Dandy drive is moving along and my flower stem blocks are complete. I went scrappy and cleared out almost all of the green from my scrap basket.
This little lap quilt is finally finished. I had to keep putting it on hold because of other projects coming in. I found some of the fabric at a neat fabric store that mostly has odd sizes and rem…
Brr, it's cold outside! Lately I've been enamored with quilt designs and origami crafts. Their bold colors and gorgeous geometric patterns really make me swoon! Today's post combines my love for both crafts. These origami paper quilts are really quite beautiful to look at. Folding them can be a bit of challenge, because there are so many units to fold. But, make them with some friends and you're sure to have some indoor fun during these cold winter nights. Origami Friendship Quilts Note: This post contains affiliate links. This means I make a small bit of change when you purchase items through the links. Thank you for your support and the grocery money. For my full disclosure policy, click here. Full disclosure: We've been going on various origami book-hunting sprees at the library. This design is not my own. We found it in an older origami book. However, since we found this particular craft awhile ago, I've completely blanked on the title of the book. I'm so sorry! I will put it in here once I find it again. Let's Make 20 Unit Pieces Ok. As you can probably guess, this origami quilt is made up of several different unit pieces. (20 to be exact.) Here's how to make these units: You'll need 20 sheets of origami paper. (I wanted to make a smaller quilt, so I cut up 5 sheets of paper to create 20 smaller origami sheets. Each origami sheet created 4 smaller sheets.) Take a piece of origami paper and fold it along the diagonal like this. Then, fold the triangle in half and then unfold it. (This crease will help you line up all of your units.) Then, fold down the tip of the triangle. Use a glue stick to hold the tip down. Make 20 units in total. (Ah! An origami army!) Let's Make 5 Origami Windmills Now we're going to take our 20 units and use them to make 5 windmill pieces. Here's how we do that! Using a glue stick, attach two units together like this. (Note that the yellow triangle slides into the pink triangle.) Now, attach another triangle in a similar manner. (This time the orange triangle slides into the yellow triangle.) Use a glue stick to attach them together. Repeat this process with another triangle to complete a windmill. (This time the green triangle slides into the orange triangle and the pink triangle slides into the green triangle.) Great! Now make 5 or these windmills. Finally! Let's Make a Paper Origami Quilt! Are you still reading this post? Awesome. This means that you're serious. Fortunately, we're almost done. Now we're going to piece the windmills together to create a lovely paper origami quilt. Ok, align two windmills together like this... And then slide them together! (Use a glue stick to attach them.) Then, grab another windmill and position it like so. Slide it in, and glue it together. Then, align another windmill like so: Slide it in and glue it together. Now, align another windmill over here like so... Slide the final triangles together and glue everything in to create this lovely design! Yes! You did it! Shake a mighty fist in the air and shout, "I am an origami genius!" Go ahead I won't judge. Done? Ok! You can keep your design like this. Or, you can make it look more like a quilt. To do this, fold back the pieces that stick out. Use clear tape to secure them. And you're all set! Hope you have fun trying out this combined math and art activity! And of course, if you're looking for more activities that combine math and art, check out the links below! More Fun Activities that Combine Math and Art Number Chart Sticker Art 100 Color Challenge Pi Day String Art Activity Mystery Grid Art Happy making, friends!
