Cookies for Santa

 At various times during the year, Fire Monkey and I have done sewing projects together.  At one point, I think in the spring when he was still doing school from home most of the time, I suggested we make a special place mat/cookie mat for Santa.  I had recently gotten both the gnome and gingerbread cookie dies for my Accuquilt cutter and he loves to crank the cutter.  We place Santa's cookies on the edge of the hearth of the fireplace, so a mat makes sense.

 

I let Fire Monkey loose with my Island Batik scraps and he chose fabrics for three gnomes and two gingerbread cookies.  We laid them out and fused them, then set it aside and didn't pick it back up again.  About a week and a half ago I realized we better get it finished!  I stitched around the fused-for-several-months applique shapes, then asked Fire Monkey if he wanted to "decorate" the cookies.  He did, so I gave him the fabric markers.  Notice the elaborate "necklace" on one of the cookies; he made the mouth way too low and fixed it with the necklace.  I quilted with straight lines and bound with a few days to spare.

We set out two gingerbread cookies for Santa (plus a bowl of carrots for the reindeer, not pictured) and the mat did its job and looks nicer and more welcoming if your cookies are going to be left out on the corner of the fireplace.  Other than the delay of over six months in between steps, this was a quick and fun project.  

Notice the daylight?  I forgot to take pictures of Santa's actual cookies, so this was staged Christmas morning.

I hope you and yours had a wonderful Christmas, if you celebrate.  May your day be merry and bright!

Island Batik EPP Challenge

It's the last Island Batik challenge of the year!  It's hard to believe it's December and a new year is right around the corner.  December's challenge is EPP, or English Paper Piecing.  I enjoy English Paper piecing, though I limit it to small projects.  It's great for taking on trips!  I knew I didn't want to do standard hexi flowers/Grandmother's Flowers.  I poked around Pinterest and Etsy to see what I could find.  I stumbled upon EPP animal patterns by Laurel of Porcupine Sews and fell in love.  It took me a bit to decide between her patterns; I loved the bat and the raccoon and the Luna moth, but ultimately I picked the unicorn.

We get the list of challenges at the start of the year and the planner in me loves that!  I took a trip in July to visit my best friend who lives in Massachusetts and EPP is the prefect travel project, so I prepped my pieces in early July.  I used assorted purple scraps, plus Bluebird for the eye and Lemonade for the horn, both basics.  The purples were from multiple lines, Lavender Fields, Tickled Pink, and Black Pearl for sure, plus others I'm not sure about.  

 The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Schmetz, and Aurifil.

I sewed here and there on the trip and was making decent progress.  I knew I would finish at some point at home.  Then my flight home was delayed.  It ended up being an 8-hour delay, which left me with like 10 hours in the airport when combined with my original arrival time.  I finished the unicorn with hours to spare!  

I had the background fabric I intended to use with me, but of course I did not have an iron.  At this point I had unknown time ahead of me and literally nothing else to do, so I decided to start stitching to the background even though I couldn't iron the unicorn or the background fabric.  I got it about 80% stitched down before finally getting home.  These photos were taken at the airport!

 

My plan was always to use my EPP to decorate a ByAnnie bag that I had been wanting to make, an older pattern called Power Trip.  I work at a community college and while I'm in the library the majority of the time, I do have meetings and such in other buildings, especially pre-pandemic. I like to take basic supplies with me because I never know what will be there or what I'll need, so for the past few years I've carried a boring pencil pouch with supplies. The Power Trip struck me as the perfect way to transport supplies across campus in style.   

  

filled with everything I might need on campus

The unicorn fit on the front of the bag perfectly! The background for the unicorn is the basic Sky.  The binding fabric is from Napa Valley, and the fabric for the rest of the bag is from Butterfly Blooms, originally intended for my Ultimate Travel Bag interior pockets but I used mesh instead and earmarked the beautiful Mini Leaf in Moonstone fabric for this Power Trip.  I use Schmetz topstitch needles for all my ByAnnie projects. I used a variety of Aurifil threads for the EPP hand piecing and color 2520 Violet in 50 weight to construct the bag.  

