Wildlife Pouches for Australia

If you follow me on IG, you probably know that if someone was offering a pattern with the proceeds going to help support the Australian wild fires, I pretty much got it! Which helps, but the wildlife rescue groups were also in need of pouches for the animals to live in. So we made some of those, too!

I joined the Animal Rescue Collective Craft Guild a FB group in Australia. They were continually posting that they needed a bunch of joey pouches and hanging pouches and bat wraps, etc.

So I told my son about the fires and the wildlife that were loosing their homes and he was all over helping to make these things the animals needed. He is a true animal lover, this kid! I printed the patterns from the FB page and we pulled out a bunch of fabric. We had high hopes to make a zillion! One of my close friends from here is now living in Australia and just happened to come home for Christmas. He agreed to take them back with him, so we only had a short window to make them in. We didn’t quite get as many made as we thought we would.

The kiddo cut out the patterns. I cut out the fabric and serged the pieces. Then the kiddo did all the finishing.

They were asking that each pouch had two or three inserts to go in it. We made 3 per pouch.

They are now asking for crafts to redirect thier crafting efforts to your local shelters. our local shelters here at home are also always in need. Or to make a financial donation, here. Everything is burned and these little guys need food!

We had fun making these little things and hope they find their way to an animal in need! Now we will look to our pet shelters to see how we can help them too. Despite the sad situation, we did have fun sewing to gther to help someone/something that needs our help. Hoping we can all remember this, not just in times of need, but all the time there’s someone or some animal that needs help.

An Angel Pillow

I have a whole stack of handmade Christmas presents piled up to share! I had a nice long list of handmade Christmas presents I wanted to make for family this year. It was a bit too long and I didn’t get it all done. But I did get a good bit done. At least one thing for each person on my list. And now I want to share them with you.

First up is this angel pillow! I actually pieced the angel in 2018, but didn’t make it for Christmas. It sat around for more months than I can to share until I got it quilted and made into a pillow in time to gift in 2019!

The pattern is by Quilt Art Designs. Have you seen her patterns? She has some of the most elaborate paper pieced patterns I’ve ever seen. They are so good! And she must have hundreds of patterns. I bet if you want a paper pieced pattern of something, she has it! You can find this one here.

For the dress I used an ombre pink fabric that I had in my stash. I believe it was by Cotton and Steel a few years back. I also debated on how to quilt it. I thought about starting with the halo and quilting a circular pattern radiating out from the halo. Now that I type this, I like that idea even more! But I went straight line quilting and I’m very happy with how it turned out.

I used all solids on the front, so I threw in some pattern on the back!

I know I’ve said it before, but I’m loving invisible zippers! This one is a little more invisible on one side than it is on the other! but it still works!

I’m pretty sure this one was well received by it’s new owner! I think it’s quite beautiful!

 

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!

 

Handmade Teacher Gifts

Halloween is over, and as much as I want to keep sewing for Halloween, I’m going to take a break and move on to handmade gifts! Not quite Christmas posts, but a few gift idea posts are coming up before I move into full on Christmas!

What do you do for Teacher gifts at the Holidays? I’ve always made handmade somethings! One year I made a two in one pouch for a teacher and one year I made a personalized pouch with the teachers initial pieced on it. I forget what else! ha! And then for the last two years, I’ve made these adorable little quilted ‘folios’ from the book Pretty in Patchwork: Holidays.

I’m a little obsessed with buying quilting and cross stitch magazines, but I rarely buy books. One year, I found this book is  super sale bin at the bookstore and I bought it. I have to say it’s one of my favorite project books I have! The projects are focused on Christmas primarily, but most of hte projects also have suggestions for turning the projects into other holiday sewing projects. Stay tunned for some more projects from this book this holiday season!

I made this one just like the directions say. I laid out my blocks how I wanted them, then turned them over, but forgot to flip their location… The little girl flying the kite was supposed to be on the front, not hte back! Oh, well!

My family gave me all the lovely Cotton and Steel fabric for Christmas. I think it was a perfect choice for this little gift!

I loved placing the little apple on the side pocket! Aren’t you supposed to give teachers apples?? I’m not exactly sure what apples have to do with teachers, but it’s a thing! ha!

