Small Christmas makes - Fabric Wreath's and Dresden Cushions!

Our branch of the Irish Patchwork Society usually has a demo or two before our meeting officially starts and from time to time I make up a project with step outs to share with the group. In order to try and recruit new members some of us are also doing demonstrations in a local haberdashery shop in town, so I have been making Christmas cushions, table runners and fabric wreaths and step by step bits to show how to put them together!

Last year, it was all hexagons (trees and snowflakes); this year it’s all about the Dresden Plate! Hickeys allowed me to chose a fat quarter selection of 6 prints with a Scandinavian feel and some background fabric to make up a Dresden plate cushion for the demo.  The template is here if you want it and for this 18" finished cushion I used the 5" sized wedge.  If you haven't made a Dresden Plate block before, it is way easier than it looks and gives such nice impact it's perfect for Christmas makes!  Missouri Star Quilt has some great video tutorials on how to make Dresden blocks on their You Tube Channel here.

Using quilting cotton, for a cushion, requires a bit of wadding or fusible batting to give the cushion cover a bit of substance. So, I straight line quilted the front and back and appliqued the Dresden plate and centre circle on top of the quilted surface with just a straight line stitch.

I like a cushion with binding to frame the front sometimes, if the cushion colours are quite light, so I used double fold binding strips made from 2 1/2" wide x length and attached with a 3/8" seam on the back first,  then folded over to the front and machine sticthed in place.  Keeping it simple with a envelope backing, (see tutorial I wrote for the Modern Quilters Ireland Group here if you want to make one too!)

I really like how it turned out and the Scandi style colours are lovely to work with.  The Dresden block is so versatile, you can adapt it to anything really.  I used a red/green traditional colouring on a silver background for the table runner and had fun using up scraps for the 1/4 circles at the corners.
 

I left the binding open so I can show how to close it at the demo.  Wool wadding has given the Dresdens a lovely puffy feel!

Figuring they make nice cushions and Christmas makes don't have to be out of Christmas fabrics, I tried a summery version, with some fussy cut musical fabric too. 

I am liking this one a lot!

The Dresden plates don't take a lot of fabric, so using the fat quarters I made a Christmas wreath too!

During the Knitting & Stitching Show in Dublin, the South Eastern branch had a Christmas display and lots of people admired the fabric wreath hanging on the wall.  The lady who made it advised the invigilators to use a tube made from 5" to 6 1/2" x length of fabric, sew the strips together at the top, stuff with toy stuffing, plait and hide the join with a bow. 

So for our branch November meeting, we normally have just a demo night of Christmas makes. I thought I'd have a go at making a wreath or two, following these general instructions and I wrote up a step by step pattern that you can download here if you like!

 I tired the 5" and 6" widths using fat quarters and prefer the 5" ones over the 6" wreath shown here in the bottom photo.  Because I was using fat quarters I felt that when stuffed they made a circle easier.

I had fun playing with a ribbons, and a bow tie and much prefer the look of the fabric ties so it is worth making your own.  When looking for bow tie widths online I found this tutorial that shows how to make the wreath step by step with a fabric ribbon so maybe this was the post that started the whole thing!


I have to leave you with this photo of Maggie and Wilbur.  While I was busy making for Christmas they were busy dreaming!  Don't worry guys Santa is going to be good to you both!

WIP Wednesday - Christmas swaps!

I know it's Halloween week and I shouldn't really be mentioning Christmas sewing until at least Saturday, when the chocolate is eaten and the barm brack has been toasted! So I'm breaking my own rules here with an update on Christmas swaps as the deadlines were last Friday and this Friday!



1. Christmas Ornament Pillow, 2. Winter pillow for Julianna (1), 3. CIMG9075, 4. Pillow-cover, 5. ChevronPillows - QuiltDetail, 6. Rear of my christmas pillow, 7. Aqua and pink christmas pillow, 8. Christmas Gifts, 9. Christmas FussySquares sewn together, 10. Christmas Snowflake ...a better photo and a little QAL, 11. Christmas pillow front, 12. paper pieced Christmas pillow, 13. Savvy Seasons pillow cover, 14. patchwork pillow cover, 15. pillow cover - christmas, 16. Christmas pillow

The Modern Quilters Ireland group are having another Christmas swap. Last year it was a table runner and this year we are swapping cushions! This is my mosaic of favourite picks from Flickr, to help my swap partner figure out what I'd like in a swap item. It seems that this year, I am drawn to Christmas decorations and can't go wrong stars and Christmas trees! Last year, I was all about the penguins and polar bears and to be fair I still love those guys (especially the penguins!)

Sign ups are open until this Friday and anyone resident in Ireland and a member of Modern Quilters Ireland can participate. Membership is free, if you want to join us in our Christmas swap! I've written a tutorial on how to make an envelope backed cushion for the swap here.



A second swap I joined in was Round 11 of the Fussy Cut Square in a square swap. This one was themed a Holiday swap. Amanda @ What the Bobbin organises swaps based on a 4" paper pieced economy block throughout the year with different themes for each round. This is my second Christmas round so last year I received 12 blocks and this year I made 12 more to swap.



The idea is to use a fussy cut centre and add coordinating fabrics for the outer rounds. You make and send 12 and you get 12 different ones back. It's a lovely way to be social and it gives you variety in your project that you might not normally have making all the squares yourself. I used fabrics from Riley Blake's Santa's Little Helpers, Joy by Kate Spain and Nancy Halvorsen's Holiday Favourites. Hope my swap partners like them!