I love my bag and the unicorn makes me smile.  The EPP pattern lists this as a patch and I'd love to make another and put it on the back of a jacket or a long-sleeve shirt.  This ends my third year as an Island Batik Ambassador.  I love working with Island Batik and their gorgeous fabrics and I thank them for the opportunity.

 

Scrappy Placemats

 For Christmas 2019, I made my dad some scrappy placemats to replace the pretty gross ones he had when I visited him in early 2019.  The deal was that if I made him new ones, he would get rid of the old ones.  I was only able to make 4 in time for Christmas, but I promised more would come.

I didn't get them done for 2020 Christmas but I am ahead of the game for Christmas 2021!  I finished 6 more (only 4 pictured, as my table isn't very big) so he will have 10.  And hopefully now can get rid of the gross ones that couldn't be washed.  These are machine washable which will be an improvement.

I used 2" scraps of Kona solids in any shade of blue, green, or brown and sewed them completely randomly. There are 80 squares in each placemat. The binding is black, because when I made the first batch, I knew I could "match" black and wouldn't be able to match anything else.  That was a good choice on my part, knowing that I would not remember the right color years later.  I also have to say, I know a lot of people love machine stitching binding, but this further reminded me that I hate it.  I bound all of these by machine and wish I hadn't, especially since I have plenty of time until Christmas. Oh, well.  They are finished now!

Bear Hugs

Last October, Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs released a new pattern as part of By Annie's Sew Pink blog hop.  It's a scrappy bear paw that she named Bear Hugs.  I fell in love with it immediately.  Cheryl's version was in all pinks.  I wanted to try it with pinks and purples, all from my Island Batik scraps.  I could tell from the pattern that it would be a great leader and ender project, so I broke out my Accuquilt and cut pink & purple scraps and solid white batik in the 2 shapes needed for the blocks. My plan was to expand Cheryl's generous throw-size quilt to full size and make it for the bed in my guest room, which doubles as my sewing room. I started as a leader and ender some time in November.

Fast forward to early 2021 when I decided to attempt quilts for the 4 teachers Fire Monkey has had this school year.  One of the teachers, Ms. H, said her favorite color was pink.  I figured this was pink enough to qualify, and since I had been using it as my leader and ender project, I was making good progress.  I knew that I would be much more likely to be successful in completing 4 quilts in the time I had if I chose easy patters or quilts that were already in progress.  The quilt for the guest room was to be a spare, my Octopus's Garden quilt is on the bed now, so I didn't actually need another quilt for that bed.  And since it's scrappy and we all know that scraps are never depleted, I knew I could make another one if I wanted to, so I decided that Bear Hugs would go to Ms. H.

I quilted using wavy lines with a variegated pink thread.  At first I was sorry I used such a prominent thread, but I think it's grown on me.  The back is a beautiful pink dandelion print from Backside Fabrics. 

This one is my favorite of the four.  It's a great pattern and works well as both a scrap buster and a leader & ender.  I think it's likely I'll make it again.  

Scrapbuster Express: An Island Batik Challenge

The Island Batik Ambassador challenge for March is scraps, or scrap busting.  I *love* scrap quilts and make a lot of scrappy quilts.  Oddly enough, that made this challenge even more challenging.  I think since I make a lot of scrappy quilts naturally, I felt like this one had to be different or special.  I finally came up with an plan that I think is really fun.  I give you the Scrapbuster Express.

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Hobbs, Aurifil, and Schmetz.  

I have AccuQuilt's train die and it's really fun.  I decided to make scrappy trains and surround the trains with super scrappy pieces sashing.  All the pieces in the borders are 2 1/2" (unfinished) squares, also cut with the AccuQuilt.  There are so many different fabrics in this!  I kept out pink and purple, as this is likely to be a donation quilt and I know a lot of places will not give a quilt with even a little pink or purple to a boy.  Beyond that, there's a little bit of everything in here!

