Christmas Star Cushion

Welcome to my day on the Cushion for Christmas blog hop hosted by Ms Midge.

I used Elizabeth Hartman's book 'The Practical Guide to Patchwork' to make a couple of cushions with some delightful Christmas Stars on them. They are from her 'Superstar' quilt on page 104. 

Here is a visual tutorial that you might find helpful.

Assemble the 'Flying Geese' section first.

1. Rule a diagonal line on your 31/2" square 

2. Sew along this line and then cut 1/4" from line to trim off triangle corner

3. Add the next square on the opposite side and repeat

5. Make 4 of these

 Then comes the assembly of Block A.

6. 11/2" strips around a 21/2" square.

7. Add the flying geese elements to 2 of the sides

8. Add a 31/2" square to each end of the remaining flying geese

9. Sew these onto the horizontals, taking care to match the seams by pinning well.

I added 2 extra borders to bump out the measurements for cushions.

This is my red version.

I hope that you are enjoying seeing all the Christmassy Cushion goodness this month. I  love dressing up my place. These are some basic covers I also made in 2011 from similar Michael Miller fabric.

Linking up to...

Teabag Pouch

This time around in the Zakka 2.0 I am picking and choosing the projects. This teabag pouch is the first that I had picked to do. There  are so many gorgeous versions of this pouch already posted on the Zakka 2.0 Flickr page.

Ayumi's pattern did not come with any diagrams and some of the wording had me confused. My usual pattern trailblazer Amanda The Patchsmith has not yet made this one. You can see my mistakes and confusion here. Thank goodness Alyce came to my rescue.

Teabag Pouch Visual Tutorial
So here is a visual tutorial to help you should you be interested in making one for yourself.

Cutting

I did not use fusible interfacing but some scraps of cotton batting and basting spray instead.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

The crux of the pattern is not clear with the written instructions for this step -"the rectangle"  refers to the inner cotton solid for the interior. It took me a while to figure this out.

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9 

Step 10

+ Button Making

I do hope that this helps. Certainly a cup of tea does after a tough pattern.

This is my paltry submission to the Kate Spain blog hop over at Blossom Heart Quilts. The fabrics are from Kate Spain's Good Fortune collection which I blogged about last Sunday Stash #68.

Snow Globe Tree Decoration

The Sew Seasonal Blog Hop is FINISHED, however the project challenge  is OPEN until November 30th. The patterns are HALF PRICE on Craftsy until the end of Novemeber. It's hard to gauge how many folks will submit a project but with great prizes on offer, I have put together something small. Yougottabeinittowinit, right?

My last block was rotary cut using the 'Ornamental' patterns by Alyce so I thought I might give one of Kristy's Paper Pieced patterns a go. It was hard choosing but I wanted it to tie with the 'Snowglobe' embroidery I had finished using Aneela Hooey's 'Little Stitches' book. So I chose the Christmas Tree. (I simplified the base to make it a 'growing' tree). 

I am a bit rusty with my paper piecing I must say. I made many mistakes and unpicked more than half the time. I used regular A4 copy paper instead of tracing onto baking paper and that made ripping it all off at the end WAY more tedious and messy!

I used the same method, as with the previous 3, to make the circular tree decoration. I was able to sew the kid's names on over the weekend.

Linking up with TGIFF and A Bowl Full of Lemons

Sew Seasonal Tree Decoration

I love this button created by Alyce - look at that hanging star!

Welcome to my little stop on the Sew Seasonal Blog Hop. I am sharing it with Beth from Plum and June today.  (She is the sociable mind behind the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop - now it in its last 2 weeks!)

