The past few weeks, I have been sorting fabrics, and attempting to make sense out of my scraps. I’ve been cutting pieces smaller than a fat quarter into more useful pieces for some upcoming projects.

One of the quilts I want to make for myself is a scrappy Postage Stamp Quilt. It will be totally random with 1.5″ finished pieces. I’ll start piecing these together as leaders/enders, while I work on other projects.

Over the weekend, I started doing the math, to get a rough idea of how many 2″ unfinished squares I’ll need. For a 40″ x 60″ lap/wall quilt, I’ll need 1,040. For a 50″ x 70″ lap quilt to cuddle under, I’ll need 1,380 pieces. Wow!

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Two things come to mind immediately: 1) I don’t have anywhere near enough fabric cut and 2) I need a larger box. Without having counted what’s there, I’m guessing 150 to 200 pieces.

I’ve limited myself to only four of one print, though I may change my mind about this as time goes on. I need 260 or 345 different fabrics.

Do you know where this is going?

Anyone interested in exchanging 2″ pieces? I have lots of 2″ extras cut and lots of charms at 5″ too if you prefer those instead. This would be a one-to-one swap, I’m not organizing anything fancy. If you’d like to contribute to my postage stamp quilt, you’ll find my mailing address on the contact page.

A couple notes:

• I need reds, pinks, greys and light blues, but really anything is fine.
• No more than 4 of one print, please. Less is fine too.
• Accurate 2″ squares of good quality, 100% cotton fabric.

If you want to drop me an email to let me know they are coming, that would be great, so I can make sure I have enough to return to you. If you don’t want any in return, thanks!!

Congratulations to Jean Shores of Nebraska for winning last week’s weekly themed quilt contest, New Year’s Party Time, with her very fun quilt It’s Five O’clock somewhere in German. Thanks to Pat Sloan for her generous prize.

This week’s theme is SNOWMEN. I’m sure it will be very popular. To enter, read the rules and guidelines, then submit your quilt photo. Voting will start on Friday and last until Sunday night.

This week’s contest has been sponsored by Blackberry Quilts. Enter to win this super cute kit to make the quilt top! The light blue and red Scotty Dog baby quilt is their newest design.

Blackberry Quilts specializes in quilts that you can finish! They feature pre-cut quilting kits for beginners. Stef Russell, owner, grew up sewing, and surrounded by crafty women who taught her how to sew and knit and crochet and embroider. Now she plays with fabric, and designs quilts.

Stef grew up with her grandmother and great grandmother’s quilts. On family gatherings her grandma Vera would carefully unwrap the wedding ring quilt from its tissue covering in the cedar chest to show it off. Vera’s mother, a Russian immigrant with a talent for sewing, adopted American quilting. She made each of her 7 sons a wedding ring quilt. The 4 daughters were not so fortunate – she believed the girls could make their own! The wedding ring quilts were a happy mix of scraps from dresses and feedsacks. (They raised chickens – 10,000 chickens – and sold the eggs! Oh, the feedsacks! Stef wishes she knew were they all went………)

Stef works with the 1930s reproduction prints. They make her smile. Blackberry Quilts also offers fabrics by the yard, charm squares, and jelly rolls for the quilters who like to make their own creations!

The Blackberry Quilts Blog is a little window into Stef’s workshop. She shares her favorite links and projects. Sometimes she is working on sewing projects with her Girl Scout troop, recycling thrift store finds into a sewing project, or posting a tutorial.

Second chance to win: This week, Stef is giving away another quilt top kit for the Scotty Dog featured above to one lucky winner that subscribes to her newsletter. To enter, head over to the Blackberry Quilts web site, on the left-hand side column, you’ll see a box to join their mailing list. One winner will be randomly chosen from those that subscribe this week.

Thanks to Stef for sponsoring this week’s contest. If you want to be a sponsor, contact me.

Thanks to all that entered their quilts in the first Weekly Themed Quilt Contest. This week’s theme was New Year’s Party Time.

Now it’s time for you to vote for your favourite!! The lucky winner with the most votes will win the fabulous prize pictured on the right from Pat Sloan.

• Voting is open Friday – Sunday @ 11 p.m.
• One vote per IP address (NOT email address), so have your family and friends cast a ballot for your favourite quilt (from home if you send it to coworkers)
• Winner announced Monday!

 Loading ...

I’m taking this ‘guest blogging’ opportunity to introduce myself to the Quilt Blogging World :)
[Thanks ♥ Michele!]

I am Benita Skinner and my husband Brad & I currently live in Tumbler Ridge, which is in remote Northern British Columbia, Canada.

I’m an independent quilt designer and Thanks to the many quilters who enjoy my designs, I make our living by selling my quilt patterns (as pdf files sent via email).
I own, update and maintain several quilting web sites including my main quilt pattern site Victoriana Quilt Designs, Free Quilt Patterns.info and Vintage Embellishments. It’s my husband who makes it all possible for me to work from early morning until night on this adventure.

I don’t have a blog on my site (they weren’t part of the quilting Internet when I began online in 2001] and up to now I haven’t even posted an ‘About Me’ page. And as there is a misperception that Victoriana Quilt Designs is a whole team of people/corporation, I thought it was time!

I began teaching my Victorian House workshop in 1993 when I still lived in Ontario. My original technique was based on my pictorial quilts that I made when I began quilting.

This led me to more workshops using my original quilt designs which I held in my home…my most popular being the Beginner’s Sampler Workshop which I now offer online.

In 2001, with some basic ‘how to’ from my son on using the programs needed to put together a web page (including making the graphics to decorate my site), I began Victoriana Quilt Designs. Through ‘poking’, as he calls it, I taught myself enough about the programs to start offering my quilt designs as pdf patterns. Of course I also knew enough to hire my wonderful tech guy to handle the code for any ‘real’ tech programming.

And in 8 years of monthly updates I have accumulated quite a sizable site. I offer my pattern designs to those who purchase Memberships and now they can also be purchased by non-members.
Plus be sure to check out the Complimentary Patterns and the Library for all the quilting information available, which is a great place for quilt beginners to learn. And of course look for the Sharing section with Quilting Pen Pals & Charm Swaps plus the Used Quilt Books for sale by visitors.

When quilting blogs began to appear I was already very busy with my monthly updates. Since I do not take pretty pictures (I thank my husband for those!!!) which are required to be a good inspiring blog, time made it impossible with how busy we both were already….so I chose not to have one.

This left me out of your great quilt blogging community. I watched from the side lines adding the links to quilt blogs that offered free quilt patterns & tutorials as I found them, onto my other quilt sites: Free Quilt Patterns.info and Quilt Lessons.

I’ve decided to add a ‘Blog Roll’ page to my Feedback & Links section next month. I would love to exchange links with quilty bloggers. Let me know about your blog (via email: benita at victorianaquiltdesigns dot com) and I’ll be happy to add it to my list!

As of 2009, thanks to the nudging of my other son, I also have a Facebook page that allows me to connect with quilters, plus I love sharing my online quilty travels on Twitter.

I hope you enjoy your visit!

Benita Skinner
Victoriana Quilt Designs

Want to be a guest blogger too?

Rachel’s put together this super cute siggy block tutorial. Lots of photos to help you along, it’s so easy.

She’s also organizing a modern siggy block swap. Better hurry though, she’s limiting registration to 100.

P.S. Pat Sloan’s also organizing a SweetHearts ROCK! Swap.