Ferris Wheel- A Mini Quilt

I’m currently trying to NOT start new quilts and only finish ones that I’ve started… I know. I know. Typical quilter comment… My rule is to not start anything new unless it’s a Quilt improv Studio challenge, a class, or a Curated Quilt Mini Challenge. This is one of those! This was for the Curated Quilts Mini Challenge from last fall. The theme was Paper Pieced.

I decided to go back to my stash of quilt designs from my Quilt Design a Day days. This one was from way back in 2016 I think!

I took my original design and played around with a bunch of different color ways based on the mini challenge. Obviously, I ended up with the top left color scheme. Which one is your favorite?

I made a little mistake in piecing in the beginning. I had to go back and remove one of the corner pieces of each block. The way I had put pieced them they just sat together in a square, but I was looking for the Ferris wheel effect! No biggie! I just took that corner of and pieced them back together!

I just used a solid piece on the back. It really shows the quilting. And this is how I hang my minis. I put triangles in the corners and use a wooden dowel for hanging. Super easy!

This one did not make the Mini Challenge cut to be featured in the magazine. My InsideOut Pineapple Quilt did make the cut for the full size quilt gallery, though!

It was a fun little challenge. Will I make it again? I don’t know!

A Pair of Cross Stitch Pillows

I love these pillows! They were a long time coming and Have been done for a while, but I haven’t shared them!

First I’ll share the ‘Be Silly, Be Honest, Be Kind’ one because this one took the longest. I volunteered to be a pattern tester for this pattern years ago. I learned my lesson to never volunteer to be a cross stitch pattern tester. I’m pretty slow with cross stitch, especially one that is this detailed. The pattern was great. It is by Imagine Gnats, but unfortunately, I can’t find her internet presence anymore.

When I do cross stitch, I’m typically not a fan of Aida fabric. Aida fabric is easy and I can move faster, but I don’t like the feel of it. Instead, I use quilting cotton a lot of the time. I typically line it with a layer of white fabric on this back. I then use a sticky back grid on the back of the hoop for the grid.

Once I finally finished the cross stitch, I knew I wanted to make it into a pillow and decided to do a couple of inset circles using this tutorial. For a while I had a setting on my sewing machine wrong and when I did circle quilting, the whole thing would warp like in this picture. It kinda made a bowl. But since I was making pillows it ended up giving me just the right shape for the pillow insert! Ha! Who knew!?!

The next cross stitch pattern didn’t take nearly as long! This is an Emma Congdon (aka Stitchrovia) pattern that was a free kit included with all print editions of Cross Stitch Crazy issue 242. I love her patterns! I have about 999 of her patterns in my ‘To Do’ queue!

I made this one exactly the same way as the first one. With two layers of quilting cotton and the sticky back grid. The pieced with inset circles and quilted.

For the back of both, I just used a solid piece of the same front fabric. Nothing too exciting here.

I think these might just be some of my favorite cross stitch/quilted projects!