Divided in Dream

When Kristy Lea, of Quiet Play and Make Modern, says she has a new fabric line coming out, I immediately start making plans for what I want to make with it. I love the bright colours and happy prints that Kristy creates! 

I used Kristy's Create line to make my Level Up quilt and today I'm sharing a Divided quilt made with her brand new line, Dream, which is shipping to stores now. The Divided pattern is available as a PDF or a printed pattern.

Dream has so many gorgeous fabrics, it was hard to narrow down which ones I wanted for my new version of Divided. My usual inclination is to go with the blues, but I chose the pinks and a purple this time around and I love the result. That being said, I'll probably see about getting my hands on some of those blues before too long 😊

Along with the Dream fabrics, I chose Blossom in black for the background. Blossom makes a great background because the tiny little flowers scattered over it add a nice bit of movement to the background without competing with the main design. 

Divided is an orange peel applique pattern, no curved piecing required! The pattern originally included only this throw size, but I'm working on updating it and it will also include a baby size option (I'm planning the fabric for my first baby sized version already!). The newly updated pattern will re-release on August 3rd. I'll have a discount code available exclusively for newsletter subscribers, so be sure to subscribe to The Bulletin to be notified when Divided is available and get the code. Edited to say, that pattern is now available! Visit my Etsy shop to get it and make your own Divided quilt.

I chose to stitch down my appliques with the quilting, rather than going around them once to stitch them down and again to quilt them. 

I will admit that quite a few of them were coming partially unglued off the background by the time I got to them, because of all the folding and smooshing that happens during quilting. Because they are simple shapes, though, it was easy enough to just add a little more glue to the parts that were lifting up and stick them back down. For an applique design with more pieces, or smaller pieces, I would recommend using a fusible product rather than a glue stick if you want to stitch them down with the quilting.

The other thing about doing applique this way is that the edges will fray. Some people don't like that, but I like the extra bit of texture it adds to the quilt over time. 

I stitched around the orange peels with my free motion foot with Aurifil 50 wt in black, going over each line twice. A wobble in a single line looks like a mistake, but go over it a second time, most likely adding more wobbles, and it somehow looks intentional. I tried to keep the stitching about ¼" from the edge, but that wobbled a little either way, too.

After saving all that time by only stitching around the appliques once, I decided the background needed to be stippled. I told myself that I would do a larger stipple than usual, so it wouldn't take too long, but I seem to be incapable of anything other than a tiny stipple. And so, tiny stipple it is. Which looks exactly how I wanted it to look and was definitely worth the hours I spent quilting it. 

With a solid pink on the back, that tiny stipple in black thread shows up beautifully.

Long narrow sections like sashing, borders, or the stripe that divides this design and gives it its name, almost always end up quilted with wishbones. They're quick, simple and so relaxing to stitch. No two wishbones are exactly the same, but they're similar enough to look good.

I used the same teal fabric for the binding as for the dividing stripe and I love how it frames the quilt.

My husband and I took Divided to the beach Monday evening for pictures. It was a beautiful, still evening, perfect for hanging out at the beach and perfect for quilt pictures, too 😊

If you want to make a Divided quilt, get the pattern here.

Thank you to Riley Blake for providing the fabrics for this quilt and to Kristy for designing such fabulous fabrics 😊

Fruit of the Spirit -Part 6

While I'm taking my annual summer break from writing new devotions, I'm sharing this series on the fruit of the Spirit, which was originally published in 2016.

Devotion for the Week...

It's time for the sixth installment of our fruit of the Spirit devotion series! If you missed the previous devotions, click to read the introduction, about love, about joy, about peace and about patience. This week we're moving on to kindness, which marks the halfway point of this series. 

Once again, here is our verse for this series: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law" (Galatians 5:22,23).

In thinking about kindness for today's post, I thought of this story. Rather than summarizing it, I'll just post the whole story here. This is John 8:2-11:


At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

So, let's start with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. They were the religious leaders of the day. The church people, so to speak. They have caught a women 'in the act of adultery' and have dragged her into the temple courts.

