New Pillowcase Designs!

American Patchwork & Quilting has updated the pillowcase designs they offer as part of the One Million Pillowcase Challenge. The current official count is over 772,000 pillowcases made and donated to local charities! We're proud to be a sponsor of this worthy endeavor and love seeing our fabrics transformed into pillowcases given to those in need. 

Here are the newest designs: 

Pillowcase 74: Bowtie Band

featuring My Pet Family fabrics

Photo courtesy AllPeopleQuilt.com

Pillowcase 75: Elephant Band

featuring Frolicking Fields fabrics

Photo courtesy AllPeopleQuilt.com

Learn more about the One Million Pillowcase Challenge, including how you can get involved, here. 

Win Mod Tropics fabric!

The One Million Pillowcase Challenge March Pillowcase Madness competition is heating up and we’re giving away a cool prize! 

Check back daily through the end of the month for a new prize each day. 

Enter for our prize here, today only.

See the entire Mod Tropics collection here. 

Pillowcase Time!

We are a sponsor of American Patchwork & Quilting's One Million Pillowcase Challenge in 2017, so we'll be sharing the Challenge's new designs with you quarterly. 

The goal of the Pillowcase Challenge is for 1 million pillowcases to be donated to local charities. You can make a pillowcase, donate it in your community, and then enter your donation quantity online. The current count is 711,000 and counting, so the Challenge is making progress! 

Here are the two newest designs from AllPeopleQuilt.com, 

featuring our newest fabric collections.

Pattern #62: Ninepatch Band

featuring the Freeform collection

Photo from AllPeopleQuilt.com; find the pattern here.

Pattern #63: Basic King Size

featuring the Goanna Walkabout collection

Photo from AllPeopleQuilt.com; find the pattern here.

Find more information about the Pillowcase Challenge here.

p.s. Speaking of pillowcases, AP&Q is hosting a Pillowcase March Madness throughout the month of March. Find each day's giveaway on their Facebook page. (Our prizes are on March 15, 23 and 26, so make sure you enter on those days!)

Pillowcase Party!

Happy Friday, everyone!
American Patchwork & Quilting's 24-hour Sew-a-thon kicks off this afternoon! 
You can find more information on the sew-a-thon and an abundance of pillowcase patterns here. 

But we also thought we'd share a little eye candy here--the One Million Pillowcase Challenge's two most recent band patterns, stitched in our fabric. 

Pattern 50: Bull's Eye Band

 featuring Briarcliff fabrics

Photo from Allpeoplequilt.com; download the pattern here.

Pattern 51: Square-in-a-Square band

featuring Vera Cruz fabrics

Photo from Allpeoplequilt.com; download the pattern here.

Happy pillowcase sewing! Have a fantastic Sew-a-thon, AP&Q!!
Learn more about American Patchwork & Quilting's One Million Pillowcase Challenge here.

It's Time Again: Pillowcase Sew-a-thon

You’re invited to the biggest pillowcase party of the year! Paintbrush Studio is proud to join American Patchwork & Quilting as they host the One Million Pillowcase Challenge 24 Hour Sew-a-thon on September 18-19, 2015. 

American Patchwork & Quilting is hosting in Des Moines, IA starting at 3pm on Friday, September 18^th and ending 3pm on Saturday, September 19^th. 

Various quilt shops and groups around the country are also hosting events this weekend. 

Visit www.allpeoplequilt.com/sewathon to find an event in your area.

No events in your area? Join us from home! Get social with us by visiting our website and posting photos using the hashtag #APQSewathon. 

Here are some pillowcase pictures to get you in the spirit!

And some of our favorite patterns (and fabrics!) from the One Million Pillowcase Challenge:

 #48 Triangle-Square Band; featuring Four Paws 

(this is a sneak peek--this fabric is so new, it's not quite available yet! Watch for it on the blog and in your local quilt shop soon)

Photo from AllPeopleQuilt.com; download the free pattern here

#49 Stepping Stones Band; featuring Bear Hugs

Photo from AllPeopleQuilt.com; download the free pattern here

Sawtooth Star
featuring the Who's Who collection by Ro Gregg

Photo from Allpeoplequilt.com; Download the pattern here.

