Category Archives: Quilting

Quilt Book Review: Lovely Little Hand Embroidery

C&T Publishing sent me some ebooks to review. I really do love getting them. Today’s book is Lovely Little Hand Embroidery by Shirley Hudson. Paging through them all is a favorite of mine..especially this one. I started doing embroidery when I was five or six years old and I’ve always enjoyed it so it’s no surprise that I liked this book.

Getting an embroidery book to review was such a treat.

I really like the book but I’m going to do my typical complaint. C&T Publishing gives me terrible pictures for promoting the book. Check out the picture below…can you even see the embroidered design in the middle of the wall hanging? I sure can’t.

I understand that drawn embroidery is hard to show without the chances of someone stealing it by simply tracing the picture and stitching it but there has to be something that will still allow the potential buyers to preview what is in the book.

The projects in the book are really cute and follow a season/special occasions theme. There’s something for each month, two projects for birthdays and a few extra.

My favorite projects were the “extras”. Check out this super cute pincushion. I love it.
This one is cute too.

There are directions to make them into pincushions, mug rugs or mini pillows.

I think the book is worth it just for the cute little designs for the pincushions. There are 16 different designs for these. All are for seasons or special occasions. My favorites are these two.

If you’re someone who has friends that would enjoy a little quick gift, these are so perfect. The “Pinkeep” I adore. The “Courage” one would be great it you know anyone dealing with cancer or other hard life events.

I know I’m keep in this one for my library for those times when I might need a little something quick for a gift. I think I could whip one up in a night if needed. I like having something like that available. Goodness knows I have the scraps…just need the time to embroider the little words.

You can find the book HERE on Amazon
or
HERE at C&T Publishing.

Ask Jo: Kelli’s Cheddar Bow Tie

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Every so often questions and comments come from readers that I think others would like to hear my response to. That’s when I feature them on the blog. This is one of those days.

Last week I showed you Kelli’s Cheddar Bow Tie quilt.

Following that I got several people wondering about the layout and more about the quilt. I thought I’d write a little more about it.

First off, this quilt started as a Bonnie Hunter Challenge quilt. Each year Bonnie does a challenge quilt starting in the summer and ending the next summer. She encourages people to construct a quilt as a leader and ender project. You can read more about leaders and enders here.

In 2011 her challenge was the bow tie block. You can read more about the challenge and get the instructions on how to make the bow time block HERE.

Kelli and I both jumped on board to make the cute little bow tie blocks. Kelli opted to use many different cheddar colored fabrics to make her quilt. Me, I used all the same cheddar color.

To make this quilt, she made 1024 cheddar bow tie blocks. Oh my.

After Kelli got the individual bow ties made she sewed them into blocks like the one you see below. You would need 256 of the blocks below.

From there, she sewed them into a larger block. This is the setting she used…. Continue reading →

Moda Bake Shop: Garden Girl

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As many of you know, Kelli and I did a lot of quilts for Moda Bake Shop several years ago. Some of the things you likely don’t know is that Moda Bake Shop isn’t ran quite the way it used to run. The site has been reworked and can now be found through www.modafabrics.com. Well through all of this, Kelli and I have been overwhelmed by questions from interested parties wanting the patterns for specific quilts as some of the patterns have been “lost in the archives”. Well, to be honest, we are wanting to avoid all those emails and requests so we are going to be featuring one of our old Moda Bake Shop quilt or projects each week until all of them are posted here on our blog so we can readily find them and have access to them whenever we want. These quilts will be archived here on the blog in the free patterns section on the right column.

Before we get going here are a few stats on the quilt.
Finished Block Size: 10”
Finished Quilt Size: 80” x 90”
Layout: 8 x 9

Here’s what we used:

Fat Quarter Bundle of MoMo’s Avant Garden
4 yards Blue Background
4- 1/3 yard cuts of coordinating solids/dots
5 1/2″ yards backing
3/4 yard binding

**Note WOF means the width of the fabric**

Pick 24 fat quarters from the bundle. From Each (of 24) fat quarters cut:

-Cut 2- 7 1/2″ x 21” strips. Subcut 1- 7 1/2″ x 21” strip into 2- 7 1/2″ squares

-Cut the remaining 7 1/2″ x 21” strip into 1- 7 1/2″ square and 2- 3 ½” x 13.5” rectangles.

-Cut the 2- 3 1/2” x 13 1/2″ strips into a total of 12- 2” x 3 1/2″ rectangles.

**From each fat quarter, you will need a total of 3- 7 1/2″ squares and 12- 2” x 3 1/2” rectangles.

From Blue background fabric:
-Cut a total of 36- 2” x WOF strips

-Subcut into a total of 576- 2” x 2 1/2″ rectangles.

-Cut a total of 29- 2” x WOF strips

-Subcut into a total of 576- 2” squares

From Each of 4 coordinating solids/dots (cornerstones):

-Cut 4- 2” x WOF strips

-Subcut each strip into a total of 72- 2” squares of each color (288- 2” squares)

From binding fabric:
-Cut a total of 9- 2 1/2″ x WOF strips.

Sewing Instructions (for one block):

Using 4- 2” squares and 4 matching 2” x 3 1/2″ rectangles, place a blue square, right sides together, on the corner of each of the colored rectangles. Sew from corner to corner on the blue square.

Trim seam allowance to a quarter of an inch. Press to the blue. Add a second square to the opposite side of the printed rectangle. Again, sew from corner to corner of the blue square. Trim seam allowance to a quarter of an inch and again, press to the blue.

Repeat for each matching colored rectangle.

Attach a 2” x 2.5” rectangle to opposite sides of each flying goose created in step 1. Press to the blue rectangles.
Attach a 2” colored square (cornerstones) to opposite ends of two of the units created in step 2.

Attach the remaining two segments created in step 2 to the opposite sides of the main 7 1/2″ colored squares. Press to the colored center.

Attach the remaining segments (with cornerstones) to opposite sides of the block. Press to the colored middle.
Repeat to make a total of 72 blocks.
Arrange in a 8 x 9 layout sewing the blocks first into rows then sewing the rows together.
Quilt as desired. Check out our blog, Jo’s Country Junction, to see what we did for a quilting design.

Join binding strips and bind.

Finished Quilt Size: 80” x 90”

This is such a fun fabric line…perfect for picnics and perfect for any girls room. We couldn’t resist the fabric!!

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My Bonnie Hunter Mystery Parade

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Being I just finished up this year’s mystery quilt I thought I would do a little recap of all the mystery quilts I’ve made to date.

Carolina Christmas was the ’09 quilt.

CarolinaChristmasFINISHED
I didn’t know how to blog then and my pictures were terrible. This quilt lives at Kayla’s house. I loved the whole mystery aspect and was sold on making them after I did this first mystery.

Roll Roll Cotton Boll (read the original post here)
I did this as the mystery. I wasn’t a string girl at all at the time. I remember dreading when I heard the words string. I almost gave up on the mystery right then. I can’t tell you how happy I am that I moved on beyond that. Strings honestly opened a whole new world for me.

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Of all of the quilts, I would definitely make this one again. Of all the quilts I’ve made for mysteries, this is my favorite. I think the reason I love it so much was that this quilt sold me a scraps. Before this quilt I did scraps…but this one showed me I loved scraps.

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