First SW Creative Crafters Team Blog Hop!

Is it really December already? This year has gone by like lightening! I look back at this year and it has been BUSY, but wonderful. I can't help but feel blessed to have a wonderful family, a home over my head, and humbly grateful for my talents which allow me to design and create from home so that I can be with my little ones. I love my "work" if you can call it that...because it hardly feels like a job...feels more like play. I want to thank those of you who support my products from Creative Imaginations, Unity Stamp Co, Riley Blake Designs, and Silhouette America. If it weren't for you, I couldn't be doing what I love. I am overwhelmingly grateful to you for that!  Thank You! 

This year, to give back a little something to you, I have put together a Creative Crafters team to share with you design inspiration, new techniques or ideas, and how these products can be mixed and matched together. I have just been getting to know my team over the past 2 months, and I know that you are going to love them...I already do!  My team will be sharing projects with you through my blog and Facebook page and their blogs and facebook pages.  They've been having a lot of fun already, sharing some wonderful projects!

We thought it would be fun to make a once monthly blog hop every 2nd Wednesday of the month (starting with this Wednesday, December 8th.) It's going to be inspirational...I know my team will make you want to "get your crafty on." If you are not familiar with blog hops, they are a really fabulous idea, and a fun "trip."  The hop will always start at my blog, then you will click on my "blog hop badge" and it will link you to the first stop on the hop, until you have clicked through each of the participating creative team members blogs that month.

Since I'm starting the hop on my page, I thought I'd share with you what I made this month.  This is an easy rag quilt for a very dear friend of mines first baby. I used 100% cotton high quality flannel fabric from my Wanna Be A Cowboy collection for Riley Blake Designs.  Incidentally, the Wanna be a cowboy fabrics are getting harder to find, they were a very popular line.  They have been retired in order to make room for Wanna be a Cowboy 2, which releases in February 2011. This line will coordinate perfectly with any of the original cowboy collection. I also did a matching paper line for this collection called Cowgirl for Creative Imaginations.  My dear friend happens to also be my art director at Creative Imaginations...I thought she would enjoy having a little memento from that collection in the form of a blanket for her first baby.

I tried a different binding than I did last time I did one of these rag quilts.  I really like the way it turned out.  I'm still not sure if I should have just left all the rag edges on the same side, but I opted to do a reverse rag edge with the binding so that the ragged edge showed on the "clean" side.  I may try it the other way around next time.  I still like how this turned out, though.

To create a rag quilt I put together a mini step by step instructional for creating the squares...and a little sneak surprise at the end of this post. But if you would rather skip the tutorial, contest info, and sneak peek of things to come, then  feel free to just hop to the next blog with the link below ;o) 

click here

if badge doesn't work right. I'm still learning this blog thing. ;o)

If you get lost on the hop, here is the Master list of participating team members this month:

Cristal Hobbs "pinky" http://blueyecicle.blogspot.com/

Jennifer Beason http://jenniwren32.blogspot.com/

Karen Maldonado http://reallifeinpictures.blogspot.com/

Guiseppa Gubler http://guiseppagubler.blogspot.com/

AJ Otto http://thewillowgarden.blogspot.com/

Eva Dobilas http://evafromca.blogspot.com/

Jennifer Ingle "Jingle" http://justjingle.blogspot.com/

Julie Bonner http://julie-bonner.blogspot.com/

Nancy Doren http://mypaperview.blogspot.com/

Samantha Walker Designs on Facebook www.facebook.com/samanthawalkerdesigns

Rag Quilt Tutorial 

I have photos for most of the steps and will verbally walk you through the other steps.

Time investment: approximately 8 to 12 hours.

Step one: Cut 42 squares of lightweight batting into 6 inch squares.

Step 2: Cut 84 squares of high quality flannel into 7 inch squares.

Step 3: Sandwich the batting between two squares of the flannel so that it leaves a 1/2 inch gap all the way around the batting, and the pretty sides show when your "sandwich" is closed.

Step 4: Sew an X in the middle of the flannel square so that the sandwich is "quilted together." Repeat on all 42 squares.  

Hint: The first rag quilt I did, I mixed the front and back pieces so that they were not the same, so when I laid out my quilt, I had to think of what the front and back side would look like.  This created quite a conundrum. I had to do a lot of flipping of fabric and flipping in my brain.  So I got smart and decided the next on that I did (like this pink one) that I would do the front and back side of the quilt with the same fabric so that I wouldn't have to worry about both sides as I lay out my squares.  It would also be cute to do solid on one side and patchwork on the other side.  

