Sew Many Colors Winners!

Sew Many Colors by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill — Pattern

Sew Many Colors by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill — Pattern

In February, we introduced you to Sew Many Colors, a brand new pattern by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill of Whole Circle Studio. We made the pattern available for FREE both on our site and on Sheri’s site and launched a contest, asking participants to create their ‘favorite 10’, using Aurifil Threads and Kona Solids from Robert Kaufman.

We had so much fun watching the entries roll in, admiring the colors, the different styles, and even the bits of humor thrown in. Entries were due at the end of March and we made everything available for a public vote for 2 weeks at the beginning of April. Quilters with the top 3 minis were promised both space to showcase the mini in our booth at Spring Quilt Market in St. Louis and a pretty fabulous prize package featuring items from Aurifil, Robert Kaufman, The Warm Company, and Whole Circle Studio.

Today, we’d first like to applaud all of our entrants. You are all amazing and we are so grateful that you played along and shared such beautiful works of art with us! Thank you, thank you:).

And now, to unveil our Top 3 Minis! These minis gained the most amount of public votes and we are thrilled to share them with you today! Drum roll please…

LAURA PILAND
Laura is a quilter, pattern designer, and homeschooling mom of two young boys. She is also an ex-math teacher and, with a last name like Piland, there’s a strong love of Pi in her house! She quilts because it keeps her sane and she loves that what she sews stays sewn at the end of the day, unlike laundry and dishes and… In real life, she creates in her home in southwest Missouri. However, she doesn’t have any local guilds or sewing friends, so the online quilting community her my tribe! You can follow along with her latest shenanigans on Instagram or Facebook, or read about her latest quilt finish on her blog.

Can you tell us about your mini and what inspired your lineup of colors?
When I first saw the “Sew Many Colors” pattern, I laughed because I use white 50wt Aurifil 99% of the time! I thought making the pattern with just white thread spools would look a little boring, so I wanted to add something else. When brainstorming what to add, I decided that since the challenge was all about Aurifil thread, I should make the thread be the star of the show! The circular arrangement of the spools inspired the mandala style quilting. And surprise – I used white 50wt Aurifil!

NICOLE BUCKLEY
Nicole Buckley has been quilting for less than 4 years, but sewing since she was eight. She falls on the artistic side of quilting and prefers to add her “spin” on projects.  Her quilting skills are best displayed when she hand quilts. She prefers paper piecing, but is trying to push herself outside of her box by adding improv and design to her skill set.  While Nicole does have a blog, she rarely uses it. She finds herself drawn to Instagram and is deeply inspired by many there. That is where you’ll find her, posting obsessively about her quilting, art, and swimming in the sea.  She has two cats, Percy and Hermione, who are both featured under the hashtag #catsonquilts on Instagram.

Can you tell us about your mini and what inspired your lineup of colors?
I decided to be artistic, which represents my style. I decided to go simple, I piece with simple white Aurifil. I kept the spool the same color that my thread is wound onto. I decided to use the gray Kona to pop against the white and orange, because gray is the new black, lol. The empty spool with embroidered thread represents that I can always use (and need) more thread. Lastly, I made it mini-er. Why do it just like the pattern?  I shrunk to 50%. She measures in at 7.5 x 8.25 inches. She’s tiny!

JENNY NAULT MEEKER
Jenny’s love of quilting began with self-drafting traditional style quilts and hand quilting them to give as gifts. After a six year hiatus, she returned with a renewed love for the craft of designing and making quilts, favoring a more modern approach. With the explosion of modern quilting techniques and tools, as well as countless suppliers of quality fabrics, threads, and notions, she now finds it to be much easier to nurture her creative side. Jenny’s Connecticut town is home to a handful of great local quilt shops, all heartily supported by the sewing community. Many offer classes for developing new skills and regularly introduce new notions, feeding Jenny’s need to make more and more modern quilts and sewing projects.  Her growing crafting knowledge in partner with knowledge gained from her existing day job has allowed her to start properly drafting patterns of her own, a goal she is hoping to reach before the end of the year. Jenny  works by day as an executive assistant, quilts at night, and spends as much time as possible with her husband and young daughter. You can find Jenny on her blog, on Facebook, and on Instagram. 

Can you tell us about your mini and what inspired your lineup of colors?
I love testing patterns for designers as I always learn something new and the making process often moves me out of my comfort zone.  So for this mini, I branched away from the typical bright rainbow colors as I wanted to include more colors that are usually forgotten when doing color oriented quilts, hence the inclusion of the cream and gray.  Also, I tend to like contrasting thread against patterned fabric for most projects so I wasn’t sure how much I was going to like the tone-on-tone thread painting idea over the matching solid Kona I had for this mini–but I ended up loving the end results!  The comfort zone also was pushed a lot when I decided to hand embroider the Aurifil logo in the center of the mini–a skill I had not attempted before, but really felt this mini needed to feel complete.

Interested in creating your own top 10 mini? You can grab the pattern here on our website. Thanks so much for joining us and make sure to follow along with us on Facebook & Instagram to see these minis in action at Spring Market!