mbCD News 1:10 - First Blush Free Quilt Pattern and Sewing Room Mug Rug Tute, 2 Blog Hops + 2 Giveaways

View this email in your browser

Chris Chats

I celebrated my birthday last week and I had the best day. Simon, my husband, took the day off from work (a rare occurrence and quite the birthday treat in itself ;D) and we spent the day doing some of my fave things around Manhattan.

We took the ferry across to WTC; had breakfast in the food hall at Brookfield Place; lunched walking down The Ramble in Central Park; Kayser coffee at Columbus Circle; took a tour of the Museum of Arts & Design; dinner at Bar Boulud; saw a movie, The Girl On The Train (if you loved the book I'm afraid you're highly likely to be so disappointed with the movie); and finally drinks in an Irish Bar at Lincoln Square before getting a midnight Uber home. I'm exhausted just writing the list!

I've only lived here 5-1/2 years and I still love it as much as when I previously visited as a tourist, there's so much to do, so much diversity. In fact, it brings to mind Samuel Johnson's words about London way back in 1777, "No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.", and that sums up how I feel about New York too.

On the sewing front, I've released my latest FREE quilt pattern - Just One Block. I created the block earlier this year for the Benartex Bali Blog Hop and have now turned it into a full quilt pattern and resized the blocks to make the pattern fat quarter friendly. My pattern release coincides with the First Blush Blog Hop for Windham Fabrics and there's a First Blush FQ bundle & Aurifil giveaway on my blog through to Friday, 28 October.

I'm also involved in the Benartex Mug Rug Blog Hop that's taking place this week - there's a free tute for my Sewing Room Mug Rug and a Sewing Room FQ bundle giveaway that ends on Saturday, 22 October.

At some point this week I need to pack - I'm flying to Barcelona on Sunday and won't be back until 1 November. I'll be catching up with a friend, Adelaida, from my days working at The City Quilter who I haven't seen for about 3 years since she went home to Spain. I'm also super excited because all my kids are flying in to join me for a long weekend and my grandson, Oliver, will be there too and I haven't seen him since he was 3 weeks old, exactly 2 years ago.

If you're happy to stick around, thanks for subscribing and let's do this together :D

Chris Dodsley
- owner at made by ChrissieD

LATEST BLOG POSTS + GIVEAWAYS

First Blush Blog Hop & Giveaway

Excited to be part of this 18-day blog hop celebrating this month's arrival of First Blush fabric collection online + in quilt stores AND what a fantastic INTERNATIONAL giveaway I have for you in this post - an enormous FQ bundle AND a matching small box of Aurifil threads!

7 Fast And Easy Steps To Pattern Match Fabric Seams

I love whole cloth quilt backs and often find myself faced with several yards of fabric that I have to pattern match for that almost 'invisible' finish. This is my 7 step photo tute showing how I pattern matched two 2-1/2 yard lengths of fabric for a quilt back.

Quarter Inch, Single Fold Binding aka Flat Binding [Tute]

Ever wondered about the What/Why/When/Hows of single fold binding? How to achieve super narrow and light-weight binding? Look no further, I've got all the answers for you on the blog.

Benartex Mug Rug Blog Hop & Giveaway

It's so easy to fall in love with those Bernina sewing machines and Aurifil thread spools - two of my fave sewing items, If you'd like a chance to win your own FQ bundle of Sewing Room fabric head over to my blog before Saturday, 22 October (US residents only).

Just One Block
FQ Friendly Free Quilt Pattern

I'm delighted to share my latest free quilt pattern.

Just One Block is a large square quilt based on my original Kukulcan quilt block pattern. As the name suggests the quilt comprises of just one block with each block section mixed and matched to create 3 individual block patterns. Style it up or down and to suit adults or children, depending on your chosen fabrics. Adapting my original Kukulcan block' 12" finish to make the Just One Block block 10-3/4" makes the quilt pattern Fat Quarter friendly. Simple techniques will appeal to both beginner and more experienced quilters and I'll walk you through each stage with diagrams, photo tutes and lots of mbCD tips.

On the blog there are lots of tips, tutes and photos to walk you through making the quilt and for those who appreciate a bit less detail, there's also a link in the post to the basic 'no frills' pattern too.

What do you think? Do you like it? How do you feel about having a 'no frills' version of the pattern too? Drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you :D

Get The Pattern

Drop Me A Line

AND THE WINNER IS...

I have 2 winners to announce: the first is Lauren Gaub who is the lucky winner of the Quilt Alliance Quilters Take Manhattan giveaway held on my blog. Visit my blog to read Lauren's favourite quilt story;

and congrats also to Sonya who is the lucky winner of the Big Rig Quilting + C&T Publishing #ANewSpinOnDrunkardsPath giveaway also held on my blog. Visit my blog to read Sonya's love/hate thoughts on sewing curves.

Many congrats to you both and I hope you enjoy your prize goodies :D

NYC Metro MOD Quilt Guild

My quilt guild is back in session for 2016/17 and at our first meeting it felt like there's a fresh buzz within the group. Several of us are new to the board - I'm the new Vice President, and we have a new Treasurer and Membership Secretary too. I'm excited about the ideas that were ignited at the meeting and looking forward to where this year will take us.

We meet 2-6 pm on the first Saturday of each month (apart from Jan/July/Aug/Sept) at Hartley House, 413 W 46th Street, Manhattan and welcome new members and visitors too. You'll find more details here on our website.

There's a huge amount of talent in the guild and I usually post quilt pics from the meeting on my Instagram page and we've just created an IG page for the guild too.

If you're living in the Manhattan area or on a quick tourist trip, think about coming along to one of our meetings, we'd love to meet you and you might even see me wearing my Quilters Take Manhattan '2016 Featherweight Champ of the Quilt World' belt!!!

Happy Birthday
Take a birthday tour around Manhattan with me.

Did you know that all the lamp posts in Central Park are numbered to tell you where you are? There are 4 digits - the first 2 digits indicate the street number you're level with and the second 2 digits indicate whether you're closest to the east or west side - odd numbers are west and even numbers are east. This lampost is 8007 so I'm at 80th Street closest to the west side.

Above is the view over the Delacorte Theater and the Great Lawn from Belvedere Castle and also the view over The Lake from The Ramble.

Below is the beautiful Bethesda Fountain and to the right Bethesda Terrace.

Below Coille Hooven Tell It By Heart and Chris Antemann Forbidden Fruit exhibitions at the Museum of Arts & Design.

Crochet Coral Reef: TOXIC SEAS exhibition by Margaret and Christine Wertheim and the Institute For Figuring again at the Museum of Arts & Design.

Columbus Circle, then later a suprise b/d pud at Bar Boulud - thanks Simon x

Enjoying my newsletters? Feel free to forward to friends who may enjoy it too.
Not currently receiving this newsletter to your inbox?
Visit this link to subscribe and previous issues are available to read here.

Chris Chats

Just One Block FQ Friendly Free Quilt Pattern I'm delighted to share my latest free quilt pattern.

AND THE WINNER IS...

Just One Block
FQ Friendly Free Quilt Pattern

I'm delighted to share my latest free quilt pattern.