Goodbye 2014!

2014 was a busy year!
Amongst other things I moved not once, but twice! We did a lot of painting and renovating on the house. (You can read a little about my home projects on my much-neglected Nestkeeping Blog.) Hoping to dedicate a little more time to that one in 2015 if time allows.

But back to sewing and quilting and crafty stuff.
It's usually so much fun to look back at the projects completed throughout the year.
2013 was awful - not a single project! - so 2014 had no choice but to be a little better.

2014 Completed Projects (I just realized I have a couple I never took photos of, so stay tuned for an update!):

1. Skully, 2. Strippy Runner, 3. Boo! Runner, 4. The Tree Lot Mini Quilt, 5. Holiday Mug Rug, 6. Red & White Mini Baby Jane


I decided to spend more time on foundation pieced pattern design in late 2014 and this takes an enormous amount of time but the results are SO rewarding!

The Tree Lot Mini Quilt (larger pattern to follow in 2015)

Little Penguin Foundation Pieced Block (hopefully part of a whole winter block pattern collection)

Boo! Foundation Pieced Letters (plans for the whole alphabet)

Skully Foundation Pieced Block (a very popular one around Halloween)

(All the patterns are for sale in my Craftsy store.)

I'm looking forward to what 2015 will bring.
Happy New Year Everyone!

Large Print Scrap Busting

Start with some large print scraps and a couple of yards of Bella in a nice, warm gray.

Start making flying geese four at a time.

Get back to wrapping Christmas gifts because they're not going to wrap themselves!

Red & White Mini Baby Jane

Double posting this here and on the "That Quilt" blog.
I've been waiting since October for a nice day to take photos of this little quilt but it just hasn't happened. Winter in Seattle...
Today I decided to just go for it. Better photos can always be taken later.

The little quilt won 3rd place in the miniatures category in my local quilt guild's show. Pretty cool!
(For more information about the Dear Jane® quilt, visit the "That Quilt" blog or Google "Dear Jane Quilt".)

Zig Zag

Feeling pink this morning.

Thought I see if I can make the heart blocks from the Sweet Hearts pattern with zig zags instead of stripes.

(The fabrics are Surrounded by Love Chevrons in Passion Pink & Ziggy Chevron in Peony.)

Holiday Tree Mug Rug

Tired of trees yet?

I'm waiting for an Insul-Bright order to arrive so I can make a couple of pot holders but, in the mean time, I figured a new mug rug for my desk would come in handy.

I used scraps from the Tree Lot quilt. The block is my favorite block from the pattern.

The border is Small Le Creme Dots from Riley Blake in Red. I used a tone on tone white fabric from P&B Textiles for the background. A little more interesting than plain white, I think.

I bound it using Amanda Jean from Crazy Mom Quilts' technique for binding tiny things. It worked like a charm!

(The mug is from Pottery Barn. I've had the set for close to 15 years, but I just saw them in the store this weekend!)

The Tree Lot

Finally!
I'm happy to announce my latest pattern, "The Tree Lot".
This is the mini version. I'm working on a pattern for a full or lap size but I figured that would be an impossible-to-finish project for most of us at this point in the game. This one is doable at 27½” x 30½”.
The blocks are foundation pieced.

You can find the pattern as an instant download in my Craftsy store.
(More photos and detail to come in future posts. It's really dark and dreary in Seattle this week, making good photos an impossibility.)

(Also, if you're wondering about the polka dot border fabric, it's the Small Le Creme Dot from Riley Blake in Red.)

Wall Storage

If you're following Twiddletails on our brand new Instagram feed, you've already seen this, but I thought I'd share a little bit of detail on how we put it together.

I had been wracking my brain trying to come up with a storage solution for my everyday sewing supplies in my new, quite small, sewing room/office.
As so many times before, Pinterest came to the rescue! Solution: pegboard!

Since the standard size pegboard at Home Depot was smaller than my wall space, and I didn't want to "waste" it by covering some of the pegholes with thread storage, my sweetie came up with a solution.
We had a piece of melamine left over from another project. He cut it to fit the rest of the wall space and then put a frame around it all.

The frame is just plain old floor moulding from Home Depot. Less than $5 for 8 feet.
I painted it using a paint sample I had gotten when choosing colors for our guest bath. Since paint samples are flat and I wanted a little more "shine", I used some leftover polyurethane I found in the garage as a top coat.

It's around 3' x 4' in size.
Total cost - about $30.

Geese in the Forest Wow!

Earlier this week I received an email from Linda (click to see her blog), a customer who had purchased the Geese in the Forest pattern.
It included a photo of the quilt made by her group for a charity auction. I love the colors they chose. It sold for $2,500!

Here's what Linda wrote:
This quilt was made by a Lawrence, KS sewing group that calls itself "The City Sewers" (That's sew-ers, lol). Members are Georgann Eglinski, Carol Jones, Roseanne Smith, Deb Rowden, Linda Frost, Kathe Dougherty, Sara Chappell and Barbara Brackman. The quilt was donated to a charity auction and went for $2500(!).

(If you have made something using any of my patterns and would like me to feature it in a blog post, I would love to! Just send me an email. I will give you proper credit and link to your blog/Pinterest/Instagram.)

Trees, trees, trees

It's starting to feel like a forest over here!

Sewing Day!

Today is sewing day!

I have a new project/pattern design in the works that I'm REALLY excited about.

It's foundation pieced. And, as I mentioned before, trees.

I recently found a new supplier for freezer paper and I knew it was good stuff but my expectations have been exceeded.
I made four tree blocks using one freezer paper template and I'm pretty sure I could have made at least one or two more before exhausting the wax.

I'm planning to redo the freezer paper foundation piecing tutorial some day soon but, for now, you can find it here.
It's my favorite method. No sewing through paper, no removal of paper afterward and, last but not least, much less wasted fabric than the traditional method!

Ooh! Another thing! Twiddletails is now on Instagram!