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!

Advertisements

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

********************

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

*******************

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

*******************

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!

 

A Halloween Pillow

Well, I had started a Halloween quilt back in January, I think… Despite the 10 months, I didn’t get it done….

No quilt, but I did get a pillow done! And I love it! I keep looking at it admiringly as I walk by the couch!

I also like seeing it with the other pillows I’ve made over the years. I love seeing the different styles and fabrics I’m into over the years!

For the pillow, I’m using a lot of the fabrics that I’m using my quilt. Or a different color way… Most of the fabrics are from the Cotton and Steel collections. I LOVE their holiday lines! LOVE them! Was this the best fabric to use for tiny piecing? I don’t know, really!

Last month I took a paper piecing class with Giuseppe Ribaudo, aka Guicy Guice. I’m not sure why I did, since I’m pretty well versed in paper piecing. Honestly, when I signed up, I thought it was a small piecing class, not paper piecing. It never dawned on me that his small piecing was paper piecing! Ha! Anyway, I’m glad I did! He shared his Mini patterns with us and I picked Courthouse Step block. I almost didn’t go because I had so much birthday party stuff going on and the whole paper piecing thing. But I’m glad I did! he was super nice and a lot of fun. And I loved seeing what everyone else made from the patterns! And I love my block!

Guicy Guice centers a lot of his minis in a neutral background so I thought this neon bat fabric would be great. And I did some matchstick quilting. I love doing matchstick quilting on small projects. One day I’ll do it on a larger project. maybe… ha!

I loved this fabric so much that I bought it in two color ways!

And if you know my pillows, I always do envelope backs because I’m kinda lazy that way… But this time I decided to put a zipper in it. I used to always put zippers in pillows. Especially when I was selling pillows. If I can do it when I’m selling them to other people,, why can’t I do it for myself? I did use Sew Katie Did’s tutorial to remind myself how to do it. Its’ not hard at all, but I used to be better at hiding the zipper than I did on this one. Luckily the fabric matches it!

Have a Happy Halloween from my photo assistants!

Ted Wiggins and his Unicycle!

This project is a kinda old one, but I never showed it! And it deserves it’s spot on the blog, in my opinion…

A while back my friend wanted a Ted Wiggins doll with his unicycle for her son, but couldn’t find one online. So she asked me! I love the Lorax, but was blanking on who Ted Wiggins is! He’s the kiddo in the lorax that goes and meets the Lorax outside of town and learns the whole story. In the movie he has a unicycle. A big red unicycle. And of course, I bit and took the challenge!

This isn’t a real tutorial, because I didn’t measure everything and I didn’t save my templates, or any of that. But I do want to show you a bit about how I made these guys! First up is Ted.

I started with the Mikey Monkey doll pattern from mmmcrafts. I have made this pattern before when I made Bear and his best friend Pear for my kiddo. I altered it a bit then for the monkey to be a bear and I did it again for the monkey to be a boy.

The main alteration was the shape of the head. I didn’t want it to be as round as the monkey head, so I worked that out. One reason I wanted to use this pattern is that he comes with accessories, like shoes and a baseball cap. I knew I needed a helmet, so I altered the baseball hat to be a bike helmet. I had to make a trial hat to make sure it fit on the new head shape though! I also added more pieces of fabric for the shirt to match the look of his shirt!

And I winged it on the hair and face! When I stitched the hair on the back of the head, I also stitched up through the brown to give it a little more dimension, instead of just along the edge. I didn’t like it just straight across the back, so I added a couple of curves. And the hat turned out great! I put the front and back together and then hand stitched the flames on. The hat is removable. In hindsight, due to the age of kiddo that this was going to, I probably should have sewn the helmet (and the shoes) on the doll! I wouldn’t be surprised if they got lost pretty quickly!

And I love the shoes!

I had fun taking pictures of him as he was being stuffed and coming to life!

And his unicycle!

The handlebar… So for the handlebar, I wanted it to be skinny and stand up straight. I tried a few things and this is what worked best. I sewed on the red pieces to the longer sides of the grey ‘x’. I included the seam allowances, ironed those over, folded it in half, wrong sides together, and then topstitched. I left the bottom open and one side of the handle to stuff in the pipe cleaners. Then stuffed the pipe cleaners in. As many as I could! Then sew up the other side of the handlebar!

For the bottom of the unicycle, I totally winged it and drew it out. I cut the black and red based on my drawing. The design is to have two sides and one long stripe going around the sides, like a box pillow.

