I think I must be sleep walking and will be waking up from a dream at any moment… Please pinch me! I am so happy to present my newest pattern that I developed for BluPrint. I call it Desert Blooms. It expresses my great love affair with the Sonoran Desert I live in. After I created these blocks for this quilt, all I could see were the characteristics of different cacti. As I developed the pattern further, I fell in love with them and decided to name the pattern Desert Blooms because when I am hiking, I am immersed in the dessert and its cacti. It is there where I am at total peace. I actually have the best ideas when I hike.

BluPrint

Have you heard?? Craftsy is now BluPrint. It is a subscription service dedicated to help you grow your creative skills. It hosts a wide collection classes that you can take at home in your PJs. Their industry leading experts teach you anything from Photography to cooking and so much more. Most importantly, they have quilting classes. The lovely Angela Walters is just one of their great teachers. I can’t wait to see how BluPrint grows and inspires a community of makers. I love their shop where they sell patterns and supplies and KITS. WhooHoo!  Currently, I have all my patterns there. BluPrint has been absolutely wonderful to work with. I get to giveaway one kit and pattern to one of you lucky readers.  I am soooo excited because you know how much I love giving things to my readers. Keep reading to learn how to enter.

The Desert Blooms Quilt

The quilt is really not hard to make. I would consider it easy and time consuming.  This queen/king size quilt can be broken down into three blocks that repeat three times. To stream line the process of making this quilt, it is made using half square triangles and full color squares. I have included instructions on how to make many HSTs at once using a grid. The largest grid makes 84 HSTs at once, which really makes the HST easy and quick to make. I was able to finish one quilt in a month. I am toying around with making a quilt along on this project. Do you think I should?

This pattern has been kitted in two different color ways. One is Light; the other I call Night. I love these fabrics from BluPrint; they are from their Boundless line of solid fabrics. You should totally go check out the full spectrum of colors available in their shop.  I, of course, want all the colors!! I am not sure if I am allowed to have a favorite between my twin Desert Blooms quilts but I can’t lie, I do have a favorite. It’s Light!! Shhh don’t tell anyone. What is your favorite quilt out of the two??

Click here to get your Desert Blooms Quilt Kit and Pattern from BluPrint.

Its design is something that I have been wanting to create for some time now. I have a small series of quilts I call my Garden Star quilts. They are all enlarged one-block quilts that are turned into a large throw quilt. I can’t wait to turn one of these Garden Bloom Blocks into one lager throw quilt. I think they will transfer wonderfully.

Must Have Notion: HST Ruler – I trimmed my HSTs using a Bloc Loc ruler. These rulers are amazing and make trimming up a HST so simple. The ruler has a groove where the seam is. The ruler latches onto the HST and you can slide the ruler on the seam, keeping the seam in the middle. It really is genius and it has quickly become a star in my sewing room.

I feel like this next part turned into an acceptance speech which is totally goofy, but let’s just go with it. LOL

This project has been a long journey for me and I have so many people to thank for their help and assistance. The two people that I couldn’t have done this without are two lovely ladies in my quilt guild. Kristy Van Os and Cassie Gribble, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I put together one quilt sample and Cassie put together the other one. Kristy and Cassie quilted both of them. These are really big quilts. I truly wouldn’t have been able to meet my deadline without you two.

My mom helped me pin, iron, and sort when she was visiting me for my birthday. My copy editor is always happy to get things done for me, which I don’t thank publicly enough, so thank you Brittany. Thank you BluPrint for accepting my design. My testers . . . I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to send it to people to test, so I only sent it to a few and they totally sent me wonderful comments. Thank you Joann Harris, Roberta Smith and Sherry Vlcej. My sister that is always there to listen to me and push me further down my path. Lastly and most importantly, my husband who puts up with all of my insanity and encourages me to sign up for more. My heart is overflowing!!

The Desert Blooms Quilt Giveaway

All right, all right!! It’s time to talk about the Desert Blooms quilt release giveaway. I have a kit with the pattern to giveaway.  To enter, head over to my Instagram page, like the giveaway photo, follow me, and after you have done these two things tag a friend or as many friends as you would like. Each tag will get you an entry into the giveaway. Once a random number is generated and a winner has been verified, I will announce the winner on Instagram. The winner will be announced February 14. Good luck everyone!!