Miss Tess published and a giveaway!

I am excited to tell you that my design, Miss Tess, is appearing in the winter issue of McCalls America Loves Scrap Quilts! I'm intriqued by tessellations... identical pieces fitting together without any gaps or overlapping. I love scrap quilts...so much fun choosing as many fabrics as you can to make a quilt. So this was a really fun and interesting design to make.

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After figuring out the design itself, I had to figure out how to make it happen. That meant taking the shape to its basic form and figuring out what pieces I needed to cut so that I could sew it together in rows. I decided to use lots of bright fabrics with the same centers, a small black and white dotted fabric.  Once I started cutting the pieces, I couldn't wait to try them out on my design wall to see if it worked. 

I loved it, but my design wall isn't large enough for a queen size quilt, so I had to move to the floor. I could only lay out about half of it at a time, so once I had the first half sewn into rows, I laid out more rows. I had a few glitches along the way as my helpers decided it looked like a playground.

No one fessed up, but I have my suspicions....

I numbered all of the rows so that I wouldn't make any mistakes when sewing them together. It's a lot of rows, but they are easy to piece. The hard part with this many fabrics is where to place them!

I took it along to my family sewing day last December so that I could attach the borders.

I had chosen a deep blue border so that the colors would shine and the outside edges of the shape would show up when they came out into the border.

I chose this multi-striped fabric for the binding as I loved that it was scrappy too, and striped bindings are my favorite!

I used a larger black and white dotted fabric for the back. You can see, my helpers love every aspect of quiltmaking, even attaching the binding! 

I made a second, smaller version of the quilt that is being displayed at Cut Up and Quilt now. They will also have the magazine for sale after their Christmas holiday break. They would be happy to hold one for you...just give them a call today!

Now for the giveaway! I'm excited to host a giveaway with these great prizes:

A $25 Gift Card to Fat Quarter Shop!

Two copies of the magazine, America Loves Scrap Quilts, for two lucky winners!

Your choice of one of my patterns available on Craftsy to each of three lucky winners!

I'm going to make it easy this time, and have one Rafflecopter tto be eligible for all of the prizes. The giveaway will be open until midnight, Dec. 27. Thanks for celebrating with me! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway