It’s really just an official excuse Colleen and I came up with to get everyone together and have fun one weekend every summer.  We’re surrounded by a wonderful group of quilters who have been loyal supporters since day one.  They have helped us with everything from making quilts to folding patterns so once a year we round them all up and spoil them rotten.  Our friends at Robert Kaufman never fail to remember this annual event and always send a box of colorful cotton treats for us to share with everyone.  Thank you again to Allie and everyone at Kaufman for always helping to make Croakfest so special for the girls!

Making room for everyone at Croakfest requires a complete reconfiguration of the studio and over all “purge”.  So we decided to do our Open House the day before Croakfest.  Why take the place apart twice a year when you can get away with doing it once right?  We had lots of visitors, had a huge sale to clear some much needed space in our stock room and ate way too many cookies while we finished wrapping all the gifts for Croakfest.

I used my AccuquiltGO! to cut fabric Robert Kaufman sent into Tumble Block kits for each Toadster.  We had hundreds of extra blocks and made all the extra blocks one of the prizes in our Dirty Santa game.  It was loads of fun watching everyone designs their table runners – they all loved that it was all pre cut for them.  We played triva, had some wonderful food and everyone left with a bunch of prizes and a finished project – Ah, the life of a Toad huh? 

There are plenty more pictures of the Open House & Croakfest in our Gallery!

This September marks the beginning of our 5th year…  Quite a journey.  We’re planning to mellow out a bit and make a few changes here and there that will let us focus on the creative side of things rather than the commercial aspects.  Our first step in this direction is our trip to Houston this year…  Only one day spent at Quilt Market, the rest of the week will be dedicated to just enjoying Festival and taking classes (and we’ve signed up for everything that we could pack in!).  We can hardly wait and are counting the days until we can pack up our sewing machines and escape to the house we rented for a week of complete immersion in creative growth….

We had our annual Croakfest and we laughed much more than we croaked!  Be sure to check out the Croakfest Gallery which we’ll be posting in September.  The biggest laugh of all had to come from watching Jo Lax rig up a bottle of wine to use as a spool holder for a large cone of thread.  After all stopped laughing some of us had our own stories of nauty notion use to share.  Recently my husband I indulged on a home made dinner of two lobsters.  It had been so long since we had done lobster we couldn’t even find our picks so resorted to using a couple my Purple Thangs which actually worked much better than the little metal pokers I’ve used in the past….

Naughty Notion Contest

We’re sure we’re not the only ones that have made clever use of notions or turned household objects into notions – so sure in fact that we’re basing our current contest on it.  Fill in the blanks of the below sentance, enter as many times as you’d like.  It can be true, made up – just make sure it’s creative and humorus as thats how we’ll be picking the winner.    The winner will be awarded a Shapes and Shades 30’s Fat Quarter Bundle and pattern and announced here on 15 September 2010.

I used my/a ___________ as a _____________   because _____________.

Examples
I used a wine bottle as a spool holder because I was little tipsy and it was all I had at the time!
I used my purple thang as a lobster pick because I couldn’t find anything else that was small, pointy that I was willing to shove into a lobster.

“Eclipse” featured in  Quilter’s Newsletter October/November 2010

Click here to order your Eclipse Kit featuring the beautiful “Shades of the Season” collection from Robert Kaufman!  Be sure to visit the Quilters Newsletter Magazine website and get more information on the October issue and Eclipse Pattern!

“Harvest Traditions” featured in McCall’s Quilting October 2010

Be sure to visit the McCall’s quilting website and get more information on the October issue and Harvest Traditions Pattern!

"Harvest Traditions" photos provided courtesy of McCall's QuickQuick Quilts

We check the fabric collections under development on the Kaufman website site at least once a month and fell in love with the Fan and Iris print from Grandeur as soon as they loaded on the screen.  That was in December of 2009.  We diligently stalked our fabric fairy at Kaufman until the fabric finally arrived in the studio early this spring.  It was worth the wait and we dropped everything to start egg cracking the minute we opened the box.  Working with these kinds of prints is a ton of fun and definitely one of our favorite types of projects.    Sometimes they can be challenging, but they never fail to get the creative juices flowing and always produce an amazing results like our recipe for easy, fancy, beautiful borders.

Recipe
(click here to download a print friendly version of recipe)

• 1 Bloomington Pattern or Kit by Toadusew
• Grandeur fabric from Robert Kaufman
• Basic quilting skills and supplies
• A weekend or two depending on the size of quilt

After your quilt center is sewn iron the fancy fan border print to insure it is completely free of wrinkles and creases and study the fabric so you understand the repeat of the print.  Open the fabric to its full width on a large work space or cutting surface.  Doing this in an area where you can work and see the entire piece of fabric makes the task easier and faster. Once you’ve identified where the repeat starts, clearly mark the same starting point of the repeat along the selvage edge.   It’s important that all the marks be made at the same point in the repeat on both selvage edges to insure the patterns will match when the strips are sewn together. Mark the same point along the center repeat as well.

Using a ruler, draw a line across the fabric connecting the three marks.  When all the lines have been marked, carefully cut the fabric into repeat segments along the marked lines.  If you are making the Lap size Bloomington Quilt: Cut 4 repeat segments.  If you are making the Queen Size Bloomington: Cut 6 repeat segments  Quilters making other sized quilts based on other patterns may need to adjust accordingly;  do this by calculating the number of 40″/42″ lengths of cut fan border segments required to surround the size of the quilt being made.

Fold  the selvage ends under and match the ends of two segments together.  Adjust the location of the fold until you are satisfied with the pattern match between the two ends.  Finger press a crease to mark the fold.   Using a ruler and pencil, mark a line along the fold on the wrong side of the fabric.   Trim away the excess material to a ¼” from the marked line.

Sew the ends together along the marked line and press the seam open to reduce bulk.  Repeat these steps, as needed, based on your size quilt.  If you are making the Lap Size Bloomington: Make 4 borders (2 segments each).  If you are making the Queen Size Bloomington: Make 4 borders (3 segments each) Quilters making other sized quilts based on other patterns may need to adjust accordingly; do this by calculating the number of 40″/42″ lengths of cut fan border segments required to surround the size of the quilt being made.

Once all the segments are joined into strips, carefully cut them in half as illustrated.    Each half will give a distinctly different repeat (A & B).

Fold each finished border strip in half and press a crease at the center point.  Fold and press a crease into the center of the sides, top and bottom of the quilt top.  Beginning with the left side, match and pin the center points of the border and quilt together.  Use additional pins to ease and hold the the pieces together as needed.    Sew the border to the quilt, trim the ends and press to the least amount of bulk.  Sew the remaining side, followed by the top and bottom in the same fashion.  

To achieve the same look as shown on the Bloomington Pattern Cover use repeat B, on the sides and repeat A on the top & bottom with all the fans facing “in” toward the center of the quilt.

We hope this inspires you to try some new and creative things with fabrics you might not normally consider using.   Be sure to check out the October issue of Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine for to see another wonderful Robert Kaufman Fabric doing some serious work in “Eclipse” a new Toadusew design.

Click here to download a handy reference  print friendly reference copy of this article.

Photography by McCall's Quick Quilts

We’re so glad everyone loved this design so much!  Special thanks, as always, to Beth Hayes for her impeccable taste and selecting Into Africa for McCall’s QuickQuilts and the great job her whole team does with every issue.  We’d been wanting to do something with animal skins for ages and will be looking for new collections and ideas now that we know many of you dig them as much as we do.  We had a riot designing the quilt and getting all the prints into just the right place.  It seems to take a considerable amount of time to get a quilt to look as though it was randomly “thrown” together with no thought at all right?  Martha was already nervous about sewing it perfectly, knowing that it was for a magazine, but trying to get all those pieces sewn together just as we had drawn it just about drove her bonkers!

