The First Blog Hop News and a Simple Patchwork Quilt

Wow - it is finally here - the first week of the summer long Let's Get Acquainted! Blog Hop.  Over 60 new bloggers have signed up for the hop!  All the information for the hop can be found here including the buttons.  Skip to the bottom of this post for the Blog Hop News and the Link Up.

As I am writing this post, I realize I should have made a project from novelty fabrics in honor of the hop  - um, well, too late now but here is the quilt I finished this weekend.  I love the look of simple patchwork squares so I decided to cut 5" squares from most of the fabrics in my current stash including my precious fabric again.

I tried to spread out the colors and the mix of dark and light - does it have that vintage-y quality to it despite some of the modern fabrics included?  I quilted it with double diagonal lines going both directions and used Kona coal for the binding  I used a neutral grayish blue for the quilting lines but I used a pink thread to zig zag lines when I machine stitched the binding.

For the backing, I just cut large pieces from some of the pinks and reds used on the quilt top.  And the finished quilt is about 40x40 inches.

As soon as my daughters saw the quilt, they asked if they could use it as picnic blanket.  I said they could but that I would be out shortly to take pics of it for my blog post.  Well, I guess I should have taken the photos first - lesson learned - letting your kids eat chocolate on your quilt before taking pictures is not the best idea.  But a quick trip through the wash and it came out good as new (well, actually better since I like the crinkly look!)

My 7 year old was out helping me take the pics of the newly washed quilt (probably staking her claim again) and we tried to recreate the "flying in the air" look like some of the quilts in the festival - um, here was our best try (we'll have to work on it):

Blog Hop News
So as for the Blog Hop News:  every Monday, I'll be posting the week's calendar, any blog hop updates, and highlights and events from the participating bloggers.  So, be sure to check back here every Monday.  My Monday posts will also include an opportunity for all the participating bloggers as well as our readers to link up their projects made from or inspired by the presented tutorials.  See below for the special link up for this week.

And I'm very excited to let you all know that my Monday posts will also sometimes include interviews with or guest posts by some of my favorite quilting bloggers and some Monday posts will also include fun giveaways.

Here are the great bloggers we'll all be visiting this week.  And I want to say a special thank you to these bloggers for being the first!  Please be sure to visit their blogs on their hop day and please remember how much we all LOVE and appreciate comments.

Weekly Calendar

Tuesday, May 22
    Kelsey from Kelsey Sews

    Erin from Billy Button Designs

Thursday, May 24

    Nik from Bold Goods

    Alyssa from Pile O Fabric

Highlights
I'll start picking some blog posts from the participating bloggers to highlight next week (sorry, I've spent the weekend looking at all of your posts for the Blogger's Quilt Festival and I couldn't narrow it down from all the amazing quilts.)

Events
1.  Catherine from Knotted Cotton has come up with a cool idea for trading fabric - a great blog-based way to find the hard-to-find fabric you've been looking for as well as a way to destash.  Find more details on her blog post here.

2.  Em from Sewing by Moonlight is starting a Summer Road Trip Quilt Along on May 31st.  She has sketches of the blocks and they look fantastic.   The details are here.

*If you have an event on your blog that you want me to add to a Monday post, send me an email or leave a note in the comments.

Twitter
Also, because of the Blog Hop, I am going to make a point of becoming active on twitter (this week!) so follow me there if you are interested (and let me know if you have a twitter account and I'll follow you back.)  I have had the twitter link active since I started blogging but I haven't actually tweeted anything yet so . . .

Flickr
Anyone following along or participating in the hop can join in here.

Link Up
As for the link up, since this is the first week and we haven't seen any tutorials yet, I wanted to think of a way for us to start getting to know each other (um, in other words, "let's get acquainted") so for this week just add your favorite post from your blog using the link tool below.  I'm just using a text link up (for now) so where it asks for your name, put the name of your post (or a shortened version.)  And even if you are not participating in the hop as one of our stops, we still consider you to be participating just by following along and want to get to know you as well - which is just my way of saying that the link up is open for anyone with a quilting blog.






See you all at Erin's, Kelsey's, Nik's and Alyssa's this week!

Please visit my Links page to see where I like to link my posts.