy its and it’s yours forever, there are no "sessions". Read more about this class on Wise Craft Handmade.

Looking Ahead

This first week has been all about color and value and making your fabric selections for the size quilt chosen. If you’d like to work ahead and begin cutting out your materials you can reference the Cutting Templates and Fabrics video from the first sew along as well as the additional tutorial information found on the corresponding blog post from the first sew along.

Otherwise on week two I’ll blog about Cutting & Sewing Curves and Blair will being cutting and piecing live on Facebook. We’ll also have a fabulous giveaway from myself and Art Gallery Fabrics of a Hold Tight Petite Quilt Kit consisting of the pattern and the exact Pure Solid colors I used in my Hold Tight Petite quilt along with your choice of any AGF print for the backing! More details on that giveaway next week. Note to anyone winning a Hold Tight quilt pattern on this SAL that’s already purchased the pattern—we can substitute with your choice of a different PDF pattern from my SHOP.

Looking to week 3… I’ll be covering how to finish your quilt in a Quilt-As-You-Go method (QAYG) and talking about the hand quilting I did on my sample. If you’re interested in QAYG —don’t sew all your blocks together if working ahead! We’ll need the blocks as (horizontal) rows for securing to the batting and backing. More about that on the final week.

Hold Tight Petite Quilt-As-You-Go quilt assembly peek

Week #1 Giveaway

Right now, over on Instagram, Blair and I are holding the first giveaway. Visit my IG feed @sharonhollanddesigns and enter to win a Hold Tight quilt pattern and Ruby Minder™ ruler for yourself and a tagged friend! Follow the giveaway rules on the post. Look for the post giveaway image on my feed just like the one above and enter by commenting. Two pairs of friends will be randomly drawn from the comments on around 4 pm Eastern Friday, August 9, 2019 and notified on Instagram.

Both giveaways for this tour will be held on my Instagram account @sharonhollanddesigns. Be sure you’re following myself and Blair @blairs and Art Gallery Fabrics @artgalleryfabrics so you don’t miss a thing!

Everlasting Blog Tour - Week 3 Recap + Giveaway

Everlasting Blog Tour - Week 3 Recap + Giveaway

I wish this blog tour was really everlasting because I’ve loved seeing all the magnificent sewing projects by the blog tour makers! Hasn’t it been incredible!!???!!!

Art Gallery Fabrics released my Everlasting fabric in May and the classic palette of navy, red, turquoise, and blush has stolen my heart in this collection created about love, marriage, and family.

I invited the industries finest to make beautiful things with Everlasting fabrics and blog about their projects. The results have been astonishing and over the past three weeks each day has felt like Christmas morning. I want to give a huge round of applause and my sincerest thanks and gratitude to the following fabulous ladies:

EVERLASTING BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE

Friday, July 12 - Sharon Holland

Monday, July 15 - Marija Vujcic

Tuesday, July 16 - Carolina Moore

Wednesday, July 17 - Dana Willard

Thursday, July 18 - Lisa Ruble

Friday, July 19 - Dritz Sewing

Monday, July 22 - Eleri Kerian

Tuesday, July 23 - Marisa Wilhelmi

Wednesday, July 24 - Sharon McConnell

Thursday, July 25 - Modernly Morgan

Friday, July 26 - Alexis Wright

Monday, July 29 - Priscilla Geissler

Tuesday, July 30 - Maureen Cracknell

Wednesday, July 31 - Elina Temmes

Take a look at the Everlasting Blog Tour Week 1 Recap, here and the Everlasting Blog Tour Week 2 Recap, here. To find this collection online, find shop stock lists on my FABRICS page.

Week 3 Recap

Day 11 began our week with Priscilla Geissler of Cotton Stitch Collective. Priscilla doesn’t have a blog but can be found on Instagram and on Etsy. Her ability to transform fabric into useful and beautiful objects is a true talent. I’m still swooning over her Melinda Handbag she made in the Everlasting Bouquet Muse print and cork. The bag pattern is by Sotak Handmade and with left over fabric, Priscilla made a Slimline Wallet by @cpeicheff. Priscillas craft(woman)ship is outstanding—find out more about her work on Instagram and Etsy!