And then I made another one last year for his teacher. This teacher is a University of Washington grad, so I went with a UW themed version! Purple and gold with touches of black and white!

Photo via Amazon

And for this one I combined the folio project with the Ho Ho Ho pillow project! The book has directiosn for each letter, so I made the W. I pieced this as quilt as you go and didn’t go back with any additional quilting. Looking back at this picture, i’m kinda inpreseed with how striaght my lines are! 

And the inside of this one!

I’d love to know your favorite teacher gift go to! I have a new idea for this year….. More to come on that!

 

My Halloween Quilt! with a paper pieced pattern download

I know, most everyone has moved onto Christmas, but I’m still posting about Halloween!

I started this about this time last year. I had a plan. I was going to do one block each month… I was also going to make one Halloween and one Christmas placemat each month. Let’s just say NONE of those things happened! Oops!

I didn’t quite finish in time for Halloween, but I finished 3 days later. So I’m calling that a win!

I did intend for the stripe to go from top to bottom, not side to side… But I realized I didn’t have enough of the green fabric, so I switched gears mid stream. I actually really like having the stripe of pieced blocks along the bottom.

Our Halloween guests seem to like it as well! They can still scare, but show off the stripe! ha! Who doesn’t love seeing monsters and skeletons cuddling under a quilt on the porch bench??? So sweet!

For this quilt I did paper piece the stripe. That’s how I got such sharp points! Look at those points! I love it! You can download the quilt block here. It is a 12×18 page, so most home printers won’t print it, but your neighborhood office supply store will be able to. The block makes a 10″ square.

How do you do binding? I sew mine onto the top and then iron it over to the back and hand stitch it to the back. I have not mastered the machine binding! Nope! And I love the time away from the machine to do a little hand stitching anyway!

And the back. I made a few extra blocks with the scraps to put on the back. Then I just pieced all my scraps for as much of the back as I could. Then I just started adding larger pieces to make up the difference.

Man, did this quilt almost give me a heart attack??? I was in the process of quilting it. I quilt on the dining room table. We had family friends over for dinner, so I just through my quilt and the machine in my son’s (also known at Lulu’s room, our 3 year old great pyrenees mix) room. Well, the pup got super excited about our guests, so we put her in ‘her room’ to calm down… When we go in the room, she has chewed up the quilt. I stifled my scream! we did still have guests… But luckily, she had just chewed the excess you add to the batting and back! So it was totally ok, but, man, did it scare me! And no, she didn’t get sick at all!

My token label picture that I take for each quilt!

I’m so excited to have it finished! And even though I have a list of more Halloween projects to do, I’m also excited to move on to handmade Christmas presents! What you working on after Halloween? Did you sew anything for Halloween?

 

ABC- O and Q Quilt Blocks

 

This years Modern Quilt Guild Quiltcon Charity Quilt Challenge is all about Text.

‘Quilts incorporating text have been popular in the modern quilt movement right from the start,” says the MQG. And this year all the participating guilds get to interpret that challenge in a black, white and grey pallette. The SMQG giving committee had a call for design ideas and they landed on one that includes a bunch of letters. You can see more about that here.

I came home and knew I wanted to make a Q. Instead of using a circle, I had the bright idea of using a hexagon. But then I wasn’t sure how to make the little line for the Q. As I’m thinking this out in my head, it started to look familiar… Like maybe someone else had already done this… Like maybe Jaybird Quilts in her alphabet block book, Alphabet Soup… Yep. That’s where I had seen this! I’ve been wanting to buy this book, but haven’t had a need for quilted letters. Mine are a bit different from hers, but totally inspired by hers!

And the hexagon used as an O! No patterns were used. I just started with a hexagon. and went from there! 

I really do like these blocks and can’t wait to see what the giving committee comes up with!

Another Handmade Backpack

OK, I’m a pretty bad blogger these days. it’s been a while since I showed anything… I missed back to school, when most people are blogging about back packs! And I made this back pack a while ago… But despite all that, here I am!

The first backpack I made was really cool! I loved the alien backpack! It was designed by the kiddo and so is this one! I don’t know where the design came from, but I have to say it was quite a bit easier to put together than the alien!

