Happy Tuesday everyone!  I hope this finds everyone well and super excited for the next block in our Home Sweet Home Quilt Along!   Before we get to the block, I want to introduce you to today’s designer, Melissa Dunworth of Sew BitterSweet Designs. 

What is your crafting style?
I would say that I am a quilter, but I started out as a photographer – my minor in college was studio art and I spent so much time in the dark room in college that I began to reflect light instead of absorb it!
Now I quilt and occasionally venture into other sewing projects. I love the look of vintage quilts with a modern twist. Zippers and clothes still intimidate me but I get braver with each new project.

How did you get started creating?
I grew up watching my mom sew clothes and make quilts and when my brother had his first child I knew I wanted to make her a quilt. It was a simple rail patch pattern made in all pinks and purples bought from JoAnns. The backing was fabric left over from a completely unrelated project. After that I was hooked!

Do you have a favorite piece?

This is a tough question. I have so many projects that I have loved and am proud of, but most recently it is my Twirling Around quilt. It is my first ever pattern and it is being sold exclusively at The Intrepid Thread and all proceeds are going to charity. Community Service and charity have always been important to me and being able to do that with my quilting has been the most amazing and uplifting experience.
What is your favorite crafty blog to follow/read?
I don’t think that I have a single favorite blog that I read, every day (when my 2 year old permits me to!) I go to all my friends’ blogs. I stalk everyone on Twitter and Facebook to see when they post and then go ogle their newest creations.
Which part of the creating process do you like the most? The last stitch!
Which part of the creating process do you dislike the most? Figuring out sewing math!
Favorite Adhesive: Heat & Bond
Favorite Movie: Return to Me ß Hopeless romantic
Beverage of Choice: Water
Sweet or Salty? Salty
Number 1 on your Bucket List: Learn to play the piano

IMPORTANT LINKS for Melissa!

Blog: http://blog.sewbittersweetdesigns.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SewBitterSweetDesigns
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/CraftyMamaD
Email: Melissa (at) sewbittersweetdesigns (dot) com

And now that you’ve learned some fun tidbits about today’s block designer it’s time to share the ninth block:

Scrappy Trees

Click HERE to go to Sew BitterSweet Designs’ website for instructions on how to create the next block in our quilt!

Don’t forget to add your picture to the flickr group once it’s complete:  http://www.flickr.com/groups/1850682@N20/

Previous Home Sweet Home Blocks:

• Block 1: My Home
• Block 2: Lapacek’s Orchard
• Block 3: House by the Bay
• Block 4: My Tilted House
• Block 5: Two Trees
• Block 6:  Tree of Life
• Block 7:  Under the Moreton Bay Fig
• Block 8:  A Wonky Modern House

The next block will be posted on Thursday, March 1st and it comes from Michelle at Quilting Gallery!

Some personal issues happened with the original designer of Block 8 for the Home Sweet Home Quilt Along.  Hopefully things improve soon and I’ll happily post the block once I receive it so we can all enjoy what she designed.
So, I have developed another block for the quilt.  This one is a bit wonky and modern but I think you’ll have fun with it.  I actually was inspired to make this after I made the Wonky Pound Sign Block for the Craftsy Quilt Along (which is FREE and you can still sign up for it!)
I took what I learned from the plus sign block to create this Block:

A Wonky Modern House

Fabric Requirements:

Sky (medium or light fabric – I used a fern printed aquamarine)
1 – 5” x 12.5”
1 – 1.25” x 3.5”
2 – 1.25” x 4”
2 – 1.5” x 4”
Roof Boards (I used a dark batik print)
2 – 1.5” x 12”
1 – 1.25” x 9.5”
1 – 1.25” x 3”
Grass (I used lime green daisy print)
1 – 6” x 12.5”
3 – 1.5” x 6”
2 – 1.25” x 4”
House Boards (I used Peace Pink)
2 – 1.5” x 10”
1 – 1.5” x 2.5”
1 – 1.5” x 1.5”
1 - 1.5” x 8”
1 – 1.25” x 9”
Bottom Strip (I used a batik green – this could be your grass print if you wanted)
1 - 1.25” x 12.5”

Okay – now that all the cutting’s done – let’s get started!

