"Where the Wild Things Are" FREE pattern

I designed this collection for P and B Textiles last Spring. It uses one of my favorite techniques which I call "Tilt." If you have the Tri-Recs tools by Darlene Zimmerman, the half-rectangle template works perfectly for this! (The pattern includes a paper template, of course).

The link for this at the P and B website is gone (or hidden). So, I've made it available for FREE via my own server. Click here for the Where the Wild Things Are pattern.

The quilt pictured here uses the fabrics a little differently than the pattern. That's because I was working with "strike offs" from the factory (bits and pieces sent to the vendor to see if the colors are accurate for mass production).

First, before quilting:

Where the Wild Things Are quilt (before quilting)

And then quilted (by me on my HQ Sweet 16):

Where the Wild Things Are

 And how the back was pieced (because I didn't have enough of ANY ONE print)!

Pieced back using my leftover motifs

Would you like to see a few of these AWESOME animal motifs up close? Of course you do!

elephant

Fish (with the tilt triangles attached)

Iguana

Impala

Owl

Stork

You can see the collection here: P and B Textiles Wild Things

This is a great pattern to use with any fabric that begs to be fussy cut for a center stage look!

Quilter's Block a Day Calendar: Week 43

A new week with seven new blocks. Let's see what Patricia did with my patterns and her creative styling.

October 29: Weather Vane

October 29: Weather Vane, 9"

October 30: Wild Good Chase

October 30: Wild Goose Chase, 10"

October 31: Ghost Walk

October 31: Ghose Walk

November 1: Autumn Leaf

November 1: Autumn Leaf, 14"

November 2: Autumn Tints

November 2: Autumn Tints, 14"

November 3: Basket Puzzle

November 3: Basket Puzzle, 10"

November 4: Blind Man's Fancy

November 4: Blind Man's Fancy, 16"

I hope you enjoyed the show. Such beautiful pictures - each of them. Thank you, Patricia!!

"Owl Be There" Quilt Finish

I started this quilt in 2012 with a sweet collection by Benartex. You can read about my technique here: Owls Are the Bomb! I made two of these blocks.

18" square with Owl Be There hexagons

I used a method I've since abandoned (but it worked for me in this project).

I cut out large hexagons of fussy cut owls in a tree. Then I turned the edges under as I would if I was English Paper Piecing. Then interfaced the center and machine appliqued the whole thing onto a large red square.

Machine appliqued hexagons with red background trimmed

I finally quilted this lovely quilt the other day. It is just one of the sweetest quilts I own. Can't wait to show it to my little granddaughter (3-1/2) this week. What do you think?

Quilt from the back with those owls in the tree on a black background.

Quilt from the back

 And here's the quilt on my sunny deck.

Owl Be There quilt

I have to give a shout out to the three vendors who made this possible: Benartex (fabrics), Warm and Natural (batting) and HandiQuilter (for the Sweet 16 sit down machine).

It always feels good to finish a quilt, even if it took more than 5 years!

Halloween's a Comin' and FREE patterns

Let's revisit a few of my past Halloween posts. I pulled out my Halloween quilts the other day and put them up around my house. I've always considered this "holiday" a minor one. I am the parent of 3 daughters who went to public school where the celebrations far eclipsed those of Christmas and Hanukkah! So, we did costumes, trick or treat, and classroom parties.

Through the years I made Halloween quilts (and had them published). Let's see a few!

I made this quilt about 20 years ago using a fabric ($1 a yard) from Walmart. You can see the print in the second pic. I stacked 9-1/2" squares

Spinning Pinwheels using a cheap Walmart print

Then there's Quilts in the Pumpkin Patch. You can buy the pattern for this 8" pumpkin block by clicking that link.

Quilts in the Pumpkin Patch

Then there's Trick or Treat Mice, which appears in my 2nd book: Supersize 'Em Quilts.

Trick or Treat Mice, with a 30" center block!

How about some bats? I made this a few years ago in a blog hop. I have this hanging in my kitchen. What? I have bats flying around my food? They're nice bats (and are only looking for some yummy bugs to eat).

Bat wreath (and look at those scary spiders!)

How about some pjs for my grandsons? While they're not quilts, they are cute!

PJs for grandsons

 And I even sewed a few pillow cases.

Pillow case #1

Pillow case #2

And some paper pieced blocks for a small mini. You know; I just now realize that I don't have this quilt. I wonder where it is?

Kitty in the Pumpkin Patch

How about a Black Cat?

Black Cat applique

Are you still with me? Do I have more? Of course, I do! Here is the quilt I bring out every year and hang it in my kitchen. It's my Halloween Boo! Quilt, published almost 20 years ago in Quilt Magazine. I was the lucky winner of a group of blocks in a guild raffle. I turned them into houses. You can find this pattern (with all full size templates) at my Craftsy Pattern Store.

Halloween Boo Quilt

And one last quilt, made last year with the Spooktacular Collection by Benartex. I gifted this to one of my grandsons. I especially like the center block of bottled Hellfire! You can read the post here:

Spooktacular Quilt with the bottled Hellfire block in the center

Hope you enjoyed the show! Now, get sewing; Halloween is next week!

