South Paw Quilt

South Paw Quilt

It’s pattern release day and there’s a new quilt pattern in my SHOP called South Paw! I love writing a blog post for a new quilt pattern because it’s one continuous stream of pretty pictures and inspiration that pulls together the weeks of hard work and love that’s gone into making the quilt and pattern—all for you to see and enjoy.

The South Paw pattern name was some word play fun to celebrate all the lefties out there and is what I lovingly refer to as a block baby that would come from joining a Log Cabin and Bear Claw block. The South reference is to the Southwest-vibe of the quilt design and Paw is a nod to the Bear Claw block—South Paw.

This is a fast and easy block to make and a great quilt for beginners as well. The pattern is fat quarter-friendly and plenty of opportunities to use and show off your pretty prints. You’ll find the material list for this over-sized throw quilt in the Shop description image carousel.

For the cover quilt sample I used Art Gallery Fabrics and mixed prints from my upcoming Lilliput, Spirited, and the AGF Decostitch blender collections and used AGF Pure Solids in White Linen for the background. I’m loving the cool spring tones of these color of denim, carrot, pale pink, and violet.

Get the Kit

You won’t have to search around sourcing the fabric I used in my quilt because our friend Brooke Becker of Lady Belle Fabric is kitting this quilt! You can pre-order a kit and as soon as the Lilliput collection starts shipping the beginning of April, you’ll be one of the first ones making a South Paw quilt just like the one I’ve made. Pre-order your kit HERE.

As soon as I had designed this quilt my granddaughter claimed this one for herself! So, to make it extra snuggly for her I backed this quilt with Shannon Fabrics Cuddle 3 Extra Wide backing in Woodrose. The color was just perfect and it looks and feels like velvet!

The beautiful longarm quilting on my quilt was done by Brooke Becker at Lady Belle Fabric so not only can you buy your quilting cotton from Brooke but you can have your quilt quilted, too! It’s very subtle but we used a pale pink thread with the Bangkok pattern from her huge selection of quilting designs.

For batting I used my favorite Hobbs Batting Tuscany Silk Blend batting for the most luxurious drape and quality.

Spring is just showing it’s signs here in south-western Ohio and even in just the last few days the trees are starting to bud out a bit. Unfortunately, over the last weekend when I needed to snap pictures of the quilt we still looked in the grips of winter dreariness. Above, shot on Wednesday at home and below, shot on the Saturday before at a nearby park.

I’m fine with the bleak outdoor shots because frankly, this quilt looks good anywhere. It was just nice to take a hike and get outdoors a bit and make my husband hold up the quilt for me, teehee.

The dried grasses in the image below I picked from the park to use as photo props!

Meet the Testers

South Paw quilt by Sharon Holland

For this quilt release I had some extremely talented quilt testers making their own version of this pattern. All the testers used Art Gallery Fabrics but selected their own fabrics and colors based on their vision of this quilt. I’ve had Meet the Tester highlights for several of my most recent quilts of this year and last and always create a collage showcasing the tester and the quilt they made from my pattern but this time we’re mixing things up a bit. For this quilt we all stepped up our game and incorporated a few images each tester curated from Pinterest to create a South Paw Moodboard collage to show off their quilt make and tell a bigger story.

Above is my mood board that includes a photo I took on our last trip to Arizona where we traipsed around Sedona. Oh, how I wish I was there now, photographing this quilt in those surroundings and can just imagine my husband holding up the quilt amongst the cacti!

South Paw quilt by maker Victoria Newmyer

Victoria Newmyer of Midlife Quilter shop used various Art Gallery Fabrics prints that include some of my Kismet collection. I am in love with her color palette of olive green, harvest gold, pink, berry, and black. This will eventually be a kit available at her shop once Kismet prints are back in stock. Be sure to sign up for her newsletters so you don’t miss a thing!

South Paw quilt by maker Tracey Taber-Perry

Tracey Taber-Perry does amazing quilts and you can follow her feed @ttabes80 on Instagram. The spruce and pinks color palette of her quilt is stunning and I love how she photographed this elegant quilt in front of the rustic white barn! In her quilt I now see the quilt block design as spring tulips!

South Paw quilt by maker Megan Eckroth

Megan Eckroth of @cartellastudio on Instagram is a new member to my tester group and this is her second test quilt for me. Megan is amazing and her work is exceptional and creativity is boundless! The South Paw quilt made from Art Gallery Fabrics Serenity prints with the smokey-blue background has captured her inspiration images to a Tee. Follow Megan on Instagram, FB, and her Etsy Shop and see more of what this gifted maker has to share.

