Plus Playtime QAL Introductory Post and List of Sponsors

Woo hoo! It is here! As I said when I was emailing my lovely generous sponsors, it feels weird to write 'second annual QAL' when Freefall, the first one, doesn't seem to have happened that long ago!

Once more here is the quilt in its original fabrics as featured in Benartex's Modern By The Yard ezine! That link will take you to their blog where you can download your copy of the ezine which contains my pattern.

There's just something about seeing your own quilt professionally photographed...

And a straight-on shot on our fence:

Here is the schedule, which you can also find on the main landing page I've created. That main landing page has the links to all of the following steps to the QAL:

April 11: QAL Announcement Post
April 24: Introductory Post and List of Sponsors - you are here!
May 1: Step 1 - Fabric Requirements and Tips
May 8: Step 2 - Cutting
May 22: Step 3 - Row 1 Construction
May 29: Step 4 - Row 2 Construction
June 5: Step 5 - Row 3 Construction
July 5: Finished Quilt Parade Linky opens

If you are quilting along, please grab my button on my sidebar, which is coded thanks to my darling friend Tish. Shout-out to her if you aren't aware, because she is gearing up for her first Mystery Quilt! A long-time tester for Cheryl's mysteries at Meadow Mist Designs, she is now branching out to do her own. I've had a sneak peek, and I cannot WAIT to start this one, as it's a real beauty. Head to her blog (after you're done here of course) for details. Don't worry, you can handle this QAL and her mystery; mine is super-easy and hers is super-spread-out, what a combo. 😀 Like the two of us!

A note about the date of this post. I had it about half done when I ran out of steam last night. Started getting the coffee ready for the morning, and putting my yoga gear all together for the early morning class I attend in Windsor...bam! It hit me: today is April 24. This post was supposed to be published April 24.  Today (like last night) is/was Tuesday, April 24!! NOOOO.... One of the joys and oft-times annoyances of being retired and only working part-time, is that sometimes I get dates messed up. Days of the week? No. Easy, because of teaching yoga four times a week. Dates? Uh yeah, they go by too quickly, something my dad always used to comment about. 😔 So you aren't wrong when you read this and notice that, wait, the date is April 25; she said it's going to be posted the 24th... It's just my brain that short-circuited again...

Okay sponsors.

I am so very very grateful to my generous sponsors for this second annual QAL. I do hope you will check them out, and patronize their businesses when making either a pattern or fabric purchase for your next quilt. Two years ago there was a 'May is for Makers', where you do purchase something from a small business that you wish to support during the month of May. I wonder (hope) it happens again this year. There is such generosity in QBL, so once in awhile it is a good thing to show some of your faves a little $$ love to help them keep going. 😊

1. Benartex has a bundle of fat quarters of 'Wonderlust' by Paula Nadelstern going to one lucky winner who lives in the USA.

Wonderlust is what I am using for my adult rendition of Plus Playtime. Once again, here are the fabrics I am using:

Stitch Stash Diva

Stitch Stash Diva has been on Etsy since 2011. Tayva started the business as a way to gather all her 'fun and and bright fabrics in one location'. It is now a work-from-home business for both she and her husband, Joe! SSD is offering a $100 grand prize and two $25 part-way-through check-in points prizes!
You may recall that Tayva sponsored Helen's and my Postcard from Sweden QAL which ended last week. She found me, after a serious uptick in purchases for Postcard from Sweden kits, and I am so happy we have connected, so I hope you hop over and check out her store...there are some great deals with her moving shop, just sayin'...

Mad About Patchwork

Mad About Patchwork is located in Stittsville, Ontario. They are a bricks and mortar shop as well as as online shop. They also found me through the Postcard from Sweden QAL and I'm so happy they are back to sponsor this QAL of mine! They are offering a $50 grand prize for finished quilts. Great minds think alike: they, like SSD, suggested making up a kit!

You can find this colourful rainbow here.  Note that you will provide your own background fabrics (the large plus and the background).

