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!

Jenn’s Memory Quilts- Part 2

Did you read my last post? Check it out here to learn more about the backstory of this quilt set.

The last post tells all about the memory quilt I made for one of my best friends stepdad. This post is about the quilt I made for her! From the moment she asked me to make her stepdad a quilt, I knew I wanted to make her one too.

Since I was in a hurry to get the first one done, I had to keep it to a manageable size to finish and quilt and send off. Because of that, I had a lot of fabric left. I don’t like to leave any fabric behind. It was perfect for making a small quilt for my buddy! I had more time to work on this one because it was going to be a surprise for her on our yearly beach trip.

I made the used the same Awareness Ribbon block on this quilt that I did on the first one for the Alzheimer Awareness block. I used a different bit of the breast cancer t-shirt. And I used the same shape blocks. But of course, the nature of the improv blocks gave it it’s very own same, but different look!

And for quilting, I echoed the Awareness Ribbon. I think it really made a difference in the quilt!

I used all the quarter circle blocks I had left on the front. I still had a few bits of fabric left. I sewed those together for the pieced back.

The quilting really stands out on the back of the quilt. And since this was smaller, about 36×36 inches, I went ahead and added a sleeve so that it could be hung on the wall.

My friend came to visit at the beachhouse, something we’ve done yearly for almost 20 years! When I handed it over she was shocked that she was getting a memory quilt as well! I’ve since received a picture of it hanging on the wall in their new home! It’s such an honor to be able to share my skills in this meaningful way to those I care about.

Jenn’s Memory Quilts- Part 1

One type of quilt that I love to make is a memory quilt. Last year, one of my best friends from high school lost her mother. Before I had a chance to offer to make her a quilt, she asked if I would mind making a memory quilt for her stepdad.

And of course I said yes!

My friend sent me a pile of clothes to use. I sorted out the sweaters. I have used sweater like material in a quilt before, but I try to avoid it for the most part. So I packed the sweaters back up for her and started cutting the knits.

Since it was almost all knit, I did a little test piece to see how the fabric worked. I didn’t use any interfacing. I didn’t use a special needle or thread. I just sewed together the knit pieces, added batting and a quilting cotton back. It stayed put, no pulling. Later I ended up adding a binding and giving this to my friend as well. I thought that maybe it could go to work with her.

And as I just mentioned on IG, I seem to gravitate towards the improv quarter circles! I don’t even realize that I’m doing it again, but I love it. I can’t help myself. I made a bunch of random sized blocks and then laid them out like a puzzle to get them to all fit together. Most of the fabrics were almost solids, or solids. There were a couple of t-shirts that she wanted to keep the tshirt design in the quilt top. My friend lost an aunt to Breast Cancer and her mom was very active in the local walks to raise money for breast cancer, so this shirt needed to stay in the quilt.

One other request my friend had was to incorporate a purple ribbon for Alzheimer’s. The horrible disease that took her mother. I used the Awareness Ribbon quilt block from During Quiet Time. The ribbon fabric was from my stash, but the yellow background was the one non-knit shirt that I was sent.

My friend wanted to present the quilt to her stepdad at her mom’s memorial. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I stuck with a simple straight-line quilting and simple purple back.

The quilt made it the day of the memorial, but not before the memorial. But that was ok. She and her family had rented a beach house nearby and were able to get the quilt and present it to her stepdad. The stories of how special this was for both her and her stepdad reminded me that this art that we make isn’t just art, but a warm fuzzy that heals, brings love and can forever bring a smile to those who receive them.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the story!

A Little Beach Creature Pouch

I love beachy things. Including beachy creatures. And so does my mom. So what better gift than a beachy creature pouch?? I think it’s a pretty good one!

The project has been on mind for a long time! The project came from the Summer 2014 Issue of Stitch Magazine! You can see I have another marker in the magazine. It has a few beachy projects in it that I want to make one day. This project was designed by Lee Chappell Monroe.

I’ve been thinking about it for ages, but the embroidery only took about an hour! I love odd numbers, like these three creatures. I also love that they are close ups of each of the creatures!

I used this really fun sea creature fabric on the inside! I think this fabric is just great. A little beachy with a mid-century vibe. I also used this fabric for a pretty cute drawstring bag last month.