South Paw quilt by maker Joyce Ulm

Joyce Ulm is a quilting powerhouse! This exciting South Paw version was made with Art Gallery Fabric Terra Kotta prints and AGF Pure Solids background. I love the bold print backing and how the quilt relates to her inspiration images of shapes and colors. See more of Joyce’s work on Instagram @evamaecustomquilts, Etsy shop, and on her Facebook blog HERE, and does long arm quilting as well!

South Paw quilt by maker Marija Vujcic

The instant Marija Vujcic saw my South Paw quilt pattern it reminded her of her Serbian heritage and particularly Pirot kilim rugs. Marija’s mood board tells the story of her color inspiration, heritage, and color palette for this most amazing quilt. Follow this talented lady on Instagram Marija Vujcic and on her blog at Mara Quilt Designs. Her passion for sewing and life has no bounds and it’s wonderful to have her testing my patterns!

South Paw quilt by maker Mary Gove

Mary Gove amazes me with every quilt she makes. She has an eye for design that translates into quilts you want to use in every room in your house. For her South Paw make she chose to use only Art Gallery Fabrics solids, four plus the background for five total colors that is inspired by her turquoise earrings—stunning! See more of Mary’s work on her Instagram account @thecurlyquilter.

South Paw quilt by maker Amanda Bagin

This is the first quilt Amanda Bagin has tested for me as she just joined our group at the beginning of the year. It was a no-brainer to bring Amanda into our testers fold and you can see yourself from her Instagram feed @quiltsbycritter why I fell instantly in love with her work. Amanda has a clean, fresh style and you can see that in her crisp and graphic South Paw quilt in turquoise and terracotta. Along with AGF Pure Solids she also used prints from the AGF Studio Luna and Laurel collection.

South Paw quilt by maker Jennifer Cannon

Jennifer Cannon is owner of Piper Autumn Designs shop and the face behind this stunning all solids South Paw quilt. Jen used Art Gallery Fabrics Pure Solids in tropical sherbet colors that she’ll have available as bundles in her shop. The quilt design pops off the Nocturnal blue background—what a fun quilt! Visit Jen’s Etsy shop Piper Autumn Designs and see all her Quilty doings on Instagram at @piperautumndesigns.

South Paw quilt by maker Christine Trotta

Christine Trotta used AGF Smooth Denim Afternoon Sail for the background in her South Paw quilt as a nod to Ina Garten’s signature denim blouse then mixed in feminine AGF florals of spring-fresh colors adds a bit of boho flare to classic chambray. Visit Christines Etsy Shop and Blog as well as her Instagram account @serendipityinlovecreations.

Wasn’t that fun? Now, go grab your pattern from my SHOP and start planning your South Paw quilt today! If you are posting your South Paw quilt make to Instagram, be sure to tag me @sharonhollanddesigns and use the hashtag #SouthPawQuilt so I don’t miss seeing your inspired make!

And, for links to the products I used to make my quilt, see the affiliate Amazon links below.

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 or related items I think you may enjoy.

Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 2

Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 2

Welcome to the second week of the Sweet Home Quilt along hosted by (me) Sharon Holland, Maureen Cracknell, and Jennifer Jones. We’re excited to be working together as hosts to bring you this quilt along and to have this chance to connect with the Sweet Home quilt makers on our Instagram community!

I hope you’ve been following along on all three hosts blogs and Instagram accounts as we’re each making different versions of this quilt and let me tell you I’m loving ALL OF THEM!! See what Maureen Cracknell and Jennifer Jones are stitching up.

If you’re just joining us you’ll probably want to pop over to the Sweet Home Quilt Along - Week 1 post to get caught up. Purchase the Sweet Home quilt pattern from my SHOP here.

If you’ve been following along since the start then you should already have your fabrics cut out and are now ready to begin piecing the Log Cabin blocks.

The quilt along will run six weeks and we’ll cover a different aspect of piecing or finishing for that week. Some of you are working ahead and that’s wonderful—it’ll give you more time for the quilting and finishing portion. This quilt along is very relaxed. If you feel like completing the top in a week, go for it! But, if you’re a beginner and want more instruction along the way—we have that too in the form of LIVE and recorded Instagram tutorials over on my IGTV channel on Instagram.

Today we talk about piecing the Log Cabin blocks. I’m using Art Gallery Fabrics Terra Kotta prints mixed with AGF Pure Solids Sandstone for the background and one of my Spirited prints for half of the Log Cabin block roofs. If you’ve purchased this kit from Fat Quarter shop and did NOT get a Pattern Supplement sheet like the one below, contact me via email or on Instagram and let me know—I’ll send you the sheet.