Step 5: lay two of your X quilted squares on top of each other. 

Step 6: sew them together on one side, leaving a 1/2 inch seam. 

Step 7: Now add a third square and sew so that the seam appears on the same side. 

Continue this process until you have a row of 7 squares.  

Step: 8 Now make 5 more rows of 7 squares for a total of 6 rows. 

Step 9: Now seam together the rows so that the seam appears on the same side as each square seam. You should now have your basic blanket with 6 rows of 7 squares.

Step 10: The Binding...you can do this several ways. You can simply leave 1/2 inch raw seam around the quilt and sew the seam twice for good measure. Or you can choose a fancy edge like the triangle edge I did for this quilt. (I know there is an official name for this...but I am not a quilter {yet} so I don't know the specific term.)   

Triangle edge: cut 52 6-inch squares of flannel. Fold each square in half diagonally.

Now fold each triangle in half again creating a smaller triangle.  

 Your triangle will have an open end.  Use that open end to insert the neighboring triangle. 

 Evenly space a row of 12 triangles so that they expand the same space as the top of the quilt, and secure with pins.  Make a second set of 12 pinned triangles to expand the bottom of the quilt. Now make two more rows of 14 pinned triangles to expand the same length as the sides.  

Sew through the triangles with a 1/2 inch seam on the edge.

Attach your triangles to the quilt...now I opted to reverse the side where my raw seam would appear...so that there was a fluffy edge on the opposite side of the quilt.  You can opt to keep all of your raw seams on the same side though.  To attach, lay flat on the quilt and line up your straight edges. Make a 1/2 inch seam to attach the triangles to the quilt. When you have attached all 4 sides, go around on that 1/2 inch seam one more time with your sewing machine for good measure.  

Clipping your seams:  Now that your quilt is all attached and sewn together, you are left with an ugly bunch of half inch raw seams. We are going to make them look fantastic by cutting into the seams with 1/4 inch snips that go nearly all the way to the thread of your seam. Do this step carefully through all the seams, just continue to snip in 1/4 inch increments. Be very careful not to snip through the thread on your seams...just cut up to that point. If you do happen to catch a thread with your scissors...just bring the quilt to your sewing machine, and seam that edge again. 

Washing the Quilt to "rag" it: When the entire quilt has the raw edges snipped (including your binding seam edge) then you will put the whole quilt into your washing machine.  Do not wash this with anything else in the machine at the same time, unless you want the other items to be lint and thread ridden.  After you wash the quilt, empty the lint trap in your dry. That step is very important, as you will fill your lint trap when you put your quilt in the dryer until completely dry. Remove from dryer and enjoy your fun fuzzy rag edges.  

Just for fun...

Here's just some of the stuff my team 

will be creating with this year:

Unity Stamps:

Riley Blake fabrics:

Silhouette digital dies:

Creative Imaginations Paper and stickers:

Luminarte Paints from Creative Imaginations:

"REAL WOOD" veneer Cardstocks from 

Creative Imaginations

This is a very cool wood veneer paper.  It comes in different woods, and different thicknesses.  And, Yes, it's REAL wood.

and lots more exciting stuff to come...

(shhh...tiny sneak peek of a CHA winter release)

Contest #1 Giveaway Info:

Leave a comment of your thoughts on this blog, get an entry into our contest for a chance of winning a SELECTION of Samantha Walker Products.

(I will surprise you with a selection of stickers and embellishements, and a set of one of my stamp sets with Unity Stamp Company.)

Contest #2&3 Giveaway Info:

Contest #4 Giveaway Info:

Leave a comment of your thoughts on this blog, get an entry into our contest for a chance at winning 

one SET of Luminarte twinkling H2O's.

Contest #5 Giveaway Info:

Leave a comment of your thoughts on this blog, get an entry into our contest for a chance of winning one CAN of PYMII sealant. 

Winner will receive a 12 oz can of PYMII

This giveaway is generously sponsored by the makers of Super Seal.

YOU will LOVE PYMII (preserve your memories 2)!  It preserves all of your projects in a way no other seal can.  This is also distributed as Super Seal through Creative Imaginations.

IMPORTANT:

Get up to 9 more contest entries if you leave a comment on each of the participating blogs within our blog hop.  Comment by Sunday, December 12th, winner announced on Monday December 13th.

(I know of one other give-away on one of the creative team member's blogs...so watch out for info on her blog as well!) 

click here

Leave a comment of your thoughts on this blog, get an entry into our contest

for a chance 

of winning two sets of my stamps for Unity Stamp Co. 

I will select two winners, each of whom will receive two stamp sets.