a Happy Birthday Quilt Block

Recently I have come to realize that as far a sewing goes, I think quilting is my favorite. It’s long and can be time consuming at times but in the end its magic!

Some of my favorite quilting products are made by Olfa… how could I quilt without my rotary cutter and self healing mat!? They are celebrating their 35th Anniversary so when they contacted me about reviewing a few Olfa Products, I was in!

  I was sent a fresh, new rotary cutter, a frosted acrylic ruler and a rotating self-healing mat, which I have been eying  for months. They also asked if I wanted to make a quilt block to celebrate the big 35! The only rules were that it had to be 6.5″ x 6.5″ and there had to be some yellow in it. I started by pulling my yellow scraps.

I searched online for a block that looked like a birthday cake and I came across this tutorial so I pretty much followed it and used the dimensions she gave, I didn’t make mine wonky though, I went with a straight cake :) I LOVE my new rotary cutter! My other one is a lot bigger so this one is perfect for small projects. I also love the smaller acrylic ruler for the same reason. It also works better on darker fabrics because of the frosted background.

Let me just say how much I needed the rotatable self-healing mat in my life. I am very lucky and have a huge work table in my craft room but it can present a problem with trying to walk around it for cutting.

This was a quick block to sew! Its nice to have a quick project that I can finish in no time :)

I used my rotating cutting mat, acrylic block and rotary cutter to trim it up to size.

Lastly I used a stamp and permanent ink (which I heat set) for the number 35 on the cake.

They are collecting the blocks to make a big quilt to display at the Houston Quilt Market this fall… how fun! Happy Birthday Olfa! Thanks for inviting me to the party :)