I didn’t use a pattern, but there are some great backpack patterns and tutorials out there! There’s one by Crazy Little Projects that is pretty similar to the one I made. I also love Sew Sweetness Bags and she has two backpack patterns, the Cumberland and Edelweiss patterns. And I like the pattern that So Sew Easy has on their blog. It’s small, but you can enlarge it for a larger kiddo or yourself. I haven’t made any of these patterns, but they can help you make your own, if you don’t want to wing it like I did!

On the inside I used a laminated cotton fabric. A bright laminated cotton fabric! I made this while I was at a retreat and I didn’t take a non-stick foot, and it did not treat me nicely! But I pushed on anyway!

I love to add key fobs…

The design on the outside is what the kiddo designed. It was much easier than the alien, but it was still tricky! Keeping those lines straight wasn’t as simple I thought it would be and especially without the right foot.

The other thing I think all backpacks should have is the side pockets. I always include elastic, so when it’s not being used, it scrunches up close ot the backpack and doesn’t flop around.

In the back I padded the straps and angled them out a bit.

And the kiddo liked it! That’s the best part of the whole thing!

 

A Harry Potter Project Pouch

This week is Harry Potter’s birthday and I have a couple of projects to share for the celebration!

I made a project pouch for the kiddo! I’ve been realizing that there are a lot of projects that I want to make, but I end of up quilting more than making fun things as well. I’ve been wanting to make some project pouches so when I got issue 76 of Love Patchwork and Quilting and saw the pouch project, I decided to make one!

The project is the Zip It Up Pouch by Minki Kim. I’ve kinda become obsessed with magazines, but now I have too many with too many projects to make! It was fun making this one! Even if I might not have followed the directions 100%…

I love the little clear pocket on the front. I think on my next one, I might put a snap on the pocket. I thought about putting in some elastic, but decided against it.

The pouch in the magazine was actually quilted. I decided not to quilt mine, but you could. I also took out the quilted back and used a piece of clear vinyl on the back so you can see which project you have in the bag.

I tried my hand at machine binding… I’m horrible at it. this corner is the best one. I know, I should show the corner I messed up, but I’m not going to! Ha! It was the best way to sew on the binding with the vinyl, but I think I have a slightly different plan for the next one! I think I’m faster at hand sewing the binding than at machine binding because every time I machine bind something I have to pull part out and try again!

What is your favorite pouch pattern? I really like this one! And I’m excited to make some more for each of the projects I want to take on vacation!

 

 

House Mini Challenge

I’m typically not a fan of mini quilts! Being honest here! Ok, I should say, I’m not a fan of making mini quilts. When I make a quilt, I like them ot be big enough to use as a quilt.

But recently I’ve started participating in the Curated Quilts mini challenges that they have for each issue. Have you made any?? This mini was for their House mini challenge.

I also have never made a house quilt block or a house quilt. Oops, I take that back. I did make some house blocks for a do.Good Stitches quilt. But I haven’t made any on my own. When I saw this challenge come up, I pretty much said nope. Not going to that one! In the end, I couldn’t not play along.

Do you ever google vintage mid century house plans? If not, you should! Every now and then I do because the drawings and ads and plans are just so cool! Being an architect, I knew that if I was going to do this challenge, I would have to do a floor plan. So I went back to my google searches and found a design I wanted to make into a quilt.

I took that plan and then laid out how I was going to break it down into a mini quilt.

And this is what I got! Walls, windows and planters. Originally I had planned to hand quilt in the pavers in the patio. I finished this right before I headed out on summer vacation last year, so the plan was to finish it on the road. That didn’t happen. I really think it would be more dynamic if it did have the hand quilting, but oh, well!

This quilt did not make the cut! And I totally see why. It’s not my best work, but it was still fun to make it!

Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Giving Committee 2018

Another trip down memory lane, although this lane isn’t that far back! Today I want to share the giving quilts I helped coordinate as a co Chair of the Giving Committee with the SMQG!

