Back Porch Fabrics in Pacific Grove, California

Have you ever been to Monterrey or Carmel or Pebble Beach, California?

Nestled right by the beach, is the cutest city,  Pacific Grove.

They have a really nice quilt shop called Back Porch Fabrics.

I'll give you a little tour....

There was a trunk show in the workroom, and all the quilts were made by these two ladies, who have been friends for over 30 years.

Here are some of the quilts they made together.

This one looks like a Freddie Moran, I bet they took a class from her!

One of the signs of a good quilt shop, is their sale table.

This table was full of bolts of fabric that were on sale, that was a really good sign!

This quilt shop has an awesome selection of books and magazines!

I thought their notions wall was good, but no Lori Holt rulers.

Another view of the trunk show.

I only made a few purchases.

The quilt shop had a great selection and a lot of fabrics I really liked.

I only bought these fabrics because I thought they were different.

I bought the green dot because you can never have enough for backgrounds.  I bought the rest of the bolt, about 2 l/2 yards.

If you ever find yourself by Pebble Beach golf course, or Carmel, visit this wonderful quilt shop in Pacific Grove!

The beach was less than a block from the quilt shop :)

Fancy Fox quilted!

Can I just say that I love this quilt pattern by Elizabeth Hartman?

I tried to create an hombre look in this quilt.

I used my favorite matryoshka fabric, just a hint of me :)
What am I saying, the whole quilt is me!!!

I quilted this with a woodgrain design which I love so much!

It's not difficult to do, but is very time consuming.

I practiced on a piece of paper first, so I could get the idea of how my hands would guide the fabric with the free motion quilting foot.

Here is a video on my Pinterest board, that really helped me with this woodgrain method of machine quilting.

To make this quilt even more desirable, I backed it with the softest, silkiest minky!

The color is called "cherry".

I made this quilt for my grand daughter Taylor, for her first birthday 

I took this quilt with me to Monterrey and Santa Cruz last weekend, in hopes of photographing it by the ocean.

Unfortunately, this is the best I could do.

It could be anywhere, lol!

This one's in my backyard, thanks Ricky!

What's a snuggly quilt without a pillow to match?

I thought Taylor might like the little foxes to match the quilt.

In reality, these are wolves from Aneela Hoey's line, "A Walk in the Woods".  

They really look like foxes to me :)

I used some of the fabrics that I used in the quilt.

I don't know if you remember, but I made a blue quilt like this a year ago, which you can find here.

What have I learned from making these two quilts for my grandchildren?

I love the pattern, and want to make a full size one.

I also love all the cute animal quilt patterns that Elizabeth Hartman designs :)
I love my fabric stash, I only had to purchase the minky backing and the binding.
The binding? Yes, I just couldn't find anything in my stash that made me happy.
I have enough fabric in my stash to make about 1,000 more quilts!!

Thank you to all my faithful readers, I love hearing from you!

My Swoon blocks

It's the first of January, the Christmas decorations are put away, and there's some time!

Yay, some free time!

On Instagram, there are all sorts of fun ideas concerning quilting!

allpeoplequilt.com published their UFO Challenge 2017.

It was numbered 1 - 12, in a list format.

Beside each number, you wrote what quilt project you were going to finish, for that month. 

On the first of every month, all people quilt would say which number had been randomly chosen.

You would choose the project beside that number and finish it during the month.

What a great idea!

I loved all the Christmas themed posts on Instagram, and was sort of wishing I could have done a project with all my cute Cozy Christmas fabrics.

I found Mel is a Swapaholic, and she was doing a Swoon quilt along, and then I saw that Camille of Thimbleblossoms was also doing a quilt along.

I put two and two together and decided to ditch the UFO Challenge, and do the Swoon quilt along!

Here are my Swoon blocks, I tried to make them vintage looking as much as possible, the soft pinks and greens and blues, with some red thrown in.

The blocks are sewn with Cozy Christmas, but I didn't have enough, so I added some other lines.

I cut all the sashing when I cut the fabric for the blocks, so I just have to assemble the blocks together and the quilt top will be done!

Thanks for reading, I'll see you next week :)

Quilts for Quebec

I grew up in St. Lambert, a city just south of Montreal, along the St. Lawrence river.  

When I heard about the senseless shootings at a Muslim Mosque in Quebec City, I was very sad.

I saw that the Montreal Modern Quilt Guild was asking for help for families of the victims.

They were requesting house blocks to make quilts, the dimensions should be 12 l/2" unfinished.

If you are able to help, here is some information.

I  made some blocks from Lori Holt's book, Vintage Farm Girl.

I went to my scrap baskets and chose some happy fabric.

I would have liked to have made more, but with limited time, I was able to make four.

I'm looking forward to seeing photos of the finished quilts.

I know that warm, homemade quilts can offer lots of comfort.