FreeSpirit Circle of Makers

Posted in Finished Quilts by StaceyinStitches

Happy New Year everyone!

The last three months have been spent sewing up a storm for my time with the FreeSpirit Fabrics Circle of Makers tour. The makers act as brand ambassadors for FreeSpirit, and insipre us with their creative pursuits while featuring the different fabrics FreeSpirit and their designers have to offer. You can learn more about the program and the individual makers HERE.

I am honored to have been a guest maker in 2025, working with Giuseppe Ribaudo, aka Giucy Giuce, Hue and Gemini. The collections are bright, colorful painters palettes of rainbow blenders – Gemini as dual tone ombre, and Hue as single blenders with a pair of gorgeous panel prints.

I received my box of fabric and Aurifil Thread in October, and after opening the panel print, immediately knew it was time for a make I’ve been wanting to complete for a while. I picked up a water repellant lined wool blend a while back, with full intentions of making myself a rain coat. The west coast doesn’t get snow in the winter – it rains. and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains……….

The only bright spots are when the sun shines through and you get rainbows. It doesn’t happen as often as one might like, so I decided I would be my own rainbow. The panel was perfect for the umbrella. I really wanted to keep the shape of the panel. I picked up the umbrella kit from Stitch & Bobbin, a local BC shop, pulled the coat pattern from my library, and got to work.

The panel wasn’t quite long enough for the umbrella panels, so I adjusted the panel to piece it together. I used Odicoat to waterproof the panel and accent fabrics. Then, because I was going to be doing some topstitching, I got some tent seam sealant. the last thing I need is my umbrella leaking through the holes. It worked like a charm! I am so happy with the finished umbrella, its so bright and colorful and BIG!

The coat took the most time. Its a princess seam high-low that I’ve been itching to make since I picked up the pattern. I used one of my Hue prints for the hood lining. The main coat is lined with a Kaffe sateen wideback from my LQS. The 108″ wideback from Hue wasn’t going to be ready in time, and because the jacket is a high-low, the lining would be visible.

I made over 200″ of 1/2″ and 1/4″ bias tape for each color. That felt like it took forever!

The 1/4″ tape went into the cuffs and hood.

The 1/2″ tape was used on the hem. I used every single bobbin I had. It was a ton of sewing, but I emptied every bobbin I own at one point, and had to wind a new one. It was a great way to use up all the small amounts of thread, and it made the inside of the coat extra colorful. I know no one is going to see it, but I know its there, and it makes me so happy!

My machine only has a straight stich, so I got to dust off a skill from eons ago, and made welt buttonholes. I used some gorgeous gold buttons from my stash to finish the coat. I may still switch them out for gold stars if I can find them in the correct size. My favorite cartoon growing up was Rainbow Bright, and the more I worked on the coat, the more I realized it was channeling Rainbow Brights outfit, which made all the stripes worthwhile.

I love my coat! It makes the days a little bit brighter!

Happy stitching,

26Dec2025

2025 Debut Designer Projects

Posted in Other by StaceyinStitches

It’s that time of year, where we close the chapter of the year and get ready to ring in the next. For me, that means making one last post of patterns! 2025 has been a busy one for quilts. I have been blessed to work with so many amazing new designers this year, as well as some of my usual favorites.

First up we have Adam Trest’s debut collection with FreeSpirit Fabrics – Backyard Wonder. Adam is a fine art painter and illustrator. Backyard Wonder is a fantastic collection of woodland flora and fauna with a large aesthetic range from soft and whimsical to bold and classic.

Promenade is a beginner level quilt featuring the Walk In The Woods print, which is versatile enough to use as a border stripe, a full panel, or individual fussy cut squares. The possibilities are endless.

Meadowbrook is an advance fussy cutting extravaganza. The corner squares are fussy cut from the Storyteller Patchwork print. This particular print has hundreds of small stamps/patches that I wanted to feature. The Walk in the Woods print is fussy cut, and makes up the center squares and borders.

Blue Garland uses only three prints, and is also heavily fussy cut focus. The Racing Rabbits print is the focus of this quilt, and is that perfect classic blue and white quilt for the discerning quilter.

Next up is the debut collection for FreeSpiritFabrics from Katy Tanis – Love In the Wild. Katy is a children’s book author and illustrator. Her fabrics are bold, bright, colorful, and whimsical menagerie sure to capture the imagination.

The first quilt features the Love in the Wild panel from the collection. This quilt is the perfect baby gift, with its bright rainbow of colors and adorable creatures. It was designed with simplicity and gifting in mind.

