Easter Bunny Hopping in Early!

Posted on February 27, 2013 by nwquiltedcat

I purchased an Easter Bunny table runner kit several years ago, opened it to admire the pattern and fabrics, and then packed it away in my to-do-someday stash. Last week, I decided to work on it since Easter is just around the corner, and I wanted something bright and cheerful.

This table runner is called “Hopping Hares” by Connecting Threads. It uses a combination of appliqued bunnies with pieced borders.

I embroidered the bunny whiskers and mouth using a gold-toned floss. I plan to add button eyes once the quilting is complete. The binding will be the same striped fabric as the inner border.

It was a pretty easy project, and I’m really happy to see the spring colors. Spring itself is trying to make an appearance here in Oregon with buds appearing on trees and early bulbs peeking up through the soil. I have some purple and white crocus blooming in the garden and several early daffodils are just waiting for a sunny day to burst open!

Here’s a pic of the bunny table runner before quilting and binding:

Easter Bunny Table Runner

Bunny Close-Up

Hopefully, we’ll get some more sunshine soon and chase away all the winter blues!

Enjoy the bunnies!
~Jennifer

Winter Snowman Quilt

Posted on January 2, 2013 by nwquiltedcat

I had a very “sewful” New Year’s Eve and New Year’s day and was able to finish up some quilt tops. Woo hoo!

This Winter Snowman Quilt is one of those projects! I had started and completed the 4 inner shooting star blocks in December, but then set them aside to finish up Christmas gifts. I originally planned on making more of the shooting star blocks, but ran out of my white snowflake print fabric. I like the smaller sized quilt as I can use it as a winter decoration on a table top or a wall.

You can read about the shooting star block designed by Carol Doak in my post here. I encourage you to join Carol’s Yahoo group by clicking the link in the right sidebar of my blog. She has a valentine heart challenge going on right now so it’s a perfect way to start paper piecing!

Right now, I only have pics of the quilt top but hope to have it quilted and bound soon! All the fabric in my quilt top is from the Fresh Fallen Snow line by Maywood Studio. I have a quilt recipe following the pictures below.

Here’s a look at the finished quilt top inside my sewing room:

Winter Snowman Quilt – Inside

I took the quilt outside to try and get a better photo of it, but it was a bit breezy:

Winter Snowman Quilt – outside

A close-up view of the shooting star blocks:

Shooting Star blocks

And finally a close-up view of the snowman border fabric. The snowmen are so cute and have little red birds sitting on their stick arms!

Snowman border

Quilt Recipe
If you’re interested in creating this cute Winter Snowman quilt, here’s what you’ll need:

Join Carol’s Yahoo Group to get the shooting star block.
Print out 16 of the 4″ shooting star paper piecing patterns.
Blue snowflake print fabric. Approx 2/3 yard.
White snowflake print fabric. Approx 1/2 yard.
Red accent fabric. Approx 1/3 yard.
Blue snowman print fabric. Approx 2 yards for both the outer border and backing.
Basic sewing and paper piecing supplies.

Here’s how to assemble the quilt:

Use a 1/4″ seam allowance. If you don’t already have basic paper piecing skills, then I recommend Carol’s excellent instructional DVD.
Cut out all the fabric pieces for the 16 shooting star blocks.
Sew the shooting star blocks.
Assemble each large block by sewing 4 individual shooting star blocks together. Make 4 large blocks.
Sew the 4 large blocks together to form the quilt center.
Cut 3.5-inch strips from the white snowflake fabric for the inner border and sew around the quilt center.
Cut 2-inch strips from the red accent fabric for the second border and sew to the quilt center.
Cut 5.5-inch strips from the blue snowman fabric for the outer border and sew to the quilt center.
Quilt as desired and bind.

My quilt top is approximately 35 inches by 35 inches. You can make your quilt smaller or larger by resizing the shooting star blocks.

Hope you enjoy this little winter project!
~Jennifer~

Holiday Cold Process Soap Batch #2 – Gingerbread Men!!

Posted on December 20, 2012 by nwquiltedcat

For my second batch of holiday soaps, I decided to use a fun gingerbread man mold. I started with a single batch of soap using a gingerbread fragrance – absolutely delicious! My house smells so good while these soaps are sitting on the rack to cure.

I went ahead and made a second batch using goat milk and a light honey and green tea fragrance. I did make a batch of these earlier and talked about them here, but needed a few more to fill out some baskets.

Gingerbread Holiday Soaps

For the final touch, I added some sparkly ribbon to dress up the gingerbread men!

I think these soaps will add the perfect accent to my holiday soap baskets.