Sweet Home Terra Kotta kit from Fat Quarter Shop

I’ve recorded step by step tutorials for you to access on my @sharonhollanddesigns IGTV channel on Instagram and so far the Sweet Home Quilt series covers fabric selection and Log Cabin block construction.

Since all the tutorial stuff is covered on Instagram, this post is going to be more of a chance to show off pretty photos of my newly made blocks—I literally got them done and photographed just before writing this block post!

I love making Log Cabin Blocks and going round and round the center piece. I suggest making one block through from start to finish to become comfortable with the instructions and then once you have it figured out you can utilize chain piecing or chain stitching to save time on those repetitive sewing steps.

Please note that although some of your Sweet Home house pieces have been cut directionally (like the chimneys, the windows, and portions of the Bungalow base) the rest of your pieces have been cut to best maximize the material and reduce how much material you needed to use. So, that also means that the long sides of your Log Cabin blocks will have the print running side to side and the short piece will have the print running up and down.

You can however control your print direction on squares and the flippy corners on the rooflines/background. Read further down for more information on roof/background direction control.

Chain stitching photo courtesy of Jennifer Jones

In my tutorials I’ve broken down the Log Cabin block into Log Cabin base construction and roof construction. The tutorials stress chain piecing as a time saving technique and once you get into the swing of how a block is constructed it’ll be fun and relaxing way to construct your blocks.

When you get into chain piecing assembly-line mode, make all the bases first according to the pattern, kit, or your coloring sheet guide then move onto assembly-line piecing the roof tops.

If you’re going by the PDF pattern and using two different prints for the Log Cabin roofs the construction for these are the same no matter what fabrics you use. Just be sure to flip out the first corner before adding on the other side. Here I started with the chimney side before adding the simple square side but the results are the same, even if you reversed the order.

I’ve got a tutorial that was created for the Sewcial Bee Sampler that will be very helpful for these flippy corners if you’re looking to control the direction of a print. The tutorial talks a lot about half-square triangle (HST) construction but the principle of auditioning the fabric is the same that I’d use for auditioning a directional print on a flippy corner. I also show and cover this in my Instagram IGTV channel in the Log Cabin part 5 video.

I feel that one of the most important things you can do to improve your patchwork is to press every step of the way. Working with flat fabric keeps your seams crisp and block true to size. This Oliso mini iron is perfect to set up beside your work station for quick pressing.

All ten Log Cabin blocks are stitched and pressed. I’m really loving this Terra Kotta palette and am excited to see how it all looks up on my design wall—I’ve not even had a chance to lay them all out yet!

The three of us hosts have each done some styled flat lay photos of a block with flowers, evergreens, and props all inspired by Nuria Elkins Sweet Home Block picture as seen in this spring. These photos had to be the most fun all images to take—be sure to check what the other hosts photographed!

Next week we’ll be making Bungalow Blocks and I’ll have some new LIVE video to add to my IGTV channel. If you’re on Instagram when I go live, be sure to stop by and say hi!

Don’t forget that this Friday will be a new Friday Giveaway with fabulous prizes from our sponsors. Be following along on Instagram as all the giveaways will be held on that platform and winners will be randomly drawn the following Monday from the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag pool. The quilt along members that post their progress photos to public account on Instagram and use the hashtag #SweetHomeQAL will automatically be entered into every Sweet Home Quilt Along drawing! It’s that easy to enter, so enter often to up your chances!

And, while you’re on Instagram, take a look at the #SweetHomeQAL hashtag on Instagram and see what the other QAL Makers are using in their quilts—it’s an amazing resource not only to see fabrics but to make new friends!

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 or related items I think you may enjoy.

Sweet Home Quilt + Fabric Giveaway

Sweet Home Quilt + Fabric Giveaway

Photo courtesy of Fabric Stork

Hello friends. I’m back with more Sweet Home quilt news as well as a brief review of my personal growth since my last post.

National events such as COVID-19, George Floyd’s wrongful death, the Black Lives Matter movement, and educating myself on the injustices to Black rights in this country have been upper most on my mind these last few weeks. You can follow my day-to-day journey of discovery and learning on these issues along with my regular quilt, fabric, and artwork posts in my Instagram feed @sharonhollanddesigns so I won’t get into any of that here and reserve this space for what you signed up for—quilting and sewing.

This week I added over 100 new fabric masks to my Fabric Masks shop page and will be adding additional masks over the next couple weeks because I’ll be donating 50% off all my masks sales sold from June 7 through July 7, 2020 to the United Way of Greater Cincinnati. Because equity and justice is part of the mission of UWGC I’ve chosen this organization close to home to contribute to on a local level.