The next quilt is Love For All, an easy strip quilt. Its the perfect quilt to introduce quilting to a beginner, whether its your own child, niece, nephew, grandchild, or your best friend that you finally talked into sewing with you!

Lastly we have Let Love Shine. Designed with an older child in mind, and featuring the Ringtail Love Day border print.

Finally we have Clare Youngs debut collection with FreeSpirit Fabrics – Flying South. Clare is an artist from the UK specializing in collage and paper crafts, as well as creating with different printing methods to make her art.

Flying South is a vibrant eclectic mix of birds of all varieties. From woodpeckers and owls to fantastical feathered friends straight from Clare’s imagination.

Each of these new designers has a very unique style, and it was a joy working with each of the collections. Which is your favorite?

Happy Stitching

4Jul2025

Full Moon Forest II – 50th Anniversary

Posted in Tutorials and Patterns by StaceyinStitches

Today I am featuring the quilts for Tula Pinks 50th Fabric Collection. I have been working with Freespirit Fabrics and Tula pink for over a decade now. My first collection with Tula was Nest. I entered a jelly roll challenge with my Grandma at her LQS, and I was faster than she was and grabbed the brightest rainbow roll before she could. I was instantly drawn to Tula’s fabrics. They were like nothing I had seen before. Bright, colorful, bold, unique, and everything I had ever wanted to sew with. You can find the finished challenge quilt here.

When I decided that designing quilts was something I wanted to do, my goal was to design for Tula. I always made my best work with her fabrics, and I wanted to share my love of her designs with as many people as possible. My first design was released with FreeSpirit in 2015, and here we are 10 years, 31 collections, and at least a hundred patterns later. This collection was a celebration of 50 collections for Tula. For me, it was the realization of a dream, and I am so excited for what the next 10 years will bring!

The first quilt in the collection is Rainbow Forest. Its a classic SiS design – fussy cutting, flying geese, and rainbow layout! The centers of the blocks were large enough to feature the owl print, which is one of the largest motifs to date in a Tula collection. There are so many fussy cuttable elements!

The collection consisted of 8 prints, and went wand in hand with the release of the next selection of True Colors prints – 22 rainbow blenders and 6 low volume. I adore the low volume prints, they are the original Full Moon Forest owls, bunnies, and raindrops. What a perfect way to show love for the original while celebrating the new! I made two quilts using the True Colors only. The prints were so pretty and make perfect rainbow quilts.

The final quilt is my personal favorite. It is a love letter to Tula’s fabrics, and the joy that designing quilts brings me. I am truly blessed to do what I love, and be able to share that love with others.

I custom quilted the entire thing. It took me hours. It was a labor of love, and I am overjoyed with the final result! The true colors blocks show the quilting the best, so I came up with a quilting design that would compliment the collection without overwhelming the pieces. I love feather quilting, so I played around on paper until the pattern emerged – a butterfly flitting through the colorful garden of the quilt.

Thank you to all my readers and fellow quilters for sharing this colorful, wonderful, amazing journey with me. I can’t wait to share what’s next!

With all my love,

Happy Stitching!

25May2014

So whats the deal with Ryan Gosling?

Posted in Other by StaceyinStitches

Now don’t get me wrong, I love me a little Ryan Gosling eye candy. And the meme’s are just hilarious and fun. I just wonder where the idea took off from. Was it the Spoonflower staff challenge? Or does it go deeper? Does it really matter?

I don’t really mind not getting an answer, I just wanted a legitimate excuse to ~~go window shopping~~

er, do research.

For your Sunday Evening enjoyment!

From Patchworkduck.com

From mylittlepaperaddiction

From the Moda Blog but found on pintrest

from Pins and Bobbins

8Jan2013

Guess Who’s Back!

Posted in Other by StaceyinStitches

Well, after a long Christmas break I am back ready to rock and roll (and sew)! The last months has been a super whirlwind of sewing, cooking, baking and family. It was the first Christmas with our little one in our new home with all the family here (and only one person sleeping on the couch/floor). Then 10 days on the mountain with my parents and grandparents with no cell coverage and spotty internet, where the cards abounded! Its been a long time since we had everyone together for the holidays, and I forgot how much fun it is playing cards until midnight, yelling and scrapping and basically having a grand old time I BUY!! I BUY!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

For those who play Pepper, these are two deadman’s hands dealt honestly

Baby H got his first taste of deep snow. It was about 3 feet deep, but he is such a featherweight that he was able to sit on top of the pile. He was fine until mommy pushed him over *wink*

Not Happy!