Diamond in the Rough 

featuring the Tweet collection

Photo from Allpeoplequilt.com; Download the pattern here.

Find out more about the Challenge and see all 48 unique pillowcase designs here.

Pillowcase bundle winners

Thanks to everyone who commented on our post celebrating the One Million Pillowcase Challenge Sew-a-thon! If you sewed pillowcases this weekend (or at any point) for the Challenge, thank you! Every case gets the community closer to the big 1,000,000 goal!

Here are the winners of our 3 pillowcase fabric kits! 

Winner #1:

Winner #2:

Winner #3:

***Winners, please email us at fabriquiltblog (at) gmail.com with your mailing address, as well as your order of preference for the fabric kits (see them at the bottom of this post). We'll match up kit preference with winners on a first-come, first-served basis.*** 

To learn more about the One Million Pillowcase Challenge, click here. 

Looking for a little inspiration? Here are the two most recent pillowcase patterns offered by AP&Q, shown in some of our fabrics:

Fabric: Cosmopolitan; photo: allpeoplequilt.com

Fabric: Imagine This; photo: allpeoplequilt.com

Find these two patterns (and more!) here.

Pillowcase Friday!

We love being part of the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge, put on by American Patchwork & Quilting. Each quarter, APQ shares two new pillowcase designs and then makes samples using fabric from the initiative's sponsors.

The official pillowcase count is 562, 223 as of today's post--over halfway to the 1,000,000 goal--great job APQ and quilters across the world! You can find more out about the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge, including 24-Hour Sew-athon details in September, here. Of course, we'll also share a little eye candy with you here!

Pattern #42 is "Hey Cupcake!" shown here using our Cosmopolitan collection. 

Find the pdf pattern for this pillowcase here.

Photo: AllPeopleQuilt.com

Pattern #43 is "Pyramid Band" featuring Linda Carlson and Diana Henage's Imagine This collection. Find the pdf pattern for this pillowcase here.

Inspired? Head over to AllPeopleQuilt.com to check out all the pillowcase patterns, tips and tricks and make some to donate in your town. 

New Year, New Pillowcases

We are proud to once again be a sponsor in 2014 for American Patchwork & Quilting's 

1 Million Pillowcase Challenge! The official tally of donated pillowcases for the Challenge currently sits at 533,156--making great strides toward the 1,000,000 goal. 

Here are the two latest pillowcases designed by All People Quilt for the Challenge featuring our fabrics:

Diamond Band pillowcase made using Judy Hansen's Nite Owls

Photo: Allpeoplequilt.com

Find the free pattern for the Diamond Band pillowcase here.

Bar Code Band pillowcase made using Ro Gregg's Marblehead Venetian Glass fabrics

Photo: Allpeoplequilt.com

Find the free pattern for Bar Code Band pillowcase here.

American Patchwork & Quilting's 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge now has 39 different pillowcase patterns on its website, ready for you to use. You can find them here.

Pillowcases with Pizzazz

American Patchwork  Quilting just posted the two newest patterns for the One Million Pillowcase Challenge! You can see the pillowcase patterns sewn from our latest fabrics below; we've also included the links for each featured pattern below the photo so you can pop over to the All People Quilt website, download the pdf, and get sewing! To find out more about the Pillowcase Challenge and the quest for 1 million, click here.

Which one do you like best? 

