Monthly Archives: December 2011

Free projects to kick off the New Year

December 30th, 2011 in Free Projects, Needle Arts, Sewing
By Tristan Gallagher

Ahh, the bulk of holidays have passed, and now it’s time to prepare for the New Year…maybe even make some resolutions. Here are a few free projects you can download from PatternSpot.com to help!

Resolution #1: Keep those toys and awesome new techy gadgets that Santa brought you safe. Those little devices are known to take a tumble now and then, but an embroidered gizmo cozy by Shiny Happy World will keep each one protected and pretty darn cute.

Resolution #2: Always be ready for that cough, sniffle, or sneeze. Dig into your stash of fabric scraps to make this tissue holder by Angie Padilla.

Resolution #3: Take relaxation seriously. Bring on the heat with this microwaveable rice bag by Shiny Happy World. Use it to warm up cold hands, relieve stiff muscles. or toss it to the foot of your bed for warm tootsies. You can also pop it in the freezer to use as a cold pack.

Happy New Year – enjoy your celebrations and we’ll see you in 2012!

An interview with Peggy Martin

December 28th, 2011 in Inspiration
By Lisa Fulmer

"Night Fire"

We’d love for you to get to know Peggy Martin, author of Paper Piece the Quick-Strip Way. Peggy’s strip paper-piecing technique turns out gorgeous stars, circles, and borders. Click here to watch a video clip of her demonstration in one of our spring 2011 webcasts.

What inspired you to start a career as a quilter?
I have a true obsession with quilting, and I greatly enjoy teaching other people and making that connection with students. It’s wonderful to be able to travel to quilt shows and guilds to share my techniques and patterns with other quilters.

How has your design style changed over the years?
I began making quilts for my home, mainly in blues and burgundies. Now I enjoy exploring as many different color combinations as possible and playing with the interaction of colors in different ways in my newer quilts.

What do you like the most about your own design style?
I love trying out new paper-pieced designs and experimenting with new color combinations. I also enjoy using some unusual fabrics in my quilts—busy or “funky” fabrics, symmetrical fabrics, and ethnic fabrics are some of my favorites to add a special something to my quilts—and I particularly love using bright, clear colors.

"Snow Flurries"

Continue Reading…

A yarn about crewel

December 26th, 2011 in Inspiration
By Tristan Gallagher

Once upon a time, a woman named Frances Nichols Hoagland held a great passion for crewel. She loved her wool yarns and the colors, the textures, and the potential they held for each and every project.

With the joy of making, came the joy of giving. Along her crewel path, she made an owl pillow for her son and daughter-in-law, a clown bag and a dollhouse rug for one granddaughter, and an elephant pillow (now moth-eaten) for another granddaughter, all of which are cherished.

One day, Frances was off and running on another project, a piano bench pillow, when lo and behold her yarns got tangled. Frustrated, she was determined to make order of her unruly wool…but to do that, she knew she needed answers from a very wise soul. So she packed a satchel with bread, fruit, and water and started out on her search for The Wise One.

She walked and walked and walked…and finally she reached the base of a shrouded mountain that she felt certain was the right place to find The Wise One. She began a treacherous trek up to the top. After enduring wind and rain and other precarious elements, she finally reached the summit, only to find that there was nobody waiting atop that mountain to help solve her problem. Feeling utterly defeated, she prepared to descend, but then a wisp of movement above her head made her look up. There she saw so many hanging patches of moss draped over the branches of a large tree.

She sat down cross-legged to reflect upon this vision. After some contemplation, she realized this tree was the very sage answer to her problem. She returned home and set to work on her cluster of tangled yarns and…voila!

Many years later, Frances’ wool yarns were passed onto her granddaughter (the one who has let the moths have free range…sigh). Although there are no projects lined up for using these perfectly draped treasures, the old yarns are cherished still the same.

Free projects for last-minute gifts

December 23rd, 2011 in Free Projects, Quiltmaking, Sewing
By Tristan Gallagher

What child wouldn’t be thrilled to see this pachyderm peeking out from under the tree? I know I’d hug it. Click here to download a free pattern for Charlie the Patchwork Elephant designed by Bustle & Sew.