I used the neutral Coconut as the background for the train blocks.  The binding is black with circles in it--there were several strips of the same print in my stash builder rolls, and those rolls are perfect for cutting in half and using as binding. I did both piecing and quilting with Aurifil 2000 Light Sand, though I admit that the bobbin thread varied.  Scrappy quilts are great for using up those not-quite-empty bobbins of Aurifil thread in various colors.  I used Schmetz super nonstick needles; they are great with the fusible from applique shapes; there is no gumming of the needle at all.  The batting is Hobbs heirloom 100% cotton.

trains in progress

My favorite part of this was not part of the original plan.  When I cut the trains, I had an engine that was too close in color to the caboose of another train, and with them going different directions, that was too much same together for me. I cut another engine, no big deal.  But the other engine was already cut and had fusible on the back.  So the next morning, I asked my son if he had anything that needed a train on it.  He brought me a plain sweatshirt and I appliqued the train on it.  The train die has a square to be used as a window.  When I went to make a window for his engine, I remembered that I had some penguins from a Glacier View fabric, so I fussy cut a penguin to drive the train.  He loved it.  Thought a penguin driving the train was the best thing ever.

Lucky for me, I had enough penguins to put them on all the trains!!  So each train has a penguin conductor driving and more in the caboose.  It's a fun touch and it makes me smile every time I see the penguins in the train. And the penguins were leftover from this tree skirt I made last year, so they still fit the scrap theme.

Penguin Conductor

It's always fun to play with Island Batik scraps!

Snowmen!

Welcome to my stop on the Virtual Cookie Exchange blog hop!  Our hostess and mastermind, Carol of Just Let Me Quilt is generous in what we can post for this hop.  While highlighting holiday-themed projects you've already completed is allowed, I knew I wanted to use this hop as motivation to finish a UFO.  In 2017, I participated in the New Quilt Bloggers group. Twelve members from that group started a Christmas-themed QAL that year.  I completed that quilt, and I liked the Snowman block designed by Sherry Shish of Powered by Quilting so much that I planned a quilt of just snowmen.  I cut out pieces for 9 scrappy snowmen.  I pieced 5 of the blocks.  All this in 2017, and it has been in that state ever since.

Until now!  I think my original plan was to decorate each snowman in a fairly intricate fashion, but since that didn't happen in 2017, it certainly wasn't going to happen this year!  I'm not entirely sure what my original vision was, but I'm really pleased with my posse of snowmen.  

 

Sherry's pattern calls for embroidery of the faces but I used fabric markers instead.  I gave some snowmen a smile and some buttons.  I did hand stitching for the arms on a few and markers for a few others.  On those with busier backgrounds I skipped the arms.  I figure this variation gives a bit more visual interest.

 I quilted it with vertical wavy lines, hoping it would look like snow is falling.  I like the effect.

 

There are a lot of tiny pieces in this 12" block but it sews up so cute!  Sherry has the pattern for sale here if you are inclined to make your own snowman.  When the QAL happened in 2017, lots of people added some really creative accessories to their snowman, there's lots of room to play with this one.

Here in North Carolina we don't get a lot of snow but when we do, my son always wants to build a snowman.  We've made a couple really small ones, probably less than a foot high.  Like I said, we don't get a lot of snow!

As you can see, I went completely scrappy with this.  Some fabrics look a little Christmas-y but I wasn't trying to make a Christmas quilt.  Though I did pose for photos by our Christmas tree.

 

The Snowmen was on my list of eligible finishes for my PhD (Projects Half Done) with Quilting Gail.  I just need one more finish this month to earn mine!

Be sure to check out all the other bloggers featured today as part of the Virtual Cookie Exchange!

 December 4

Just Let Me Quilt

Quilt Fabrication

DesertSky Quilting

Seams To Be Sew

Happy Cottage Quilter

Pumpkin Patch Patterns & Quilting

The Darling Dogwood That's Me!

