snowflake applique pillows

I've found some Christmas spirit and started working on a couple of Christmas pillows for display at my LQS, Material Girl in Crystal Lake, IL.

The pattern I used is called "Snowflake Pillows", and it can be found in the new book, Modern Holiday by Amanda Murphy. This book is full of fun quilted projects you can make to decorate your home during the holiday season. I want to make all of the pillow patterns, as well as most of the quilts. You should definitely check out this book!

I traced the four unique snowflake patterns from the book onto Heat n Bond Lite, then fused them first to a Basic Grey Grunge fabric in white. I trimmed around the snowflake shapes and then fused then to my pillow fronts - four different snowflakes per pillow. Tiny zigzag stitches in matching thread cover the raw edges of the applique pieces and protect them from fraying.

Both of my pillows are made using the 2013 Basic Grey holiday line called "Aspen Frost". The first has a blue Grunge accent with nutcrackers and tree ornaments...

While the second pillow has a green Grunge accent with poinsettia flowers and pine needles. The buttons are for the pillow backs - I have quite a few mismatched deep red buttons of varying sizes from 3/4" to 1" that I plan to use to give each pillow a unique look, rather than purchasing new buttons that all match.

Each snowflake is centered on a 4.5" finished square, and the finished pillow will hold a 12" x 16" insert.

I quilted the green trimmed pillow with horizontal wavy lines on both the trim and main body pieces. The snowflake squares are not quilted because I appliqued through all the pillow front layers - pillow top, pre-washed flannel, and muslin backing.

The blue trimmed pillow is quilted with swirls - my favorite! - on the trim and main body pieces.

I'll show you the backings and completed pillows soon. I'm anxious to finish these and get them to the shop for display!

ahhh, now that's better

Wow - what a lot of advice and encouragement I received from you all concerning my "ugly" quilt! I wanted to stick with the center focus fabric and try to tone the whole thing down a bit, so I nixed the orange...

and replaced it with a softer light turquoise (Moda Grunge - not sure exactly which color), and made the outer rim of color one consistent shade of darker turquoise - one fabric is an older Kona Bay marbled print and the other a batik. Much better!!

This is the baby size (42" square) of Jaybird Quilts "Taffy" pattern, which uses the Lazy Angle ruler. Love that ruler!

Thanks for all the kind words and advice! As my friend Vicki always says, "quilting is a team sport."

Halloween Confetti

Happy Halloween!! I finished my Halloween table runner just in time last Friday, so it will actually be used for a grand total of four days before it's packed away for next year ;-) Oh well, that's generally how I roll when it comes to holiday decorations - haha!

The pattern I used is "Confetti" by Lazy Girl Designs. I highly recommend the Lazy Angle ruler/template for this project - it made the cutting go soooo much faster. (See this post if you'd like more details about the ruler/pattern/construction.) I used 40 Halloween-themed charm squares cut from my stash and 1.33 yards of Moda Grunge in black for the table runner front.

I free-motion quilted an all-over large meander in King Tut variegated thread #925 Obsidian, and finished the binding by machine. I like machine-finished binding for things that will get lots of washing - like table runners, placemats, and baby quilts. The finished size is 16" x 80".

And since I just realized this morning that I managed to buy every kind of chocolate Halloween candy BUT fun-size M&M's, I'm off on a treasure hunt to find what I'm certain are the only three remaining bags for sale in my area. M&M's really are the best fun-size candy... in my opinion!

I hope all your little ghosts and goblins have a fun and safe Halloween!!

Halloween fun

While I've been sewing the binding on Baby Ben's quilt during TV time at night, I'm playing with a new gadget by day - the Lazy Angle Ruler from Creative Grids. There are so many new patterns available that utilize this versatile tool, so I decided to try out one of the patterns for charm squares - "Confetti" from Lazy Girl Designs.

My kitchen needs a Halloween themed table runner, so I'm using 1 1/3 yards of Moda's Grunge in black for the background, and I cut 40 charm squares (5") from my stash of Halloween fabrics.

The pattern as directed will make a 32" by 40" baby quilt, but I'm arranging it to finish at 16" x 80" for my table. The top two rows have been sewn together, and I'm pretty pleased with how the points are matching up! Here's a close up of the unfinished blocks...

The pattern is very well-written and easy to follow - all the blocks seem to be coming together as they should. Basically the ruler is designed to cut an A and B section for each block from strips cut anywhere from 1.5" to 6.5". My background strips were cut at 4.5", so my blocks will finish at 4". There are a multitude of blocks you can create from this ruler; I've ordered the book "Lazy and Lovin' It" (also from Lazy Girl Designs), and Julie at Jaybird Quilts has published lots of patterns for this tool as well.

My next quilt using this ruler is going to be "Taffy" from Jaybird Quilts. I'm making the lap size for a class sample at my LQS, so I'll show you my cute stack of fabrics for that quilt next time.

Anybody else out there using this ruler? Any tips you've found out about for it? So far it seems pretty straight-forward to me, but a girl can always use tips!