Angie Padilla has a free pattern for you to make this fun game called an I Spy Bag. Great for keeping kids entertained during car travel!

bow I’m pretty sure this season sports more bows than any other. If you find making the perfect bow a struggle, then this free Bow-making tutorial might be for you.

Still need more handmade gift ideas? Visit PatternSpot.com, where you’ll find hundreds of designers selling thousands of sewing and quilting ePatterns for instant download…and some freebies are posted too!

Merry merry!

Lone Star Legacy with Helen Frost & Blanche Young

December 21st, 2011 in Inspiration
By Helen Frost

Helen Frost (left) and Blanche Young

I just wanted to tell you how delighted Blanche and I were that International Quilt Market and Festival hosted a special exhibit, “Lone Star Legacy,” featuring 20 of our Lone Star quilts!

Most of the quilts are from our current book, All-Star Quilts. Two of the quilts were blasts from the past—one was made by Blanche in the 1980s, and another was from the cover of our very first book published in 1979, The Lone Star Quilt Handbook.

The rest of the quilts illustrate how we have explored the Lone Star pattern, designing new settings and different configurations. Blanche came from Utah for two days because of the exhibit…at 92 years old, she is still sewing and making quilts! The exhibit was an amazing honor.

Hey, I finished 2 quilting projects!

December 19th, 2011 in Inspiration, Staff Pick
By Teresa Stroin

Maybe you read my previous post about my PhDs (Projects half Done). Well, I’m here to say that I finished something!

A few of the folks at C&T have been making table runners from the book French Braid Quilts by Jane Hardy Miller. They inspired me to give it a try. Above is the one I’m giving to my mom for Christmas. (Mom—don’t look!) All the fabrics but one are from different C&T give-aways over the past year or two. All from Kaufman, too.

I even made the runner reversible so Mom can use it year-round if she so chooses.

I was on a roll so I took advantage of the momentum and made 2 table runners. Here’s the one I made for myself.

It’s not too late for you to make one! With the easy-to-follow directions in the book, these runners each take about a day to whip up and can be made from scraps that you have around.

Study the value (relative lightness/darkness) of your fabrics carefully. That is one of the keys to success. To help you determine value, find a way to “take the color” out of your fabrics: use a black-and-white camera setting, photocopy the fabrics in black and white, squint, or try a red or green value finder (like the one inside our Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool). When you look at fabric in shades of grey, it’s easier to see value. Arrange your fabrics from lightest to darkest, cut your strips, and you’re on your way.

Happy Holidays!

Fast & free ePatterns for the giving

December 16th, 2011 in Free Projects, Sewing
By Tristan Gallagher

The holidays are just about here. I know there are some people out there who are done with their gift-giving list (not me), but even the super organized folks can get caught off guard with an overlooked recipient.

So here’s my last-minute gift giving tip. Last weekend I was in search of a holiday party hostess gift. It occurred to me to check out our own PatternSpot.com. Not only did I find a quick and simple project, but I filled some other holes in my list, too!

For my hostess gift, I was able to instantly download (the beauty of this site!) this free coaster pattern by Angie Padilla and I had a few made in just over an hour.

All the free patterns are listed together, so in no time I found this free hobby apron pattern by Get Sewing. Perfect gift for my niece who loves crafting and can never find her scissors or tape. Another check off the list!

I also found a great stocking stuffer to boot! What kid wouldn’t get a kick out of finding this Five Stones Game (from Shiny Happy World) filling the toes of their stocking?

Wow…no lines, no parking, no waiting and free! Phew, I might just join the “finished shopping” crowd yet.

My studio garden

December 14th, 2011 in Inspiration
By Ellen Anne Eddy

The entrance to my studio

Today I’ll be a guest on the Creative Mojo radio show at 12:00 pm PT (3:00 pm ET) – I hope you’ll tune in and join us in the live chat room! Click here at showtime.

So on to a little story about my studio, which sits at the back of my yard. In another life it was a garage, with an upstairs that was once an apartment. In a 10 year stint of constipated gardening (this is my first house, my first adult garden), I’ve filled up every space of my yard with plants. I measure my seasons in daffodils, irises, roses, nasurtiums, daisies, tomatoes, and chive blooms. Finally we get down to the rose finale…when the roses rebloom in the autumn chill, next to the falling maple leaf dance. My studio is in this garden.