I did add the wristlet. But I made it with the same fabric as the pouch, rather than ribbon and it ended up with a lot of layers… The one thing I don’t like about this pouch design is that it has exposed seams on the inside. So I decided to serge the edges, but forgot about all the layers at the wristlet and totally just kept going with the serger and broke my serger!!! Ugh! I need to take in for repairs. But the pouch looks good! and was gifted this past holiday season!

Pretty cute! And it’s happy in it’s new home, I’m sure!

Gifted Nutcracker Pillow

I have this and one more handmade, holiday themed gift that I want to share with you! I guess if I was a better blogger, I would have posted this closer to the holiday… But that’s not me! And I don’t want to wait until next Christmas to share!

I follow Tomte Studio on IG because her patterns are just perfect! I’ve purchased a couple of her patterns, but this is the first one I’ve actually pieced together. Honestly, I don’t think she has a pattern that I wouldn’t make!

For this one, I pieced the nutcracker block, then had plans to quilt it before I added on the red sides. Only I forgot and added the top border before quilting…

I felt lucky to already have all the different neutral colors that I needed to do the face!

My last few posts have been sharing projects made with other creator’s patterns that I had tweaked this or that way from the original pattern. Not this one. I didn’t change anything and it went together perfectly!

One of my favorite details was the little glitter in the eyes of the nutcracker! I was planning on just piecing it with the green, but then realized I could catch that little bit of light!

I used a solid back of one of the fabrics I used on the front.

As soon as I saw this one, I knew exactly who I needed to make this for. And I’m glad I did! You will be seeing me make more of her patterns for sure!

Christmas Minis

For real this time, not placemats!

These three mini quilts are all made using the same fabrics, but given two different years!

First up is the Christmas Wreath Mini Quilt from Wife Made. You might recognize this one as I also made it into a Christmas placemat for me! I actually made this one for a Christmas gift for last year and actually gifted it last year.

The pattern doesn’t have a center, but I added fabric and made an inset circle to give it a center. I also love how the star quilting moves into the center.

For this one, I did add insul-bright batting in case the recipient wanted to use it as a hot pad on the table.

The great thing about this is that the colors also went with her easter decorations, so she used it for more than just her Christmas table!

Next up is the Winterlong block by Quilt All The Things. This block was a free quilt block pattern in the Solstice Sampler 2022. The pattern is still available for download until tomorrow, December 31st. As soon as I saw this pattern I loved it! I knew I exactly what I wanted to do with it! Originally, I was going to make both of these hot pads as well, to go with the circluar one.

Even though it clearly says it’s an 18″ block, I thought it was a 12″ block! As I was making it, I was thinking, hmmm, this seems really big… Duh… So no hot pad for this one. It became just a fun decorative mini quilt!

And the third and final mini quilt is the Polaris quilt block by Coronado Quilt Co. This block was also a free quilt block pattern in the Solstice Sampler 2022. The pattern is still available for download until tomorrow, December 31st.

I did something with the quilting on this one and it will not lay flat. I blocked, but not for a very long time. Not sure why… Oh well. It’s still cute and delivered with love for Christmas!

I wanted to use the same backing from the round one on these, but I didn’t have enough. I think this fabric filled in for the other just fine!

I really love giving handmade gifts for the holidays! There are so many options of what to make. I’m going to try to start a little earlier this year though! 🙂 I think I say that every year…..

Christmas Mini Quilts, I mean Placemats

I worked on these a lot last year, but didn’t quite get them finished for Christmas.

I did get them done this year, but then didn’t have a Christmas Dinner at our house this year! O well, they are ready for next year… We did use them for breakfast, though.

This first one was inspired by a quilt in Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine Issue 66. I had bookmarked this issue becuase there is also a Christmas Quilt in it with very cute Christmas themed blocks. I ended up going a not so literal Christmas route on my placemats and didn’t use those blocks. But this block is from the Festive Flocks quilt design by Caroline Hadley.

I love Unicornharts Patterns! I made her Crimbo pillow last year and love it! The tall tree is using her Rocking Around Tree foundation paper piecing pattern. Then the smaller one I used her pattern again, but took out the center piece of triangles.

I kinda got obsessed with this pattern last year! I made this Christmas Wreath quilt pattern by WifeMade twice last year. This is meant to be a circular mini quilt, but I made it a rectangle placemat!

Ok, for this one, I have to admit, I forget where the inspiration came from! But I love the vintage ornament feel of this pattern.

Then I started getting a little more improv with my placemats. For this one I used all the leftover triangles.

