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Last Fall I watched as hundreds of quilters participated in the Tula Pink City Sampler quilt along hosted on Instagram by Angie of Gnome Angel. Among others, I drooled over my friend Liz's blocks. So, when Angie was gearing up for another round, I knew I had to dive in. I knew I wanted to use my Tula Pink fabric stash. And I knew this quilt will be for me. I started by choosing a palette and pulled my Tula prints and Kona solids that were mainly green, blue or purple (with hints of pink).

Starting on May 7, participants started making one 6" block a day... we'll post the last block in the book on August 14. Participants are allowed to work ahead, but to be eligible for prizes we must post each block on the correct day (in our own time zone). The first couple weeks of blocks are all cross blocks. I'm really enjoying working with the Tula fabric and fussy cutting the cute critters. Here are my first seven blocks.

See all the blocks I've made on Instagram at #sgq100blocks and check out everyone's blocks at #100days100blocks2017.

Check out my week 2 blocks.

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I opted in to participate in the Riley Blake Creative Rockstar Challenge with the Modern Quilt Guild and received a package of the challenge fabrics. We were allowed to add additional fabric from the line as well as any Riley Blake solids. I opted to order the additional colorway of the Rockstar Rhythm print (with the triangles) as it was my favorite in the line. I love the geometric design. I also ordered solid black and grey and ultimately decided on the grey in order to emphasize the quilting.

In designing my quilt, I decided to feature the three different colorways and fussy cut to show an interesting section of the print. I planned my quilting to emulate the design from the fabric in a much larger scale. I achieved this quilting motif by marking my fabric.

I used a straight edge to draw the different sized triangles and then stitched approximately 1/8” on each side of the lines. There were a lot of threads to bury, but I’m very happy with the results.

I had just enough leftover from my pieced strips from the quilt top to be able to piece them in to the binding to extend the quilt top design onto the binding.

I completed my 16" x 16" quilt a full week before the deadline (Shocker, I know!) and submitted it to the MQG challenge. Winners are supposed to be announced this month.

I love seeing all the different takes on the challenge. There are quite a variety of styles! You can check out other entries at #mqgfabricchallenge on Instagram.

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Summer break from school is approaching. Among other things, this means a little more time for my kids to sew. I was discussing summer sewing plans with Sarah of Berry Barn Designs and she suggested that we co-host a kids round robin. This idea sounded great to me. We’ve gathered a group of nine young quilters from around the United States to participate in our Kids Quilt Round Robin. (We have one team of sisters sewing together, so eight quilts will be made. The round robin will have two groups of four.)

A round robin is a group of people participating to contribute to each other’s quilts, where the entire project is passed around the circle, with each person contributing. In each group of four, the kids will sew one section for their own quilt and one section for each of the other three quilts. When the project returns to them, they will have four completed units to put together a 40” x 40” quilt top.

Officially starting May 1, the kids will each sew their first 20” x 20” block or 10” x 40” row in May. (Of course parent help is allowed!) Then the first of the month in June, July and August their project will be passed to the next person in their group. September 1st the package will return to them so the quilt top can be put together and quilted.

My kids have each decided on the theme for their quilt. My daughter, R, will be making a cat quilt, and she’s chosen a geometric block featuring Tula Pink’s Disco Kitty fabric. She’ll be sending some extra Tula fabric along in case the other kids would like to include it in their blocks. My son, G, has decided on a sports theme for his quilt and is featuring baseball in his first block. He’ll be piecing his first inset circle and using applique in his design.

I’ll be sharing our KQRR sewing each month, and in November we’ve planned a blog hop to show off the finished projects.

If you have a young quilter, we’d love for you to sew along with us at home. Tag Me @sarahmgoer and Sarah @berrybarndesigns on Instagram with your progress shots.

My biggest tip for sewing and quilting with kids is to work in small chunks of time (and to take a break if either of you get frustrated). One block or row a month is a good, slow pace in my opinion. When sewing with my son on his first quilt, sometimes it would just be one or two seams that we’d put together in a sewing session. All those little bits add up!

I look forward to sharing what we create in the round robin and seeing what your young quilters create. Happy sewing!

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