Hive #12 March tutorial

My name is Jennifer.  I live in Prattville, Alabama with my husband, Josh, and my daughter, Lily (8), and my son, Jacob (3).  I work for a financial planning company full time, and I'm also a Girl Scout leader for my daughter and 21 other 2-4 graders.  It's cookie season, which is the reason for this late post!  (I'm very sorry about that.) 

Tell us about how you got interested in quilting.

I come from a pretty crafty family.  I've been crafting for my whole life.  I don't remember when I learned to sew, but I made my first quilt in college.  I've been sewing and quilting pretty regularly since then.  My girlfriends all come once a month and we spend a Saturday sewing, so they've all learned to quilt too.  It's so much more fun when you have someone to do it with!

How do you organize your fabric stash? 

This is my sewing space.  It's the "office" in our house that I share with the messiest 8 year old in the world!  My stash is in the black cabinet.  It has 4 shelves.  I use one for books and precuts, one for fat quarters, and the rest is my yardage fabric, theoretically stacked by color.  The drawer at the bottom is for projects that I'm working on.  I use this method for folding.  It makes me feel so accomplished when they all stack neatly!

Who is/are your favorite fabric designers?
Denyse Schmidt is my favorite.  There's something about her fabric that makes me think of my grandmother's house.  I'm also a big fan of Anna Marie Horner.

What is one thing you have learned that you wish you knew when you first started quilting?
Just do it.  No one is going to notice your small mistakes.  You'll never get better if you don't practice.

What is your favorite sewing/quilting tool and why should we all go out and buy it?
I use a pin bowl instead of a pin cushion.  I could never find a way that made it convenient for me. Now I use a small vintage lotus flower bowl from the thrift store.  It's great to just drop the pins in when I'm zipping along a long row.  I also love this marker for writing on fabric.  I use it all of the time.

Who is your favorite fictional character and why? (Could be from a book, movie, TV show, etc.)
I'm going to go with Dinah from The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.  She clearly sees the flaws in those around her, but still loves them for their strenghts.  Such  a good book.

Now for my block.  I have decided to go with the Arizona block from Leila's Skill Builder Sampler (which I totally recommend if you haven't done it!) The tutorial for the block is here.  The block is basically just half square triangles, but I've loved it since I first made it.

I confess that this is the block I made for my skill builder quilt.  This time I would like orange and aqua blocks.  I rarely use that combination, but when I was trying to decide what to use I discovered I have a ton of it!  I would prefer an off white rather than a bright white background.  I'm going to use Kona Bone for my solid (but you can use what you have!)  You could also use a low volume print for the background.  This is the fabric pull I came up with:

I think a more colorful block in the middle and fabric that reads more one color on the outside looks nice, but feel free to do what ever you want.  Surprise me!

I don't prewash.  If you do, that's fine too.  Your block should finish at 12 inches.  I'll trim them up if they need it!  I think that's everything.  Again, I apologize for taking so long.  I really am sorry.  (I'd also like to suggest that if you have trouble with Blogger in Internet Explorer, try Chrome.) I can't wait to see what everyone come up with!