AYOS and a little bit more - Kaleidoscope mini tutorial

Our challenge for the month of January, was to follow this tutorial by My Rainboots are Red, for a Kaleidoscope mini quilt.

I bought the Kaleidoscope smart plate ruler from Sharon Sebrow.

Sharon sent me a bonus quilt, which was really nice!

I made lots of half square triangles with my pretty scrappy fabric.

Do you notice my design board?

I use them all the time!

Lori Holt has a tutorial on her blog, Bee in my Bonnet.

You can make them in any size you want :)

This is what the ruler looks like. (ignore my legs...)

I cut and cut and cut...

 One of my blocks was imperfect, but I kept it.

I thought it might add some extra interest :)

I don't know if this is normal or not, but my corners were all cropped a little bit.

I love this cute little block!

I sewed a triangle to each of the 4 corners to form a square.
Forgot to take a photo of that step...sorry.

Yay, my squares are all placed and ready to sew together!

I enjoyed machine quilting with my walking foot.

I realize that some of my low volume fabrics weren't pale enough to stand out as much as they should.

The mini measures approximately 21" square.

I used it to decorate the table during my lesson at church, and some of the young women noticed it!

I backed it with a Japanese hexagon print, and the binding is a bright pink that I pulled from one of the scraps.

The tutorial was excellent, I think I would have been lost without all the wonderful photos.

I really enjoyed this technique and am anxious to make something else using it :)

Snapshots QAL, cake

I'm making Fat Quarter Shop's Snapshots quilt.

When I saw this, I fell in love with it...and I have a difficult time resisting a quilt along, especially when other designers are involved.

I love seeing everyone's version of the same pattern.

The Fat Quarter Shop has requested that you give a $5 donation to St. Jude's hospital for each pattern that you download.

You can get more information here.

This quilt was made from "Day Sail", Bonnie and Camille's latest fabric line from Moda.

I have a good collection of Bonnie and Camille's fabrics already, so I decided to use their fabrics from other lines.

I divided my fabric into blocks, and labeled all 12 of them.

Then I put the piles into a basket and will take out one block at a time, each month.

January's block is a four layer cake, yum!

I cut out all the pieces and marked them with Alphebities.

These are the fabrics I'm using for the cake block.

Voila, here's my tasty cake!

I'm pinning all the designer's blocks on my Snapshots QAL board if  you want to follow it on Pinterest.

Thimble Blossoms and Heather Ross

It's time to make another baby quilt for a little grand daughter who is due at the end of February :)

I perused my patterns and found this old Thimble Blossoms pattern.

I thought it would be a great pattern to showcase some pretty fabric.

 My cherished Heather Ross collection came to mind!

I really love Heather's fabric, and have the entire Far, far away line in my stash.

I adore this unicorn in her lovely field of wildflowers!
Just imagine how heavenly their scent is....

I pressed Wonder Under to the circles, which is so easy to work with.

I used a blanket machine stitch to attach them to the background.
Before I did that, I had to buy some more Aurifil thread to match the unicorn circles, yay!

I disected the unicorns in half vertically, for the half squares.

One of the halves has a unicorn head and the other has the unicorn's  behind! Ha ha!!!

I didn't know how else to do it!!!
Kind of weird because they're all chasing their rear ends....
What made me think of pairing Far, far away with this pattern in the first place, was how I could place the cute Princess and the pea images.

I tried lots of different sashing colors to frame the unicorns, this bright orange stood out the best :)

I love the outside border, pink with yellow polka dots which sort of gives a hint of orange.

Now which color rick rack?

I like the pink, but needed another opinion.

My daughter Lindsay liked the pink best, so the pink won!

I hung the quilt on my tree in the backyard for the best light.

The sun was shining brightly so there was a little too much light!

Did I tell you how much I love these unicorns?

Notice the strawberry fabric at the top?

They are from Heather Ross' Briar Rose line.

Yes, I have that entire line in my stash also :)

Here's the finished quilt, bound with yellow.

It's backed with really soft pink minky, I didn't use any batting.

This method (without batting) gives the quilt a silky drape.

The quilt is so soft and pliable, that it kind of ripples a little.

This  quilt will be perfect for swaddling babies.

I machine quilted this quilt with a wavy stitch which is apparent on the minky back.

I didn't design this pattern, but I did do a lot of designing in the way that I used Heather Ross' fabric :)

I'm going to make some matching burp pads with the leftover minky and more Far, far away fabric.

Claira and Clancy, a sewing pattern

I love making stuffed animals, although the thought of it is often intimidating to me.

The detailed instructions and photos were so easy to follow.

The pattern pieces were printed on one side of the paper only, so there was no tracing involved, I just cut the pattern pieces out.

That saved me a lot of time!

I cut out all the pattern pieces, began sewing and stuffing.

The arms are pinned, ready for me to hand sew them closed.

Lots of extra cute details too.

See those water soluble blue pen marks?

Those are the markings for their dimpled arms and legs :)

The bodies are completely sewn, and the legs are sewn into the body seam.

I just need to stuff them, easy peasy!!!

Notice their little noses?

Another detail is the snout, which will be stuffed and sewn on later.

Ta Da!  All stuffed, with the snout sewn on and the arms attached.

The only thing that worried me, were the arms.

I used a doll needle (about 6" long) and attached one arm through the body, to the opposite arm, and though the buttons.

I sewed back and forth quite a few times.

I think these little pigs are meant more for a bedroom decoration and mild play, rather than being touted around by a young child.

The arms did come loose after some play and needed some general surgery to reattach them!

I am in love with the felt eyes, with a little bead in the middle.

The pattern had instructions for lazy daisy eyelashes, but I preferred mine without them.

The felt flower adornments and ribbon are precious too, they add a loving touch.

Clancy's eyes are a different color than Claira's, and isn't his corsage adorable?

What a lovely couple Claira and Clancy make!
Both dolls are 24" tall.

 I used all of Heather Bailey's fabric for these pigs, except for Claira's dress and bloomers....I used Lori Holt's Flower Patch fabric.
The hoofs aren't Heather Bailey either, I don't know who designed that fabric.

My grandaughter's name is Charlotte, she's 4 years old.

I bought this pattern for her about 3 years ago, but waited until Charlotte was a little older to make them for her.

I liked the pigs because of the story "Charlotte's Web", and because Charlotte loves stuffed animals.

I fell in love with the pattern the moment I saw it!!!

I had no doubt that Charlotte would fall in love with Claira and Clancy, just as I did :)

Charlotte is the cutest girl, full of spunk and happiness!

I knew that she would appreciate these little pigs :)

Happy New Year!!!