Cabin In The Woods Quilt Top

If I were to tell you I was making a red and green quilt would you automatically think "She's making a Christmas quilt?  Second question...Do you think this looks like a Christmas quilt?  

I'm hoping the answer is NO.  My original plan for this quilt was a Christmas theme.  I spent many hours trying to come up with an applique plan.  Christmas Trees, Snowmen, Snowflakes, Gnomes and Santa's Sleigh with reindeer were all ideas that just didn't feel/look right.  Why does it need to be a Christmas themed quilt?  Shifting the way I think about red and green wasn't easy.  So it took a bit for me to get my brain to understand, I want this quilt to be a cozy quilt that can be used all year long. 

As I planted the final tree in place, it crossed my mind to add some ricrac garland and some tiny circle applique for lights or ornaments.  And my little plain Jane cabin could easily be decorated to resemble a gingerbread house.  Thank goodness Lazy Lea Anne spoke up and reminded me to keep it simple and not Christmassy. 

 All of the applique was made from my scrap bins.  The two small trees were made from the same fabric in the body of the quilt.

Today's plan, dig through the stash to find backing and binding fabrics.  Wish me luck, I really don't want to go fabric shopping.  Yep I said that!

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

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Scrap Buster Baskets ~ UFO Quilt #7 2023 Finished!

 Hello Quilty Friends!  I'm so excited to have another UFO finish!   Scrap Buster Baskets is fairly small, measures about 58 x 64.  I designed and made it back in 2021.

As with all my finished quilt tops she became a UFO because I couldn't come up with a quilting plan and I prefer to design and make quilt tops.

When I pulled her out over a month ago I had a pretty good idea of how I would quilt the blocks.  The sashing and border were the problem.  As a general rule of thumb when doing custom quilting you should use the same quilting designs in the border and quilt body.  Example if you have feather in the border you should add some of the same style feathers somewhere in the body of the quilt.  It makes the look quilt more balanced.

After spending way to much time trying to come up with the perfect plan I gave up.  I don't care if it looks balanced I just wanted it done.

The little scallops in the sashing sorta match the border scallop.  But the feathers, well they don't flow with this quilt at all.  The green plaid border really threw me off when it came to the quilting.  No matter what the quilting design it will get lost in the fabric pattern.  Piano key quilting  was my first thought but plaid is not straight so the piano key quilting wouldn't work.

The little scallops in the sashing was an idea from a Natalia Bonner video.  I thought about doing them on a larger scale in the outer border but it just didn't set right with me for some reason.  

If you are part of the quilt police and trigger easily this is where you might want to leave because I'm going to start talking fabric.  

Most of the prints in this quilt are quilt shop quality.  The background white with red dots is from Joanns.  The red dot used in the inner border and binding is from WalMart and so is that gorgeous quilt back.  It's a Pioneer Woman fabric and I LOVE IT.

And finally the label with a missing comma between designed and made.

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

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Wordless Wednesday ~ Scrap Buster Baskets Progress

 

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~ Home Again Progress and Tips ~

Hi Quilty Friends!  Today I'm taking a little break from quilting the Hunkering Down quilt to play a little game of catch up on the Home Again quilt by Erin Russek.

I'm 3 blocks behind but due to my lack of attention to detail I will need to redo/fix two of the blocks on the wall.  Color placement is an important part of any quilt.   It helps to visually balance or distract depending on the effect you're after.  Block design can also be a balancing effect.  Notice the symmetry in the blocks of this quilt.  Block placement is key in this pretty girl.  Since I'm not following Erin's color pallet it was easy for me mess things up.  Oh well, such is the life of a crafter.  We make mistakes from time to time.  I could leave it as is but with this much work going into a quilt I want it to be as perfect as possible.  The problem is I put the wrong colors in the blocks below.  Visually right now it looks right but the blocks are in the wrong spots just so I can see the color in the right place.  However there is a slight design difference that also adds balance.  Today I'll remove and replace the offending applique pieces.

To aid in the construction of my last few blocks I've taken a few extra precautionary steps.  First was to print a few images from Erin's blog. The image below shows all the blocks in the correct places. 

I've pinned it to my design wall for easy reference.

 Next was to print Erin's last three block images.  I didn't do this with the previous blocks.  Since my attention to detail seems to be a little off right now I thought it might be worth a little printer ink to have the images right there beside me on the last four..  

Next I've labeled the pattern with the proper colors from my pallet.  I also added a diagonal to the applique template sheet for lining up my fabric.  This was done out of pure habit.  Erin's pattern is centered perfectly on the paper.  The fabric background square is 8.5" and they have all fit perfectly without needing the centering marks.  Just line up the fabric with the edge of the paper and start adding applique.  I haven't needed to use my light box for these either.

 Another precaution I'm taking (just encase my brain decides to take trip into la-la-land) is labeling my circles on the fusible with the correct color.  The center for the large flower is a little bigger than the other 4 flower centers.  It would be easy to attach it to the wrong color.  Hopefully taking these extra steps will make these last few blocks go together properly.

I know some of you may already use these methods as a standard when making applique.  In my earlier blocks my thought was to just get them done quickly and move onto something else.  Lesson learned!  It's quicker to do it right the first time.

All of these small blocks are FREE on Erin's blog.  Click here to go to her most recent post.  Do a search in the sidebar of her blog for Home Again or just keep scrolling and clicking older post to find all the blocks.

The large center block can be purchased here.

