The April Challenger - Brandy Pettit - was a little handicapped because she lives in Washington state, and the fabric shipped from New York.
So she had a few less days to get her project done. But done she did!
Check out this beautiful quilt and tote using the Just Beachy collection by First Blush Studio. Just Beachy is available now at quilt shops, so we hope this inspires you!
Meet Brandy and see what she has created for April! Please be sure to comment below on her work!
Hello! My
name is Brandy Pettit, I am 32 years old and I live in Walla Walla, WA
with my husband John and our two cats/quilt inspectors Thomas and Belle.
I am an avid quilter and longarmer, and I also love to bake, cook,
travel, crochet, bead, and take pictures. Walla Walla has
long been known for our sweet onions and recently has moved to become a
large producer of wine, which makes for some beautiful scenery when
driving around the valley. It has become very popular though, so one of
John's and my favorite things to do is drive to my grandma's house in
Montana to visit and just enjoy the calming atmosphere of the mountains.
We also like to hang out on the beach when the rare opportunity arises, asluck
would have it that happened just a couple weeks ago!
I fell
in love with quilting about six years ago when the overwhelming urge to make a
quilt for our bed worked it's way into my head. I took a beginning class
at the local quilt shop and was hooked! I have since made a great
many quilting projects and last year we purchased a longarm from
Handi Quilter, an Infinity that I named Altivo (after the white horse
in the cartoon movie Road to El Dorado, a white workhorse with a lot of
spunk LOL).
We now have a business called Blue Spool Sewing Room where we
offer longarm quilting services. John has been incredibly supportive of
my hobby/business, and kindly runs me around to quilt shops when we
travel. I find it very inspiring getting to visit many
different shops and see their samples. It is so amazing to see what
others will do with a pattern or fabric that you may not have thought of, and
of course I love to see how they choose to quilt it too. I also have the
pleasure of being an active member of the Walla Walla Valley Quilt Guild where
we get to see numerous amazing quilts every month at our meetings and
share stories and quilty information at our sew-ins, which I am in charge
of. I feel like I am putting together a small quilting party every couple
months and it is so much fun!
I have
learned in my time quilting that I am really attracted to brightly colored
quilts especially when they are paired with black, and I was beyond
excited when the fabric for April was shown to be Just
Beachy. Brightly colored fabric and the beach, what a winning combination!
I knew right away that I wanted a beach quilt and that I wanted to incorporate
a star in some way. I love starfish and sand dollars and have a
great childhood memory of getting up at dawn to go along the beach with my
family looking for shells and instead coming across about 30 starfish and a
handful of sand dollars! I chose to use black for the star to set off the
vibrant fabrics in this collection and just love how the blue dots look like
surf against the star pattern. I made a baby quilt in the past that was octagonal
in shape and really loved the look so decided that would work well for this
quilt too.
John
and I went down to the beach early in the morning to try and capture some nice
light and ended up with an awful lot of wind to "help" us out.
We found some neat seaweed-covered logs and a fallen tree that mimicked
the star shape in my beach quilt. We also paused to listen to the waves
crashing on the jetty and just enjoyed a quiet morning together.
In the
star I quilted ribbon candy to mimic the texture you see on starfish, I did
swirly waves in the blue dots, and then a wave/shell pattern in the
outer border. I decided to leave the bright fabrics un-quilted
so there is a nice poofy element in the quilt and also I didn't want to take
away from the fun designs on them. And it made sense to me to back
this quilt with jean material so I will not have to worry about it getting
tossed on rocks or whatever may be on the ground. My quilt finished about
60"x 60".
The next
project I undertook is a swim bag for taking to water aerobics class that my
mom and I attend twice a week. My current bag is a reusable (flimsy)
shopping bag that has no body, no pockets, and is not able to hold all my
"things" in an organized way. I solved these problems by making
this bag 20" long, 15" tall, and 6.5" wide in order to hold my
towel and two water weights. Then I put pockets on each long side that
are large enough to hold my flip flops and water bottle (or sunscreen) and a
zipper pocket on each end to hold my keys and wallet.
Now, I must
say that I am do not make bags regularly, so this was quite the task
as I made it up as I went. Crazy I know! I love how it turned
out though, it stands up on it's own nicely and the fabrics make it so much
fun! I can hardly wait until Monday to show it off at class, my
classmates are going to be jealous. Uh oh, they might want one, I should
go write down what I did, just in case...
I also
made a pillowcase for my sister-in-law who loves the beach so much she married
my husband's brother on it. I presented the pillowcase to her full of a
baby blanket and burp cloths as they are expecting a little boy in late
June. Yay babies!
The pillow case was made with the panel from
the Just Beachy collection using the burrito method that makes all the seams
end up covered. It is my favorite pillowcase pattern, such a clean
finish. And I love how the black colorful drink fabric sets off the
cheerful beach scene.
I have
some in-progress pictures on my blog, if you would like to see some
behind-the-scenes please come visit me at pamperedpettit.blogspot.com.
I am also on Instagram as Pampered Pettit and you can see more of my quilting
at www.bluespoolsewingroom.com
and on Facebook under Blue Spool Sewing Room. Thank you so much to Henry
Glass & Co. for the opportunity to work with this amazing fabric, I really
enjoyed the challenge and hope I have inspired all you readers to go
sew something fun!
~Brandy