Can you imagine her shame? Her humiliation? Her fear? Surely she knew the Law of Moses, and that it required an adulterer be stoned.

How is it they caught her 'in the act' anyway? And why haven't they dragged her...accomplice...into the temple courts? There are some who think this poor woman was set up, that the man was in on it with the religious leaders who needed someone to use in their attempt to trap Jesus. Lovely, right?

Their treatment of someone caught doing wrong has to be the perfect example of anti-kindness. Unfortunately, modern-day church people can be just as bad. We aren't so likely to throw stones at people, but there's no denying we throw words that do at least as much damage as a stone could. Think about the gossip that swirls when someone has an affair, or when someone's kids are in trouble with the law. People are often more than ready to believe the worst, to spread the story near and far and to separate themselves from those who are being accused. When people need kindness they are often given condemnation and shame instead.

Now consider Jesus' response. The religious leaders are hoping Jesus will condemn this woman just as they have. Instead, without saying a word, He starts to write on the ground with His finger. How I wish we knew what He wrote! Many speculate that He started writing words like 'liar' or 'gossip,' words that would make these self-righteous men realize that they are not perfect either. Obviously, we don't know if that's the case or not.

Whatever He wrote, the crowd kept pushing Him to make a ruling on the woman's fate, so Jesus stood and told them to go ahead and stone her...so long as the one among them who has never sinned is the first to throw a stone. Then He goes back to writing on the ground.

Slowly the crowd disperses. I love that it's the older ones who leave first. Are they the ones who are most aware of their own sins? Are the younger ones still determined to focus on the sins of others rather than their own? Eventually, though, they all slip away, leaving Jesus and the woman alone.

And He, the only one who had the right to throw a stone at her, the only one who could have condemned her, doesn't.

I picture a smile on His face as He looks around where the crowd had stood, then turns to the woman and tells her He doesn't condemn her. I can almost hear the kindness in His voice, can't you?

The next time we're confronted with someone who has done wrong, who will we imitate? The religious leaders and Pharisees, who heaped shame and humiliation on the woman (who assuredly already knew she had done wrong), or Jesus, who refused to condemn her?

Jesus won't be standing there in that moment, ready to stoop down and write on the ground. But we do have the Holy Spirit within us, ready to remind us of our own sins and the kindness of our Savior, which could stop the stones we might otherwise have thrown.

TGIFF - A Secret Finish

 It's time for TGIFF! I have to admit that, since I'm off all summer, it's a little hard to keep track of the days right now, lol. It's always good to celebrate a finish, though, so let's get to it 😊

I do have a just finished quilt top to share today...but I can't actually show you the whole thing yet. I know...Sneak peeks are fun, but not fun at the same time, right?

I'm updating my Divided quilt pattern, getting it ready to be a printed pattern available to shops, so I've remade the quilt. This time I used the Dream fabric line, designed by Kristy at Quiet Play for Riley Blake Designs, along with Blossom in black for the background, also from Riley Blake. This version looks drastically different from the original, which you can see here! Here's my proof that my quilt top is actually finished. Aren't the fabrics dreamy (I couldn't resist!)?

I love doing orange peel applique. The shape is simple, but you can use it to create so many fun designs. I used the orange peel shape in my Flower Path quilt pattern, too, in an entirely different look.

You may notice there is no stitching around the applique yet. That is one of my favourite time saving tricks! I'll stitch the appliques down with the quilting, so I only have to go around them all once. Sometimes I do stitch down my applique shapes before putting the top together, especially if I want to do a different stitch around them for emphasis, but a lot of times I just leave it to be done with the quilting. If you do this, be aware that you do need to be careful that the appliques don't separate from the background before they're stitched. If they do start to come off, you can press them again briefly, if you used a fusible product, or just add a little more glue, if you used a glue stick like I did for these.

I'll be sharing the finished quilt next Wednesday, which probably means I should get this top basted and quilted. If you need me this weekend, you'll know where to find me.

Link up your finishes from the week, then be sure to visit a few of the other links to celebrate their finishes, too. They'll probably even show you the whole thing, unlike some people...

Before you go, here's a pretty quilt swirl picture. 

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