As part of the Summer Stitch along, I wanted to share some ideas for stitching stems. You can use the whip stitch that I shared in this post, but it’s kind of fun to mix it up a little. The …
Way back in January when I saw the first pictures of Supernova by Rae Ritchie for Dear Stella Fabrics, I knew it would make the perfect quilt for my youngest daughter. It's been only a year or so since Mouse decided that she wants to be a scientist when she grows up. Looking forward to her science lessons in school, doing experiments with her Daddy, and trips to the Witte Museum in San Antonio make her even more excited about it. But when I showed her this fabric and told her I was going to make a science quilt for her bed, she was over the moon. The Test Tubes Quilt is one of the most beginner friendly quilt patterns I've ever designed. These blocks come together like lightning, and the result is both modern and colorful. Dear Stella Basics paired with prints from the Supernova collection gave me a full spectrum of colors to work with for the "liquids" in the test tubes. For the quilting, I used a wavy stitch setting on my machine. It reminds me of DNA strands, and it made the quilting process go so quickly. The binding is a fantastic solar system print which gives little pops of color on a navy background. I backed the quilt in this lab print full of wonderful scientific illustrations. There are so many great details in this collection. Just in case you'd like to make a Test Tubes Quilt for a future (or current!) scientist of your own, here's a simple tutorial... Test Tubes Quilt Tutorial Finished size: 45 x 69” Fabric For Cutting 1 yard White Night Sky Tube A Tube B Tube C Tube D Tube E Tube F Tube G Tube H Tube I Tube J 1 rectangle 4.5 x 12.5” 1 rectangle 4.5 x 8.5” 1 rectangle 4.5 x 15.5” 1 rectangle 4.5 x 5.5” 1 rectangle 4.5 x 19.5” 1 rectangle 4.5 x 12.5” 1 rectangle 4.5 x 9.5” 1 rectangle 4.5 x 5.5” 1 rectangle 4.5 x 11.5” 1 rectangle 4.5 x 8.5” .25 yard Cranberry Scallop Dot Tube A 1 rectangle 4.5 x 16.5” .25 yard Coral Triangle Dot Tube B 1 rectangle 4.5 x 20.5” .25 yard Eggshell Scallop Dot Tube C 1 rectangle 4.5 x 13.5 .25 yard Solar Spectacles Tube D 1 rectangle 4.5 x 23.5” .25 yard Corn Scallop Dot Tube E 1 rectangle 4.5 x 9.5” .25 yard Celery Scallop Dot Tube F 1 rectangle 4.5 x 16.5” .25 yard Lawn Pencils Tube G 1 rectangle 4.5 x 19.5” .25 yard Pine Scallop Dot Tube H 1 rectangle 4.5 x 23.5” .25 yard Opal Scallop Dot Tube I 1 rectangle 4.5 x 17.5” .25 yard Navy Chalkboard Tube J 1 rectangle 4.5 x 20.5” 1.5 yard Nickel Scallop Dot Lower corners of tubes Background between tubes Horizontal background strips 20 squares 1.75 x 1.75” 12 rectangles 4.5 x 28.5 3 rectangles 4.5 x 44.5” Batting Quilt batting 1 rectangle 51 x 75” 4.25 yards Yucca Laboratory Quilt backing 1 rectangle WOF x 75” 1 rectangle WOF x 11” (piece together to make 1 rectangle approximately 55 x 75”) .75 yard Navy Supernova Binding 6 strips 2 1/4 x WOF Notes: All seams are a quarter of an inch. Press seams open or toward the darker fabric. RST = right sides together Pair up the white and colored pieces for each test tube block according to their letters. Sew them together along the lower 4.5” edge for the white piece and the upper 4.5” edge for the colored piece. Take one test tube block and 2 of the 1.75 x 1.75” gray background squares. Place the squares RST in the lower colored corners of the block and use a pencil to draw a line on the wrong side of the fabric that goes from the upper outer corner of each square to the lower inner corner of each square. Stitch on that line, trim off a 1/4” seam, and press open. Repeat with the remaining test tube blocks and squares. Arrange the test tube blocks into two rows according to the diagram above. Sew a 4.5 x 28.5” gray background strip between each of the test tubes and at either end of each row. You should end up with 2 pieced rows that measure approximately 28.5 x 52.5”. Sew a 4.5 x 52.5” gray background strip above the upper test tube block unit, between the two units, and below the lower unit, creating the quilt top. Quilt, back, and bind the quilt as desired. If you make one of these, be sure to use the hashtag #testtubesquilt and tag me @fabricmutt! Happy sewing, my friends!
The raffle quilt for the Assiniboine Circle Quilter's quilt show is off my design wall and at the longarmer's to be quilted. Thousands of...
I LOVE discovering fun science and math fabrics...and texty fabrics and so when I discovered this Chemistry novelty line by Becky Marie Designs for Riley Blake I knew I needed to make them into a quilt. We went for a black and gold motif since those are our school colors and my husband could use it on the wall in his classroom. Thanks to Riley Blake Fabrics for sending me the fabrics and to Fairfield World for providing batting and compensating me for this project. All ideas, opinions, and enthusiasm are 100% my own. This post contains affiliate links. And my kids' enthusiasm all their own too! They say the family that does chemistry together...stays together... This quilt is simple and easy to make on your own, since it uses strip piecing in simple blocks. Here's what you'll need: 3/8 yard each of Periodic Table in Grey, Periodic Table in White, Equations in Grey, and Equations in White. 1/4 yard Equations in Black 1/3 yard Additional Equations in White for middle border 1 yard Periodic Table in Black for outer border and binding 1 2/3 yard Periodic Table in White or other favorite fabric for backing. 1 package Nature-Fil™ Bamboo Blend Batting 60″ X 60″ Heat'n Bond Lite and solids for accents (optional) Basting Spray (optional) Directions: Cut 5 width-of-fabric 2" wide strips from your White Equations fabric and set aside for your middle border. From each of your white and grey fabrics, cut 3 - width of fabric 4 1/2" strips. (This will give you a total of 12 strips.) Pair up a periodic table strip with the opposite color equations strip. You'll have triples of each set. Make sure to alternate which is on top and which is on bottom. Sew strips together with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Cut into 8 1/2 inch blocks. Lay out your blocks in an alternating manner turned every which way. I love slightly random looking quilts. Cut your border strips. Cut 5 width-of-fabric 1 1/2" strips of black equations fabric. Use your reserved 5 - 2" width of fabric strips of white equations you cut earlier. Cut 5 - 3" width of fabric strips of black periodic table fabric. Sew the borders from thinnest to thickest. Add an accent applique if desired using Heat'n Bond Lite and following manufacturer's instructions. I quilted using Nature-Fil™ Bamboo Blend Batting 60″ X 60″ and 505 Basting Spray to hold my layers together. I usually use straight line quilting on my quilts, but this time I decided to branch out and do free motion quilting to spell out the names of elements in cursive. (Don't look to close! It was my first time doing this kind of free-motion quilting.) Finish up your quilt by binding. I use a double thickness binding method. Cut 5 - 3" width of fabric strips for your binding. Sew them end to end. Iron your long strip in half the long way. Stitch on your binding with your choice of mitered or square corners. And if you end up with any extra fabric, you might want to think about making some of these Geek Valentine Ideas: Connect with me on...
A blog about quilting and sewing with quilt-a-longs (QAL) and One Monthly Goal
Blocks must ship by June 6th. Please do your absolute best to honor the deadline out of fairness and respect to your teammates and to save me from having to follow up with individuals who have not …
It Will be Fun in Green for St. Patrick’s Day, Too! This pretty little quilt will be beautiful on your table for Valentine’s Day and other romantic occasions. Make it up quickly with scraps from your stash or from a package of charm squares. Pink and red against a cream background is a lovely combination. …
This is what I have been busy with over the last few days! All scraps from previous quilts, except the green background fabric for some of these. I hope the recipients of these gifts will enjoy usi…
As part of the Summer Stitch along, I wanted to share some ideas for stitching stems. You can use the whip stitch that I shared in this post, but it’s kind of fun to mix it up a little. The …
Are you new to machine quilting? You may have made tied quilts for a while and now want to explore machine quilting. I’ve seen a lot of advice given for how to machine quilt but I think mos…
Free pattern: Learn how to quilt feathers on hexagons. 2 Designs included, complete instructions and Hexagon Flower sheets for free motion quilting practice
Ooh, just realized it's the last Saturday of the month. I've had these little patches done for a couple of weeks but no time to blog. Anyway, here they are--the last of my rainbow crumbs for Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2019. I don't have a lot of blacks in my stash, especially when I left out most of the tone-on-tones that looked mostly solid, so these crumbs are a bit repetitious, but that's okay. There are some interesting prints. The photo's not great. It's very dark in the house today, so I put took these in front of the slider door to the deck. Here's one with some of its friends and the background fabric (in the upper left) that will be the sashing. These will get trimmed down to about 5 inches (or 5 1/2 if I can manage it) before sashing. There are 48 blocks in all. I hope to finish the RSC19 quilts by the end of the year, but that may be pushing things a bit, as I have some other things going. I have been sewing, but one project I can't show right now. It's so hard not to share, but all will be revealed eventually. I can show you a bit of a squirrel that crossed my path this month--well, not literally, although that does happen from time to time. And it fits in with this post as it is a scrap project. Mostly. In the middle of it, I ran out to buy one tiny bit of fabric--the yellow one with large gold dots on the left--because I felt like it needed something a little more dramatic than I had on hand. Here's what part of the process looked like. I drew a pattern on graph paper and then made templates from freezer paper using techniques I learned from Ruth B. Mc Dowell's books. This is my favorite kind of piecing--like a puzzle. And this one has the added dimension of a flap for the central vein and stem. I think I'll add more blocks from time to time with other leaves, flowers and natural elements, but I don't have a real firm plan at this point. So that's it for this week (month?). Today, a great big squirrel dropped into my inbox in the form of a pattern and request from my daughter for a Christmas Tree skirt. Ooh, part of it is foundation pieced! This is just in time, since I can't share the other project I'm working on. I'm linking up this week with Angela at So Scrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap. And since there is a little squirrel here, I'll also link up with Sandra's next DrEAMi (Drop Everything and Make It) party at mmm! quilts. I hope you're having fun playin' in the scraps. (I'm not affiliated with any company, so when I mention products, services, or stores I'm just documenting what I used or liked.)
Making stems and vines and even lettering is easy if you use bias tape. It can add so much to a quilt to add a bit of simple applique, and bias tape is the SIMPLEST of all applique. Here are a few examples of quilts with a bit of bias applique: Trellis Around the Town See the lettering on this quilt? I made 3/8" bias tape and formed it into the letters. Let me show you how it's done. I use bias tape makers from Clover Notions. They come in many sizes. Berry Patch, Cherry Lemonade DishTowels, and Cottage Bloom First, cut your strips on the bias of your fabric. That is...45 degrees from the grainlines. In this example I am using a 3/8" bias tape maker, so I will cut my strips 7/8" wide. No matter what size bias tape maker you use, double it and add a scant 1/8" to get the cut size. That extra 1/8" gives just a little more fabric to make the folds. Now spray your strips with starch. This is very important because your folds will stay crisply turned. Do this before you pass the strip through the bias tape maker because if you do it after, the moisture will undo the folds. Feed the bias strip into the bias tape maker with the wrong side up. If you press the end of the strip before you do this, it will dry the starch and make it stiff and easy to feed through. Turn it over to the back side. There is a little slot on the bias tape maker you where you can see your fabric. Use a pin or awl to slide the fabric down to advance it all the way through and out the other side of the bias tape maker. Now turn it back over with the wrong side of the strip facing up on the ironing surface. Pin the end of the strip to the ironing surface to anchor it. Pull the bias tape maker to the left as you follow it with your iron. Keep the fabric strip centered as it feeds through so it will fold the fabric edges over as you press. That's all there is to it! Now you have a strip of fabric made into bias tape. You can shape it with your steam iron to make the curves and loops you need for your design. For example, to make the letters for the Berry Patch quilt I showed you before, first make a copy of the letter guide. Place the guide on your ironing surface press the bias tape right on the page following the outlines on the paper. Once the letters are formed, take them to your quilt top and baste them in place using Jillily Studio Appli-Glue. Then you can stitch them in place either by machine or by hand. I usually stitch by hand, but all this lettering was done by machine! Here is another example of using a shaping guide. This is for the gate on my Secret Garden quilt. I used narrower bias tape here--1/4" wide to make the parts of the gate. I am using red bias here just to show you, but on the actual quilt I used a black print. Be sure to glue baste everything in place to make it easy to stitch! Secret Garden Now you can see that making bias tape using your own fabrics can be very simple and add so much to your quilt. I hope you find that this tutorial can make your quilting easier. Oh, by the way, I was on American Patchwork and Quilting Radio today with Pat Sloan. We had a nice chat. If you want to listen, go to this link: http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/radio/index.html Were you listening in today? I hope so. Jill
WHILE THE FABRIC LASTS, YOU MAY INCREASE THE QUANTITY FOR LARGER CUTS. IF YOU WANT 4 YARDS, YOU WILL CHOOSE 2 YARDS WITH A QUANTITY OF 2. I WILL CUT 4 CONTINUOUS YARDS FOR YOU. Width 44-45 inches Print - Mad Scientist STEM Squad Manufactured by Michael Miller Cuts will be continuous Same or next business day shipping Type - 100% COTTON QUILT FABRIC, Quilting Weight
Steampunk Clm190665 Quilt Blanket Alcato Shirt
These instructions are for the Trailing Vines quilt along. First prepare your cut background panel by first pressing it in half lengthwis...
Made new stockings on Sunday and finished them up last night!! I'm pretty pleased with them....I've never been happy with my ability to quilt up letters, so the cuffs aren't my favorite, but I can always change them down the road. For now it works and my kids like them ;o) I only have time to post pictures today....no details, to much last minute quilts to do, but I think the pictures explain what I did and how I did it....pretty well...... I got this quilting idea from Judi, with Green Fairy Quilts....thanks Judi! Very BRIGHT...but fun. I did up the green ones for the boys and let them pick their favorite and the girls picked out there design before I quilted them up. Still haven't had a chance to quilt up my Christmas quilt...but maybe that will be my Christmas Eve activity. ~Jenny~
This is a small top made with hexagons to represent DNA.
Front Back The shaped edges I just treated myself & purchased these pillows last week. I found them last year but couldn't bare to pay the price. Ouch! So I've watched them in hopes of a sale or markdown & it finally happened last week!!! I was so happy. I bought two & they fit perfectly with the flow of our home. Cozy & eclectic. I love how the quilt compliments the pillows. All of my favorite vantage colors together in one blanket. Our walls are still unfinished & we still don't have a bookshelf built yet but the colors that we have throughout will stay the same. I really think the quilt helps to pull it all together. I know I have a quirky sense of style but I try to fill our home with things that bring a smile to our faces & cheerfulness to our home. Crinkly goodness Just a sneak peek of what else I've been working on. I've been a quilting fool! Teehee! Can't wait to share these two little quilts with you very soon! It's hard to believe that it's taken over a year to finish this quilt. It was my very first attempt at making my own pattern & I am so tickled with how it all came together. I didn't do any fancy cut outs on the back like I had originally planned. I wanted so badly to finish the back with giant fabric tickets to match the tickets on the fabric but sometimes I have to scale things down or I'll never get them done. I really wanted to finish this quilt up so I'll try my ticket idea on another project in the future. Tumbler quilts have been around for a long time. I still plan on offering this pattern in my shop in the very near future. Susannah of An Art Nest & I are teaming up to write the pattern. It's a very simple quilt that I feel a beginner could make or a novice sewer would still find a fun project to whip up. I'm starting to feel a little less nervouse when quilting these days. I'm learning to trust my instincts & have fun with the process. I've been watching some fellow bloggers getting ready for quilt market. I can't help but feel a little twinge in my heart. I think I'm starting to relaize what direction I want to take my art & creativity. Now I just need to do the work & figure out how to get from point A to point B. I'll share more very soon :) Hope you all are having a great week! I'm linking up to:: Bloggers Quilt Festival
These pattern block challenges are a great way to incorporate STEM into the classroom! Grab your blocks and you're ready to design and build!
I used the pattern made by Penny at sewtakeahike, the peppermint table runner, shrunk it down to 25% and I added a stem to it and then appliqued on 2 leaves. I knew my skills weren't good enough to piece them in, too. The stem was hard enough! lol While I've always respected all the paper piecers I know, I admire them even MORE, now. All that "make sure it's big enough to cover, don't forget to allow for seam allowances" stuff really made me concentrate. And this is not a bitty, it's really huge, by comparison, it's 6.5". This is the pattern- www.etsy.com/listing/67260586/funky-peppermint-table-runn...
I've had scraps on the brain lately. First, I just finished working on a project for the No Scrap Left Behind blog tour with Amanda Jean/...
Is that the Periodic Table? This fun Quilt is available in multiple sizes 64" x 70" 80" x 86" 92" x 102" This pattern is a PDF version and is available for immediate download from ETSY. Requires a computer, a printer and PDF viewing software such as Adobe Reader. No shipping or handling charges. NOTE: Print pattern at 100% size, do not resize, scale or shrink to fit.
A couple of months ago I saw this adorable quilt, which sold on ebay for $550. I had never seen this pattern before, and was unable to find it in any of my reference books. It's probably a published pattern, but I think it would be pretty cool if the quilter designed this herself. Although the
Carolina Oneto offers online quilting classes, live workshops and on-demand video courses. Quilting courses for people of all skill levels.
I think the Blogger's Quilt Festival, a few years ago, was my first introduction to the world of quilt and fiber arts blogs. I really enjoy looking through all of the entries each year, and discovering new blogs and people! If you're new to my blog, welcome! I knew that I wanted to enter this newly finished quilt this year, but wasn't sure what category to enter it in. Since all of the molecules are appliqued onto the quilt, I decided to enter it in the applique category, even if it is very non-traditional! I started this about 2 years ago, as part of the Modern Quilt Guild's challenge, which had a theme of "organic". After machine embroidering the hexagon and pentagon "molecule rings" onto all of the blocks, and then hand embroidering the first few blocks, it quickly became obvious that I wasn't going to get it done in the time period allotted. I had time to stitch the blocks during a cross-country road trip 2 summers ago, and even stitched together the back that same summer. Then, I put it away and it sat for a very long time... I think it sat for 2 reasons... the finished quilt wasn't as nice as I had envisioned in my mind's eye. I love the concept of it, though, and wanted to see it realized. I love geeky science quilts! The other reason was that I had no idea how to quilt it. In the end, I pretty much just closed my eyes and started quilting it, hoping for the best. The hexagon quilting too forever, but I'm glad I endured and got it done! I was thinking about adding some free motion quilting in addition, but decided that I like the "simplicity" (ha!), or clean lines of the hexagonal quilting, and left it alone. The back is pieced together from all of the various fabrics that I used to make the hexagons and pentagons on the molecules. It's 60 by 75 inches. Each appliqued and embroidered square is backed by muslin to keep the stitches from showing through the fabric, so it's a thick, heavy quilt as well. I think if I added up all of the time I spent hand embroidering each block, researching the chemicals, and quilting this beast, I probably put more time into this quilt than any other. Whew! Be sure to head over to the festival to see all of the other amazing quilts there!
Happy Friday! Let’s start with the winners of the Serenity fabric, chosen at random. The winner of the Serenity kit is Ann, comment on Sept 27 at 4:06 a.m. The winner of the 5″ strips …
Dandy drive is moving along and my flower stem blocks are complete. I went scrappy and cleared out almost all of the green from my scrap basket.
Hands-on learning is incredibly important for kids. There are a million reasons why! Today I am highlighting more than 60 elementary hands-on math teaching ideas that I have featured over the years on my site.
This is definitely my favorite block so far. Here are the particulars: RULER: 12/13″ arc LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: 101, Beginner Ruler Quilting, some experience Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) DESIGNS: cros…
These pattern block challenges are a great way to incorporate STEM into the classroom! Grab your blocks and you're ready to design and build!
Good Morning folks! How are you all doing? Last week was a doozy. My little tribe of kiddos headed back to school. The house is so quiet without their racket. Now all I have is Stanley's labrador snoring and the birds. These are actually very nice sounds, but so different from when the kids are home. I was seized by a frenzy of cleaning. It is so very nice to enjoy a clean house for a couple hours before 3pm when every surface is covered with backpacks and homework and the push begins to get hungry children fed before football practice. The little guy is in 4th grade, the middle man is in 5th grade and Emma just started 7th grade. I have also finished quilting several quilts. Kelly L. let me quilt her Steampunk quilt. I love it so much. Swirls, loops and lines make up the quilting. I love her color choices and fabric combinations so much! The back is so pretty too! So many great low volume blocks! I thought she had given me 2 quilts, and emailed her asking what type backing she waned me to use when I quilted her quilts. She told me the low volume one was the back! duh. It makes this quilt so awesome! I love how the quilting looks on the back! OK, have a super day! Tia
Step by step instructions and tutorial on how to hand embroider Stem stitch with samples to give you ideas on how this stitch can be used in your projects.
Are you new to machine quilting? You may have made tied quilts for a while and now want to explore machine quilting. I’ve seen a lot of advice given for how to machine quilt but I think mos…
Way back in January when I saw the first pictures of Supernova by Rae Ritchie for Dear Stella Fabrics, I knew it would make the pe...