Kathleen McMusing

Scrapdash

Pink and Purple Postage Plus

I am always looking for patterns that make good leader and ender projects.  One of my favorites is Postage Plus from the book Modern Plus Sign Quilts by Cheryl Brickey & Paige Alexander.  Last year, I made a version using I Spy scraps.  This year, I used up some of my Kona scraps in pinks and purples. 

The instructions have you make strip sets but since I use scraps, I use those instead.  It's a great leader and ender project!  My Kona bin can get really full and most of what is in there are pretty small leftover pieces.  I pulled out every shade I could find that was pink, purple, or in-between and used my Accuquilt Go! cutter to cut squares.  Then I just kept a little bin of them by the machine and paired the fabrics up randomly.

 

My version is much smaller than the one in the book and for this one I opted for a single background color rather than stripes.  The background is Kona Shadow.  I did not keep track of all the colors of Kona scraps but there are quite a few different colors in there!  I did wavy line quilting on a grid using pink thread.  I really like how it looks and sill use a wavy grid again.  With the squares, I wonder if I missed a good opportunity for organic orange peel quilting.  I guess I need to make another Postage Plus and give it a try!

Since this will go to a kid and is patchwork with solids, I decided that the back needed some novelty fabrics.  I had a few width-of-fabric scraps that I combined with strips of Kona in pink or purple in between.  This will be donated to Friendship Trays as a part of my guild's philanthropy project and is the second of three finishes needed for my One Monthly Goal with Elm Street Quilts. 

Birds & Butterflies

Playing with scarps is always fun but playing playing with someone else's scraps is even more fun!  A woman I knew from Project Linus who lives in an adjacent neighborhood to mine contacted me over the summer.  She was sorting through her fabric and had a bag full of novelty fabrics & scraps that she thought I might be interested in, seeing how much I love novelty fabric.  It was a treasure trove!

My guild's philanthropy project this year is quilts for kids ages 2-5 who get meals as part of Friendship Trays, a local Meals-on-Wheels type organization.   I've been through the bag of scraps from Mary several times and one time, a fun bird print really stood out to me.  I had also been admiring a print with red butterflies.  Turns out there was a second butterfly print, this one on a red background.  I thought all three would go together.  In all cases, I had width of fabric though not a lot.  I figured out how to maximize what I had and get a good sized quilt.  For all three of these fabrics, I used it all!

 

two butterfly fabrics

Also in the bag was a red print with hearts which I thought would make a nice binding.  I believe I used all of it as well.  So four fabrics used up and one fun kid's quilt! The back is a fabric I had, a flannel ladybug print.  I don't use flannel often but I loved sewing on the binding, the needle would glide right through it! 

backing and binding

My guild met in person for the first time today, outside, in a parking lot.  It was so nice to see people in person--it was most social I've been in 7 months!  We all wore masks and everyone brought camp chairs and the weather was beautiful.  So I was able to turn this in to our president in person. She says we are getting close to our goal of 200 quilts!

bird print from the center

Jelly Snowflake

Rose from Something Rose Made and I agreed to do another QAL together this year--the first two we didn't realize the other was doing, but this time we chose together.  After looking at a different things going on at the time, we decided on the Jelly Snowflake Mystery Quilt hosted by the Fat Quarter Shop.  Here is my snowflake:

I used the Glacier View collection designed by Kathy Engle for Island Batik.  This means it matches my Christmas Tree skirt that I made earlier in the year, though I haven't decided if I'm keeping the snowflake yet.  I love all the shades of blues in this collection--perfect for a wintery snowflake without being limited to Christmas.  

I didn't love the long skinny blocks in the original so I took a page out of Rose's book and did strips instead.  I chose to have mine radiate from lighter blues to dark navy.  Rose calls this being a QAL Escape Artist 😀  Rose's version, which she named Frosty Flake, makes an appearance on this post on her blog.

I did spiral quilting.  If I had it to do over, I'd do a slightly closer spiral, but overall I'm happy with it.  I set Jelly Snowflake as my One Monthly Goal with Patty of Elm Street Quilts.  My goal was to finish the top but I'm pleased to have a finished quilt.