If you've missed any others here is the schedule:

1st November: Kristy from Quiet Play & Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts

2nd November: TBA & Jane from Where Jane Creates

3rd November: Susan from Patchwork N Play & Kelsey from Kelsey Sews

4th November: Janice from Better Off Thread & Erin from Missy Mac Creations

5th November: Lucy from Charm About You & Rebecca from Making Rebecca Lynn

6th November: Charlotte from Lawson and Lotti & Amy from Amy's Crafty Shenanigans

7th November: Jess from the Elven Garden & Cindy from Live a Colorful Life

8th November: Elaine from Dashasel Sews & Kelly from Jeliquilts

9th November: Beth from Plum and June & Fiona from Finding Fifth

10th November: Juliet from Tartan Kiwi & Fiona from Celtic Thistle Stitches

11th November: Taryn from Pixels to Patchwork & Anorina from Samelia's Mum

12th November: Megan from Jaffa Quilts & Jane from QuiltJane 

13th November: Gemma from Pretty Bobbins

This hop comes from the productive minds of Kristy from Quiet Play and Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts. Some of my favourite bloggers are in that list above. Their fabulous 13 paper pieced and 12 rotary cut blocks by the girls are FREE on Craftsy but only for another 7 days.

You can use them to join in the fun to create something Sew Seasonally fabulous, by the end of the month, and be in the running for some generous prizes. Some of the judges are famous! 

It would not be hard to whip something up. My little project took less than an hour to sew up on the machine (apart from the embroidery detail). So here it is...

Embroidered Tree Decoration

I used Block 1 from the Ornamental designs by Alyce.

It is the simplest of the 12 blocks. Here's a visual of assembly.

My son, Duncan, did the hand embroidery of the gingerbread men last month. It is his first ever finish so I wanted to make it special. This pattern comes from Aneela Hooey's NEW book 'Little Stitches'.

Visual Tutorial - NB the embroidery block already had fusible wadding attached to the back.

Duncan's tree ornament sits nicely with these two that I repurposed from the Zakka Style book. (No use for Happy Couple Handwarmers when it can hit 40 degrees celcius on Christmas Day in Australia!)

I'd like to embroider the kid's names and '2012' onto each one.

Also linking up to....

August Round Up

It's funny but until I put together my pic monkey collage I would have honestly said that August was another non-productive month like July. However, it hasn't been. It seems that I have been inspired by lots of other quilters out there this month.

Even though I have kind of fallen off the Zakka Style Sew Along bullet train, I have made 4 of the projects this month. 

Two of the Zakka projects, the elephant bookmark and delightful linen bag, were perfect for my mum's 78th birthday. She loves elephants and I am trying to encourage her to buy either an ipad or a kindle for herself to put in the DL bag.

Fran got the sugar cookie sack to put with her tea set.

The other ZSSA project, the bakery basket, was perfect for my baking friend Marieka of Bespoke Bites. It's not her birthday but I love her to send things for just being her.

It was also the Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop at  this month and my project was very time consuming. I lost 5 days to a dreadful flu that had me bedridden and so I had to quickly make the trees and leftover houses in 2 days before I delivered a patchwork talk, illustrating my life, to 40 ladies at a Friday night dinner.

The back of the Neighbourhood Playmat was inspired by Kristy's Quiet Play LEGO Playmat for her son's birthday. 

Juliet's Tartan Kiwi paper pieced Art Folder and Rachel's Stitched in Color Nursery Versery mini-quilt were the  inspiration for my own Nursery Versery Art Folder. 

Left - Nursery Versery Art Folder
Top - Bakery Basket, Sugar Cookie Sack and Darth Maul cape (easiest thing I made all month)
Centre - Neighbourhood Playmat
Right - back of NPM featuring LEGO blocks, Mondrian blocks
Bottom - Delightful Linen Bag, Elephant Never Forgets Bookmark

How did you fare in August?

The Neighbourhood Grows

Because of school holidays I have not really had uninterrupted time to sew in about 3 weeks. My husband could sense my frustration and was lovely enough to cook pancakes for breakfast and take the kids to church on Sunday so that I could have peace to sew. Lovely man.

So I spent most of the day piecing together a new pattern for simple trees. I am sharing the pattern in a tutorial on Thursday 25th July for the 'Let's Get Acquainted' Blog Hop.

I also added 4 new houses to the neighbourhood.


Next I have to tackle Kristy's more complicated Paper Pieced tree patterns.  Thankfully my extra charm packs of 'Summersville' arrived from Want it, Need it, Quilt! yesterday.

Now don't forget that there is a NEW blog hop starting late next week hosted by about 25 keen paper piecing bloggers. It is called 'Practically Paper Piecing' and is the brain-child of Kristy from Quiet Play. I am using these neighbourhood blocks for my project on August 20th - so stay tuned!