Everlasting projects by Cotton Stitch Collective

Day 12 belonged to my good friend and Art Gallery Fabrics designer-sister, Maureen Cracknell. You know how much I love Maureen and adore her Quilt As You Go, scrappy style of patchwork. Maureen has an amazing eye for mixing prints and getting the perfect boho-chic look. Maureen used all the prints from my Everlasting collection and lined the bag with AGF canvas from her Sun Kissed collection—I love how our collections play so nicely together!

Everlasting Project by Maureen Cracknell

Day 13 and the final day of the Everlasting Blog Tour stopped at Elina Temmes from Finland. Elina can be found on Instagram and she’s a prolific and masterful sewist. When I say prolific, I mean it! Elina made three quilts (all hand quilted) and three pillows for this tour and each one of them are a masterpiece. My four-image recap collage could not possibly show you all the incredible photos of her projects so go to her IG account and see everything for yourself—you’ll be blown away!!!

Everlasting projects by Elina Temmes

Have you been inspired to sew with Everlasting fabrics? —I sure have been!! Between this stunning display of creative projects from the blog tour and the Art Gallery Fabrics Everlasting Look Book you could be sewing with Everlasting fabrics for years just to make everything found in these resources!

Now it’s your turn to make something with my Art Gallery Fabrics Everlasting prints and when you do, be sure to tag me @sharonhollanddesigns on Instagram and use the hashtag #agfeverlasting —so I don’t miss your post.

Week 3 Giveaway

This week’s giveaway and final prize for following along on the tour is a chance to win a 10-piece fat quarter bundle of Everlasting prints from our sponsor the Fat Quarter Shop!

Everlasting fabrics photo courtesy of Fat Quarter Shop

THIS WEEK'S GIVEAWAY SPONSOR IS: THE FAT QUARTER SHOP

The Fat Quarter Shop was founded in 2003 by Kimberly Jolly. An avid quilter, Kimberly began her shop as a side business while still working a corporate position, cutting, packing and shipping right out of her house during evenings and weekends. From the very beginning, she was committed to delivering top-notch service for every single order and customer. As the Fat Quarter Shop's reputation grew, Kimberly decided to make it a full-time operation. Her husband Kevin joined her not long after, and with his help, lots of hard work, and a tireless commitment, the store began to grow. Over the past few years a few more people have joined the staff! As a team, they continue to branch out with the best fabrics, exclusive kits, quilt clubs, BOMs, and more. And they will always be driven by the passion that Kimberly founded the store upon, which is always giving you the best products and service!

SHOP  *  PINTEREST  *  TWITTER  *  BLOG  *  FACEBOOK  *  YOUTUBE 

Giveaway now closed. Congratulations to Sarah Suter!

* Note * This giveaway is open to EVERYONE! If you're a "no reply" or anonymous commenter, please remember to include your email address in your comment--you can't win if I can't get a hold of you!

1. Simply leave a comment here under this post! (First comment entry).

2. Follow Fat Quarter Shop on at least one of their social platforms -see links above. Just let me know that you did by making a separate comment here to record that entry. (Separate comment - second entry). 

3. My followers get a third entry! If you follow via subscribing to my posts, through Bloglovin (or other service), or on Instagram, just let me know by making a separate comment here to record that entry. (Separate comment - third entry). Note: I'm no longer on Facebook.

4. Help spread the word!! I know that many of you already do, so I thought it would be nice to add that as another way to enter! Spread the word about the Everlasting Blog Tour on YOUR instagram, facebook, tweet, pin, blog post, etc... (separate comment - fourth entry). 

That’s four possible entries! Enter now through Monday, August 5. The winner will be picked at random around 4 pm Eastern. I’ll post the name of the winner on this blog post once they've been notified and responded to my email.

Don’t forget you have a second chance to win this same prize by reposting any of the the Everlasting Blog Tour makers projects on Instagram. Simply tag the project’s maker with their IG account, #ArtGalleryFabrics, and use the #EverlastingBlogTour hashtag on a public Instagram account and you’ll automatically be entered into the IG giveaway drawing for this tour! Enter as many times as you’d like by reposting blog tour images—just be sure to give tour makers proper credit and tag them in your repost.

Happy sewing,

Sharon