Hello again!
This last week or so I have had some fun playing with a few different things. I recently purchased a fun book by Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet, which I have wanted for some time, called “Farm Girl Vintage” with lots of cute country-themed pieced blocks. The book gives you two size options for every block — 6” and 12”.
As it was coming up to Halloween I decided to make the pumpkin block in the 12” size. After digging through my stash I found plenty of orange fabrics and away I went. The patterns are super simple to follow and the block was very quick to make. From go-to-whoa (including cutting) the block took me just over an hour to complete, and I’m very pleased with how it has turned out. I just love this book and now I have to decide which block to make next — maybe I will just make them all!
I then decided I wanted to stick with the Halloween theme. After writing the email newsletter and letting you all know about the Moda Bake Shop Free Patterns, I found one for Halloween that I thought was really fun.
It is the “Black and … Boo” table runner by Sterling LaBosky, except I have done mine as a wallhanging. Another super simple piecing project with good instructions. The most time-consuming part of the project was sorting through my stash and deciding what to use!
When preparing my half square triangles, I drew my line through the middle of the black fabric with a Roxanne’s white pencil and on the white with a Water Erasable Marker.
A little tip when sewing your triangles, sew just a smidgeon (like a hair’s width) to the right of your line. I find this makes your square more accurate when you iron the left side over to make your square.
The same goes when you are sewing your squares to the edges of your rectangle — sew a smidgeon towards the corner of the rectangle rather than the middle.
The instructions for making the letters were very simple to follow. I definitely think, I will be making more of these. A great idea for a wall hanging for a child’s room using their name.
And Ta-Da! Here it is finished.
My preference is always for bright fabrics but we have some gorgeous little packs of 2 ½ inch squares of Gratitude by Jo Morton which would work fabulously for this project.
In a change from Halloween, the last project I have been working on is a quilt using one of our Kiwiana Roll Ups. I am using a free Jelly Roll pattern we found on the internet — Google is our friend! The Kiwiana Roll-Ups have been cut with a serrated edge, which makes the strips slightly wider than 2 ½ inches. To make your strips the correct size, you will need to trim the serrated edge off each strip or make allowance for it by sewing them together with a slightly wider seam allowance than ¼ inch. I learned this the hard way! I would suggest you always measure your strips when you purchase a jelly roll, just to be on the safe side.
The blocks for this quilt are quick and easy to make up. There is a fiddly bit cutting the corners for each block but if you press your block in half well and accurately mark with a pencil where to cut, it is fairly straight forward. I used my trusty Roxanne’s white pencil again — it was quite visible on all the colours.
When sewing the black corners on to your blocks, make sure you leave a ¼ inch ‘tail’ hanging over the edge so that when you iron it over to make it square, it ‘fits’.
I haven’t finished this quilt top yet, but it is coming along nicely. I will show you a photo of it finished next time.
I hope this has given you some inspiration for new projects to sew. Hazel & Gayle have brought lots of new patterns back from Quilt Market, so no doubt I will have some fantastic new projects to show you next time.
Happy sewing,
Kim
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