Along with 50% of mask sales durning this one month period, I’m donating 100% of my PDF pattern sales as well to the United Way of Greater Cincinnati as well. If you’ve been eye-balling some patterns, this is a great time to make a purchase!

“COVID-19 is a long-term problem that requires our long-term commitment. We will help our Greater Cincinnati community respond, recover and revitalize over the next two years. But there is another “pandemic” we have been fighting for years, and this requires more from us, a greater, longer-term response. That pandemic is related to racial equality and justice.”  —UWGC

Fabric Stork Sweet Home Quilt Kit

I’m so excited to announce a collaboration with Nuria Elkins of Fabric Stork in bringing you this colorful and playful Sweet Home quilt kit. Nuria has curated a beautiful bundle of Art Gallery Fabrics prints and Pure Solids for this kit. Find the kit in her Etsy shop HERE and the pattern in my SHOP here. Order early because these are sure to go fast!

Photo courtesy of Fabric Stork

Prints in this quilt are designed by many of your favorite Art Gallery Fabrics designers including myself (Sharon Holland), Maureen Cracknell, Amy Sinibaldi, Bonnie Christine, and AGF Studio.

Photo courtesy of Fabric Stork

How perfect is that binding!!??? It’s so good! The print used for the binding is a diagonal stripe by Amy Sinibaldi so it gives a bias look from regular WOF (width of fabric) binding strip cuts—brilliant!

Photo courtesy of Fabric Stork

Nuria has already made a sample quilt from her kit and here’s the full view of this adorable neighborhood—I love it and it makes me smile just looking at this photo! This quilt design inspires new meaning for me with every quilt I see made!

Photo courtesy of Fabric Stork

The fun quilting design of clouds and storks (upper left corner) is spot on for this quilt and expertly stitched by Tawny Oland. Find Tawny on Instagram at @tawnyoland and consider her for your next long arm quilting needs!

Fat Quarter Bundle Giveaway!

The generosity of small business owners like Nuria is astounding and as part of our collaboration, Fabric Stork is giving away a 10-piece fat quarter bundle to match the 10 fat quarters used in this quilt kit. That’s a great addition to your stash or puts you well on your way to having most of the fabrics needed to make a Sweet Home quilt the the one made by Nuria—either way, you’ve got to love a fabric giveaway!

The giveaway for this pretty bundle of prints will be held on my Instagram account @sharonhollanddesigns. Just look for the June 12th post with the beautiful Sweet Home quilt made by Fabric Stork and qualify for chances to win by leaving a comment and following both my feed and @fabricstork feed on Instagram.

Thanks for stopping by my blog! Don’t forget to head over to my Instagram feed @sharonhollanddesigns for a chance to win a 10-piece fat quarter bundle from Fabric Stork. Follow the easy entry steps given in my Friday, June 12, 2020 Instagram post. International entries welcome. Enter often to up your chances of winning!

The winning comment will be randomly selected around 4pm Eastern on Monday, June 15th. Winning entrant’s IG handle will be posted on the IG giveaway post once the giveaway closes.

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 or related items I think you may enjoy.

Home, Sweet Home (Quilt)

Home, Sweet Home (Quilt)

Sweet Home by Sharon Holland

Wow, I know it’d been a bit since I last blogged but, I had no idea it’d been this long! I’ve really been so busy these last two months (which incidentally is also the amount of time I’ve not left my house) and the time’s flown by for me.

Just to fill in the gaps between the last post and now I’ve done some more paintings, finished a new fabric collection for fall (October release if all goes according to shipping plans), stitched 244 masks—70+ of which I’ve listed for sale in my new FABRIC MASKS page. I’ve also designed, wrote the pattern, and stitched two quilts in my new Sweet Home quilt pattern, and am working on a new fabric line for 2021.

Sweet Home quilt by Sharon Holland photo and long arm quilting by Lady Belle Fabric

Today it’s time to show you the newest pattern in my shop and it’s quilt pattern release day, hooray! You can find this PDF pattern on my SHOP page HERE. This adorable, beginner-friendly design is the perfect scrap quilt and a way to show off all those prints you’ve been collecting.

I’ve made two Sweet Home quilts but for today’s post I’ll just show the first one since I have a bunch of beautiful photos and don’t want this post to get too epic. I’ll show the other quilt next week along with a new giveaway. See end of this blog for this week’s giveaway.

The fabrics for this blush and turquoise quilt are all Art Gallery Fabrics and use prints from several different AGF collections: Spirited, Ballerina Fusion, Marrakesh Fusion, Rosewood Fusion, and Pure Solids.

