Monday, December 2, 2024

Virtual Christmas Cookie Exchange and Tree Skirt



Welcome to the first day of the last blog hop.  I am excited, yet sad at the same time.  It is always fun to see what everyone comes up with, yet sad to know this is the last hop. I have been hopping along with everyone since 2012, but time moves on and new adventures await! 




  I will still be following along with everyone on their other social media, so we can still keep up with each other and have show and tell. And with that said, today I want to show off my new Christmas Tree skirt!




It's not a cookie, but it is cookie-shaped.  That counts right?




This is similar to the chevron table toppers I have made but on a bigger scale. 





I used the 10-degree ruler by Phillip Fiber Arts, which gives 36 wedges.




The tree skirt measures about 50 inches across, and I had a package of Hobbs Cotton Wool Blend batting that fit perfectly.  It quilted up beautifully.




For once, I had this project ready well ahead of time—quite the achievement for me since I’m usually the last-minute sewer!  I managed to get it ready in time to enter the SC State Fair, and it won a blue ribbon! Yay! That's definitely some good luck to put under the tree!




And it passes quality control.  This year Avi is enjoying time at the bottom of the tree instead of in it, which is a good thing.  Less ornaments meet their doom this way.




As far as cookie recipes, these are my go-to when I need something fast.  The recipe is easy: preheat the oven, open the package, put them on the pan, and bake.  Super easy for those times when you don't have time and still want a good cookie.




And Santa eats them up!



Have a Merry Christmas and enjoy the last hop around the block this week! 



 

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Island Batik Dresden Blog Hop


Welcome to day three, week three of the Island Batik Ambassador Dresden Plate Blog Hop.




This month Island Batik Ambassadors are showing off their take on the classic Dresden Plate Block done up in the new Island Batik Fabric lines coming out now.

 


I got to play with Topical Bliss, a signature collection by Kathy Engle for Megan Best of Bestquilter.


You can visit these stores to get your hands on some of these fabrics.


Creekside Quilts-OR
Fabric and Quilting Delights-HI
Fabric Square-OH
JellyRollFabric.Net
Middlebury Sew & Vac
My Favorite Quilt Store-TX





I am loving this colorway! And it has sea turtles on it! A win-win for me.




I was given a half yard of each print to play with and had a good time rearranging and selecting prints for each unit in the quilt.  At first, I was going to do tradition circle Dresden plates, but after playing around with the layout I came up with the idea to separate my plates with some sashing. I love a good sashing!




I used Kay Buckley's perfect circle makers, along with my Oliso Iron to make the circles for all the cornerstone blocks.




They turned out so pretty!




I hand stitched all the circles down.




There are twenty five of them. 




I enjoy hand stitching, but after doing these 25 circles I knew I would not have time to hand stitch all the Dresdens, so I decided to machine stitched those down with a blanket stitch.




The sashing is made from two triangle in a square blocks.  This is one of my favorite quilt units.  It makes so many versatile designs.




I chain pieced all my plates and turned them with a small crochet hook to get nice points.




I used a 30 degree ruler to get 12 plates per Dresden and added an extra burst of fabric between each seam for a fun starburst and 3D effect.




I am falling in love with the Hobbs Cotton Wool Blend batting. It's so soft and fluffy and quilts up beautifully.




It was a pretty day down by the river for a photo shoot.




Splitting the Dresden plates into groups of three gave me six inch blocks.





 The cornerstones and sashing are three inch blocks.




With the borders, the quilt measures 54 inch square.




The piecing and quilting were done with a Schmetz 90/14 universal needle.  

The needle went through the thicker areas with no problem.




I did some simple custom quilting on this one.





The white background had an all over meander.






all the triangles and Dresden plates got their own little swirl along with the inner borders..






I stitched in the ditch around the cornerstones and left the inside of them open.





The back is made up of left over Island Batik foundation fabrics I had from other projects.




I hope you enjoyed my take on the classic Dresden Plate Block.  

