Off the Path- A Mini Quilt Tutorial

You may recognize this little guy from some of my other quarter circle quilts. I do have a fondness for quarter circles! I’ve used this technique in my 2020 Temperature Quilt, Off the Path Version 1 and Weeping Willow in Black and White. Off the Path takes the traditional Drunkard’s Path down a windy, smaller road! In the spirit of small piecing this little mini quilt was born from some of my office doodles and from scraps from larger projects! This is an easy one to use up your scraps and make one for yourself!

I realized I had not shared this mini quilt, nor had I shared that it was featured in Quiltmaker Magazine back in 2019!

It’s been a while since I shared a tutorial, so I thought I’d share this one today. This mini finishes at 12.5 x 12.5 inches. And ot make it I grabbed (4) colors and (3) cream colors.

Cutting:

From Cream solids, cut:
15 (2.5” x 2.5”) squares
18 (3.5” x 3.5”) squares
3 (4” x 4”) squares
From Colors, cut:
24 (2” x 2”) squares

There are 2 different blocks in the quilt, a single and double quarter circle blocks.

Assembly of the single quarter circle blocks:

1. Pair a cream square with a colored square. Stack the two squares in the bottom left corner. Align the fabric squares with your cutting mat squares. (illustration 1, above)
2. Here’s where the improv comes in! No templates needed to cut your curves. You will cut a curve in the two pieces of fabric starting at ‘about’ 1 1/2” and ending at ‘about’ 1 1/2”.
3. Keep the colored quarter circle and the cream background piece.
4. Sew the two pieces together, right sides together. Do not pin! Align the quarter circle about a ¼” in from the edge of the background. (illustration 2, above) To sew without pinning, as you sew the pieces together hold the quarter circle, which is on top, with your left hand and hold the background piece with your right hand and guide them through your machine. As the fabric moves through the machine, you will gently pull the two fabrics so the edges align as you sew your ¼” seam.
   Remember: These are improv quarter circles. You are not sewing a perfect quarter circle!
5. Iron the seams toward the center of the circle.
6. You will now have a pretty wonky block. Trim this down to a 2 ½” square.

Assembly of the double quarter circle blocks:

1. Follow steps 1 and 2 above, but for this one you will cut a curve in the two pieces of fabric starting at ‘about’ 1 ¾” and ending at ‘about’ 1 ¾”.
2. Follow steps 3, 4 and 5 above.
3. Trim the block to 2 ¾” square.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 above using the plus or minus 1 ¾” curve. Ideally you will have about ½” to ¾” between your cut and the previously sewn curve. (illustration 3, above)
5. Repeat steps 3, 4 and 5 again.
6. Trim block to a 2 ½” square

Once you have all the mini quilt blocks completed, you can lay out and assemble your blocks. You can match my layout, so design your own! It’s a pretty quick and fun little design to play with.

Once you lay out piece together all the blocks, quilt it however you feel most comfortable. I like to use curved quilting, but straightline and freemotion quilting would both work as well!

My token label shot! This was the old black and white label…

I love this picture and how tiny it looks! What do you think? Do you want to try it???

Fresh Linens- A Pillowcase Tutorial

I wrote this tutorial back in 2015! Way back! It’s been hanging out on the Go To Sew website all this time and I decided to bring it back. (hence the old branding, etc…)

I love making pillowcases for gifts! I’ve used two methods. One, my own method detailed below. And secondly, the burrito method by The Seasoned Homemaker. Both are good! Since I haven’t made this one in years, I kinda want to go back and try it again!

Have you ever made your own pillowcases? Did you know that it takes about a half hour for a new pair of fresh linens??? I was shocked! I had been thinking about making pillowcases for a week or so when I decided to give it a try. And I’m hooked!

I don’t have a serger, and I didn’t want any exposed seam allowances, so this pillowcase is chock full of French seams!

To start, gather your fabric. For the pillowcase you’ll need 1.5 yards of the main fabric, 1/2 yard of the hem fabric and a little bit of the accent color.

