~ One More Christmas Quilt ~

 The light at the end of the tunnel!  This cute little gingerbread man is the last of my Christmas quilts for this year last year.  I thought about moving on and packing these away for later in the year.  But who wants another UFO laying around taking up the much needed space for new fabrics, right!? 😉 So onward with the Christmas sewing.  It feels more like Christmas now that the temperatures have dropped outside and in the Studio...60 degrees in my happy little sewing space...BRRRRR! You gotta love older homes that at one time were equipped with wood stoves.  Thank goodness for space heaters.  Imagine what my fabric would look like with a wood stove in the studio. Well as soon as it warms up in there I'll be working on this yummy little guy and 11 more of his buddies.

Last night I auditioned some buttons and trim.  Now to make the decision of simple or over the top cute by adding trim.  Do I want to do the extra work?  Only time will tell and a test of the trim addition process.

Adding the trim might take a considerable amount of time.  Since I'm doing raw edge applique the cute little trim(found at our local Joann's by the yard) can not be turned under to hide the edges.  To hold the trim in place before stitching and to stop the edges of the cotton trim from unraveling I'll need to secure it with Sew Secure.  Placing the tiny trim is tedious and time consuming.  Not to mention the drying time.  The testing will include a warm iron test to help dry the glue faster.   Sew Secure is a permanent but soft version of Fray Check.  Easy to sew through even by hand.  I've used it for years when doing hand applique.  It's great for those inner points needing to be clipped close to the edge.  However it is no longer being made.  Well I can't find it anywhere. Do you know of another product that is similar to Sew Secure? 

Today I'll also be doing a test on machine stitching these tiny little buttons in place.  I've never used my machine for such tiny buttons.  It'll be a slow test, hand cranking my machine just to make sure it's not going to crash into the buttons.  The tiny red and green buttons were my first choice.  I purchased them at the same time as the cotton ric-rac-ish trim in our local store but they are not in the online store, so the link is to Amazon.  A few days later I stumble upon the adorable heart buttons 💘and other small red buttons on Amazon.  By the way these are just links I get nothing for you clicking or buying.  Anyway...I decided the red and green were out and the Buttons Galore were the way to go.

Now I can't decide if I want to use both or mix them up a bit.  What do you think about the buttons A or B?  Geesh, who knew picking buttons could be so hard?

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

sale ends 2-15-2020

Pin It

~ Winter Blues Blog Hop ~ Morning Glory ~

Today I'm sharing my Morning Glory quilt for The Winter Blues Blog Hop. This quilt has been in the needs to be quilted pile for about 3 years.  You can see the original post with color inspiration here. The blog hop was the perfect opportunity to finally finish the beauty.  She's a little out of my color and style comfort zones.  But I tell you what.... I 💙LOVE 💙 her.

There was plenty of white space for custom quilted feathers but I felt a simpler quilting design would make her shine in all her glory.  All of the fabrics but one is Kona Solids from Joann's.  The green leaf fabric is quilt shop quality but I can't remember what line of fabric.  Quilted using my favorite thread, MicroQuilter 7002.  I love how this thread blends into every color fabric.  

Keeping it simple was the theme all the way down to the machine binding.  This was a no fuss quilt.  Well except for her large size, 91 x 91!  Just the right size for the spare bedroom bed.  

A big ole thank you to Carla at Creating in the Sticks for hosting The Winter Blues Blog Hop. Be sure to hop over to her blog to enter the giveaway everyday during the blog hop.

And don't forget to visit all the fabulous blogs participating in this blog hop.

Little Bunny Quilts

For the love of geese

The Joyful Quilter

Ms P Designs USA
Quilt Schmilt
Karen's Korner
Made By Marney
Podunk Pretties   (you are here)
Sunshine in the Attic

 You can see my review of the BladeSaver Thread cutter here.  And the Third hand Binding Folder Clip here.

Thank you for stopping by my little spot in Podunk!

