Boxes and Bows - Free Charm Pack Pattern

It's another gorgeous summer weekend here in New Hampshire—sunny and warm—and wouldn't you know it, I'm thinking about Christmas!

That's because today, my new quilt Boxes and Bows is a featured recipe at the Moda Bake Shop.

Boxes and Bows is a fast and fun 15" x 42" holiday table runner that's made with only one charm pack, a bit of background fabric, and 1⅓ yard of backing/binding fabric.  

And speaking of fabric, I made my quilt with Kate Spain's colorful North Woods collection and it really is beautiful!  (the fabric, that is, although my quilt's not bad either!)

North Woods features cranberry reds, warm linen, and three shades of green that range from citron to turquoise—yum!  In fact, I loved Kate's fabric so much that I couldn't bear to discard even the 1½" scraps from the project.  Here's a sweet mini quilt that I made with the leftovers:

The center of this little quilt is comprised of 25—1½" squares, surrounded by a ½" (finished) white border.  The outer border is made of 8—1½" x 3½" rectangles and another 4—1½" squares.  I stitched down the middle of the white border with perle cotton for fun, but at 8" square, this quilt really doesn't require any quilting.  And check out the heart in the center of the quilt...

Looks like fussy cutting, right?  Nope, the heart ending up smack dab in the center of this little square was a coincidence, a happy accident as it turns out, because I built the little quilt around it!

If you'd like to make your own version of Boxes and Bows, my free tutorial is available at the Moda Bake Shop.  You'll find complete instructions for the project and lots of photos to help you along the way.  Have fun!

8 Days Until Summer Vacation

Summer vacation is almost here for us and I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread!  As our kids get older, we seem to get exponentially busier.  In addition to the usual homework and orthodontist appointments, this spring we've been dealing with two lacrosse teams, countless concerts, a play, a confirmation, class trips, birthday parties, and **shudder** driver's ed.

I'm barely getting to our laundry, much less finding the time to quilt (or, clearly, blog).  And if I'm not quilting, I'm not happy.

The solution?  Small projects with handwork!

Here's what I've been working on...

Isn't it cute!  The design is not my own, it's a pattern called "Baby Steps" by Chickadee Hollow Designs, but it's the perfect project for when you're busy.  

I made this miniature quilt with scraps from my stash and embroidery floss from another project and the little micro buttons came with the pattern.  I invested a bit of time at first with the piecing, but since then I've been carrying this project around with me and doing the handwork now and then in the car while waiting for the kids to finish an activity.  I just finished sewing down the binding at summer soccer practice.

 

Apparently you don't need a big chunk of time to be productive!  By working a bit here and there, I've got a darling little quilt for my wall AND I've managed to stave off the not-quilting withdrawal symptoms!

Happy quilting!

Spring, Really?

For the first time in months, last night I fell asleep to the sound of falling rain.  I was convinced that I would wake up this morning to find that the last remnants of snow had melted and that spring was finally here.  Instead this is what I found:

More snow.

For some reason, this morning I felt like this on the inside:

But outside it looked like this:

So I decided that if spring won't come to me, I'd make a little spring on my own:

I borrowed the paper-pieced tulips from an MH Designs pattern that I've had for a really long time, but that is actually still available on their website.  The MH Designs quilt is 11" x 18" and has 7 tulips.  I made it once for my mother-in-law, but never got around to making one for myself.  I don't know what took me so long!  The tulips are a breeze to make and really sweet.  My little quilt measures about 5 1/2" x 6" and here's how I'm going to display it:

I think it's darling on the little quilt frame that my mother gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.

Now I have something springy to look at while I wait for the view outside my window to improve.  Not a bad way to spend a Monday morning!

Technical Difficulties

My apologies for not posting for so long, but almost two weeks ago my computer decided to implode and I just got it back from the Geek Squad last night after 12 days - 12!  Not sure what they do in the back room at Best Buy, but I suspect it has more to do with playing computer games and less to do with actually repairing computers.  Although I must say I am delighted that so far my computer has not decided to spontaneously restart itself and it is remarkably quiet... maybe too quiet.

I may not have been blogging, but I have been sewing and now it's time for show and tell.

Remember this adorable Christmas present from my mother?

 

It's a miniature quilt rack that holds 6 inch quilts.  So cute!  After Christmas I didn't want to pack it away so I made this as a Valentine's Day gift for myself...

And then there was the miniature tree that I made for spring...

It seemed to work pretty well for summer so I left it out, but now that fall is here I thought it was time for a change.  So...

Ta da!  2 inch maple leaf blocks!  I paper pieced the blocks for accuracy and this time I got smart and used a knife edge for the little quilt instead of struggling to bind something so small.  This little quilt makes me think of blowing leaves and clear blue skies and crisp apples and spicy pumpkin pie.  All that from a 6" quilt...

Happy Fall!

Think Spring!

Well hockey season is over (sigh), the stomach flu that plagued our family last week has passed (thank God), the 5 inches of snow that surprised us on Saturday morning has melted, and with 60 degree temperatures forecasted this week, spring is definitely in the air.

So I decided to celebrate by making another miniature quilt for my mother's quilt frame (see my posts 'Tis Better to Give:  Part 2 and Sew Sweet).

This is the palette I chose:

I was inspired by the St. Patrick's Day decorations I'm seeing everywhere and, of course, spring.

I wanted to make a tree of life block (on point) for the frame, but for the quilt to fit in the 6 1/2" wide opening, I knew the pieces of the block would have to be tiny.

I've made a couple of miniature quilts in the past.  This is my favorite:

This quilt is 5 1/4" x 8" with a lot of small pieces, but I used paper-piecing for the flying geese.  It was time-consuming, but not difficult.  Unfortunately the tree of life block doesn't exactly lend itself to paper-piecing, so I knew I would have to machine piece all 59 pieces the hard way and that it might be a bit, shall we say, challenging.  But the idea was firmly entrenched in my mind and, as my mother would attest, sometimes I'm a glutton for punishment.  I decided to try anyway.

This is the end result:

I love this little quilt!  It's only 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" and the finished size of the half-square triangles is only 1/2" -- about the size of my thumbnail.  Challenging, yes, but fun and well worth the effort.  Now I have a little bit of spring in the house to help me usher in a new season.

Think spring!