The first step is to cut your pieces. SO for the main fabric, you’ll need (2) 49×20.5 inch pieces. For the hem piece, you’ll need (2) 8.5×38.75 inch pieces. And for the little accent piece, you’ll need (2) 1.5×38.75 inch pieces.

First, sew the main piece of the pillowcase. Fold the fabric wrong sides together, stich a 1/4 seam allowance along the long sides. Then trim this seam allowance, but only by a hair! Then pull the case inside out and sew another 1/4 inch seam allowance along the long sides, covering the seam allowance from the last hem! Done with the main piece.

Now assemble the hem piece and the accent piece. Fold them both in half, the long way, and iron flat. Wrong sides to wrong sides. Then, at the ends open the fabric flat, right sides to right sides and  sew a 1/4 seam at the ends. Iron the seam open and then fold in half again and re-iron it flat. You will end up with two long circles that kinda look like the infinity scarves everyone loves!

Assemble! Here you need your main case right side out. Next to that the hem piece and in the very middle the accent piece. Align all the stitched edges. Pin the rest with edges aligned.

Sew another 1/4 inch seam. Trim the seam allowance, again, just a hair! Fold the pillowcase with the inside of the case out and the hem and accent inside the case. Iron the seam flat and sew another 1/4 inch seam. I’m all about the 1/4 inch seams here!

And finish! Pull the pillowcase right side out and iron the seam flat. Then topstitch along the last seam.

Lastly, insert pillow, snuggle up and take a nap! Did you know they are that easy? They are so quick and easy! I’m in love and thinking about some Christmas presents!

Improv Stars Quilt Block Tutorial

This one is long overdue! I made the tutorial WAY back in 2017 for my group in the do. Good Stitches group. A long time ago!

I asked my group to make a few of these stars each and send me some navy squares as well. The stars and navy squares turned into this lovely quilt I call, Falling Stars.

You may recognize it as I’ve posted it on the blog before when I was honored to have it featured in the Curated Quilts Curves Edition. The magazine is fantastic and this issue is full of great talent (if I do say so myself!)

I even had some left over the quilt back. I think a random scrappy placement would make a really cool quilt, too!

You can take this block tutorial to make all sorts of fun things! So let’s jump into it! They are curves, but they are super simple! Trust me on this! Let’s go!

1. Stack the background and star fabrics, right sides up with the star fabric on top of the background fabric. 

2. Trim off each corner with a quarter circle shape. No rulers! Start your curves at approximately the center of each side of the background fabric and finish on the adjacent side of your square, in approximately the center of the background fabric block.

3. You want to keep the corners in the same location as they were cut! Discard the star fabric corners and the background fabric star. (I keep all my scraps, so you can keep them and use them to make an inverse color Falling Stars quilt!) Then stack your star and corners and move to your sewing machine.

4. Line up your star fabric with a quarter circle of the background fabric. Right sides together. You will want the background fabric to overlap the corners of the star fabric by about a half inch. Do not line up the corners of the background and star fabrics!

5. Now sew it together. No pinning! This is all about moving the pieces slowly through your machine and continually aligning the two pieces. You want to hold the top fabric in your left hand and very slowly, move the star fabric with your right hand. As you sew, continually move the blue and yellow fabric towards each other so that the edges align with each other as you continue from one end to the other. If you need to stop and adjust, that’s fine. At the end, the bottom fabric is going to try to stick out and it’s ok if it does! 

6. Iron each quarter circle as you go. Iron towards the background fabric. You’ll see that the fabric will guide you to ironing towards the background fabric! 

7. Sew on the next quarter circle. Make sure you overlap so that you have at least 1/4″ before the yellow, preferably more.

8. You’ll end up with a pretty funky shaped block! Use a 6 ½” square template if you have one to square up your blocks. Try to keep at least ¼” of background fabric at each corner of the star. 

Once you get it, you’ll have plenty of stars in no time! Enjoy! 

