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Star Gazer QAL – Week Four Sewing the Quilt Top and Quilting
Hello and happy day light savings to everyone in the U.S. This Monday is always tough but the longer days are so worth it. So, hopefully everyone is making good progress on their blocks and the tips from two weeks ago were helpful. Here is a picture of my quilt top in its final layout.You can see the funky side pieces where I didn’t totally cut off the “arm” entirely. And here is a picture of the quilt top sewn together.After I sewed the top together, I trimmed off the sides. You can also see the stay stitching that I added to the sides of the quilt. I sewed regular stitches about 1/8″ from the edge to help keep the pieces from stretching when...
Read MoreStar System and Elephant March quilt patterns have arrived!
Star System and Elephant March just arrived! They will be ready to ship out tomorrow so if you are interested, hop on over to my Etsy shop and pick up one of each. If you are interested in wholesale orders, please email me at melissa@lundendesigns.com.
Read MoreStar Gazer QAL – Week 3 Checking In
Hello! I hope everyone had a great weekend and got a lot of good sewing done. I decided to have this week be a “check in” week, where you can let me know how things are going and to have some more time to work on your blocks. They take a while but the finished product is so worth it. I also wanted to share with you my friend Petra’s* blog post and finished Star Gazer quilt with you as a little inspiration. Petra is an amazingly talented quilter and pretty much blew my mind when she showed me her version of Star Gazer. She made this quilt to raise money for her daughter’s school. How generous is that??? Here is a link to Petra’s blog...
Read MoreStar Gazer QAL – Week Two Sewing Curves
Hello! I hope everyone had a fun week cutting out fabric and figuring out your layout because now we are on to the fun stuff: sewing curves. Sewing curves doesn’t have to be scary, especially when you know some tricks. Here is a list of things that will help me when I sew curves: 1. Shorten the stitch length. 2. Pin, pin, pin, and pin. 3. Use a spray starch when ironing your fabric. 4. Sew slowly. 5. Be gentle with the fabric as your sew the curves. 6. Press the wrong side of the block first. But, regardless of the tricks, sometimes the fabric you are using can make a difference. Last week, I got an email from a friend who was starting her Star Gazer quilt ahead of...
Read MoreStar Gazer QAL – Week One: Fabrics, Cutting and Layout
Hello and welcome to Week One of the Star Gazer QAL. I hope you are excited and ready to get sewing. I know it seems ambitious to combine picking fabrics, cutting and layout in one week but as I was working on my quilt, I couldn’t figure out a way to separate them. Picking Fabrics The original Star Gazer was designed around the nine prints in Birch’s Scamper collection. I just really wanted to show off all of the really cute little details in the fabrics. I found that the color prints really popped off the cream petals. The prints with cream backgrounds worked just as well, particularly because they are balanced by the color pints. This pattern is so...
Read MoreCreative Retailer
I am so excited to receive a copy of this month’s Creative Retailer. The magazine featured Monaluna’s new line, Havana, on the cover. I was lucky enough to get a chance to work with Monaluna designing a quilt for their Quilt Market booth this fall. There is a really nice article about Monaluna in the issue and they were kind enough to give me a shout out about the quilt. Here is a picture of the cover. And here is a picture of the article and...
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