Make It Modern's April Sponsor: The Intrepid Thread

Hey there strangers! Long time no see!!!!! It's been a LOOOOOONG month! And a very busy one too! I'll tell you guys more about that soon though. I dropped in today to let you all know about Make It Modern's sponsor for April!!!!!!

This month's sponsor is none other than the AMAZING Julie Duek, owner of The Intrepid Thread!!!!!
I know you guys have heard me rave about her and her shop, and I honestly can't say enough good things about her! I'm going to let her about page do the talking for a moment:
"Owner, Julie Dueck, started the Intrepid Thread out of a desire to feature her own favorite fabric lines and designers, as well as offer the best possible customer care available! Not only is Julie passionate about fabric, she possesses a knowledge of fabric that only comes from years of researching it, blogging about it and buying it!
When you purchase fabric from The Intrepid Thread, you’ll benefit from Julie’s expertise! Julie keeps her finger on the pulse of the modern quilter, carefully purchasing each bolt of fabric herself. In fact, if she wouldn’t want to sew with it…then it’s not good enough for her customers either!
Julie’s impeccable taste in fabric, as well as her knowledge and ability to stock the most sought-after designer fabrics, sets her apart from other fabric dealers. Her hand wrapped packages, tied with a bow and a personal note, let customers know just how important they are." 

That really says it all! I absolutely L-O-V-E getting a package from Julie! They always make my day! Her handwritten notes lets you know that she really cares about her customers! I recommend her shop to everyone I know!
Julie just recently opened up a brick and mortar shop! (Congrats, Julie!) The only downside to that is that I don't live close enough to go see it for myself! The pictures on her home page show a really gorgeous shop!
You can visit her blog to see what is going on in her shop and what all she's into....ya never know, you may find a giveaway to go enter! :) I'm just sayin.....

Julie keeps her shop stocked with the latest modern fabrics! And with her FANTASTIC prices....it's hard to say no.... Let me just show you some of my favorites......

My favorite line!!! Comma!

Tsuru.....

Color Me Retro (I LOOOOOVE the colors in this line!!!!!!)

I'm inlove with this one! 2wenty Thr3e! I wish I could get the WHOLE COLLECTION!!!!!

So you see, you really really really really REALLY need to go and check out The Intrepid Thread because it is just an all around AMAZING shop! I promise you will NOT be disappointed!

So, what is Julie offering to one lucky Make It Modern member?

This gorgeous, and I do mean GORGEOUS fat quarter bundle of Luxe In Bloom!!!!!
You girls know the drill! Have your blocks in the mail already (since it's the very last day of the month) and have a pic of each of your finished blocks in the group pool to be in the drawing! Jamie and I will be announcing the winner tomorrow! Good luck!



~Hope y'all are having a great day!!!~

Pattern Testing

Do you remember when I showed you the pic above? I told you I'd tell y'all more about it later? Well, later is here!!!
As you all know I'm an IG (instagram) addict! When I saw Diane (aka From Blank Pages) was making a new pattern for the alphabet I JUST HAD to try it out! Luckily she let me take her wonderful pattern on a little test drive! The only thing she requested was that I made something that used either g, p, q, or y in lowercase. So, I thought about it for all of like 2.2 seconds and came up with what you see above. Sew Hexy. Perfect, right? I thought so!!!

This pattern is just awesome! It is a paper piecing pattern, which I have recently become OBSESSED with paper piecing. I'm actually thinking of doing a little tutorial on how I paper piece. But that's for another day!

The thing I really love about this pattern is that it is VERY versatile! You can use these letters for just about any project you can think of! They are sized small enough you could even use them for pouches or bags! I'm thinking about using this pattern on the backing of my niece's quilt to put her name on it as well as a little message from me.
I love how this pattern doesn't create a TON of waste fabric like some of the other paper piecing patterns do. I was able to take the excess fabric I cut off from one part of a letter and use it for another part on the same letter! There is a lot of small piecing involved, which doesn't bother me AT ALL!
Her directions are very easy to follow. This pattern is very well written and easy to understand!
I'm so happy she let me test this for her!!! Thank you again Diane!!!!

When I was quilting it I didn't want to take away from the letters so I chose not to do any quilting over them at all. I love the way it turned out! The fabrics I used for the letters are from the line Les Amis, I used my favorite text print from Madrona Road, the background is Yarn Dyed Essex Linen in Flax, and I think that is some Kona White around the letters.

So you guys know you want to go out and get this pattern right? You can get it 2 different places!!
Here on Craftsy or here on Etsy and don't forget to go say Hello to Diane on her blog. When you do, don't forget to tell her I sent you!!!! I am a huge fan of her blog and her work. She's got more alphabet patterns other than this one too. (This one is called My ABC's and My abc's) You can check out her other patterns here at her Pattern Store on Craftsy. I promise you will NOT regret checking them out...she really is VERY talented!!!!

~Hope y'all are having a great day!!!~

Bee Sew Modern: My block

Happy April Fools Day!!!!
Edited to add: I almost forgot to post the winner of the giveaway!!! OOPS!!! Random.org chose #21 who said 
Margaret said...

I am a follower and I think you are doing an amazing job. Keep it up! 

I'm sending you an e-mail now Margaret! Congrats!!!!


I'm still in shock that it's APRIL ALREADY! WOW! Well, with it being April it means it's the start of Bee Sew Modern!!! YAY!!!!
I'm up for the first month, and I've thought LONG and hard about what block I wanted everyone to make for me. And, truth be told, I'm probably the ONLY quilter in the world that doesn't have a quilt that they have made! (yes, I'm ashamed)! And not only do I not have a quilt, my husband does not either!!!!
Soooo, I'm working on my own from the blocks everyone made me for Make It Modern Bee. It fits perfect for me to get everyone to make a block for my husband's quilt for Bee Sew Modern. Right?
That's my thinking EXACTLY!!!
Every quilt that I see online that I really like I have to show my husband. And I just fell inlove with this quilt. Which the pic is from Film In the Fridge 's blog.

It's called, "Converging Corners" and the tutorial can be found here.  I remember when I showed him this quilt how much he liked it. Well, there is another version she made of it that I like a little better.  You can see that quilt here. It's called "Converging Corners...Take 2". I love the way the "X"'s form in the quilt. And it's really easy to make! I won't re-do the tutorial but I will tell you guys how I made my block!

I started with the fabrics....

I picked out some gray prints in different shades....or is it "values"? And I chose Kona Snow as the background.

I then cut some strips out of each print. These vary in width from 1" up to 2.5"/

Out of the Kona Snow I cut an 8.5" x WOF. I decided to start my block with an 8.5" square, but you can start your in any size from around 6"-9". For the rest of the WOF strip I sub cut it into smaller strips to match the prints.

Now, you can do this however you want as far as the strips go. But I think I cut my first print at around 4.5" long and then added the Kona Snow on to make it the right length.

Here is what my block looked like after the first complete round of logs. You can add your prints however you want, as far as the size goes as long as each time you go around the next print is a little longer than the one before it. Does that make sense? I hope so!

I kept going around adding logs until I had used each of the prints I selected.

This is what my finished block looks like! I LOVE the way it turned out!

Here is a photo of it without any editing. I think you can see the prints a little better.
My block is 17.5" unfinished. I can't wait to see what everyone makes! This is going to be an AWESOME quilt!!!!
If you have any questions just let me know!!!!

~Hope y'all are having a great day!!!~