My son started a new quilt this week and he wanted stars, so I didn’t teach him any old star. I taught him an Improv Star. He made tester block for his first attempt and it wasn’t very good. (Mostly because I cut the fabric the wrong size since I thought it was just a test.) He kept trying to convince himself that it would work because he didn’t think he wanted to make three of these. But by the time he finished the second one, he realized how easy it was and continued on to make the third! If he can do it, so can you!

Can’t wait to see what you make with the Improv Star Quilt Block!

Doggy Bandana Tutorial- Holiday Edition

Ok, there really isn’t any other edition other than the holiday edition! But you can make these dog bandanas for any occasion you’d like!

They are super simple, reversible and just fit over the collar so that there’s not another thing around the pups neck!

Oh, and did I mention stinkin’ adorable???

Here’s the story… I’m kinda obbessed with my dog and follow a lot of big white Great Pyrenees on IG (mine’s a mix, but very much a pyr in her own right!) and I see so many with these cute bandanas. Then the other night, when I was supposed to be making Christmas presents, this whole bandana thing popped in my head as a super easy thing to do. So I made two!

I put the kiddo and pup to bed and took Lulu’s collar. She was soooo not happy about me taking her collar! I don’t know why. And she seemed very happy to have it back the next morning.

I’ll show you how I made mine.

First step is kinda obvious… You have to cut the pieces out! You can download the pattern here. And cut out two pieces.

Along the top edge, the squared off edge, sew a French seam. First, sew along the top with a very scant 1/4″ seam, fabrics wrong sides together. Then fold the fabrics over at the seam, now right sides together and sew a 1/4″ seam. Easy peasy, but if you would prefer a more detailed French seam tutorial, they are all over the internet.

Now you are going to sew a 1/4″ hem along the short, straight side. (the sides perpendicular to the French seam. Sorry, not a great photo for this step.) Fold over a 1/4″, then fold over another 1/4″ to hide the edges and stitch.

Then fold over, right sides together, and stitch along the triangle edges.

Be sure to trim the edges at the point of the bandana to avoid bulk before turning right side out.

Turn it right side out through the collar holes. Next I marked my stitching line from corner to corner, about 1 1/2″ from the French seam.

Then topstitch and you’re ready to insert the collar!

Look at that model pose!

They really are super cute and quick! Now this one is sized for about a 65/70 pound dog with a 1″ collar. You can resize for a smaller dog and use the same process.

I ended up giving the reindeer one to her cousin before she had a chance to model that one. I might just have to make another one! A quick and easy sew for a festive pup! Let me know if you have any questions!

 

A Mountain Pillow- Quick and Easy Handmade Gift!

Every year my office has a White Elephant gift exchange with a theme at our Holiday party. Last year the theme was High Low.

We never really tell each other who got what, so I’ve never actually made a gift for the exchange. This year, I had a little problem…

I bought these beautiful beaded snowflakes from Blair at Wise Craft Handmade. They start high in the sky and end up low on the ground… Get it? High Low….

Well, the day of the party I decided I didn’t want to give up any of my ornaments and I needed to come up with something else to give at the party!

I’d been seeing a lot of these mountain pillows. I got the ornaments at our local handmade craft show. And at the craft show, there were a few people selling these mountain pillows. Most of them were made of beautiful felt and were way over my price range. But I kept being drawn to them! And then I had a great idea…. I’d make a new gift. I’d make a mountain pillow! High Peaks, Low Valleys… High Low!

I just happened to have this grey fleece that looked kinda like the felt that all the others were made of. And I had this fluffy white fleece, which I totally think looks like fluffy snow!

Although I didn’t actually made a tutorial, I’ll tell you how I made it! It was so easy and quick, I didn’t even have time to think about pictures! ha! I cut out the mountains, sewed on the snow on top. I made a front and back, with snow on both front and back sides. Next I sewed the front and back together, right sides together and then turned it right side out and Boom! A mountain pillow! SOOOOO easy!

And the pillow was stolen a couple of times, so it was a hit!