I love how you can mix between AGF collections and curate an entirely new look!

When I was designing this quilt pattern, I was creating it for a Quilt Along (QAL) to be co-hosted with myself and Maureen Cracknell. Unfortunately, with COVID-19, lockdowns and shipping issue headaches have all played havoc on the fabric availability coming into Art Gallery Fabrics and going out to shops. Even though I pulled the most current fabrics for my quilt, many are already out of stock! My Spirited collection is being reprinted and is probably in a container somewhere waiting to be unloaded.

Until more normal business resumes and shops can get restocked we’re tabling our QAL for now. I’m very disappointed but will be ready with two quilt already made and loads of video tutorials to prepare, sponsors lined up—all to make a sew along extra enjoyable when the time comes.

The nice thing about a pattern release ahead of a quilt along is that you can start planning and gathering your materials early! I love how different colors and fabrics give this quilt an entirely new look and vibe and have included a coloring sheet of the quilt in the PDF pattern. Did you know you can download virtual fabric swatches from the various Art Gallery Fabrics collections and play around with different looks? Yup, just look for the Download JPEG Swatches button on every collection and start planning.

This Shabby-Chic Boho palette is what I put together for my first quilt and is my happy zone for colors and florally prints! It’s very girly and with the Daisy Chain long arm quilting design stitched by Brooke Becker of Lady Belle Fabric and the chenille edge finish—it’s the perfect finish to this sweet quilt.

Lady Belle Fabric - Sweet Home Quilt Kit

Brooke has curated a beautiful bundle of Art Gallery Fabric to make her own version of the Sweet Home quilt and has kits ready for you to make a quilt too!

Photo and quilt kit by Lady Belle Fabric

All your favorite Art Gallery Fabric designer’s prints are mixed together in this soft and sweet palette with shades of dusty mauve, mint, navy, coral, and terra cotta that’ll look right at home in your decor all year round.

Photo and quilt kit by Lady Belle Fabric

Visit Lady Belle Fabric to find this Sweet Home quilt kit, fabrics, and long arm quilting services. Brooke is the best and genuinely a fabulous person. I love helping support small businesses and quilt shops—especially during these tough times.

Let’s talk about the Chenille-It Blooming Bias edge treatment to replace traditional binding to add an additional layer of Boho-Chic to this quilt. This stunning look couldn’t have been any easier to create with a double-layer of 5/8”-wide Blooming Bias and took half the time of traditional binding. Instructions for adding chenille binding to your quilt are included in the PDF.

5/8”-wide Chenille-It Blooming Bias

I’m absolutely in love with this chenille binding and have another new quilt pattern in the queue that’ll be finished in this same technique. But, if you’re not feeling adventurous, there’s also traditional binding information/yardage included in the PDF pattern.

See materials list on the Sweet Home pattern listing in the SHOP.

For both my Sweet Home quilts, I’ve filled them with Hobbs Tuscany Silk Blend batting. This is my very favorite batting for many reasons. The drape of a quilt with silk batting is luxurious and vintage-soft. Tuscany Silk is lightweight, resists wrinkling, and has better insulating properties than traditional cotton batts. It handles much like cotton batting for hand or machine quilting and has less shrinkage when laundered. Oh, and great quilting definition, too!

Staying at home never looked so good, right? I hope you like my new quilt design and check it and my other patterns out in my SHOP.

I mentioned a giveaway earlier in this post and a new pattern release wouldn’t be complete without a giveaway or two! Read below on how to enter for a chance to win my new quilt pattern…

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

Congratulations to: Jennifer Lewis, Laura M, and Anne!

Comment to Win a Sweet Home PDF Pattern!

* 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! (Counts as first comment entry).

2. My followers get a second entry! If you follow via subscribing to my posts, with Bloglovin (or another service), or follow me on Instagram, just let me know by making a separate comment. (Counts as second entry). Note: I'm no longer on Facebook.

3. 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 this giveaway on YOUR instagram, facebook, tweet, pin, blog post, etc... (Counts as a third entry). 

That’s THREE possible entries and three chances to win! Enter now through Monday, May 18, 2020. I’ll be drawing names for three winners. The winning comments will be picked at random around 4pm Eastern. I’ll post the name of the winners on this post once they've been notified and responded to my email.

Be sure to visit my Instagram feed @sharonhollanddesigns for a chance for you and a tagged friend to win PDF patterns from my SHOP. Winners can pick a substitute PDF pattern if desired for the blog and IG giveaways.

Stay home and sew,

Sharon

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 or related items I think you may enjoy.