#winterbluesbloghop #modernquiltpattern #blueandwhitequilt 

Pin It

~ Christmas Joy Quilt ~

Hello Happy Quilters!  I'm so excited to finally get my Christmas Joy Quilt off the frame.  This is a fairly small quilt and  pretty lightly quilted it should have taken no longer than 2 days to quilt.  However my ruler foot broke and then there was an issue with a back spinning bobbin.   The powers that be love to throw me a few curve balls with ever quilt.  

The quilt will be used by my grandchildren when they come to visit during the holiday season.  I wanted it to be soft and cuddly for them and have pretty quilting is for me.   I think I achieved both.

Sometimes it's hard to achieve the feathery look I love without making a stiff quilt.  The trick is to not follow some of the so called rules for custom quilting.  I'm pretty sure the longarm quilting police would curl their noses at the lack of background quilting in my applique blocks.

Now all that's left to do is add the polka dot binding.  Since I have about 11 months to finish the binding I'll take my time and hand stitch it to the back of the quilt.

The Christmas Joy Quilt pattern was designed by Carol Swift for the Thermoweb website. I made a few alterations to the pattern to make my own.  Click here for the original pattern.

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

click image

expires 2-15-2020

#thermoweb #heatnbondlite #christmasjoyquilt

Pin It

~ Nifty Notions ~ Binding Folder Clip Review ~

Hello Happy Quilters!  Today I'm going to share my product review of  The Third Hand Binding Folder Clip.  This is not a paid review.  When I purchased this and the BladeSaver Thread Cutter a couple of weeks ago I was in no way affiliated with the manufacturer Purple Hobbies .  When I posted the BladeSaver review you (my loyal followers) wiped out the stock on the website where I made my purchases.  A few of you contacted me to let me know these products were no longer available on my suggested website.😞  Well I love this new company and their products so much I had to contact them to see if they could help.  And they did!  Keep reading to the bottom of this post for a special discount code.

For now lets take a look at this weeks product review, The Third Hand Binding Folder Clip.  This cute little gadget comes in many different colors.  I chose the Lt. Blue.   It came in an easy to open packaging and the instructions did not require a magnifying glass.  I love it when I don't need my reading glasses because most of the time they are lost...HAHA!😁

It really doesn't require instructions.  Just loosen the wing nut and screw....

Adjust it to fit your ironing board, and tighten the wingnut.  TADA!  Ready to use in about 30 seconds.  It just doesn't get much easier than that.  Now before we go any further I want to let you know this grips really well due to the little circle of added rubber.(see first photo in this blog post)

The instructions say to use 2.5" or 2.25" wide strips of fabric for the binding.  As you can see I'm using a jelly roll strip (2.5").  As you can also see the fabric shifted making one side a little wider than the other.  Well fiddlesticks.

I made a simple adjustment of adding tape.  Just enough to make a guide for the fabric.  Will it work?

It sure did!  The rest of the strip went through with out getting cattywhompus.

Most of you know me and know I'm not a gadget girl.  The best gadgets are the ones that can do multiple tasks efficiently.   So lets put her to the test.  Every once in awhile I make a true quarter inch binding.  These smaller bindings are great for small wall hangings or quilts with pieced borders.  One of the quilts I'm working on right now will require a 2" wide binding.  So I pieced the binding together, moved the tape over a smidgen and....

TADA!  In under a minute I have 352 inches of binding pressed and ready to be attached to the quilt.   This was so much faster than my usual method of slowly folding and pressing.  I've used other binding folding tools over the years, all of which were used once and trashed.  This one is worth keeping even though it needed a little help from me to get the job done.  So would I buy it again? You betcha!  Normally it takes me 20 to 30 minutes to press a binding this long.  

Before moving onto the discount code, if missed my review of the BladeSaver Thread Cutter you can find it here or by clicking on the image below.

Purple Hobbies has several different quilt related items for sale.

Each item is available in several different colors.

 Hop on over to their website use the code PodunkPretties at checkout for 20% off you total shopping cart for the entire 2021 year.    Make sure when adding the code to your shopping cart that you click APPLY.  Below is a few more items I'm looking forward to testing out in the near future.

Pin It