Carrie Merrell's Blog, page 2

Jelly Roll Baby Quilt Tutorial

Maybe you remember my Halloween quilt and how much my 2 year old loves those little Doodlebug for Riley Blake characters?

My sister-in-law is expecting the first baby girl in this generation so I'm hard at work making a baby quilt for her.

I'm using more Doodlebug fabric for this quilt from the Lovebugs collection. I purchased 2 "Rolie Polies" which are like mini Jelly Rolls. Each has 15 strips. This makes a very, very large baby quilt. I could have gotten by with just one.

I wanted something f...

Digging in to the Quilty Math for the Half and Half Quilt

the half and half quilt pattern + ebook is now available!

The Half and Half Quilt Pattern + eBook is in the works. It's going to include the pattern (fabric requirements and assembly instructions for the quilt) plus a gallery of 130 blocks you can make that all use the exact same amounts of fabric. The only thing you change is how you rotate your half square triangle units. It's so easy but gives you so, so many options.

I'm scrapping everything I wrote for the first draft so far. But not rea...

The quilt as you go experiment: drawing conclusions

the half and half quilt pattern + ebook is now available!

I just finished reading the novel A Discovery of Witches and one particular line from the book really struck me:

It’s a scientist’s prerogative to change his mind as new information comes to light.

— Dehorah Harkness A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy) $10.11 By Deborah Harkness

[affiliate link]

Sometimes I think of myself as a quilt scientist. I experiment with different techniques to figure out what I like best and I chang...

My quilt fabric strategy: Trust in abundance and use the good stuff

I still consider myself a relatively new quilter. I started my first quilt when I was a kid in the 80s but I didn’t finish a quilt for the first time until 2013. I don’t have a large stash of fabric and scraps already on hand. All of my fabric fits in one storage tote with lots of room to spare.

I’m also a stay at home mom in the high cost of living San Francisco Bay Area so I don’t have a lot of extra space to store a fabric stash or a lot of extra disposable income to spend on fabric that I...

The 16 Completed Quilt Blocks for my Half and Half Quilt Sample

the half and half quilt pattern + ebook is now available!

Today I am sharing pictures of the completed blocks for the sample quilt for my Half and Half Quilt Pattern + eBook. It's a pattern because it tells you exactly how much fabric you need, what size to cut that fabric,and how to assemble your pieces. The "Plus eBook" portion comes in because it will include an extensive block gallery with lots of updates block variations as well as a deeper dig into how I developed those variations and...

Quilty New Year's Resolutions, The Quilty Math Workbook, and What I Have in Store for 2016

the half and half quilt pattern + ebook is now available!

Pretty much every year, my New Year's resolution is a variation of I’m not going to start any new craft projects until I finish all the ones I already started.

Every year I fail at keeping that resolution.

This year my resolution is to be way more strategic about the projects I do start.

Have a plan. Buy only the right amount of the right supplies. Stop spending money on supplies that I’m not going to use and stop having to figure out wh...

Scrappy Quilted Planner Cover for the Get To Work Book

My 2015 Emily Ley Simplified Planner died a horrible death back in September when my toddler pulled the front and back covers in different directions and destroyed the spiral binding. For 2016, I purchased Elise Blaha's Get To Work Book and when I saw this Quilted Planner Cover tutorial from Sew Fearless, I knew I had to adapt it to fit my new planner.

Figuring out how to adapt Sew Fearless's tutorial so that the cover would fit my planner was the trickiest part.

For the width of my cover (l...