Enjoy!
~Jennifer~

Holiday Cold Process Soap Batch #1

Posted on December 19, 2012 by nwquiltedcat

I enjoy making cold process soap because it is a very creative process (much like quilting). I can control the additives including the fragrances and colorings. For the holiday, I’ve created a few batches of different soaps to give as gifts.

For this first batch, I used 2 different colors to swirl the tops. I used an ultramarine oxide for the purple color and some clay for the red color. I think the swirls are very pretty!

Plumeria Soap

For the fragrance, I decided to go with one of my mom’s favorite ones – plumeria! It has a light, sweet scent that is not too overpowering and reminds you of gentle Hawaiian breezes.

Each batch of soap takes an hour or so to “cook” but then requires about 1 month to cure. The curing process really hardens the soap so that it will last much longer in the shower or bath.

Stay tuned for the second soap batch!

Happy soaping!
~Jennifer~

Shooting Star Block

Posted on December 12, 2012 by nwquiltedcat

I picked up some fun blue and white snowflake fabric by Maywood Studio for my stash a few months ago. I didn’t have a particular project in mind, but I really liked how these fabrics looked together:

Blue & White Snowflake Fabrics by Maywood Studio

This past week, I had some time in the evenings to put this fabric to good use by creating a Shooting Star block. This block is available for free, but only to members of Carol Doak’s online group here.

I decided to make 4-inch individual blocks. The complete block uses 4 of these smaller blocks so it finishes at 8 inches by 8 inches. A pretty good size to use in a quilt or other project!

Here’s a look at my completed block:

Completed Shooting Star Block

Isn’t it a gorgeous block for winter? I’m thinking of making some more of these blocks for a winter-themed quilt that I can display past the Christmas season.

Of course, one of my little quilting kitties just couldn’t resist getting his paws onto this block. Perhaps I should make a snowflake theme bed for him?

Quilting Cat with Shooting Star

What projects would you make with this fun block?

Happy paper piecing!
~Jennifer~

Primitive Santa Quilted Christmas Gift

Posted on December 8, 2012 by nwquiltedcat

Continuing on my Santa and mini-quilt kick, I’ve created another simple project using Carol Doak’s pattern. The Santa block is a small, 3-inch paper-pieced pattern that you can obtain if you join her online Yahoo group.

I really like this little pattern because it comes together very quickly and you can use scraps from your stash. I made this particular project as a Christmas gift for my mom. She has one Christmas tree that she decorates each year just using Santa ornaments! (Mom, if you’re reading this, just act surprised when you open this gift!).

I started out with 5 little Santas, but decided to use just 3 of them.

Here are the 3 little Santas up-close:

Primitive Santa 1

Santa 1 has a dark blue background with a white snowflake print in the foreground. The dark blue sky has little white dots for snowflakes.

Primitive Santa 2

Santa 2 has a black background with a printed word foreground featuring names of Santa’s reindeer. The black sky also has white snowflake dots, but I didn’t fussy cut it well enough to display them!

Primitive Santa 3

Santa 3 has a white-on-white background with a grey foreground. The white background has white snowflake dots, but my camera didn’t pick them up very well.

All the Santas have embroidered eyes and noses using black DMC embroidery floss.

I then added a 1.5 inch inner green border around all 3 Santas. The outside border is black with silver snowflakes and measures approximately 2.5 inches. The binding is the same green fabric as the inner border. I used my regular sewing machine to stitch around each Santa block in the green border and to stitch around the 3 blocks in the outer border.

Completed 3 Primitive Santas

The backing fabric is also a black snowflake print but features white snowflakes rather than the sparkly, silver ones. I need to save the sparkly fabric for other Christmas projects!

Since I don’t have an embroidery machine, I wasn’t sure what to do for a quilt label. Normally, I make labels at my mom’s house, but that would give away the surprise! Instead, I used another one of Carol’s little 3-inch blocks, a snowman, to make the label. Check at my earlier post here on the snowmen.

I hand-embroidered my wording onto the snowman block and then added a border using the backing fabric. I then stitched it down to the backing.

Here’s the whole back:

Primitive Santa Backing

Here’s a close-up of the snowman label:

Snowman Label

Happy Paper Piecing!
~Jennifer~

Adding Santa to the Mantel

Posted on December 5, 2012 by nwquiltedcat

About 6 or 7 years ago, I purchased an adorable little Christmas pattern called Straddling Santa by The Wooden Bear. In my excitement, I also purchased some great fabrics to go with the pattern. Then, I got home and the pattern and fabric went into my to-do pile. Sound familiar?