He also recieved a beautiful quilt from his Great Grandma for Christmas. Mommy loves it because its owls, and she used the Jenny Ski 10 Little Things owls for the border. H likes it because the wings are prairie points that he can flap and chew.

The Owl Quilt

My big project over the last 3 months has been the Sawtooth Cat Quilt commission. I finished it and a set of pillow shams in time for Christmas ( December 23rd still counts). It was for my clients mother, who lost everything she had to a house fire. She has a very large cat collection, and Laurel Burch figured among them. The inspiration for the quilt was a panel I had in my stash of Laurel Burch’s Fanciful Felines.

The Pillow Sham

I had a major panic attack when I went to make the shams because I ran out of fabric to do the ruffle and the back. I was starting to hyperventilate when I remembered that Holly of Holly’s Red Bike, who is the President of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, had given me 2 meters of Laurel Burch Fanciful Felines cat print in the same colorway! It saved my sanity and the commission. Thank You Holly!!

The Cat Quilt

Of course no quilt is ever fully completed without home special “helpers”, usually in the form of a cat or small child. This go round was the latter for me.

Mommy I’m Helping!

For those of you who downloaded the mystery pattern, I am still working on the tutorial, and it will be up soon!

Happy New Year!

Stacey

4Oct2012

Bottled Rainbows Quilt by Maureen Cracknell Handmade

Posted in Other by StaceyinStitches

Today I would like to share a quilt from Maureen Cracknell Handmade. Maureen’s blog is one of my favorites. She always has something creative, fun and inspiring to share with us. That she does it with 3 children makes it even more amazing!

Image courtesy of Maureen Cracknell Handmade

The Bottled Rainbows tutorial is one that many modern quilters know. It inspired one of our VMQG Challenges last year, and the resulting quilts are always beautiful and colorful. Maureen took Bottled Rainbows to the next level by using shapes and motifs instead of just squares and rectangles. You can read more about Maureen and her Bottled Rainbows Quilt here : Maureen Cracknell Handmade: My Bottled Rainbows Quilt : :. I love her construction techniques. You can also find the original Bottles Rainbows Post and Tutorial here.

Thank you Maureen for allowing me to share your work!

2Oct2012

Cathedral Window QAL

Posted in Cathedral Window QAL, Quilt-A-Longs, Works In Progress by StaceyinStitches

Yesterday marked day one of the Cathedral Window Quilt A Long Blog Hop! Sara of Sew Sweetness gave us our first tutorial, the Layered Cathedral Window, and I love how her block turned out! I have decided to use a consistent color scheme throughout the QAL. I am going to be using Limes, Aquas, Teals and Yellows. There are 9 blocks in this QAL, so I hope I have enough fabric! Ha ha ha, like that’s really a problem for me…

Here is my finished block! I ended up ripping 2 portions apart and placing the fabrics in a different order, but I am so happy with the result. There is some definite movement in this block! I love the lime green! It is an almost impossible to find Robert Kaufman Blender. I ordered it from Australia 2 years ago (the only place I could find it) for $20/meter! But I love it so much! I will use it in all my blocks, though maybe I should have picked a different color, Cathedral Windows do use up a lot of fabrics! There are 5 layers to sew through on each side of this block. I pressed my seams open using my heaviest iron, lowering my board, applying a TON of pressure, and STEAM. The result is a nice flat block with no seam bubbles! Hurray!

A huge thank you goes out to Bree at My Crafty Crap for hosting this QAL, and to all the sponsors for the wonderful prizes! You can find the QAL rules, blog roll, and prizes there.

I can’t wait for the next block!

Happy Sewing!

Rainbows For Maranda

I am part of a couple mommy groups, and one of the other mommies came across this. I contacted Patricia, and the little girl is in her friend’s Brownie Troop.

I know I get some international readers, so I would like to encourage everyone to take part. It will cost you nothing but a stamp! Lets help make a little girl’s dream come true!

Could everyone, including you big kids, draw a simple picture of a rainbow and mail it to Patricia Verhelst Box 355, Radville, SK S0C 2G0 Canada, by next week and I will send them all in together. There is a little girl in Saskatoon who is sick who wishes to get a rainbow from everyone in the world. Please write your name and where you are from on it. Lets make a wish come true if it was your child you would want that! Thanks everyone and please copy and paste this to help spread the word!This little girl’s name is Maranda, she is 10 years old and I’m really hoping everyone will do their best to make her wish come true!