Clinton Modern Creative 

Clinton Modern Creative, based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, has been an online store for about 9 months now. When Darla opened her store she felt there was "a need in the Canadian marketplace for more modern fabrics, patterns and supplies" and boy, has she delivered! She is curating two kits for this quilt! And here they are:

You can find this gorgeous bundle of 'Architectures' and 'Gleaned' here.

If you prefer this bright bundle of Alison Glass, check it out here!

Please note that I am not affiliated with any of these three quilt shops, just happy that they want to kit up a quilt that I designed. 😃

And this just in!! I don't know if you've been hopping along with The Great Canadian Shop Hop on Instagram, hosted by @handmade_habit, but wow, has it been both inspiring and eye-opening as to the wealth of shops we have here, both bricks and mortar and online. On their feature day, each shop has a percentage off coupon and many are hosting giveaways too. The two Canadian shops that have made kits for my QAL😍😍 have 10% off coupons which you can use when you order your kit! I'm not affiliated with either of them, just passing along savings to you, my readers, when I can!

**Clinton Modern Creative has 10% off your order from today through the end of Saturday with the code SHOPHOP. They are the shop with two kits to choose from.

**Mad About Patchwork is also offering 10% off orders from now until April 30 with the code GCHS10.


Canuck Quilter Designs

Joanne has been quilting since 2000, blogging since 2010 and designing most of that time!

Here are just two of her many wonderful designs. She is Canadian, but lives in Iowa and was in the direct path of the total eclipse last year. She created that incredible design to commemorate it. Starfall is her newest, just-released pattern. And, she may have a sale on it right now, just letting you know!
She is offering two PDF patterns of the winner's choice as a prize.

Cooking Up Quilts

Beth has been quilting for 15 years. She lives in West Virginia, where she is currently working, a lot more hours than she bargained for, at a quilt shop! She's been designing quilts since 2015 after pattern-testing for Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs. She started blogging in 2014, and is currently one of four hosts for the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop. She is offering one winner their choice of two PDF patterns.

Devoted Quilter

Leanne has been quilting for 21 years; a wedding gift for a friend was her first quilt, hand appliquéd and hand-quilted!!  She started designing in 2014, and had her first design published in Make Modern in 2015! She once said to me that she had NO idea she'd be designing and publishing her own patterns, and be published in several magazines, when she first started quilting all those years ago! She lives in Newfoundland. She is offering the winner's choice of two PDF pattern downloads.

Meadow Mist Designs

Cheryl is offering two prizes: two PDF pattern downloads to each winner! Cheryl's day job is 'an engineer and patent agent for a private textile and chemical company.' She lives in South Carolina, and started blogging in 2013, not long after she'd started quilting! Like me, there are no quilters in her family. She is probably best known for her wonderful mystery quilts, and most recently published her first book, Modern Plus Sign Quilts, with Paige of Quilted Blooms. You may notice Cheryl is and has been an inspiration and mentor to several of my sponsors here, including me. 😇

Quilting Jetgirl

Yvonne is offering one winner a choice of two PDF pattern downloads! Yvonne lives in California, and her pre-quilting career was as an aerospace engineer. She has quilters in her family, and recently wrote about enjoying time spent back at her parents' house, sleeping under one of her grandma's quilts! My own grandma made exactly one quilt, red and black wool squares, tied, very heavy, always on the couch. Yvonne has been quilting since her teens, blogging, hmm, consistently, since 2014, but posts go a ways back before then (1996!!). She is known for her transparency quilt designs, and she is the Aurifil designer of the month for April! Another really interesting post for you to check out once you're done here.

Sew Fresh Quilts

When I asked Lorna if she would consider sponsoring my QAL, she immediately replied with a resounding, yes! and then she asked to feature me on her Let's Bee Social Linky party! Wow! I'd like to think it was little ol' me posting about the Plus Playtime QAL, that started the uptick in downloads of the ezine off the Sew In Love With Fabric blog, and I'm sure I did a little bit, but they informed me that all last week they noticed a pretty decent increase in downloads! So thank you Lorna. 🙏 Lorna started blogging in 2012, shortly after she started quilting! She lives in Ontario, and is known for her adorable animal quilts, and fun QALs.  She is offering one winner a choice of two PDF pattern downloads!