Quilter's Block a Day Calendar: Week 43

Wow! I just discovered I was not counting my weeks correctly. This is WEEK 43 (and not 42). I've edited the previous weeks where I got behind a week. But I have shared all the blocks so far. Not to worry. Anything is possible in cyber-land and can be corrected with a keystroke and the delete key.

More beautiful blocks from Patricia, using my patterns from the calendar. I think it is still available on Amazon. Go check it out:

My Block a Day Calendar is still at Amazon!

October 22: Scrap Wonder

October 22: Scrap Wonder, 8"

October 23: Pumpkin Vine

October 23: Pumpkin Vine, 12"

October 24: Rolling Gears

October 24: Rolling Gears, 12"

October 25: Square and Star

October 25: Square and Star, 12"

October 26: Stars and Nines

October 26: Stars and Nines, 12"

 October 27: Teardrop Flower

October 27: Teardrop Flower, 9"

 October 28: Tree of Temptation

October 28: Tree of Temptation, 12"

Spooktacular with Benartex

Spooktacular Fabrics by Benartex

BOO! Uh, I mean, welcome! Thanks for stopping by to see what I've got behind the curtain. Let's see what I've done with this fun collection of Halloween fabrics. Last month I shared about how to create hexagons. Today I share about making octagons into snowballs. I will be making the Snowball block to showcase these novelty prints.

I cut a variety of 6-1/2" squares from the other prints; but here you can see my placement of these orange print squares on the fussy cut HELL FIRE square from above. Sew on the diagonal line; trim away 1/4" as shown.

Sew on drawn line; trim 1/4" away. Discard small waste triangles

Then you need to press . . .

Press triangles outward for a neat 6-1/2" unfinished Snowball block

Some of the fabrics will use a black square . . .

Sew along diagonal line; trim and press

Just so I could keep track of where the squares will go and the orange and black triangles, I laid out my block parts before sewing. I call this auditioning.

Auditioning my color choices

Let's look at a few of the fun fabrics.

Happy spiders? Not the ones I find in my bathroom . . .

And what about bottles of funky brews?

Bottles of spiders? Essence of witch? Yikes!

So, what did I get? A happy, little Halloween quilt!

9 blocks with 1" inner border and 4" outer borders

And? And? Anything else? Of course! Audrey came over and grabbed the rest of the orange and black cat fabric to make a set of diaper covers for newborn twins being born any day now to her husband's uncle. Here they are:

Boo! Twins born around Halloween need spooky bloomers!

Let the (Winter) Games Begin!

I have TWO winners:

USA winner is Beth T. of Oregon (fat quarter bundle of the fabrics) and the International winner (free pattern for the coffee mugs) is Laura M. from Canada.

Today you get to see some awesome fabrics by Amanda Murphy for Benartex. I've sewn with Amanda's fabrics several times and I think her choice of colors and motifs is one of my favorites!

Winter Games is the latest collection. Did you see the tutorial for Day 1? Go on; I'll wait right here for you to come back. And how about Day 2 with Sandra of MMM Quilts? Check it out!

Well, fabric isn't as exciting as seeing something sewn with it, right? You know I had that in mind when I received 8 fat quarters.

8 fat quarters of Winter Games

We in the blog hop are making mug rugs, so fat quarters are perfect. I am revisiting a tried and true paper piecing pattern of mine called Coffee Cups. First, here's the original pattern as it appeared in the Kansas City Star in the 1930s:

Coffee Cups pattern using a lot of odd shaped templates

My pattern is for a 7" block. I created a freezer paper fussy cutting window to center my motifs in.

Freezer paper "window" to fussy cut my motifs

Here are two of motifs centered and ready to cut:

Fussy Cutting the skates and snow boards

 And an athlete, of course!

Fussy Cutting a snow boarder

I also cut an oversized square out of the hot cocoa mugs:

Cups of hot cocoa and coffee (and probably some tea, right?)

Here is the block finished:

7" foundation pieced coffee cup block

Now can we see some of the others? Here are the 3 blocks finished. I used my walking foot to stitch vertical lines (gray thread) and finished off with my quick and easy binding. I sew it on from the back and stitch it down by machine on the front.

Cocoa motif mug rug

 Gotta have skates!

Skates and snow boards mug rug

 And, an athlete!

Snow Boarder mug rug

And all three together. You can get this pattern at my Craftsy store. There are a lot of pictures and the foundations are easy to print, with lots of helpful tips.

The giveaway is a fat quarter bundle of these Winter Games fabrics from Benartex. Leave a comment letting me know which of the 3 mug rugs here you like the best. A winner will be randomly drawn on Sunday (contest is over at midnight Saturday). Open to USA residents only BUT, if I choose an international visitor, I will send you the Paper Pieced Coffee Cups pdf pattern via email! (I may choose someone state side AND an international visitor - this is open to everyone, now that I think of it). Then you can make your own set!

My set of 3 paper pieced mug rugs using the Winter Games Collection by Amanda Murphy

Go visit the Sew In Love with Fabric blog to see what's happening with the other bloggers who've used this collection.