For this one, I started with little white squares and used scraps on two of the corners of each block. For the edges, I used more triangle scraps.

This one started with two leftover blocks from my 2018 Christmas Quilt. This one used mostly improv 9 patch blocks. I put them together kinda similar to the process above. For the quilt, I started with a more traditional 9 patch, but improving it, I got as close to a 9 patch as I could. Then I sliced it in thirds and flipped the pieces around and sewed them back together again!

And for my last one in the set of 8 placemats, I decided to go with different sized flying geese!

I forgot to take a picture of the back of these placemats! They ae all the same purple Cotton and Steel snowflake fabric. And I made one love roll of binding for the whole set and went to work!

Even if we didn’t get to use them for Christmas dinner this year, they still looked great on the table around the baked goods! I hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday this year!

Santa’s Helpers Christmas Quilt

It’s almost the big day!!! And I have an adorable quilt finish to share for the holidays!

As much as I love designing my own quilts, I am a huge fan of the super cutesy patterns by Corinne Sovey. This is her Santa’s Helpers quilt. It was a Block of the Month quilt along, but of course, I didn’t keep up with that… But I made it all the same.

I think one of the things that make her quilts so adorable are the big round eyes. I don’t think it hit me that they were applique when I first purchased the pattern. Luckily, I’ve become much more comfortable with applique these days and actually enjoy it now. But I don’t like to turn the edges as I go. I like to just applique with the edges already ironed under. I do this different ways. Sometimes I just use cardstock in the right shape. But this time I tried the Applipops!

The applipops use two metal circles to give you a perfect circle piece to applique! It worked perfectly for this quilt!

I followed the directions on almost all of the blocks except the gingerbread man. It also was about my applique concerns. I’m not good at inside corners. They make me nervous! The pattern calls for the whole gingerbread man to be one piece of applique. I divided it into four pieces, the head, the body and the two legs. I added the white stripes. I pieced the body, but appliqued the hands. I appliqued the head and the legs onto their background fabrics then pieced them all together.

This was my first time quilting with wool batting. I had a heard a rumor that it doesn’t crease at folds like the cotton batting does so I wanted to give it a try. It was a little nerve wracking, but in the end, it all came together. I mark my quilting lines with one of these purple marking tools, Dritz Smooth Tracing Wheel. During the quilting on thsi quilt, I had to take a moment to say goodbye to this one! It was a sweet and short farewell. Luckily I had anotehr one on hand to keep going!

This penguin is one of my favorite blocks! The thing I do like about this pattern is most of the blocks would make fun pillows, too!

For the back, I used a lot of the larger scraps from the front and made a log cabin back. It feels very preppy to me for some reason!

We’ve had this on the bed since before Thanksgiving. I usually don’t like to bust out Christmas before Thanksgiving, but I did with this fun quilt! Hope everyone is ready for Christmas and able to relax with loved ones today!

Mini Series Courthouse Steps Pillow

AKA Terry’s Pillow!

For the last couple of years Giucy Giuce has teamed with Alison Glass and have hosted a sew along to sew his mini series patterns. Last year I signed up and I knew exactly what I wanted to make. A friend of mine loved the Halloween pillow I made four years ago. And I wanted to make something for her using this pattern.

I didn’t end up sewing along during the actual sew along, but later I got to sewing and made a bunch of different sized courthouse steps blocks using the Mini Series pattern.

I always have a problem with actually quilting these blocks. I debated on thread but ended up only quilting in the ditch with the cream fabric. But I love this picture to illustrate the scale of the piecing of these blocks!

I chose a few details to zoom in on. Each of these blocks look a bit different, but they were all started using the same pattern. I varied the size of the center. And then some of them, I only did two sides (rather than all four sides) for some of the block. And I varied the placement of the orange and cream fabrics. By changing each one up a bit, it looks like I used a different pattern for each piece, but I didn’t!

Check out my not so invisible invisble zipper! I should have used an orange zipper…. Oh well! If it’s sitting on the couch, are people really going to be checking out my zipper installation? I hope not!

I used a single fabric for the back. Even though it’s a single fabric, I still also use a layer of batting and a backing piece of fabric. Then I serge the edges to keep the layers together. I feel like it gives the pillow a bit more shape.

I thought it would be fun to share this pillow this week since it’s the second week of the Mini Series Sew Along and the Courthouse Steps block is one of the blocks to sew this week! Are you sewing along? I am! I’m back to Halloween fabrics for this sew along.