Blog Hop Winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway during last week's Blog Hop!

Random generator chose:

Congratulations to Nana-Bob! We're sending you an email to get your mailing address so we can get a bundle of Marblehead fat quarters sent your way! 

Wishing all of you a happy, healthy, food-coma-inducing Thanksgiving!

Marblehead Challenge Winners!

We're excited to share the results of the Marblehead Challenge with you! A big thank you to the talented quilters who entered, and everyone who voted, as well as our sponsors for providing great prizes for our winners.

1st Place Winners:

Quilt, Original Design: Ocean of Hawaiian Turtles by Marilyn Wilbanks

Ocean of Hawaiian Turtles

Quilt, Published Pattern: Floating Stars by Rozanne Johnson

Floating Stars

Small Project, Original Design: Bella Breeze Jacket by Patricia Lackey

Bella Breeze Jacket

Small Project, Published Pattern: Shazam by Teddie Broughton

Shazam

2nd Place Winners:

Quilt, Original Design: Shooting Stars by Troy DeFrates

Shooting Stars

Quilt, Published Pattern: Stack and Whack by Shirley Rodgers

Stack and Whack

Small Project, Published Pattern: Kaleidoscope Garden by Marcia LeBlanc

Kaleidoscope Garden

Honorable Mentions:

Quilt, Original Design: Rainbow Squares by Will Simpson

Rainbow Squares

Quilt, Published Pattern: Field Greens  by Bobby Gladbach

Field Greens

Quilt, Published Pattern: Marble Lobby by Betsi DeFrates

Marble Lobby

Congratulations!

 Each winner will receive a customized prize package containing Marblehead Fabrics from Fabri-Quilt, a quilt finishing package from Quilted Memories, a Pellon product, and an OLFA 5" applique scissors. 

We'll be in touch with the winners to confirm mailing addresses.

p.s. If you missed the deadline for the 2013 Marblehead Challenge, don't worry--we'll be holding the Challenge again in 2014. Watch for details in early 2014.

Blog Hop Party

Happy Thursday! Only 7 days until Thanksgiving!
Today we're taking part in the Blog Hop Party put together by Michele at Quilting Gallery.

Today we are giving away a fat quarter bundle of Ro Gregg's Marblehead Global Brights. We love the rich color and texture of these prints and hope you do too! 

We've featured several tutorials made with these great fabrics (and using some of the regular Marbleheads too). 

Here are a few:

Wonky Log Cabin Mug Rug

Chevron Mini Quilt

Zippy E-reader Bag

Disappearing Nine-Patch Table Runner

Quilt-As-You-Go Hot Pad

The giveaway:

To enter to win this fat quarter bundle, sign up to follow our blog via Bloglovin' (or your preferred following program) or by email (both options can be found in the righthand sidebar) and then leave a comment telling us your favorite Thanksgiving dish. Like us on Facebook and leave another comment telling us you did so for a second entry. Make sure we have a way to contact you if you win! The giveaway is for US addresses only and will be open though November 26th at 11:59 EST. We'll randomly draw a winner and announce the name on the 27th. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Find the entire list of participating bloggers here.

(Frosty) Diamonds are a girl's best friend!

We all love a good red and green holiday project, but by the time January rolls around, are you starting to tire of those holiday colors? 

The solution? 

Choose blue and white for a design that can last all winter (and beyond)! 

Then add in diamonds, and you'll have a project no woman could refuse!

Diane Arganbright of The Quilting Hen saw the frosty palette appeal in our Summer Breeze collection and designed the "Winter Breeze" table runner, featured in the December 2013/January 2014 issue of The Quilter magazine. 

"Winter Breeze" designed by Diane Arganbright,
pieced by Denise Combs and quilted by Shawna Crawford;
featured in The Quilter December 2013/January 2014

We spoke with Diane, who explained how she came up with this cool runner design and even shares some tips for working with diamond templates!

Q. What do you like about the Summer Breeze fabric collection?

Diane: We didn't want to cut up the beautiful designs in the fabrics and the colors blue and white have become so popular for Christmas decorating. The fabric looked stunning, with great contrast, so we were excited to sew with it.

Q. Why did you decide to use diamonds in the design?

Diane: Our quilt shop has noticed that templates are experiencing a strong comeback with customers. We chose to use diamond templates to create something slightly more advanced for our quilters, but also easy enough that a newer quilter could give it a try.