For a closer look check out my YouTube Video:




Be sure to check out my fellow Ambassadors today to see what Dresden Plate pattern they came up with for this same fabric line.




Island Batik is having a giveaway,  you can enter using the Rafflecopter below.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

This week's prizes are a fat quarter pack of Shadow Blooms and Peach Blossom.



Happy Stitching!

=^..^=


Follow me on Instagram
Check me out on YouTube.

 

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Gnome for Thanksgiving Blog Hop



Welcome to day two of the Gnome for Thanksgiving Blog Hop Challenge.

On Thanksgiving, I'll be getting together with lots of family to visit and eat delicious food.

With plenty of hot bowls and casserole dishes heading to the counters and tables, I made a few cozy acorn-shaped hot pads to protect the surfaces.







I drew my own acorn-shaped pattern and carefully cut it out using the perfect Thanksgiving gnome fabric.




I cut out enough to make four hot pads.  These were quick to make. I've been focused on large projects lately, so it was fun to sew for a couple hours and have a completed project when I was done.




Be sure to check out all the other projects today for more gnome inspiration.


Tuesday, Nov 19



Happy Thanksgiving!!

=^..^=


Follow me on Instagram
Check me out on YouTube.


Friday, November 1, 2024

Tools of the Trade Bag - Island Batik Ambassador Monthly Challlenge




For the month of October, Island Batik Ambassadors were challenged to make a bag using a ByAnnie pattern. 






We got to pick the bag pattern and the fabrics.





 I picked Tools of the Trade.


The last time I visited relatives, I brought my cutting mat and fabric to cut out a few projects. I had a container to carry the fabric, but nothing was big enough to carry my cutting mat and larger ruler. As I was trying to bring everything in, I was wishing I had a big bag to fit everything. So I was glad to see the Tools of the Trade pattern as I was perusing the ByAnnie website. 


This pattern also comes with an Add On Video that helps with some of the tricker parts, which was very helpful.


I decided to make both sized bags. One for my larger mat and one for my medium size mat. That way I'll be ready for any size carry along project.





ByAnnie generously supplied all the bag materials to create both bags.





I was a little iffy about the tan mesh and zipper, but it actually looked really good next to the inside fabric.  ByAnnie suggests sampling different color mesh for your projects and sometimes after you lay it out, the one you weren't think about may end being the best.






For the smaller bag, I used fabrics from the Paradise Palms collection by Kathy Engle. 






 I love the orange and greens in this fabric line and really love the leaf print I used for the outside of the bag. The shading of the burnt orange and greens look fantastic. 



 



I paired the main print with the sea turtle print for the inside of the bag. I love sea turtles and get excited everytime I see one when I'm out on the water







For the larger bag, I went with Sea Turtles again and used prints from Turtle Cove,  a signature collection by Kathy Engle for Kari Nichols of Quilting Renditions.






I used the blue sea turtle print for the outside.







and the lighter leafy print for the inside.








I used a green from each fabric line for the contrast and binding fabrics.








I had the perfect colors in Aurifil thread to match both bags. It was a lot of thread changing to make two bags at the same time, but all the different colors of thread make the bags beautiful.







I used a regular Schmetz 90/14 universal needle to put the whole bag together. It was slow going around some of the bulkier parts, but I didn't break the needle. It got through all the layers just fine.






If you are looking for any of these fabrics you can find Paradise Palms at these shops:


JellyRollFabric.Net
Quilt Country
Creekside Quilts-OR


And Turtle Cove here: 

CinBarDesign
Creekside Quilts-OR
Fabric and Quilting Delights-HI
Fabric Garden-CA
Fabric Square-OH
JellyRollFabric.Net
Middlebury Sew & Vac
My Favorite Quilt Store-TX
Quilting Around-TX
Stitch On-KS
Mike & Mollys-CO







It will be fun filling these up!!








=^..^=


Follow me on Instagram
Check me out on YouTube.