The Roof:

Take your 5” x 12.5” rectangle and cut diagonally through it.  When you cut – try to think of a roof shape – it doesn’t have to be perfect but you want to give yourself a little room to work with.  
Take one of your 1.5” x 12” roof strips and sew it into the cut.  Press toward the darker fabric.Since it’s at an angle you need to offset your starting edge to take into a account for that angle approximately a quarter inch or your seam allowance.  I tried to show what I mean in the above picture.  Next, cut a second random diagonal.  I did start the top right next to the edge of the roof strip to create a bit of a peak but you can see already that it’s a completely different angle than the previous one.  Take your second 1.5” strip and sew it into the cut.   
At this point Capri would ask me, “Where’s the Chimney?” so of course we must add one!
Take your 1.25” x 3” board piece and your 1.25” x 3.5” sky piece and sew together on the short edge.  Iron toward the darker side. 
Cut a slight diagonal into your roof (this could be on either side of your roof – I chose the more gradual sloping roof edge for mine.).  Sew in your 1.25” strip that you just pieced into the roof.  I made sure at least part of my chimney overlapped into the roof but I like that it’s not perfect, it just adds to the wonkiness of this block.    Trim this piece down to 12.5” x 4.5”.  If your piece is thinner than 4.5” don’t worry about it – we can add strips later to make it big enough.   Next take your 1.25” x 9.5” roof board strip and sew a 1.25” x 4” sky strip to either end.  Place it on your block so the roof so it creates an ‘overhang’ on your roof.  Sew it together and trim the sides.   

The House

Start with your 6” x 12.5” grass piece.
At about the 1/3 and 2/3 mark of your rectangle slash two random diagonals.  When you cut, know that there will be two more slashes between these two so leave enough room for that!Sew your 1.5” x 10” roof board strips into the slashes like you did for the roof boards.  Next, sew your 1.5” x 2.5” house board to the end of one of the 1.5” x 6” grass strips – this is your ‘Door Strip’   And sew a 1.5” x 6” grass strip onto each side of the 1.5” x 1.5” house board square – this is your ‘Window Strip). Take your grass rectangle and make two more random slashes in it.  Sew door and window strips into these slashes. Trim rectangle down to 12.5” x 5.5” Piece a 1.5” x 4” sky strip to each side of your 1.5” x 8” House board.  Place it so it ‘tops’ of the house you just created.  Sew the strip on and trim sides off so piece still measure 12.5” wide. Now you can sew your roof piece to your house piece. 
We still need the bottom board of our house so take your 1.25” x 9” house board strip and sew a  1.25” x 4” grass strip to either side.  Sew onto the house block.    Sew your 1.25” x 12.5” bottom strip to the bottom of your house.  Square your block to 12.5” x 12.5”.  If your house doesn’t quite measure 12.5” x 12.5” continue to add more bottom strips as needed to get your block to size. 

I hope you like it!

For a printable pdf of this block pattern please click HERE. 

Previous Home Sweet Home Blocks:

• Block 1: My Home
• Block 2: Lapacek’s Orchard
• Block 3: House by the Bay
• Block 4: My Tilted House
• Block 5: Two Trees
• Block 6:  Tree of Life
• Block 7:  Under the Moreton Bay Fig

One of my favorite things to do in my ‘free’ time is curate treasuries on etsy. I will start with the saying that I’m no expert and have only had a few make it to the front page but I pride myself in my curations – sometimes they’re quirky, themed on a silly item like a penguin, bright and colorful, rustic and farm-esque. I just enjoy the process of searching through etsy to find just the right item to include to make the perfect display. I know the joy I feel when I’m featured in a treasury and I hope that my treasuries bring the same to those that I include.

Treasury East has pretty much taken over the treasury world on etsy. I’m semi-happy with this new system and I pretty much understand why they made the switch but I have to admit I still miss the rush I got from getting my title in just in time the old way with Main Treasury and Treasury West.

I am going to go through how I curate a treasury, my thought process and certain tools and tricks I use.

