Sewing Ideas Inspired by Summer + Finished Checkered Garden Quilt

Greetings friends!

I hope summer is treating you well (at least you northern-hemisphere folks).

Looking for some sunshine-y project inspiration? I've got LOTS of fun project ideas to share with you today as well as a great tutorial with for a handy tip to help you streamline your piecing. Plus a some great skill building tips for Foundation Paper Piecing.

Summer-Inspired Sewing and Quilting Projects

I love finding really fun summer-themed sewing and quilting projects and updated the list of many of my favorites all in one place.

This list includes a variety of choices - everything from quilts, to simpler projects like coasters, mini quilts, or tote bags and even a couple of cute quilted t-shirt ideas.

Even if you're not looking to start a new project right now, just scrolling through these sunny, colorful projects will cheer you up! Click below for full list.

One of my favorite Quilting Short-cuts!

I love quilting shortcuts. You've probably heard of "Chain-Piecing" but have you heard of "Web-Piecing"?

Guest contributor Lisa Donnelly shares a tutorial for piecing multiple rows at once. It's one of my favorite quilting hacks - I use it all the time. Click below to get the details:

Fun Finds on the Web - Foundation Paper Piecing:

Have you tried Foundation Paper-Piecing (FPP)? FPP is something I've really grown to enjoy more and more over the past couple of years. It's definitely a different ball game and mindset from traditional piecing and it takes some practice to get the hang of this new way of piecing.

But once you do, there are SO many places you can go with this technique to make some really detailed designs with fabric. Paper foundation piecing lets you accurately create complex shapes that would be difficult to achieve with traditional piecing. And even though they're often complex designs, they come out perfect!

Here are a few FPP tutorials and patterns:

Liza Taylor walks through the basics of Foundation Paper Piecing in this introduction to the process.

For another great introduction and basic patterns for starting, visit Leila Gardunia's Guide to Foundation Paper Piecing.

​The Fat Quarter Shop has a large variety of paper templates for foundation-piecing traditional quilt blocks. Here's a look at a quilt I made with the FQS's Woven Star blocks that was SO fun to make.

Kristina at Center Street Quilts has a free FPP Heart block (in multiple sizes) that is a great practice block for getting started with Foundation Paper Piecing. Kristina also has lots of beautiful FPP patterns in her Etsy Shop.

If you're already a confident Foundation Paper-Piecing: the strawberry and heart block patterns below are by Susan of Quilty Pie - she's got a variety of adorable FPP patterns in a range of difficulty levels.

And for extra intense Foundation Paper-Piecing AND mind-blowing designs, check out the work of Berene at Happy Sew Lucky. Her Sew Like A Boss pattern is amazing!

I'm writing this from the plane after being on the road for the past two weeks - one week having an incredible dream trip with our older daughters. They’re both grown-up working women and it was fun to have some time to get away with them - especially since one of them lives across the country from us now.

My husband is half Italian and we’ve had a dream to visit where his grandparents’ families immigrated from. It was extra special to experience that with our daughters. (Our two sons are busy with school and serving a volunteer mission - so I guess that means we’ll just have to go back with them another time. 😉) It was so special! Including connecting with and being hosted by 20 Italian cousins! An incredible experience.

The second week was visiting a dear friend who has been fighting cancer off and on for the past 10 years - most intensively over the past 15 months. I’m so grateful for the time we’ve had with her and her husband over recent years visiting back and forth, and especially for the time this week - where it consisted of more mundane activities like going to a chemo appointment, eating ice cream, and mostly just sitting together - including unexpectedly in a hospital room during our last afternoon together. 😔

I’ll admit my emotions are all over the map today. Joy for a wonderful, memorable trip with our daughters, fatigue after walking a kajillion miles many days in a row in sweaty conditions (but that's okay because it justified eating a lot of carbs + gelato😉), sadness for watching a dear friend suffer so much (seriously cancer, you are the worst), and gratitude for beloved people in my life.

More to share on both ends of the spectrum. But right now, a lot to process. (Combined with jet lag = I'm not feeling my sharpest.😅🫠)

In the meantime, thanks to those of you who have been patient with delayed responses to emails, comments, orders shipped, etc. Getting back in the groove this week.

As always, thanks for stopping by. xo

Amy

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