During my clinical training, I did a month long rotation through the BC Children’s Hospital. Even three years later, that month has stuck with me, even more so now that I have a child of my own. It takes something so simple to make these kids happy.The odds seem so stacked against them, yet they shine through the adversity with bravery, strength and smiles for those who care for and about them. I will always remember my time there, and I know it shaped part of who I am professionally with my patients and at home.
Please, share this with your friends, family, and other bloggers!

Here is the address again:

Patricia Verhelst

Box 355

Radville, SK

S0C 2G0

Canada

21Sep2012

And now for something fun…

Posted in Tutorials and Patterns by StaceyinStitches

My husband has recently quit smoking! I am very proud of him. He has been chewing a lot of gum to get through, so I bought him one of those big bottles of tablet style gum. Unfortunately its too big to lug around while he is working, so I made him a Gum Packet! I whipped it up in about 1o minutes. It’s super cute and hold 10 pieces of gum.

You can make one easily using scraps from your stash. You need:

2 pieces 5″x4″

1 strip 4″x4″ and a second strip 2″x4″ ( I used Kona White)

A button

a 1.5″ piece of 1/4″ elastic or elastic thread. You could also make a small loop out of fabric, make it about 2.5″ long to compensate for no stretch.

Instructions

Fold the 2 white strips in half and press. you will have a 2×4 and a 1×4 strip

Place the 1×4 strip on the right side of one of the 5″x4″ pieces, matching the raw edges along the 4″ side. Stitch across 3/4″ from the folded edge.

Place the short white strip on top of the tall white strip and pin.

Draw the lines for the ‘gum pouches’. Draw a line 3/4″ from the left side, then 3 more lines 5/8″ apart. Stitch on the lines from the top of the first folded strip to the bottom, backstitching at the fold for stability.

Fold the elastic in half and match the raw edges of the elastic to the raw edge of the gum pouches. Adjust the elastic so that it is in the middle of the gum pouches. The loop should be pointing to the folded edges. Sew the elastic in place securely by backstitching multiple times in the seam allowance ( within 1/4″)

Place the 2 4″x5″ pieces Right Sides Together. Sew around the outside edge, leaving a 2″opening at the top (the top is the side with no gum pouches)

Trim the bulky corners around the gum pouches, and flip the Packet inside out. Close the opening with a whipstitch.

Press the Packet firmly, and edge-stitch around the entire Packet. Fold the packet in half lengthwise, RST. It should now measure 2 1/4″x 3 1/2″ and the gum pouches should be hidden behind the flap. Edge-stitch at the fold.

Sew your button to the center of the “flap”. The elastic should stretch over the button to keep the Gum Packet closed.
Tada! You are finished and have a funky fun packet for your gum! This will fit the regular size stick gums and the tablet gums.

The inside hold 10 pieces of gum

Fun Gum!

Since I whipped it up before hubby went to work I don’t have any tutorial pictures. You can always email me with questions!

Happy Quilting!

5Sep2012

The UFO Problem

Posted in Works In Progress by StaceyinStitches

I don’t mean unidentified flying objects, I mean UnFinished Objects. And I have a lot. A LOT….the rule of thumb is no more than 3. Lately my brain has been in quilting overtime. I have so many ideas floating around and they are all coming out in different ways. The chaos of my sewing room is overwhelming to everyone but me.

Organized chaos is the key here……

I do love my sewing room. There is a special spot for baby H, a wonderful peg board installed by my father, a ton of space to stuff bins of fabric ( there are 10) and my Precious. A Janome 1600P Professional semi industrial sewing machine. It is a straight stitch only machine with 3 speeds: Fast, faster, and holy cow.

At the moment I have 5 projects going (that I can remember O.o;)

1. A reproduction of Claudia Clark Myers and Marylin Badger’s quilt Sparkle Plenty

2. Listen With Your Eyes by Jacqueline de Jonge

3. A wholecloth quilt design

4. A modern quilt for Quilt Con

5. 3×6 Bee blocks, Stars and Pinwheels

I also have the fabric collected for another Jacqueline de Jonge project, Circle of Life, and I have sketches for a quilt series (more on that to come!)

I am excited about the modern quilt. I have recently discovered a love of hexagons. I have ordered the Hexa-Go-Go book, written by the very talented Tacha Bruecher. She is a founding member of Fat Quarterly ezine (I highly recommend subscribing), and you can find her blog here. My block idea combines hexagons with my love of paper-pieced stars. There will be a sneak peak at the end of the month!

I also received a call from the Georgia Quilt Show. They received my entry. Fingers crossed that it gets juried in! I finally named the quilt Sapphire Star.