Winter Friend Pillows

I’m enjoying making other people’s projects these days! Like these Winter Friend Pillows!

I really love these little throw pillows. They were intended to be Christmas presents, but they were a little late. The green ones are staying at our house while the red ones found a new home. I’m calling them winter pillows, not holiday pillows. It’s still winter….

As you probably know, I love this book! Pretty In Patchwork, Holidays by John Q Adams. I’ve made a few projects from it, like these teachers gifts.

As much as I love this book, I did find a bit of an editing oversight. The project for these pillows in the book is called Greetings From Antarctica! I just want to clarify… There are no polar bears in the Antarctic. Penguins live in Antarctica, polar bears live in the Arctic. Things like this really bug me! Let’s be smart, people! Don’t dumb us down….

So I’m changing the name of the project to Winter Friends, as in they are all our friends. I don’t think polar bears and penguins would be friends.

The directions called for applique eyes and button eyeballs. As much as I don’t like applique, I did do the eyes! By putting a white circle over black, the black showed through, so I added some betting to my circles, so you couldn’t see the black through the white. But I didn’t want buttons for eyes. And I didn’t want to applique anything smaller than the eyes. I also have those eyeballs you use for stuffed animals, but I realized they wouldn’t work on the pillow. It was my son who said, ‘I saw you had some other round things in your cabinet.’ He was talking about my box of rivets! Perfect!

The polar bear actually had applique eyes (or was it buttons), but I added the diamond shaped eyes in the paper piecing pattern. I love how they turned out, but wonder if I had used rivets, would the pillows blend together better??

I did also change the pattern of the hat to make the white band thinner. Then the poof was to be a button or applique as well. But I hand sewed on a little pompom!

I did the same thing for the little penguins! just used smaller rivets and a smaller pompom. Also, for these little guys, I just reduced the size of the pattern when I made the copies. Next time, I’d like them a little larger!

I chose a freehand wavy pattern to work with ‘sprinkles’ of white to look like the sprinkles were snow blowing in the wind. I think it works!

The backs are BORING! But I’m ok with it, because the fronts are adorable!

And the invisible zippers rock!

I love my winter friends pillows! They make a great gift for penguin loving friends!

 

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!