Does it kinda look like the same quilt twice? We didn’t start with that plan, originally for 2018, Debbie and I decided to make three quilts with the guild. One using the 2018 Kona Color of the Year, Tigerlily, one using a bunch of green fabric we had from Clothworks and the QuiltCon Quilt. For both of the first two quilts we ended up with two each from all the blocks we received!

Let me introduce Tic Tac Tigerlilly! I’m not sure why, but this one totally reminds me of a tic tac toe game! Do you see it?

Having a co-chair like Debbie meant we were going to have to use one of the colors of the year in a quilt! She’s a pro at making a quilt using the Kona and Pantone colors of the year each year. She has inspired me to do the same thing, but I buy the fabric and have yet to make a quilt on my own with the colors of the year! Anyway… For these March quilts we knew we wanted to use Kona’s Tigerlily fabric.

We really enjoy improv, but knew some of our guild members weren’t as excited for improv as we are. So for this one, we decided to skip improv and go with something a little more structured. A Log Cabin. But of course, it’s not a simple normal ‘ole Log Cabin. We added a twist!

We started with a red square for the center. Instead of each side being made of one strip, two sides of the block are made of groups of two strips of fabric and the other two sides are each made of one thick wide strip. You can follow the tutorial here.

We didn’t know how many blocks we’d get or how big the quilt would be. But we did know how we wanted to lay it out and that we’d need at east four groups of four. We got more than enough for four groups fo four!  I took the 16 that were the right size, the correct layout and the requested fabrics and put those together to make this quilt. The quilting was done by Cindy Krafft. Love how the swirls work with the straight lines!

For the back I found this great orange circle fabric that I love! And of course, I really love to use extra blocks on the back and we just happened to have some extra blocks and an unfinished block to bring it all together!

Quilt Name: Tic Tac Tigerlily

Quilt Size: 66” x 66”

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Quilt Top Pieced by: Louise Wackerman

Quilted by: Cindy Krafft

Quilt Binding by: Louise Wackerman

Recipient: Northwest Breast Center

Organized by: 2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

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Remember how I mentioned we had more than enough blocks for Tic Tac Tigerlily?? Let me introduce you to Scatterlilies!

For this one we used the more ‘scattered’ blocks. The ones that weren’t quite the right size, or colors or color placement. I added a little bit here and there to fit the blocks together.

A special shoutout to Pam Cole for doing both the quilting and the binding on this one.

Quilt Name: Scatterlilies

Quilt Size: 48” x 66”

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Quilt Top Pieced by: Louise Wackerman

Quilted and Bound by: Pam Cole

Recipient: Greater Seattle Intergroup of Alcoholics Anonymous

Organized by: 2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

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For the May Giving Committee quilt, we started the design around a bunch of green cuts of American Made Brand solids given to the Guild by Clothworks. Then we added solids from member’s stash solids.

We started with making squares using the green as the dominant color in the blocks. We could use any colors except bright white. We tried to keep the colors the relatively same value as the green.

Once you had your squares using the green, we asked members to start filling in with their solids until they had created a 14 1/2″ block. You can find the whole tutorial we used here.

Kinda like with the Robbing Pete blocks, I had a moment that I didn’t know if I was really liking these blocks or not. I don’t know why I was second guessing the design idea, but I was! But then, WOW! It really excited me as Debbie was piecing the blocks! I fell back in love with the idea!

Again! I love it!

Quilt Name: Bein’ Green

Quilt Size: 56” x 72”

Green American Made Brand Solid Donated by: Clothworks

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Quilt Top Pieced by: Debbie Jeske

Quilted and Bound by: Jana Royal

Recipient: Northwest Breast Center

Organized by: 2016-2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

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And last but not least! It’s the second quilt that started from the quilt above!

Once we had all the blocks laid out, there was a natural divide between the blocks based on the stash fabric choices. So again, we got two quilts out of one design! For this one, Debbie held out the blocks made with more brown fabrics and white linen blocks. And they just go perfectly together!

 

Quilt Name: GreenSquare

Quilt Size: 42” x 51”

Green American Made Brand Solid Fabric Donated by Clothworks

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Quilt Top Pieced by: Debbie Jeske

Quilted by: Jana Royal

Bound by: Debbie Jeske

Recipient: Northwest Breast Center

Organized by: 2016-2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske