Pitch It to Win It - Summer Days at Mad About Patchwork

Have you heard of Mad About Patchwork? It's a great shop which carries lots of modern fabrics and guess what, they're Canadian! They have lots of Anna Maria Horner, Denyse Schmidt, Joel Dewberry, Lizzy House...you name it, you should check them out! The service is friendly and fast - now if only Canada Post could keep up!

A few weeks back I was reading their blog and found out about their "Pitch It to Win It" contest. Basically, they featured a gorgeous bundle of fabric and readers could submit their idea about what they would make if they won those fabrics. I had just happened to see a table runner pattern on another blog and I thought the Summer Days fabrics featured in the bundle would be perfect, so I sent in my idea and sure enough, they selected it!

Aren't these fabrics pretty?

The pattern is called EZ Breezy Quilt-As-You-Go table runner and I assure you, it really was easy. There are no curved seams to piece at all; instead, the designer has a neat trick for getting those gorgeous curves.

The PITWI bundle was fat eighths but the table runner pattern calls for fat quarters. I figured I'd find a way to skooch the pieces on to the fat eighths and make it work - nope, didn't work. In looking at the fabrics in the bundle I knew some of them were busy enough that I could probably piece together what I needed and it would barely show. In fact, the photo above is focused right on a pieced section - if you don't see it that means my plan worked.

For the quilting, I more or less followed what was shown on the pattern covered as I liked the look. I eyeballed it as opposed to marking it and am happy with the way it turned out. These fabrics are so pretty together, how could any project made with them not turn out nice?

This is a perfect pattern for working with focus fabrics. Once upon a time, I used to be drawn to the larger scale focus prints in many fabric lines. I'd add them to my stash where they would end up languishing because I didn't really know what to do with them. Now that my stash is very limited in those types of fabrics and getting much more full (thanks, in part, to Mad About Patchwork) of basics which can go with anything, I see several more of these runners in my future. Can't you just see it made up in autumn, Halloween, or Christmas fabrics? I sure can!

The pattern truly is "EZ breezy" - I made it in an afternoon except for handsewing the binding down, which I did later in the evening. It would have gone even faster if I had used fat quarters and not spent extra time piecing together the chunks of fabric I needed in order to fit the pieces.

Thank you, Mad About Patchwork, for sharing my vision and for sharing your beautiful fabric bundle with me. I'm linking to their post about my runner here in case you want to pay them a visit.

The scraps were too pretty to toss away, so I made a couple of pincushions from the leftovers; one for you, and one for me. Would you like to win one? If so, leave a comment letting me know what you've been working on, or just say hi if you've been relaxing and enjoying your summer. I'll draw a name on Saturday night; you never know, it could be yours! If I draw your name I'll send you a pincushion and maybe a few goodies to go with it - how does that sound? Sharing is fun!

I hope your day is going to be a good one.

e.