Q. Any tips, either for cutting the diamonds?

Diane: In general, a good tip is you can cut a strip of fabric and then put the diamond template on that strip to cut it instead of working with the entire piece of fabric because the 2 long sides are on the straight grain.

Also, lay your ruler over the top of your template to give you extra stability when you are cutting.

Q. What do you like best about the runner?

Diane: The runner looks beautiful in the photograph taken for The Quilter magazine.  Many homes seem to have dark wood, and this blue and white fabric look elegant on that dark wood.

Q. Can you talk about how it was machine quilted?

Diane: This was machine quilted by Shawna Crawford of Lewistown, Montana, and she used holiday themes machine on the table runner.  I have used Shawna for all our machine projects and her work is stunning!

Q. What do you envision this table runner being used for?

Diane: This was designed for the holidays but could be created in many different fabrics for your needs.  It would make a great gift and by switching up the fabric, you could make it more masculine as this diamond style would work for the man in your life too, perhaps as a lap quilt.

See the entire Summer Breeze collection here.

Find the kit for this project here.

Find The Quilter here.

p.s. Can't get enough of this fabric line? 

Check out this free quilt pattern using it here!

A Taste of Thanksgiving

How do you like your Thanksgiving meal? All the classic fixings and sides, or do you try something new every year?

Thanksgiving seems to evoke strong opinions...from using Grandma's secret stuffing recipe to the love/hate relationship with Brussel sprouts. What's non-negotiable on your holiday list?

We've compiled a Thanksgiving-themed Pinterest board with some great recipes, tips, and fun decorating ideas. Below are a few sneak peeks, but you can see the entire board here.

Find best apple pie tips here.

See how to make the Thanksgiving meal (a little bit?) healthy here.

Great idea for sharing what you're thankful for here. 

Holiday decor reminding us of the reason for the season here.

How do you like your pumpkin pie? Traditional, or with a bit of flair, like this maple-pumpkin pie with salted pecan brittle?

A quick-to-piece table decoration, using Fall Tapestry:

Find the kit for Autumn Tapestry here.

See the entire Fall Tapestry collection here.Find The Quilter magazine here.

And just for fun, there's this:

Baby Fever

There must be something in the water!

It's one of those things people say when it seems like everyone they know is pregnant. And as a quilter, when someone (or several someones) is pregnant, what do you do? Make a quilt, of course! Because there's nothing better than snuggling a baby in a quilt. The key, of course, is finding the perfect fabric for those baby quilts.

We can help! 

Introducing....

Baby Talk

With 60+ prints in the collection, you're sure to find the right fabrics for just about any new baby! The fabrics range from sweet baby-themed prints to stars, ducks, elephants and a huge array of dots.

Here are a few of our favorites; you can see the entire collection here.

Marblehead Challenge Entries

We are so excited to share with you the Marblehead Challenge entries for voting! Thanks to everyone who entered.

Here's how the voting works:
Check out all the entries below (shown in alphabetical order), and then send an email to fabriquiltblog (at) gmail.com telling us your favorite two entries. Note: Feel free to leave a comment below this post as well, but only emails will count as votes. Invite your friends to enter as well--this is your chance to be quilt judge for a day! 

One email per person, please. Voting is open through through Wednesday, November 20th at 11:59 EST. 

As a thank you for voting, we'll randomly choose two email entries and send those people a fabric prize.

Bella Breeze Jacket

Field Greens

Floating Stars

Kaleidoscope Garden

Marble Lobby

Ocean of Hawaiian Turtles

Rainbow Squares

Shazam

Shooting Stars

Stack and Whack

Don't forget to vote! Send us an email with your favorite two entries.

Quilt Market Recap

Twice a year, the quilt industry gathers for Quilt Market. As a fabric company, it's an opportunity for us to show our new collections to quilt shop owners who come to the show to purchase for their shops. This fall, our booth in Houston showed off some of our favorite new fabric lines through gorgeous quilts:

Marblehead in action. 

The quilt on the left, "Rockin'," was featured in Quilt Trends magazine. 

Read more about it here.

A cover-up made from Marblehead Global Brights and Rock Around the Block

The "fall" corner: quilts made using Fall Tapestry (find the free pattern for the background quilt here) and Imperial Garden

Point of pride: a quilted American flag

What's new? A tote made from leather and Royal Paisley. Stay tuned for more info.

Our favorite fun line for kids and kids at heart: Nite Owls
(quilt on the left: free pattern here; quilt on the right, featured in The Quilter)

Rio and Black Tie Affair