So I sewed the two red sides to the handlebars.

I measured out how much black and red sides I’d need. Made long side strips. Pinned the sides on (yes, missing some step photos, but not a full tutorial here!) to the front and back, right sides together and sewed it all together, leaving a hole in the bottom. For stuffing I used foam pieces. I used two pieces of foam so that the handlebar would be situated between the foam.

And, like the helmet, I hand sewed the flames on the unicycle.

And there you have it! Tedd Wiggins and his Unicycle! I think he turned out pretty cute!

 

In the Magazines, a Mini and an IG Giveaway!

Last month I was in two magazines! It was so exciting to come home from vacation and have both of the magazines waiting for me!

Which one should we talk about first??? Let’s go alphabetically… Curated Quilts! Have you seen this magazine? It’s so beautiful! And I got to be a part of the 3rd installment focusing on Minimal Quilts!

Each issue of the Curated Quilts magazine has a Mini Quilt Challenge gallery in it. They give a theme and a color scheme and then you make a mini and upload to their website and they choose about 25 minis to be featured in each issue. I usually don’t do mini quilts. I can’t don’t get them. To me quilts are a work of art, but they are also meant to be cuddled with. So mini’s have always kinda confused me! But then when I saw the color palette for this challenge, I had to play along!

I loved the neon colors and I just happened to have them already! And I just happened to have an office meeting doodle that I wanted to turn into a quilt, so I put them together and look what I got! 

The little triangles are about a half inch tall. Pretty tiny!

For the back, I used another little strip of triangles and a big patch of pick! Ignore the lovely polka dot label. That’s totally NOT a design feature! Ha!

And of course the little label, but I love how the quilting stands out in this picture.

I didn’t get any quilts in the QuiltCon Show last year, so I was a little bummed! Until I walked into the Curated Quilts booth and what to my eyes should appear?

But a bunch of mini’s right there! With mine smack dab in the middle! So I kinda did have a quilt at QuiltCon after all!

And next up… Modern Patchwork!

How funny! I just realized as I am writing this that both of the quilts involve triangles! This one is flying geese, but triangles none the less! My Left and Right quilt was published in the May/June issue of Modern Patchwork. I love this quilt! This was a Nurture Circle do. Good Stitches quilt. The variety of fabric colors from all the different members is what made this quilt so exquisite. In my opinion.

image via Modern Patchwork

Are you wondering about the giveaway by now???

I’m going to give one reader, who is also an Instagram follower, one copy of each magazine! Be sure to go to my IG page and follow the directions!

Thanks for reading! Can’t wait to share these awesome magazines with you!

 

 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

This year was a bust… First off, I didn’t get to make a costume. The kiddo decided to be Harry Potter and we had already purchased most of the pieces. He’d been planning this for months! And then tonight he came home from school with 102 degree fever. So, while the other kids were getting dressed and heading out for some haunting, we hunkered down and watched a movie. The worst Halloween he said. Poor Kid!

But I made another Halloween pillow! I’m so excited to trade it with a friend for a piece of art!

I used my bat pattern that I have on Craftsy! It was fun to break out the pattern again! It’s pretty quick and easy!

I through is a little piece of with one of my favorite Halloween fabrics! I used this same fabric on my Halloween quilt from a few years back.

I always say I’m going to add a zipper back, but then I never have one when I need one. So I always resort back to the envelope style back. And I’m fine with that! At least until I buy a stash of zippers…

According to this guy, it’s pretty comfy too!

If you decide to make a bat pillow, be sure to tag me! I’d love to see what everyone else makes with them! I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween! I can’t wait until next year!

Modern Sampler Quilt

You may remember me starting the Modern Sampler Quilt Along with Salty Oat, way back in at the beginning of last year. Then I got most of the blocks done by May and then finished the beginning of this year.

This quilt is pretty much not my style at all! I like it, but the low volume, not me! It was a fun challenge to try to stay low volume for a whole quilt!

And the pattern… Well, how to put it nicely… It was challenging. Maybe it was the difference between being familiar with my own versus a Japanese pattern. Or maybe it was just ‘challenging’. And the blocks weren’t our usual 10.5″ inch type block.

But I couldn’t stop. There were a couple of blocks that had me considering packing it up and calling it done. But I didn’t! And I’m glad I didn’t.

Some of the blocks were more challenging than the others. But what I did get used to was all the mitered corners on each block! The last few look much better than the first few. It just takes practice!