Then we come to the grayness. I know people who love the winter. I don’t mind the cold and ice is pretty. Wicked but pretty. Snow is a dance floor for my dogs. But there’s no color. I really can’t get by on blue, grey, brown and white. It’s not possible. So gratefully, I go into my other studio garden. The studio isn’t just in the garden; it’s also where my fabric roses grow. It’s a garden all by itself.

Inside my studio, I’ve been working on a bee’s dream: cone flowers and alliums! Each of these elements is embroidered separately so I can put them into this lush, glowing garden landscape. It’s the perfect place for alliums, coneflowers and, of course, the hero of every garden…bees!

Creating this great indoor garden makes it so much easier to walk through the snow to get to my studio, my stash, and my machines! You can make flowers like this using the techniques in my new book, Thread Magic Garden.

New English Paper Piecing – with a giveaway!

December 12th, 2011 in Contests
By Lisa Fulmer

"Icy Nights" by Sue Daley

In this new book, author Sue Daley teaches the fundamentals of English paper piecing and needleturned appliqué, and she shows you that it’s not just about hexagons anymore. In Sue’s words…

English paper piecing dates back to the early 1800s. While many beautiful designs could be created from the traditional hexagons, the process was very time-consuming. One quilt could take years to finish by hand. But now, with timesaving tools like precut templates and glue pens, today’s patchworkers can still achieve a handmade English paper-pieced quilt, even with their busy schedules.

“Grandmother’s Flower Garden” is one of patchwork’s oldest, dearest, and most frequently sewn designs. The design is based on a hexagon, which has six sides. In days gone by, these quilts were an allover pattern, made completely of hundreds and thousands of hexagons.

Grandma Rosie's quilt

Today, English paper piecing can work with almost any shape. A wide variety of shapes, in many different sizes, will interlock just like a jigsaw puzzle. If the paper shapes fit together, their fabric counterparts can be sewn together.

There are endless possibilities! By combining my love of English paper piecing with my other passions—needle-turn appliqué and embroidery, I can introduce you to new possibilities for quilt design.

I combine appliqué with English paper piecing to create fresh, new looks for English paper-pieced projects. I have designed complex blocks that are made easy to sew by replacing difficult piecing with easy appliqué. And I have pieced graceful openwork designs that can be appliquéd to the quilt’s background, also eliminating the need for difficult inset piecing.

Detail of "Square Dance" by Sue Daley

By adding these approaches and the art of fussy cutting to English paper piecing, I hope to bring you into my world. You, too, can create beautiful quilts with these techniques.

Visit our Flickr gallery to see more lovely images from this book! So here we go…one lucky person will win a copy of New English Paper Piecing.

To enter, just leave a comment on this post telling us what you love most about antique quilts or what your favorite early quiltmaking style is.

Deadline to enter is 6:00 pm PST on Sunday, December 18, 2011. One comment will be drawn at random to win…the winner will be contacted via email and posted here on the blog next week.

Increase your chances to win! Enter an extra comment for each of the actions you take below. Tell us what you did and thanks in advance for spreading the word!

Sign in to your Amazon account and hit the “like” button for this book
Sign up for the PatternSpot.com Shopper eNewsletter
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Join our Creative Troupe

Congrats to E. White, whose name was drawn at random from the comments on last week’s post. She won a copy of Transparency Quilts.

Santa is on his way! A free project from Possibilities

December 9th, 2011 in Free Projects, Sewing
By Tristan Gallagher

Sometimes the holidays bring unexpected guests…“Quick, we need a stocking for cousin Max!” Or maybe you’d like to fit in one last “make the house merry” project?

The super sweet Santas and lettering on these stockings are fusible web appliqué patterns from Christmas with Possibilities by Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith. They are perfect for not only stockings, but also for a small wallhanging, an embellishment for your front door, or even a holiday table runner.

Click here to download the FREE appliqué patterns along with instructions for sewing up some new stockings to stuff…enjoy!

C&T Publishing is a group of quilters and crafters dedicated to publishing products tailored to our audience. This blog is where we break away from book schedules and marketing campaigns to focus on what drives us to be creative and how this creativity manifests itself in our every day lives.