We’re sad to say that we don’t have a scrap of these fabrics left to offer and won’t be able to get any more, so we have to discontinue the Into Africa kits.  We hate to disappoint so we’ve scouted out a couple of on-line quilt shops, listed below, that offer a great selection of animal prints, including many of that we used in our quilt and kits.

Downloadable Into Africa Shopping List

Texas Susannie’s‎  Tel: 817 743-1302‎

Happiness is Quilting Tel:  972 542 8839
If you find any more sources, please post a comment and share the wealth with other quilters on the prowl for those skins…. Happy Hunting!

Download a copy of  our Jungle Junction pattern provided at no charge courtesy of Toadusew and Robert Kaufman Fabrics.

After we tested the pattern we had enough fabric left to put together a kit and came up with a fun contest to give everyone a fair chance to win this one of a kind treat.  All that’s required is a little creativity and a sense of humor – whoever tickles our funny bone best, wins the prize!

Post your comment using the below sentence and fill in the blanks.  We’ll be picking the winner next Thursday (July 15th).  Enter as many times as you like, just be sure to give us a good chuckle!

If my quilting group lived in the zoo, I would be a(an) _______________ because___________________.
WINNING COMMENT:
If my quilting group lived in the zoo, I would be an elephant because I could stand in front of my fabric stash and NO one would be able to see how much I have…….lol

-it was a tight race, went to a tie twice as we had to go to the Toadsters to help us decide.  Thanx to all who gave us a giggle!  New contest will be announced in the next couple of days

From our Guest Blogger, Yvonne Ericson

After reading the directions for “Thinking Outside the Block” I determined that I needed a “map” because I was using different colored centers for the quilt blocks.

After planning the color arrangement I then counted out how many blocks of each color would have to have seams ironed in and how many would be ironed out. This made it a very simple method for chain piecing the blocks.
The other thing that I did different from the pattern directions but I did not cut up the strips ahead of time. I took a WOF strip and attached the center blocks to it and then cut them apart. I continued on in this manner for the whole quilt. It was fast and allowed me to square up the blocks as I progressed. No surprises for me at the end.

On to the quilting.  Using the ‘Toadusew’ color and quilt planning worksheet for “Thinking Outside the Block” I started out with a simple quilting plan.

When I finished this quiltingI discovered the spaces were too large to leave unquilted so I had to go back and add more quilting. New plan!

I quilted to each colored square and then jumped over it and continued on. I didn’t want my black quilting thread showing in the colored blocks.

Final product after it's first bath!

If you have a Toadtale you’d like to share as a guest blogger, please let us know at info@toadusew.com

I know, I know…. everyone is bummed we didn’t kit this one…  Slice of Summer is currntly featured in the June July issue of McCall’s Quick Quilts and they could not have made this one look any cuter!  We made these little cuties using stuff from out stash and a few odds and ends we picked up at one of our favorite local shops, A & E Pharmacy (don’t let the name fool you, these folks are all about fabric – the pharmacy is just a hobby LOL).  Anyway we were at A & E yesterday and much to our delight discovered that they have 2 brand new bolts of the red watermelon fabric, the green watermelon rind fabric and spools of 5/8″ rick rack.  They are more than happy to take orders for these items by phone.

A & E at 850 455-0112 and ask for Liz in the fabric department.

The winner is Miss Karma with her comment:

“I got a Toadusew kit as a gift and was so impressed with the ease of the directions and the fabric combinations. I’m now a “Toadusew groupie”. ”

You just know we love anyone willing to call themselves a Toad or groupie LOL! We hope she’ll enjoy the treats we’ll be sending her. Thank you again to all, we loved hearing from everyone and hope youll continue to tell us what you think – the good, bad and ugly .

C & C