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~ Home Again and Playing ~

Howdy Sweet Quilting Friends!  Today I'm doing what I do best, making a HUGE fun mess.  Pulling fabric is the best part of quilting, don't you think?  I'm digging deep into the stash to find my most loved pieces of out of print Lakehouse Drygoods fabrics.  Some of these I forgot I owned.  My original plan for this quilt was to work only from the scrap bins.  But there just isn't enough variety of prints and scale of prints.  I'll use what I can from the scrap bins then supplement with the larger pieces.  In the picture below all but the solid yellow is Lakehouse Drygoods.  The solid will be the background fabric, well at least that's the plan as of right now.

The pattern I'm using is called Home Again by Erin Russek.  It's a free block of the month.  You can read more about on Erin's blog One Piece At a Time here and here.

Not all the fabrics in the scrap bins are Lakehouse prints.  There's a little of everything from Moda to Walmart fabrics.  

The birds are giving me a little trouble.  I can't decide on the perfect combination of prints.  A little more digging might be in order.  Before you know it I'll have every fabric out of the cabinet.  This is how most quilters work fabric magic.  For those of you who struggle to match fabric here's the secret...Play with your fabric a lot.  And then pull more fabric and play a little more.  Then if needed go shopping for more!

Maybe the fabrics in my little test bird is a better option for color?  Well I'm going to be here for a little while longer.

After I make a plan for the center Medallion block I can move onto the smaller blocks. Aren't they just the cutest!   See you in a few days with the results!

Just a little reminder that you can still gt 20% off you entire purchase at The Purple Hobbies website using the code PodunkPrettiesJan20  

Offer ends February 29, 2020.   Make sure when adding the code to your shopping cart that you click APPLY.  You can see my review of the BladeSaver Thread cutter here.  And the Third hand Binding Folder Clip here.

50% OFF Sweet Sixteen PDF pattern 

expires 2-15-2020

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~ Christmas Joy by Just Let Me Quilt ~

HELLO Happy Quilters!  Friday at last!  How many of you are like me and planning a private quilting retreat in your sewing room?  I bet I'm not the only one with few Christmas sewing projects on the to-do list.  For me these are the best retreats.  I prepared for this 3 day quilting retreat by cooking ahead for Mr. Podunk.  If he doesn't want to eat Taco Soup leftovers all weekend there's frozen pizza and cold cuts in the fridge.   The only thing that could interrupt my pajama quilting retreat is unexpected company.  But to be honest, we are so far out in Podunk no one drops by without calling.  My private podunk retreat officially started late yesterday afternoon with this jolly little Santa designed by Carol over at Just Let Me Quilt.  I chose this project first just because today is National St. Nicholas Day.  Who knew there was such a thing?  You can read more about how to observe National St. Nicholas Day here.

Really it just doesn't get much cuter than this.  The finished quilt is lap or large wall hanging size.  You can get all the details on Carols blog and at the Thermoweb website.  Pssst....it's a FREE quilt pattern.  Go get it even if you don't have time to make it right now.  Save to your computer for next year.  Maybe get a jump start on next Christmas...RIGHT!....LOL!   Who does that?!

Before I could start the Christmas Joy quilt I needed to make my final pull for two other quilts from my bin of over pulled fabrics.  Below is what's left after pulling out exactly what I needed to make the blocks for the other two quilts.  Well all but the black fabric.  Black is not a color I use often so I had to dig deep in the stash cabinets.  Can you see the selvage on the black fabric?  This little scrap is from my treasured discontinued, no longer in business, Lakehouse Drygoods stash.

The other two quilts on my list for the next month are my own designs.  They will eventually be published patterns.  For now I'm focusing on getting them pieced, quilted and ready for the grand children's Christmas visit.  I'll have a little extra time to get them completed because we will be celebrating Christmas in early January on my daughters birthday.  

Both of my designs are Christmas patterns.  One is 100% pieced blocks and the other has just a tiny bit of applique.  I'll be using Lori Holt's Gingerbread Man template.   This template is a few years old, so it might be hard to find.  And if you do find it, it comes in a set of several different Christmas templates.  So when I write the pattern it will come with a similar gingerbread man paper template.

Now that all that is taken care of I can get down to business.

As you can see I cut the center out of each applique piece.  Heat N Bond Lite isn't stiff.  It's actually very light weight.  The windowing makes it even lighter and it takes very little time to do.

The applique placement sheet printed out off center.  I'm sure this was a printer error and not a pattern error.  No worries, I simply folded the page in half, matching the outlines of the block.  Then marked the center of each line.   The same process was repeated on polka dot blue background fabric.

Using a light box to line up those markings on both the paper and the fabric.  Then started adding the applique.

I knew this was going to happen....shadowing.  Shadowing is when the darker fabrics show through the lighter fabrics on top.  My solution for this is simple, just add another applique.

So I traced, cut and layered them the best I could.  It's impossible to get them exactly the same when using scissors to cut your shapes.  The fix is simple.

After removing the paper from the back of all applique pieces, layer the two exact same shapes together on an applique pressing sheet.  Then press with a medium heat iron.  Allow them to cool for a minute or two.  Carefully peel them off the pressing sheet.

Now I can trim these up to match.  Trim carefully, taking off the tiny little pieces extending out past the top fabric.

There you have it!  Trimmed and fused in place.  Most of the shadowing is gone.  There is still a little right under the nose but we'll just call it a mustache!

I'm really happy how Jolly Ole St. Nick turned out.  After making all the applique blocks in this pattern I'll machine stitch around the applique with a tiny blanket stitch and matching thread.  

#JustLetMeQuilt #ChristmasJoyQuilt #christmasquilt #christmasquiltblock #freequiltpattern #thermoweb #heatnbondlite #podunkpretties

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