Quilty Fun Birthday Cake Banner Tutorial

The Quilty Fun Birthday Cake pattern was designed by Lori Holt, of Bee in my Bonnet.

You can find the free pattern at Fat Quarter Shop's Jolly Jabber.

I went a step further, monogrammed the cake and turned it into a banner.

I'm thinking it's great for hanging on the wall and celebrating your birthday for a week or even a month!

I'm almost through making one for each of my grandchildren and some of my daughters :)

I've created a tutorial for the monogramming and banner.

My first step was to choose my fabric, one of my favorite parts!

I cut out all the pieces and labeled them with Alphabitties which I purchased at the Fat Quarter Shop.

I have two sets, and use them all the time!

There are quite a few half square triangles to sew, I like to use my Omnigrid ruler which I bought as a trio.

Well worth the price, I use them all the time!

My Pentel mechanical pencil helps me draw a nice, thin line.

Drawing a line on the square helps with accuracy.

After a bit more sewing, I have 3 sections of the cake completed.

It's like constructing a puzzle, one piece at a time.

My Quilty Fun Birthday Cake is baked, now it's time to monogram.

I'm baking this cake for my granddaughter Reagan who is turning 5 in November.

I know that purple is her favorite color, but a good purple is hard to find.

I don't have very much purple fabric, but I did have these fat quarters and am very pleased with them.

I added a happy pop of yellow for the cake pedestal.

I like to use Heat n Bond Lite.

 I cut a strip of paper 3 l/2" X 12 l/2", not intending to use the full length this time.

Reagan is only 6 letters and won't take up that much space.

My Heat n Bond paper is 3 l/2" wide, and I want my letters to be 3" tall.  

I used my omnigrid l/2" ruler to draw a l/4" line on top and on bottom, leaving me room to draw my 3" letters.

I drew the letters backwards, or reverse.

On close inspection, I noticed that the "G" wasn't backwards!

There we go, I just drew another one!

If you would like some templates of letters to trace, you can look here.

Cut a white piece of fabric 4 l/2" wide X 12 l/2" long, to sew the letters on.

Find the center of the fabric strip by folding in half and making a little crease with your finger.

Press the letters that are drawn in reverse, to the wrong side of the fabric.

Cut the letters out, on the drawn lines.

Whoops, I drew my "N" the wrong way!!!

That was an easy fix...no matter how many years you've been sewing, mistakes still happen!

Peel off the waxy paper backing and lay the letters on the white fabric.

Notice the center crease in the fabric that lets me see where the center is.

Aurifil 50 weight is my favorite thread to sew with.  

I have lots of white, but not many colors.

I think I'll use the lighter pink.

I machine appliqué the letters with a blanket stitch.

The monogrammed piece is ready to sew onto the cake.

I cut the borders of the banner from "sprinkles" fabric, perfect for little girls!

The side border pieces are cut first.

Cut 2 - 2 l/2" X 18 1/2"

Great, the side borders are sewn on :)

The top and bottom borders are next.

Cut 2 - 2 l/2" X 16 l/2"

Yay, the borders are finished!

I'm auditioning 2 fat quarters for the binding.

I don't want yellow or purple, I want the binding to accentuate the purple cake and bow, and yellow pedestal.

I think the plain light pink will work really well!

Here's a closeup.

I think the herringbone is too busy...

Unfortunately, the cute little print on the light pink won't show up.

I like to cut my binding strips 2" wide.

I cut 4 of them out of a fat quarter, 22" long.

This is the backing I'm going to use for my cake banner.

It's whimsical and sunshiny looking :)

When I quilt my cake banner, I stitch in the ditch along the entire cake, pedestal and bow, with my walking foot.

I'd rather not quilt over the cake, and stitching in the ditch makes the cake pop, almost looking textured or three dimensional.

I sandwich my banner with the top, warm and natural batting and the backing, pin it and begin quilting.

When I'm done with my jigsaw machine quilting, I trim the banner.

All trimmed and ready to bind.

I sewed the binding around the banner.

If you'd like to know how I do this, I have a tutorial.

Here's a closeup of the jigsaw quilting, and I don't quilt over the letters.

I like to use these Clover clips instead of pins, to hold the binding in place.  

I love hand stitching the binding, I find it very relaxing.

I finished my Quilty Fun Birthday Cake banner!

Here's a look at the back.

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial.

If you have any questions, please email me.

I love comments too :)

Quilty Fun Birthday Cake Banners

We have a lot of birthdays in our family in October.

October 11, 12, 13 and 14 and 27!

This quilty fun birthday cake banner is for my son and his wife.

My daughter in law Kim suggested that I make one for both of them, with the word "celebrate".