The first thing to do is open up the Poster Sketch in etsy. You can create your treasury directly into the Treasury East but then you run the risk of losing it if your computer closes on you or etsy has a glitch during that time frame. Also, I’ve learned that it’s much easier to move your items around in the Poster Sketch mode to the way the look best together.

***Unfortunately Poster Sketch has recently been disabled on etsy. Until I find a better tool I create my treasuries directly in the actually treasury: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/new This is much more 'risky' than the Poster Sketch and a bit more difficult to move items around but it still works...You can also choose to make your treasury visible 'only to you' in the upper right 'Privacy' setting if you don't feel like it's ready to share with the public. If a new 'poster sketch' pops up I'll be sure to share it with you.****

The next thing I do is usually find one item to use as my inspiration. I looked in my favorites to see what has recently caught my eye. This helps save me time from searching randomly through etsy to find an item.

I have decided to start with this painting – Cherry Snow Flowers from Amborela.

So I go to the lower right of the listing and copy the Listing # and paste it into my Poster Sketch.

I could go a couple of directions with this as my starting point – the painting reminds me of poppies so I could make an entire collection of poppies, or I could go with a red and white treasury, or create a treasury with colors that either compliment or contrast with the red. I’ll do a little searching and see what happens – I usually let my treasuries decide their own way…

This is one of the spots that I tend to think of my teams. It’s always nice to incorporate some teammates into my treasuries to help support those that support me. To do this, I’ll type in my team tag and what I’m searching for – I’ll start by searching - “poppies etteam”.

Quite a few good ones pop up – I’ll add them into my poster sketch…

Now let’s see what other interesting poppy inspired work is out there – maybe a quilt? I’ll search ‘poppy quilt’ next.

I really like to mix up the media that I feature in my treasuries so let’s see if we can find some cool things in ‘poppy pottery’.

Now I’ll just go for a general search poppy and see what I can find. I sometimes will click every fifth or fourth page when hundreds come up. As I’m organizing my the items that catch my eye I try to make the first three spots very eye appealing and “click-worthy”. Items that if I saw I would want to see more – this is a way to get non-featured people into your treasuries and keep it ‘hot’ longer.

I have my Poster Sketch put together and now it’s time to make the treasury. I open up Treasury East through the front page of etsy by clicking on the Treasury tab on the left hand side.

To create a new list I just click on the blue ‘Create a List’ button on the right hand side of the treasury page.

Once I’m into my new treasury I just have to copy and paste the Listing #’s from the items in my poster sketch into the actual Treasury east.

I do this easily by clicking the blue ‘edit’ button on each listing in the Poster Sketch.

Now that the images are in all I have left to do is fill in the title (1), the description (2) and the tags (3).

I love that etsy has added tags to their treasury system – now a buyer can treat them like the gift guides and search treasuries for things they want to buy.

One last step to make your treasury – click the ‘save’ button in the bottom right of the treasury page. Walla – you have created a beautiful treasury!

Items I featured in my treasury – Perfectly Poppies

top row – left to right

• Original Painting - 16X20 Acrylic on Canvas - Cherry Snow Flowers from Amborela
• Spain Poppy butterfly summer 3/20 from rupydetequila
• Poppy Flower Bowl from PrinceDesignUK
• Poppies Field 5 Decorative poppy flowers on a stand hand made from theJoyofColor

second row – left to right

• Poppies Ikebana - original linocut watercolor mixed media from artwatercolor
• Poppy baby quilt/wall art- ''three poppies''- in red, pink, orange and yellow from moonspiritstudios
• Set of Two 16x16 inch Designer Pillow Covers - By Laura Gunn for Michael Miller, Big Poppy Aqua. Pillow Case, Cushion Cover, Pillow Cover from thislittlehome
• TorbusCo REACH For It Recycled Magnetic LOCKET SET By Polarity from polarity

third row – left to right

• Orange Brooch from azulado
• Handmade Original Beaded Charm Bracelet - Art Deco Poppy from KIMMSMITH
• RASYA Antiqued Rust Red Silk Poppy Flower Necklace from AngelBlackDesigns
• orange poppies square from leapinggazelle

bottom row – left to right

• 6 pieces Organza Flowers RED POPPY from supplier
• Poppy from AJCARTWORK
• Red Hot Enamel Poppies Hook Earrings from jewelrybynatsuko
• Poppy Cake Platter from dahlhaus

I have a very unique situation with my kids. For 10 months of the year I stay home with them...the other two months is apple season, so I don't see them much. I have between 5-6 different sitters in a given week that either take my kids and watch them during the days or are with us at the apple store so they can make sure they get naps and are fed, but we can still see them if we have a minute. I'm sure you can imagine it's not easy to find a sitter/day care willing to take your children for only two months when they could potentially fill that spot with a year-round paying family.