These were all adults that loved it, but they could be fun in kids rooms too! Adventure themed rooms… So many possibilities and such a quick make!

 

You’re Cool, Valentine! Printable Penguin Valentine Tags

Who loves penguins??? We do! Who loves stuffies? We do!

I like to make class Valentines about something the kiddo is excited about and not just about candy! Once we did Astro-Ordinary crayons. And another year we did Legos.  We also did Pokémon Valentines, but I lost the pictures of those… I need to find them… Anyway… Back to the penguins!

We didn’t want to do a penguin with a heart sewn on it or glued on it. And we wanted him standing up, so we finally narrowed it down to a Christmas penguin.

We ordered these little guys online. But of course, their scarfs would not do for Valentine’s Day. Nope! So we took them off. They were sewn on, but only with one stitch or so. Easy to get off. We used the Christmas scarf as our template for the red Valentine’s Day scarfs.

And I designed the tags. You’ve probably seen my Quilt Design a Day ‘sketches’. To make those I use an app called Assembly, so I thought it would be fun to try to design the Valentine tag in the app as well. And we loved the way it turned out!

Then came the assembly line. We actually added a tiny ribbon to the tag, slipped the scarf through it and then double knotted the scarf on the penguins!

Soon enough we had a ton of Valentine’s Day gifts for the whole class and some special others.

You can download the penguin Valentine tags for yourself here. I have two sizes. First I made the 3″ tags (9 to a page) and then realized it was just too big. So then I made a 2″ tag (12 to a page) and they were just right!

Download the 3″ Penguin Valentine’s Day Tags here.

Download the 2″ Penguin Valentine’s Day Tags here.

These are for personal use only! Thank you!

 

Have you decided on your Valentine’s for this year?

A Halloween Centerpiece Craft

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything besides sewing or quilting projects! So I’m excited to share a Halloween craft!

If you have been following me for a while, you know I love Halloween! And crafting for Halloween! At our house we decorate almost as much for Halloween as we do for Christmas. We change our art wall, we hang a bunch of bats, decorate the porch (Of course),  bring out the bat and ghost pillows, switch out the mantel decorations…. And this year we even filled the fireplace with pumpkins! But today I wanted to share a centerpiece we made!

It’s a pretty easy project! It involves a trip to the dollar store! And who doesn’t love that??? You need plastic skulls, black paint, hot glue and a round piece of plywood. The skulls are from the dollar store and the amount you need depends on the size  of your round piece of plywood. I got my plywood at Lowes. I got 7 skulls, but you can always get a few extra ot be safe. Who doesn’t need a few extra skulls to decorate with??

The first thing I did was to paint the plywood. In hindsight, I might like a bit thinner piece of wood, but this came with the finished edges and I didn’t have to cut or sand anything! So I went with the slighter thicker piece!

Next, I laid out the skulls on the plywood to confirm the right amount. Then just hot glue them to each other in a circle.

And the third and last step (see I did mention it was pretty easy, right? Glue the top on! I used hot glue here as well!

It’s ready to go with whatever decorations you want to use!

What do you think? Is it something you’d want on your dinner table? Or is to creepy, staring at you while you eat? Maybe just bring it out for the party? It could also be a fun place to display party favor bags for your spooky party… We might have a spur of the moment party this coming weekend! I should probably make a decision about that!

 

 

Inset Corners- A Quilting Tutorial

One more post about my Raindrops on Wildflowers Quilt! I’ll show you how I made all those inset corners!

I made the block up to start with, but then I had to figure out how to actually put it together. I thought about more piecing, but I had to make a lot and that would have been too many steps per block. So I had to figure out how to make with as few pieces as possible. I made a little video of how many steps there still are in the block!

Anyway… I digress… Back to the corners… Maybe everyone else knows how to do this. I did a lot of inset corners on the Weight of Love quilt I made, but for some reason it took me a little while to get it to make these blocks! I kept forgetting which way to sew them together… Finally it stuck and I was on a roll!

First up, stack the two fabrics on top of each other so that they overlap.