What a great idea!

I made a red velvet cake, it has a long tradition in our family.

Do you think this banner is both feminine and masculine?

My large Bernina 750 QE is in the shop for a repair.

I broke a couple of needles making some "sew together bags", and a piece must have lodged in the cutter because it kept jamming.

I sewed a machine blanket stitch around the letters, and machine quilted, with my Baby lock machine.

Not bad, but I really miss my "monster" machine.

It's super duper heavy and fast!

Here's a peek at the back of the banner and a closeup of the machine quilting.

My granddaughter Neo is turning 5 on Wednesday!

She told me she wanted a pink and yellow and purple cake.

Hopefully this meets her requirements :)

The banners always look so much better quilted!

I love the "sprinkles" border and the bright yellow binding.

Since Neo's (nay-oh) name only has 3 letters, I was able to draw them bigger, and they really show off the fabric.

I especially love the back!

Thanks for stopping by and looking at the cakes I baked :)

Farm Girl Vintage - Quilty Barns

My Quilty Barn quilt is quilted!

I just need to bind it, but my Bernina is in for repair and I don't really want to attach the binding without my awesome walking foot.

Lori Holt from Bee in my Bonnet had a free Quilty Barn Along, about 2 years ago, on her blog.

Now you can find the barn pattern in her new book, 

Farm Girl Vintage.

I just love my quilt, it's so colorful and happy.

I finished it 2 years ago, and it has hanging on the railing in my sewing room all this time!

I remember sewing all the blocks, and the sashing pieces remind me of all the sewing projects I made for loved ones.

I love Tasha Noel's fabric, the little country girl hanging up her socks, and some of Lori Holt's fabric, a quilt  I made for my granddaughter Reagan, when she was born :)

Memories...

The Be Happy fabric I used for the barn door is from Sweetwater.

Some more of Tasha Noel's fabric on the roof, and I used the butterfly fabric at the bottom, to make a Smartie Girl Book Bag for one of my daughters.

I absolutely adore the back, it's a Heather Ross print.

I thought the busy little bees and the clover went along well with the barn theme.

There is no way that I can gift this quilt, there are too many memories in it for me, and I spent about a year making it, not including the 2 years it hung on my railing, lol!

Thanks for stopping by and letting me share :)

Stacked Windmills quilt

I joined the virtual, or online Modern Bee quilting bee in 2014.  There were 12 of us in Hive 11, and we could choose whichever quilt we wanted to make, out of 13 quilts in the Modern Bee book by Lindsay Conner.

I chose the Stacked Windmills block.

I asked my hive members to choose pink for the center block, then yellow and gray for the rest of the blocks, and I wanted a text fabric for the background.  I think they turned out so cute, each one is so unique :)

The blocks are sewn with just 5" squares.

Now it's time to see the sashing, I chose a charcoal solid.

Yay, it's finished! Now I need to prepare the purple free spirit fabric I purchased for the back and machine quilt it. I took a Jackie Gehring class on Craftsy about machine quilting and want to use the skills I learned, on this quilt :)

Embroidered Mini Quilt

I love embroidery, and was asked to do a swap with a friend on Instagram.

Her name is Leanne and she lives in Tasmania, Australia.

This is her blog, Lizzie the quilter., she blogged about the mini quilt I made for her.

The embroidery is by Sarah Jane, I bought the pattern and used my own colors.

I embroidered in the car on one of our road trips :)

I chose a white printed quilt cotton to use as a base for the embroidery.

I have a thing for detail, I love it!

I have a box of little l l/2" squares that I've been collecting from my scraps.

I used the prettiest, brightest, happiest colors I could find.

I love pinwheels too, so I used a lot of those.

More little squares in deliciously cheerful colors and prints!

Excuse my stained ironing board cover, it's from the spray starch (Mary Ellen's starch press) that I use on my blocks.

Cute little pinwheels, I love them!

I enjoy designing quilts, I always feel a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

This little quilt measures approximately 16" X 24".

It's so feminine, and I had a really difficult time giving it away :)

I contemplated long and hard, about what color to use for the binding.

I always like the binding to pop, and with so many pretty colors, I thought that black would do the job.

I really like the effect.

I used a jigsaw quilt pattern for the machine quilting, and tried to make it as small as I could, to match the teeny measurements of the quilt.

I used a yellow Tanya Whelan print for the back.

I wanted the little embroidered girl to stand out, so I machine stitched pebble quilting around her.

She is smelling a bouquet of flowers, and Leanne loves flowers!

Check out her blog, she has a genuine green thumb :)

I hope you like the mini quilt I designed as much as I do.