I made a spring, summer autumn, winter cushion with 12 squares I received last year in a non-themed swap (added 4 more of my own to make 16!) This year I have a plan for a Christmas I spy type baby quilt with my 24. We'll see how I get on with that!



If you fancy making some of your own Amanda has the template available for download here.

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Finish it Friday - a pretty simple cushion!

Before Halloween next week and the Christmas sewing starts I thought I'd better get a few to do's off my list that have been hanging around a while.  So I have a small simple finish to share with you today.  

My friend Sarah wanted cushions to spruce up her new living room and earlier this year we made the Tula Pink Camper Van.  To go with this Sarah picked a dog applique pattern by Lynnette Anderson which reminded her of her old Labrador Holly.  I finally got around to finishing it off as a cushion for her last night!

I have a tutorial written to post next Monday on the Modern Irish Quilters blog for how to make an envelope backed cushion if you want to see how I made this one.

For quilting, I straight line quilted the white outer border all the way around and stitched in the ditch around the dog as Sarah didn't want too much fuss around Holly.  A tip I learned on Craftsy's Creative Quilting with your walking foot, is to mark a little distance away with some masking tape to give yourself a straight line to follow.  I found myself a little off from time to time and corrected it on the next line moving the masking tape up an inch or two as I went along.  This meant I didn't have to risk any markings still showing on the white fabric and was easy to see.

Sarah liked Holly as is without any embroidery but I couldn't resist adding a little wooden button.  I hope she likes it.  When the Modern Irish Quilters met in Galway last month I bought a selection of wooden buttons from Christina's shop Wrap it and couldn't resist adding the heart to this project.

So a simple finish but I really like it.  I hope she does too!

Don't forget I'm giving away a Craftsy class to celebrate over 200 posts on the blog.  Please see below to enter if you would like a chance to win either Designing Modern Quilts by Weeks Ringle or Amy Gibson's Twisted Irish Chain.

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Friday Finish - 3 log cabin cushions!

Remember the log cabin blocks I made as an exploration?  Well they are now 3 quilted cushions for the sofa!

Yes it has been a week of pillows around here!  A quilted pillow is a really fun quick project and I really enjoyed making these.  I'd been wanting to try out matchstick quilting so all 3 got the walking foot treatment!

The first one was quilted in a diagonal line.  I marked straight lines 1.5" apart to keep me aligned across the pillow and spaced the quilting 1/4" apart using my piecing foot.  Does this qualify as matchstick?  I was tempted to go again between the lines at 1/8" but really I thought this little project didn't need anymore.  I really like the texture it creates.

For the other small cushion I straight line quilted it vertically using the seams to keep my quilting lines straight. 

This one looks overstuffed for a very good reason!  Wilbur the wrecker was left dozing on the sofa while I was happily in the kitchen quilting straight lines.  Believing the happy hound to be asleep, I didn't hear him ripping apart my 16" cushion insert!  Stuffing everywhere, it was unrepairable, so wanting to see my cushion completed I've stuffed it with a 17" or 18" insert.  It is a bit much and I'll have to buy a 16", I think!

For the last cushion I wanted to try spiral quilting.  I've not used this technique before and having watched Jacquie Gering's lesson on Craftsy I thought I'd give it a try. 

Suzanne from our Thursday night sewing group (which we are now calling Just Threads!) gave us all a gift of a protractor and I thought it would be perfect to get my spiral going.  Thanks Suzanne!

I marked my first line in chalk and then picked a point to veer away for the second.  Using the 1/4" piecing foot I kept the spiral line on the edge and turned clockwise which kept the bulk of the quilt moving away from the needle and not bunching up in the throat space.

Even for this 24" cushion top, it took a bit of time and my right hand was constantly turning the quilt.  It got a lot easier as the circle got bigger.  If I were to do this on a full size quilt I'd space it out more maybe 1" to 2".  1/4" is nice on this size but used a lot of thread!

I did make a mistake on starting.  In my enthusiasm to get going I just got stuck in.  I should have started at a seam but I started in the middle of a pieced section and tried to resew it later.  It's not as smooth as it could be.

But not that noticeable in the finished cushion as a whole so I'm living with it.  Lesson learned for next time!

I had great fun with the backing!  This fabric is from Ikea and I think its meant for kids to colour in with fabric markers but I just like it a lot.  There's a lot of variation in it from windmills to sea creatures.

I cut the backs 2 pieces at 24.5" x 18" for the larger cushion and 16.5" x 12" for the smaller cushions and used 0.5" seam allowance to make the envelope backs. 

I used this piece for the back of one of the smaller cushions.  There's even a little dog with a kennel almost as cool as Wilbur's!  I love this farbic.

Speaking of dogs, photo bombed by Charly.  Can I ask Gordon to cut the grass so you can find your ball?  Sure, no problem pal!  (I've got hayfever and that's the story I'm sticking to!)

I really enjoyed this project and of the three the purple spiral trail is probably my favourite as you can guess from the amount of photos!  I made mine kind of improv with 1.5" strips up to 5" until it was 19.5" square and then framed with a 3" border.  I'm working on a pattern but the piecing went together like this if you want to try it yourself!

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