Sew Bittersweet Designs | Sewing and Designing in my BitterSweet World

Blogger’s Quilt Festival – Hypnotic Eye

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Melissa Dunworth

Hello! If you are new to my blog, welcome! My name is Melissa and I am an aspiring quilt designer with a small shop over on Craftsy. I am a mom to a beautiful and amazing almost 6 year old little girl and a wife to my very own personal hero (he’s a US Army Soldier). If you are a regular here, thank you for sticking with me over the years. I have recently taken a break on regular blogging but I am trying to make an effort, especially now that my daughter is in full-time kindergarten, to make more time to blogging.

My entry into the Blogger’s Quilt Festival is my Hypnotic Eye Quilt. I’ve decided to enter it into the original design category. I designed this block in EQ7 as a challenge for the Quilt Design a Day group over on Facebook. It is an outstanding group and if you want to further your design skills, I highly recommend joining! The inspiration photo for the day was a seaside landscape and we were given the colors below.

At about the same time that I designed the block, a black and white challenge was announced for the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guilds. The challenge was to make black to white quilts with a pop of color. Black to white meaning that you could use shades of gray as well. I interpreted this challenge using all solids, and this is what I came up with.

To date, this is one of my favorite quilts that I have made.

Quilt Stats:

Designed, Pieced & Quilted by: Melissa Dunworth (me)
Batting: Warm & Natural
Fabrics: Kona Solids and American Made Brand Solids
Free Motion Zentangle Inspired Quilting

You can read more about this quilt in this post. You can also read more about my quilting process on this quilt in this post.

I hope you will consider visiting the festival and voting for my quilt for Original Design!

And please keep coming back! I promise to be blogging more regularly!

Princess Merida – My October Finish

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Melissa Dunworth

I did it! Despite throwing my back out, I spent 5 hours yesterday, sitting on a heating pad and sewing. I know I couldn’t have finished if I had needed to cut anything but luckily I cut out everything a week and a half ago. To date, this is the most complicated pattern I have made. This is only more complicated than Elsa from last year because there were so many more pieces. I still disliked sewing Elsa more – that slippery fabric was AWFUL!

This is Simplicity Pattern 1557

Here she is, the sleeve gauntlets are made, she even has a bow and arrow (thanks Nana and Baba).

I made her the cape to go with it, she was a little upset that I didn’t do the applique on the front that the pattern shows, but we watched the movie this weekend and when I pointed out that Merida does not have an applique of herself on her dress, she was fairly satisfied that she didn’t need one either.

I just love the way she looks with the cape on! This costume will last forever because it was 6 inches too long and instead of cutting the excess off, I simply folded it up and hemmed it, that way as she gets older I can let it down and it will last a little longer.

I don’t consider myself a clothes person, but the more I sew for Anne and the more I see the joy it brings her, the more I enjoy it. I will always be a quilter first but I will do just about anything to put a smile on my baby’s face!

Happy Halloween to all who celebrate, and happy princesses to those who don’t! I for one have a very happy princess in my house right now!

PS. You have until Halloween to link up your October Finish! Get on it!

Posted in 2015 Finishes, A Lovely Year of Finishes, Clothes, halloween | 12 Comments

A Lovely Year of Finishes – October Finishes Party

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Melissa Dunworth

Welcome to the end of October. To say my month hasn’t gone as planned is a bit of an understatement, but I’m still alive and kicking so I guess I can’t complain too much. I am still working on the Merida dress for my finish – I got injured yesterday and spent some quality time in the ER so I’m not sure if I will finish in time for Halloween, but luckily we have lots of other princess dresses Anne can wear. Here is my progress so far:

As you can see I have quite a bit of work left to do and my studio is a complete disaster!

How about you?

What one item did you choose?

You have two requirements to be entered into the prizes this month.

1. Link-up the first 7-days of the month

Please choose ONE project

and

2. Link-up {on this post} in the last 7-days of the month

Only with a completed, successful project. And yes the same one that you choose earlier in the month.

Add your blog post or flickr photo (with appropriate descriptions) to the linky party below.

Please grab a button or link back to Shanna and I so other people can join in the fun!

And if you are on twitter or Instagram tag #ALYoF

**Please note, the linky party is the same here and over at Shanna, so there is no need to enter twice **

Here’s our amazing prizes this month…thank you sponsors!

1. One PDF pattern from Honey, Bunny, and Doll Designs

2. Thimblepie’s Quilt Supplies – Custom fabric package, 3 yards plus free shipping anywhere

3. Green Fairy Quilts – 3 pdf patterns

4. $15 gift certificate from Fat Quarter Shop

5. One PDF pattern from Michele of Aiming for Accuracy

6. PDF Pattern from Katy – The Littlest Thistle

7. One PDF Pattern from Meadow Mist Designs

8. PDF Pattern from Persimon Dreams

9. One pdf Pattern from Clover and Violet

10. One Charm pack or $10.00 gift certificate to
Stitches n’ Giggles (winners choice)

11. Sew BitterSweet Designs one pdf pattern

12. One PDF pattern from Sew Sweetness

Posted in A Lovely Year of Finishes, Fiber of All Sorts, halloween | 9 Comments

Charity Sewing

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Melissa Dunworth

I have been a bit behind in sharing my charity sewing with you. For Do Good Stitches Trust Circle in September we made these awesome granny squares.

These were made with charm squares and were super easy to make! Link here.

The Modern Quilt Guild I belong too is making Improv blocks for our Quilt Con charity quilt challenge. This is the block I made. I would like to make one more before our next meeting.

For October, Trust Circle is working on jewel tone and low volume blocks for a very special young lady. Here is my first block. My second one is on the back burner until I finish Merida. Luckily I can bust out these circle of geese blocks fairly quickly. Pattern here.

Yesterday I started working on Merida. There are 19 different paper pattern pieces that I had to cut out. And an unbelievable amount of fabric pieces to cut. This is going to be my biggest clothing sewing challenge yet!

Have a wonderful Tuesday! I will have some pictures from the Pacific International Quilt Festival later this week. Anne was my official photographer so I need to go through the pictures she took!

Oh! And today is my 8th Wedding Anniversary! So Happy Anniversary to me and the mister.

Posted in Charity, Do.Good Stitches, Modern Quilt Guild | 4 Comments

Missing In Action

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Melissa Dunworth

I’m alive! Alive and well. I’ve been gone because I have been sewing secret projects that I can’t share just yet. Hopefully next weekend I will be able to.

In the meantime, Anne and I are jet setting off to California to attend the International Pacific Quit Festival in sunny Santa Clara, CA. I already know that I did not win a ribbon or anything, but just being juried in to the show feels like a huge win, in and of itself.

The quilts that were accepted are my Swoon:

And my Hypnotic Eye quilt.

I will also be taking many many pictures for other friends that are in the show and were not able to attend. I am super excited for the weekend. Wish me luck that we arrive safely and without incident. This is Anne’s first time on a plane and I’m petrified because of her peanut and tree nut allergies. I will be armed with Epi Pens and sanitizing wipes!

Have a great weekend and I will be back in full blogging action next week!

Posted in 2015 Finishes, Quilt Shows | 7 Comments

Blogger’s Quilt Festival – Hypnotic Eye

Princess Merida – My October Finish

A Lovely Year of Finishes – October Finishes Party

Charity Sewing

Missing In Action

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