Then trim the two pieces of fabric. And you end up with the pieces above.

Mark one piece, on the right side, 1/4″ down from your corner.

Mark your second piece, on the wrong side, 1/4″ down from the corner.

Stack your dots! I’m using solids, so it doesn’t really matter for me, but you’ll want these to be right sides together!

Then sew, using a 1/4″ seam along the edge and stop at your dot.

When you stop at the dot, leave your needle down, but raise your foot. Then pull your top fabric around to align with the bottom piece. Sometimes the fabric wants to bunch under the needle, sometimes it doesn’t. Not sure why… But when it does, I just go in with my tiny scissors and move the fabrics behind the needle so they aren’t bunching. If you watch the ‘video’ above, you’ll see these steps in action!

Then continue sewing out to the other end!

Here’s the kicker! Iron into the V. If you iron the other way, you’ll get bumps.

Then you have this!

Some pretty awesome looking inset corners! Oh, yea!

Honestly, I kinda hated cutting the second one off to add the half circles. But it had to be done. I thought about not using the half circles on the back blocks, but I really like the half circles, too. Big Dilemma I had! I used the inset circle tutorial to add the circles.

Hope this helps in your sewing fun!

Left and Right Quilt Tutorial

Remember my do Good Stitches Left and Right quilt that I wrote about last month?

Honestly, It’s pretty easy…. I’ll show you how we did it. You’ll need 3 colors of fabric for the flying geese, white and a pile of grey scraps. Unfortunately, I don’t have a quantity of how much of each fabric you’ll need. You’ll need to do the math on that based on how large of a quilt your looking for.

image via A Quilters Table

First, we’re making a big batch HST. Have you tried my friend Debbie’s tutorial for big batch HST’s? It’s awesome! You can find it here.

To make your big batch HST’s you’ll need (1) 9×9 square of white for every color 9×9 square. (1) set of 9×9 squares will give you 18 HSTs.

You’ll also need to cut:

(9) 2.5×3.5 white rectangles- (1) for each set of HST (which will make 1 flying geese).
And grey scraps

Once you’ve got your HST’s, we need to add the grey bits! Then line up the ruler so that you are cutting off the tip of the colored edge of the HST, 1.25″ away from the center.

Add small scraps of grey to each corner. I suggest chain piecing at this point. I also didn’t trim the grey scraps. I just made sure they were big enough that once they are folded over, they cover the corner.

Trim each HST block to 2.5 inch squares.

Next, let’s make some flying geese! Sew together 2 HST’s to make your flying geese blocks. Chain piece again.

Sew the 2.5×3.5 rectangles on to the left side of each HST block. Make sure they are all pointing in the right direction.

Then do it again and again and again for each of the three colors.

OK, from here on out, I don’t have very good pictures!

Sew the blocks together along line 1, shown above, first. Do this with all the flying geese blocks.

Next take the double flying geese blocks and sew them together along line 2, shown above. Be sure to backstitch at the top and bottom of each!

And do that until you get length you want of the each of the rows of each color. Add strips of white between and you’re done!

There are a lot of little blocks, but they go pretty fast, especially if you chain piece them!

What do you think? Will you make it? If you do, please let me know! Can’t wait to see it!

Sew Ready to Play 2016 Recap!

Time to say goodbye to this year’s season of Sew Ready to Play! it’s been another great one! Which project are you going to make? We’d love to know! I want to give a HUGE shout out to all the amazing guests that agreed to join me and play along this year! THANK YOU!!!

 

Sept 9th- Liz and LiZ  from Simple Simon and Co

Sept 14th- Stacey from Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy Crafts

Sept 16th- Narelle from Threadistry

Sept 19th- Debbie from A Quilter’s Table

Sept 21st- Louise from I’m Feelin’ Crafty

Sept 23rd- Al from Shaffer Sisters

Sept 26th- Michelle from Factotum of Arts

Sept 28th- Ashley and Emily from Frances Suzanne

Sept 30th- The Recap!