Tish N Wonderland

Huh? You may be thinking; that's not Tish's logo! Well, it's a hint for you. You may know that both Tish and her husband, Dave, quilt. They live in West Virginia. Both work full-time jobs, but quilt all they can in their spare time, and both attend their local guild, though David not as regularly due to job and time constraints. Tish has been quilting for 13 years, and blogging since 2015. She taught David to quilt a couple of years ago! David is the main designer, Tish the EQ implementer and pattern-writer. Both come from quilting families, and both are being featured separately, Tish next week, on Melva Loves Scraps 'Quilters Through the Generations'. Tish has already drawn Plus Playtime in EQ to play with her colour choices, and has graciously given me a copy to share with you for colouring purposes. You can download it here in my Craftsy store. (That's an affiliate link, but the page and all but one of my patterns there are free.) In case you haven't noticed, Tish and I are pretty close, having met in the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop in 2015, and we've gotten together a few times (never enough!) IRL. We both are cohosts of this year's hop.

moi aka mmm! quilts
I've been quilting since 1995, and blogging since 2013, when I quit my teaching job, and made a major move across Canada. I wanted to keep in touch with my friends and family who lived far away, as well as document my quilts, and occasionally muse, as in share some thoughts of life after 50. I started designing seriously a few years ago with Pocketful of Sunshine, free on Craftsy (see sidebar), which has been unbelievably popular and was featured once on Craftsy's free pattern Friday. I have run a #30quiltdesignschallenge on Instagram for two years now, which has really helped spark the designer in me. I'm offering two winners a copy of Blue Skies & Sunny Days, my one and only 'for $$' pattern, but I hope to have at least one or two more (they just need EQ diagrams!!) uploaded by this summer, so I'll up it to two PDF copies of the winner's choice.

I have two more sponsors just in!

Stitchin At Home

Cindy and I met in the NQBBH 2015. We live relatively close by North American standards: I am at the south end of Lake Erie and she's two hours northeast of me not far from its shore! She has been quilting for 25 years, and blogging since 2014. She started designing her own quilts in 2014 and has designed three BOMs for her guild. Last year she did a BOM on her blog; the patterns for all the blocks are still there.  As well as two new patterns releasing in May, she has a couple of upcoming publications in magazines! She is offering one winner a choice of two PDF patterns from her Craftsy shop.


All Points of the Compass
Jean writes a wonderful blog. She lives in New Zealand, and took part in last year's Freefall QAL. This year she wants to sponsor my QAL! Hugh makes beautiful wooden bowls, and she is offering one of them as a prize, along with this adorable frog to hold pencils and markers, to anyone quilting along in New Zealand!

Jean started blogging in 2011, when she started"Bags for Japan from New Zealand" by asking for bags to be sewn to be sent to the earthquake region in Japan. Her 'man' Hugh has made wooden items for years, she says. Her blog name comes from a dear friend who was in HMS in WWII.

Make Modern

The ladies at this great ezine said it so well, so here is a little bit about them right off their website:
"Make Modern started in 2014 as a collaboration of three Aussie quilters who built a close friendship through the online quilting community. Our magazine is written by a small team of passionate modern quilters in Australia with a huge team of amazing quilters from all over the globe who contribute patterns and articles."

Issues come out bi-monthly and contain articles and modern quilt patterns. You can purchase a subscription or a single copy here. There's a brand new issue coming out May 4! Make Modern is offering a 6-month subscription to one lucky winner.

Okay that's finally it! Thank you for reading through all that, but I wanted to give a little background and shout-out to each very much appreciated sponsor. 😍😘😘 I will be back on Tuesday, May 1, (promise!) with fabric requirements and some tips which you won't find in the ezine, so hope to see you next week! Watch this space for kit updates too.

Linking this up
Sew Fresh Quilts
Quilt Fabrication

SaveSave