 Rows of Ruffles featuring Rio 

(Photo: Allpeoplequilt.com)

Feather Applique featuring Under the Sea by Heidi Pridemore

(Photo: Allpeoplequilt.com)

The Pillowcase Express

Welcome to the Inspired by Fabric blog, showcasing our love of fabrics and all things quilting and sewing! Today we're taking part in the American Patchwork & Quilting's One Million Pillowcase Challenge blog hop, which is helping to celebrate surpassing the halfway goal--more than 500,00 pillowcases have been donated to local charities! As a sponsor for this worthwhile endeavor, we're hopping on board and showing some of our favorite 

During the month of July, AP&Q held a contest on Pinterest featuring 20 of their favorite pillowcase designs. We've recreated the winning design in two different fabric collections. 

First up, Nite Owls by Judy Hansen, where cute little owls are along for a spooky nighttime ride: 

Next us is a pillowcase made out of our huge basics collection, Marblehead, by Ro Gregg:

If you like Marblehead, be sure to check out our tutorials from last week's Marblehead Week, and click on the Marblehead Challenge tab to find out how you can win 20 yards of Marblehead fabric!

We'd like to send a special thank you to AP&Q for putting on the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge--what a worthwhile event helping so many! 

Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the rest of the hop! Don't forget to make some pillowcases to donate!

It's time to vote!

American Patchwork & Quilting's One Million Pillowcase Challenge has passed the halfway mark! 

Stop and think about that for a second--more than 500,000 pillowcases have been stitched and donated to charity through this initiative. That's impressive. 

During the month of July, AP&Q is holding a contest on Pinterest. They've picked 20 of their favorite pillowcases and pinned them. The pillowcase with the most repins at the end of the month will be declared the winner and featured in a special hop. We are proud to be a sponsor of the Pillowcase Challenge, and we'll be participating in the hop in August.

How can you be part of this? Head over to their Pinterest page and repin your favorite pillowcase. 

(And keep reading below to be part of our contest here!)

By the way, did we mention that TWO of our pillowcases made it into the top 20? That's right! We wouldn't want to sway your vote or anything, but we did want to show them off:

Calypso by Ro Gregg

Lady in Red by Ro Gregg

We'd also encourage you to make a pillowcase (or more!) to donate. It's a quick and easy project, and you can make a difference for someone in your own community. You can find a huge variety of pillowcase patterns (including for all the pillowcases you see on this blog page) here.

In the meantime, we're holding our own contest right here, just for fun. Below you'll see all of our pillowcase samples from the Pillowcase Challenge from 2012 and 2013 (photos courtesy of American Patchwork & Quilting). Which one do you like best? And why? Leave us a comment letting us know!

Log cabin pattern using Marblehead 

Uneven hourglass pattern using Fall Tapestry

Churn dash pattern using Garden Whimsy

Cottage in the forest applique pattern using Garden Whimsy

Crazy rail fence pattern using Pretty in Pink

Snowball pattern using Marblehead Pleasing Pastels

Precut strips pattern using Focus

Train pattern using Calypso Frogs

Chevron band pattern using Tribal Council

Spools pattern using Lady in Red

X block band pattern using Flutter

Bubbles applique pattern featuring Calypso

Rick rack pattern using Cambridge Flannel

The Quest for 1 Million

American Patchwork & Quilting's 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge is still going strong, and they're so close to the halfway point! You can find out more about the Challenge here.

Their website has patterns for more than 30 different pillowcase designs, and we thought we'd show you a few of our favorites, made with our fabrics. We've included the links for each featured pattern below the photo so you can pop over to the All People Quilt website, download the pdf, and get sewing!

The Bubbles Applique Band, featuring Calypso Frogs:

 Find the pattern here.

The Spools Pillowcase, featuring Lady in Red:

 Find the pattern here. 

A cute Appliqued Train pillowcase pattern, done up here in Calypso Frogs.

Find the pattern here. 

A Log Cabin Band done in Marblehead prints.

Find the pattern here.

A Four-patch band featuring Peggy Sue:

 Find the pattern here.

A Cottage in the Forest applique, done in Garden Whimsy.

Find the pattern here.

A Churn Dash Band, also featuring Garden Whimsy:

Find the pattern here.

Have you made a pillowcase for the Challenge? Let us know!