And the back! Although it’s upside down in this picture, I do like the minimalist layout! ha!

And a little bit of color to the binding!

It’s hard to see all the details that went into this quilt in the full frontal pictures. So this quilt is going to my do Good Stitches group They have very kindly agreed that I can keep my do Good quilt from last year that got accepted into the Quiltcon Show if I send in this one! I’ve grown very attached to my other one! I can’t believe it has taken me so long to show this one off!

 

 

 

National Thrift Shop Day

Have you been thrift shopping lately?? It’s one of my favorite things to do! And I’m excited to show you my latest purchases to celebrate National Thrift Shop Day!

Recently I was contacted by Value Village about promoting thrift shopping on National Thrift Shopping Day and I jumped at the offer! Um, yes! I had it my mind that I was ONLY going to get crafty things, but of course there’s so much more to thrift than craft supplies!

My first stop at thrift shops is always the linen department! And when I saw these whales, I knew exactly what I wanted to make with them. I’m totally going to make pillows for our beach house and maybe even a quilt to go with them. I came straight home and ordered some Kona cotton to match, exactly! Can’t wait!

I usually don’t buy pattern books, but I saw this one and it had some cool things in it, so I added that to my pile! I also found this pattern in my size. It looks a little dated, but last winter I saw a woman wearing a coat that was so close to this pattern. So I’m hoping that with the right fabric and this pattern I can recreate that look I saw!

So this pattern is what sold me on this book! And how about these pillowcases? I think they will be perfect for this pattern. through in a contrasting solid and boom! Gonna be cool!!!

This one is a cool one too. It could use the pillowcase fabric and be really cool too!

The thing about thrifting that I love is giving everything a second chance. Ok, well, number one, the finding cool and unexpected things is probably my most favorite thing about thrift shops! Second giving everything a second chance and keeping all things out of landfills. And finding new uses for the things I find. Like this book, for instance. It’s full of very traditional patterns. But I totally want to take them and make them modern or even, wait for it, Improv! Like a piece of this block will be cool as improve in my 2016 BOM quilt. Actually most of the blocks in the book will make cool improv blocks!

I mentioned more than craft things… When you’re kiddo loves books, you want to foster that love of reading, right? Books can be expensive… Unless you buy used books! The kiddo found a nice large pile of books that he wanted. Dad found the stamps and I jumped at the Frog Juice game! We love this brand of games, so I know we’ll love this one, too! And yes, you heard me right! This thrift shopping thing is a family affair!

And lastly, I am loving these cross stitch tablecloths. I’ve been collecting a couple over the last year (to go with my lovely quilt collection… Since I need something else to collect!). So when I saw this one, I didn’t think twice as I through it in my basket. I want to do a whole cloth quilt out of one. I also saw my friend Blair, of Wise Craft Handmade, cut one up and use it in a quilt. It is really cool!

What do you look for when you go thrift shopping?

And I want to send a big thank you to Value Village and my new friend there for hosting my shopping trip! Shopping secondhand is a major benefit to your wallet with 96% of the retail items at Value Village being priced under $10. Go celebrate National Thrift Shopping Day!!! Every day is National Thrift Shop Day in my book!

 

Value Village provided me with a gift certificate for this thrifting experience. All opinions are my own, honest opinions!  

 

The 1-Hour Dopp Kit

I love patterns that say 1 hour!

Ha! Whatever! Well, it takes me almost that long just to pick the fabric. And if you quilt it, right away the one hour is out the window! Right? And maybe once you’ve made it once it will only take an hour, but the first one never takes me just an hour. Maybe you are faster than I am!

For this one I used the 1-Hour Dopp Kit Tutorial from the Craftsy Sewing Blog. Even though I’m complaining about the one hour part, I like the pattern and would like to make another one. This one was a Christmas present for my husband, but the kiddo took it instead!

I love the little handle! You could do two, but I chose to do just one. You only carry it on one end, so why do you really need two handles?

Although the inside corners take some thought, the turned out great. This feature was one reason I headed to this tutorial over some of the others. (ignore the toothpaste spots. It’s proof that it is actually being used as a toiletry bag and not a bag to carry toys!)

And the bottom! Do those stripes look familiar? I used scraps from my 2016 SMQG BOM Medallion quilt!

So what do you think? Would you give it a try? Do you have a favorite Dopp Kit pattern? I’d try a different one next time. I kinda want to make a leather one… Have you?