I was lucky enough to find an amazing babysitter who would do just that for me...and she lives only a few houses down from the orchard! How perfect is that! She also watches other kids as well and we just adore her! We decided to do something special for her for Christmas (although I ended up getting sick and she got her gift a few weeks late...ooops). We had each of the kids that she watches at some point throughout the year make handprints on fabric and then I sewed it into a wall quilt.


I was inspired to do this after someone at one of Barb's (http://www.quiltsbybarb/) quilt retreat showed a project they had done with children's handprints. I went home and googled 'Handprint Quilts' and I found the book "Calendar Kids: Handprint Quilts Through the Year" by Marcia Layton. (http://www.amazon.com/Calendar-Kids-Handprint-Quilts-Through/dp/1564777022/ref=pd_sim_b_1/186-4142342-3576359). I ordered it used her instructions as guidelines on how to do this quilting project. I ended up tweaking a few things but got basically the same overall result.






I started out by ironing my fabric (I used my mother-in-law's pastel-ish hand-dyes for the handprints) onto freezer paper. I did this to make the fabric stiffer and easier to work with. Then I created an area in our basement to work. Depending on the age of the child you are working with your setup may vary. I stripped my kids down (they are 2 and 10mo) for this project. I also made sure that I had babywipes on hand to immediately clean their hands off once the handprint was on the fabric. I taped the fabric squares to a table. Then I took my babie's hand, painted a color on it using a sponge brush and pressed it to the fabric (You can do a practice round on paper if you're more comfortable).




To the left you can see what Capri's hand looked like. It's not perfect but I feel that it adds some uniqueness and character to the project. Plus, she was just intriqued by the way the paint felt on her hands!

After the hands were dry, I painted the stems, leaves and cute little garden creatures onto each handprint fabric. Cedi's final handprint piece is just to the left. (also not perfect handprints, but still fabulous looking)

Once the painted dried, I took the freezer paper off, sandwhiched the fabric between a piece of pfd fabric (any old scrap fabric would do) and ironed it to set the paint.

I also used a fabric marker to write the child's name and age on the fabric piece. Denise's grandson, Trexen only 2 1/2 months old was able to participate as well!

I had chosen the fun commercial printed cotton you can see on the picture to the left as the base for this quilt. I tried to match the handprint paints to the fabric to ensure that everything coordinated well together.

I pieced fabric borders around each squared off handprint block and then put the quilt together. It ended up being long and skinny...a perfect wallhanging (I hope at least).





Now it was time to quilt! This was the part that scared me. I typically send these to my aunt-in-law Barb, but wanting to keep the cost down I decided to do it myself. Also, I had just gotten a brand new sewing machine, a Memory Craft 6600 that is made for quilting. I used basting spray to layer the back, batting, and top together (works WONDERFULLY....strongly recommend to anyone quilting). Then I decided to start by doing fancy stitching around each handprint block. This way I was quilting and seeing what my machine could do all at the same time!

I'm not sure if you can see very well, but here's what my fun borders looked like...I was extremely happy. They weren't perfect, but it was my first time and it worked.



Then, I used my free motion foot to quilt in cursive, "Auntie Nise's Garden of Love" between the rows of handprints....very hard to see, but it's there. I did random swirly quilting in the rest of the colorful printed fabric. On the thin, black border, I just used a fancy stitch to define the quilt....kept it real simple.



Once the binding and sleeve was on, it was time to give the gift away! All the mom's met at Denise's yesterday evening for the gift opening.

I think she was happy!

Finished product. If you have any questions about the techniques I used feel free to contact me through my blog! I hope you enjoyed this little article on handprint quilts!