Christmas Corner February 2015

Welcome to Christmas Corner!  I've made a mini pillow with a pocket to hold a secret surprise.

This is the Secret Santa Pocket Pillow

The back pocket that can hold a a sweet note or a small treasure (or a gift card).

The inspiration came from this darling block pattern by Marcia Hahn on the Quilter's Cache here.  Marcia has 100's of wonderful free quilting patterns at the Quilter's Cache.

Marcia's block is 12 1/2".  You can visit the quilter's cache (see link above) to make Marcia's block or for my mini pillow, check out my cutting instructions and tutorial to make a 6 inch Secret Santa Pocket Pillow.

Also I'm trying something new.  I'm hosting my first link up party and hope you'll link up some of your favorite Christmas projects/gifts.  There are no rules.  You can link up current projects or from the past; finished or in process.  I would love to see your version of the Secret Santa Pocket Pillow!  Note the Link Up is at the end of the tutorial (wasn't sure how to put it here)

Tutorial for the Secret Santa Pocket Pillow
This is quick to make (less than an hour once you gather your supplies).  All seams 1/4".

Organizing scraps and Kaleidoscope blocks

I got in the mood to chop up scraps into neat and organized squares.

After a number of hours, I went to my Pinterest page to look for ideas for using my nicely stacked squares.

  That's when I noticed the scrappy kaleidoscope quilts.  The bigger scraps would be perfect for this!

 I found a free template and printed it out and started cutting.

You end up sewing 4 into a half circle and then sew those two together, and then add the corner triangles (white ones go on the colored triangles or colored for the white triangles) to get the block.  It's just one block!

At the end of the day, I had made 9 blocks  -- 

Can you see the secondary circular pattern emerging?  (I did sew one wrong--do you see the mistake?)

I did see a simple 4 patch which alternates with a white square that I'm planning to work on soon too!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts and A Quilting Life

February Free Motion Quilting Challenge

I finished up my pillow for the FMQ challenge from Quilt Shop Gal with a red polka dot binding.  The tutorial is by The Crafty Quilter.

Leah Day is February's expert.  Here is a link to her wonderful blog.

For Quilt Shop Gal's Feb. FMQ challenge, I chose option 1, which was to use Leah Day's double stipple design somewhere in our pillow.  I stitched the double stipple in the grass, the blue background, and also on the house.

I then proceeded to apply some feathers to the heart, some cross hatching on the roof, and a plain stipple in the outside borders.  You can see how it was easy to cross hatch stitch along the rows, boxing in 9 polka dots to create the even cross hatching pattern.

And even the words are FMQ'ed.  I have FMQ words into a quilting design before but they weren't so visible.

This pillow cover can also be a wall hanging.

I added the 4 inch folded in half triangles to each corner before binding so a dowel could be inserted for hanging.

Linking up with Quilt Shop Gal and Crazy Mom Quilts

Valentine Parade

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's a little parade of current and past projects.  See my "Be Mine" page for links to tutorials.

This is my current project which doubles for Valentine's Day and Quilt Shop Gal's February FMQ challenge.  (This tutorial is available from Julie, the Crafty Quilter on her blog)

Instead of hand embroidering, I FMQ the words on with a heavier red thread made for machine embroidery.

I was impatient to try "writing" with FMQ and winged it and didn't mark it first.  I'm so lucky that it turned out pretty good so I don't have to pick it all out!  I think in the future I will mark it though.

Hope you have a very nice day!  Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Spring Time Sewing, a Blog Hop, and patterns

The weather is warm and beautiful today and I've gotten involved with some fun spring quilting activities!  (I do hope for more winter and rain because we are in desperate need of it.)

Susie from Susie's Sunroom is having a Blog Hop to celebrate her first published pattern.  

It's called the The Simply Striped Accent Pillow.  

Here's the schedule.

March 2   Elaine    Summercrafter       http://summercrafter.com/

March 3   Susie  Susies Sunroom     http://susiessunroom.blogspot.com/

March 4   Geta      Geta's Quilting Studio    http://cadouri-din-inima.blogspot.ro/

March 5   Sheri   Sunshine in the Attic        http://www.sunshineintheattic.blogspot.com/

March 6   Lara    BuzzinBumble         http://www.buzzinbumble.com/

March 7   Amanda    The Patchsmith   http://thepatchsmith.blogspot.co.uk/

March 8   Amy  Amy Made That!    http://eamylove.blogspot.com/

Here's a peak at what I'm working on for Susie's March Blog Hop:

 I hope you'll stop by to see Susie and all the creativity and variety the quilters employ with Susie's Simply Striped Accent Pillow pattern!
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 This darling paper pieced pattern by Esther of I Patch and Quilt is soon to be released.

Wall hanging or pillow?  Happy Spring or Happy Easter in embroidery would be a nice addition.

The pattern also includes a bunny and a daffodil.  Here's a photo from Esther's post.

Here are the hashtags to find Esther's lovely creations on Instagram:

#aneasterparade

#ppipatch

#ipatchandquilt

Thanks for stopping by!  Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts

Sweet Hearts and Valentine's Quilty Project

Sweethearts Mini Quilt

One week until Valentine's Day!

Would you like to make your own darling Sweetheart Mini? 

Visit Jera here:  Sweethearts Mini Quilt and tutorial at Quilting in the Rain

 After reading many blogger's posts on their photography, I have been getting more and more interested in the subject.  I got out my tripod today and tried different modes on my camera.  I haven't done that before. 

 The tripod is essential for taking photos without a flash because otherwise they are usually blurry.

There is a big rainstorm this weekend in Northern California, which we really need because of a severe drought.  The clouds cleared a little and I was able to take my dogs out for a walk and got some dappled lighting here, which helps to show the quilting design.

I even bought some Conversation hearts for the photo, but forgot to use them.  Oh well, maybe next time.

  Are you joining Quilt Shop Gal's February FMQ challenge?

Here's a sneak peak at my pieced pillow top so far.

I found the easy tutorial for this darling project by The Crafty Quilter here.


Thanks for Stopping by and have a great weekend!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts (as usual).