I did finally make this little wall hanging about 3 years ago and have used it to decorate my fireplace mantel each year. It adds just the right touch of “Santa” to the space, along side our stockings.

The finished project is about 19.5 inches by 23.5 inches and you can easily make it with scraps from your stash. The largest piece of fabric needed is 3/4 yard for the backing.

Here’s a look at Straddling Santa:

Straddling Santa Wall Quilt

I used 2 little black buttons for the eyes and 1 red button along his coat. I used my Bernina to do some basic free-motion quilting in the cream background blocks and in the red border.

I have one more fun little Christmas mini quilt that I started several years ago to finish. All I need to do is the quilting and binding! It’s always a great feeling to finish up these projects.

Enjoy!
~Jennifer~

Kilauea Kreations Quilt Shop on the Big Island

Posted on November 27, 2012 by nwquiltedcat

Over the Thanksgiving holiday week, I traveled to the Big Island of Hawai’i with my family. I had planned to visit a few quilt and fabric stores, but only had time to visit a couple of them.

One quilt store that I visited is Kilauea Kreations in Volcano Village, very near to the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.

This little quilt store is tucked away and can be easy to miss in the little town. In addition to quilts, there are a number of other hand-crafted items that you can buy here. However, my main goal was fabric!

Kilauea Kreations Quilt Shop

Inside the store, I found a nice selection of batik fabrics. I had a hard time narrowing my fabric choices down to just a few. I picked up 2 fabrics at 1-yard each and 4 different fat quarters. I definitely wanted more but hubby and son were waiting for me!

The store also had a selection of Hawaiian themed quilt patterns and blocks as well as finished quilted projects. I picked up a Turtle Walk pattern for myself since I enjoyed seeing the green sea turtles (honu) on the beach earlier in the week. It’s a small wall-hanging, about 12 inches by 24 inches finished. I’ll write another post when I finish it (hopefully soon).

Inside Kilauea Kreations

The lady at the cutting counter/check-out area was so friendly and helpful! I definitely recommend stopping by this quilt shop if you are visiting the Big Island.

Of course, what trip to Volcano Village would be complete without a look at the main attraction – the Kilauea Caldera! Here’s a great shot that we took at the Jaggar Museum on our last evening. We used a wide-angle lens and a long exposure to capture both the glow from the lava lake as well as a few early evening stars!

Kilauea Caldera during Early Evening

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!
~ Jennifer ~

Snowmen and Santas, Part II

Posted on November 17, 2012 by nwquiltedcat

In this earlier post, I started working on a fun little mini quilt using 3-inch paper pieced blocks designed by Carol Doak.

I assembled the project and put the finishing touches on it this week.

First, I used 2 of the snowmen blocks and 2 of the Santa blocks and alternated them to make a little square.

Alternating Snowmen and Santa Blocks

Next, I decided to add a larger white print border to the blocks so that it resembled a window frame. The project needed a little more pizzazz, so I hand-embroidered french knots and dashes around the blocks and then added the words “Merry” and “Christmas.” A small darker blue outer border completed the look:

Snowman and Santa Mini Quilt

I used my regular Bernina to do some light quilting – mostly a few free-hand snowflakes around the inner white border. I used brown embroidery floss to make french knots for eyes on both the snowmen and the Santas. I used mini red buttons on each snowman and a larger white snowflake button in the middle.

To finish it off, I used the same dark blue print for the binding and stitched it down.

The mini quilt is about 11 inches by 11 inches finished and fits perfectly into a little table top stand:

Completed Snowmen and Santa Mini Quilt

I’m pretty happy with the end result, but I think I’ll add little embroidered noses to the Santa blocks to separate the face from the beard a bit more.

Here’s a closeup of the finished project:

Snowmen and Santas Close-Up

I hope you enjoyed following this quick and easy holiday project!

Happy paper piecing!
~Jennifer

Mini Santa Blocks for Exchange

Posted on November 7, 2012 by nwquiltedcat

I’m participating in a mini block exchange for the holidays. I’ve come down to the wire as the blocks are due to the swap hostess next week! I managed to carve out a little bit of time after work this week to make 4 mini Santa blocks. These are different Santas than shown in my earlier post here.

Carol Doak designed these as well and just posted them as Christmas Ornament blocks for her Yahoo group.

Here are the 4 blocks together:

Mini Santa Blocks

These blocks actually have a 1/2 inch seam allowance so the can easily be used in these keepsake frame cards:

Santa Card

The Santa faces looked a little blank so I added small brown eyes using embroidery thread. I’ll leave any other embellishments up to the individual receivers. But, wouldn’t the Santa look cute with a miniature white pom-pom at the top of the hat?