Christmas Gifts For Friends

Here are some Christmas gifts that I've made for the ladies I work with.  They're for keeping your notions in.  I've made 11, including the prototype.  They really took a lot of time!  I will make a pattern for them to sell... later.

I also made some Dresden plate candle mats for my Visiting Teaching sisters.  On the card is a quote from Pres. Thomas S. Monson:

As we strive to place Christ at the center
of our lives by learning His words, by
following His teachings, and by walking in
His path, He has promised to share with
us the eternal life that He died to gain.
There is no higher end than this, that we
should choose to accept His discipline and
become His disciples and do His work
throughout our lives. Nothing else, no other
choice we make, can make of us what He can." 

This candle mat will help them remember to keep Christ at the center of their lives.

2014 Row By Row Experience Pattern Available

My 2014 Row By Row Experience pattern, Snowflake Collection,  is now available to purchase for just $3.95!  You can buy it from Craftsy or Etsy.  Here's a full picture, and a few of the individual snowflakes.  Print the third page on card stock for your foundation papers.

Freebies On My Website

In case you didn't know, I have some free patterns and tutorials on my QuiltedSunshine website.  Here's a link to my Free Page.

The Simple Quilt

The Simple Quilt has a rectangle in the center, with the 4 side borders made exactly the same. It doesn't get any easier than this!  Get the pattern for the matching pillow, too.

Binding Tutorial

Learn how to do traditional French Fold Binding. Includes figuring how much yardage to buy, cutting bias strips, sewing them together, mitering the corners, binding a scalloped edge and how to join the ends. 

Mitered Receiving Blanket

The mitered receiving blanket makes a great baby gift!  You can use 2 pieces of flannel or add some minky.  It's a fun and quick blanket to make, and there are no special tools required.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN ! ! !

We LOVE Halloween!  Here are some pictures:

Here's most of the porch.

Here are the boxes that we "carved," and put lamps inside.

This is my Jack-o-lantern, and the talking skull who startles people as they come close to the door.

This is Rick's Jack-o-lantern and the lighted scary tree.

The spider above the door.

This is me, waiting for our guests.  I greet them with, "Welcome, sweet chickens!"

 

I invite them inside to see our Halloween display.  We have a good collection of bugs, ghost tears, fairy tears, "dead man's bones," Shad the Skull, "wilted violets of death," cat fur rope, a specimen of "The Greater North American Dust Bunny, a death memento...  and our prized possession, a real, mummified bat.

Here are the carved turnip (because turnips were the original Jack-o-lantern), and a rotten ogre's tooth.

I hope you've had a fun Halloween!

"Windows" Quilt With Flannel and Minky

This has been my most popular quilt pattern at the store lately.  It's my Windows quilt from the pattern, "Brick Work or Windows Denim Quilts."

As you can see, it's not made with denim.  It's made with Flannel and Minky!  It's very fast to make, and it's oh, so snugly!  This one doesn't have any batting, and when it's done, it's done.  There's no quilting or tying needed!

I purchased 2 flannel prints, and the butterfly and green minkies.  But he rest of the minky was scraps.  It's a great way to use up those minky scraps!

I Joined A Quilt Guild!

I haven't joined a quilt guild for about 5 years, just because I'm so busy.  But I decided that I work too much and don't have any fun.  So I joined the "Sew Small" guild, whose focus is on miniature quilts.  I figured the projects wouldn't take as much time or $ because they're small, and it might be do-able.  So I signed-up for the Row Robin.  There will be 7 ladies participating, so I get to work on 6 other ladies quilts, and get 6 other ladies to work on my quilt.  

I'LL ADD UPDATES TO THIS POST EVERY MONTH SO YOU CAN SEE THE PROGRESS.

You can click on the pictures to see a bigger image.

Here's the start for my Row Robin.  This row's finished size will be 6" X 18."  The other ladies will add rows that will be 18" across, but they can be any width, up to 6."  I'm excited to participate!!!

The Row I received to work on at the October meeting is Donna's.  She started her quilt with the Ohio Stars.  I added the wave of circles.

This is Judy's Row Robin, that I got in the November meeting.  I added the basket with vines and flowers.

This Row Robin is Lyn's.  She is an expert embroiderer!  She put beads and embroidery floss in her kit for us to use.  I shrunk 3 of my Row By Row Experience, English paper pieced, snowflakes, and added the appliqued snowmen, and sewed beads on the snowflakes.  

This was a fun row quilt to work on.  I did the butterflies at the bottom.  The background was too stark, so I added some white embroidered flowers.

This row belongs to Anne.  Her theme is water and singing the blues.  In her introduction, she talked about enjoying Bear Lake and the surrounding mountains, so I made the bottom row, which is Bear Lake with the mountains.

 

We are also doing a monthly block challenge, which we can do "small or smaller."  In September, we were given the Spinning L's block.  I choose "smaller," and made my blocks 2" and the finished quilt is 11 3/4" square and has 24 blocks.

Our October challenge was 9-patches.  I've always wanted to do a 9-patch with Snowball blocks, so that's what I did.  The finished blocks are 1 1/2".  There are 12 9-patch blocks and 13 Snowball blocks, and the finished quilt is 11 1/2" square.  This quilt has a couple firsts for me.  #1, I did feathers in the border!  #2, I did a single fold binding.

The November challenge was half-square-triangles.  I have always wanted to make a feathered star, so here was my opportunity!  I drafted my own pattern.  A feathered star was harder than I thought it would be, but a fabulous challenge!  The 1/2" triangles are paper-pieced.  But the rest is pieced by machine.  There wasn't enough fabric to make the whole binding with the dark blue.  But it really needed some dark around the outside, so I pieced the binding.    It is 16" square, and has 216 pieces.

December's challenge was Churndash blocks, but I was still working on my feathered star, so didn't get that one done.

January's challenge was a Carpenter's Wheel.  I'm trying to follow a seasonal theme. Since next month is February, I wanted to make it for Valentine's Day.  I really like how this turned out!  This one may become a pattern someday.  It measures 10 1/2" X 15."

New Denim Quilt Pattern!

Introducing my newest denim quilt pattern, 

the "Denim Waves Beach Quilt."

 

I have 3 sons, and they go through lots of jeans.  So, what's more natural than saving their old jeans to make denim quilts?  This is my 4th denim quilt pattern to be published.  It will only be available as a pdf download because it's 11 pages, and the printing cost would make it not so affordable.  You can find it on Craftsy, Etsy and YouCanMakeThis.

The Denim Waves Beach Quilt was fun to make!  I'd saved this hand-dyed fabric to make a special quilt, but didn't have a quilt in mind when I bought it.  It goes so great with the denim! The pattern includes 5 wave templates, so you can mix them up and get a random wave feel.  It's done with a quilt-as-you-go method.  And I actually did most of the quilting on the Handi Quilter Avante at the store where I work.