Picnic Blanket with BugaPalooza Fabric

It's finished! If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you've probably seen some glimpses at the Bugapalooza Picnic Blanket I have been working on. What's a picnic blanket? It's a quilt you take on picnics, or to the beach, but I know you already know that part. :)

Some folks like to use a waterproof backing, or a twill or canvas backing to make the blanket heavier. I decided to keep mine all cotton, but I choose a heavier and stiffer batting to help weigh it down a little more. Before you ask, I have no idea what kind of batting it was, it was in my studio from another project and it wasn't labeled, I just liked the weight and went with it.

Here's how I pieced the quilt top. I made this quilt half yard friendly. I used eight different half yard cuts of BugaPalooza fabric to cut the inner blocks. The inner blocks are 9" square and there are 36 of them sewn together, six rows of six.

The cream dot borders are 4.5" in width. To cut these the most efficient way I could, I cut a one yard piece of fabric in to 1/8 yards strips and then sewed two strips together. The seam of the strip lines up with the middle seam of the 36 blocks.

Then that nice big border(almost 10" wide) was added to all sides. It took me 2.5 yards of border fabric. There are four borders to one width of fabric. Two opposite sides were sewn on and trimmed and then the two remaining border pieces were sewn on. My quilt top was finished, it went together super fast.

For quilting I went with my favorite superior thread. King Tut #934 Nile Delta It's yellows and lime green. It blends nicely with all of the colors, I used it on a lot of my quilts.

I did a little meandering through the center and then did some free motion scallops to mimic the scallops on the fabric border. When it came to quilting the border, I loosely went around the flowers and insects.

Last was sewing on the binding. It's Memorial Day weekend, so I will definitely be putting this picnic blanket to use!

And if you want to make one yourself, enjoy free shipping all weekend in my web store. Enter the coupon code FREESHIP. (US orders only, expires Monday May 25th at midnight)

Here's the breakdown for cutting fabric again:
36 squares measuring 9" x 9"
4 Cream Dot Strips measuring 4.5" x 60"
4 Border pieces measuring 90" in length


Have a great day,

Visit my Website, Etsy Shop, Blog, Facebook

New Sewing Patterns are Here

Hey Hey, i've got four new sewing patterns. They just got here from the printer yesterday. It's been awhile since I sewed up some animals for you, but there are lots now.

There's Daisy Hedgehog that you might have seen at the Sewing Party in September. She is now a paper patterns and available to everyone.

I think this pattern is my favorite of the four, it an appliqué quilt with only four blocks. Easy peasy to put together. It's 36" x 48" so it could also be a wallhanging.

Petunia Peacock Pin Keep is a sweet little peacock standing 7" tall. Her ribbon is for the prize she won at the state fair for her pin collection. Have fun storing your pins and needles with her.

And last but not least is Little Love Bunny. He's been so popular that he's been included in the paper line of patterns too.

As you may have seen, I am adding to my video stash over on You Tube. Here's one I did showing you my four new patterns. I just figured sometimes it's better to get to see them in video than just on their covers.

All four patterns are available as paper and PDF patterns.

Have a great day,

Sew a Tic Tac Toe Game

This fun project is already in use at our house. It's on the coffee table and a quick game of tic tac toe can be played at any minute.

Here's how to sew this one up just in time for a Valentines gift for your sweetie.

First, I made the game board and to do this, I basically made a mini quilt. Sew up a nine patch quilt block using 3 1/2" squares. Make a quilt sandwich with batting and backing and quilt it.

I chose to quilt mine in a sort of a "off to the sides back and forth stitch in the ditch" method. I'm not one for straight lines but I wanted to keep it looking like a tic tac toe board.

Add some binding and you're finished with the board.

You need five of each game piece to make sure you have enough if there isn't a winner right away. You can find printable pattern pieces here for the heart and circle. I even included a 3 1/2" block just in case you're new to quilting and don't have a ruler.

Cut five sets of hearts and five sets of circles. Sew around the outside using a 1/4" seam. The bags can be filled with fiberfill or sand. I chose to use sand to have some weight.

I keep a bag of sand in my studio with a little funnel for projects just like these.

Once they are filled up hand stitch the opening closed. Don't be tempted to do this on your machine, sand will fall out and it won't be good for it. I stitched around the bag a second time as well.

 Add a button to the center of the circles and you are ready to play!

Hope you had fun!

Visit my Website, Etsy Shop, Blog, Facebook

Free Quilt Pattern

A Free Quilt pattern for my Tussie Mussie fabric can be found here. In The Beginning puts out a free quilt project with every line of fabric they produce. They just posted mine to their blog so you can download it and start sewing. Super cute!

Have a great day,
Jennifer
Visit my Website, Etsy Shop, Blog, Facebook, or Studio and Gallery

Birks Quilt

I think I told you awhile ago that Birk was making his first quilt. He stuck to it and worked on it about once a week for a month. He did an amazing job. He was at my moms a few weeks ago and go to use her long arm to quilt it. He did get some help sewing on the binding, he's not a big fan of hand sewing. Using a sewing machine is like driving a car, hand sewing is boring because there are no foot pedals.

Scrappy Stripes

This has been my weekend project for the past few...

I have finished the top of my flower quilt that I have been working on forever. (Sorry, I don't want to show it until it''s quilted.) I am also working on my mystery quilt but that's just a small bit of sewing every month so I wanted another project but with my schedule lately it couldn't be anything too involved. So I started at one end of my fabric stash and started cutting strips and sewing them together. I didn't cut everything at once because I was afraid that the squares would look too much the same if I did. I would sew a whole bunch of strips together cut out as many squares as I could get and then start again. I really like what I have so far. Plus, I don't have to measure and if my 1/4" seam allowances aren't exact, it doesn't matter! I see more quilts like this in my future.

Have a good one,

Mystery Quilt

Good Morning,

Check out my latest bit of fun. My local quilt shop is hosting a mystery quilt thingy. I don't really know what you would call it. I am sure there are quilters out there who know what I am talking about so feel free to jump in with the actual word. Anywho, we pick out our fabrics and each month for six months we get instructions for one step of the quilt. This month I had to cut some triangles and sew them together. Now that I have them finished I need to take them to the store and they will give me my next set of instructions.

I have never done anything like this. I am a control freak so this is huge that someone else is telling me what to do. ( yes. that's why I am self employed) The girls at the shop warned me it was a bit of a traditional quilt, they know my style. I made sure to pick out some fun colors for the experience. I will keep you updated in the months to come of my progress. Should be interesting....

By the way, above is take two of the picture, I had a helper the day of the photo shoot who wouldn't get his big nose out of the way!