Candy Cat Quilt Along

So, 2018 is here (how crazy is that?) and I find myself in the middle of hosting the Candy Cat Quilt Along on Instagram. I'm totally loving the heck out of it. I was browsing Pinterest one day, as one does, and I came across an adorable little teepee block. I followed the link and discovered Joanna Hart aka Unicorn Harts and a whole bunch of really fabulous foundation paper pieced block patterns, including one called "Candy Cats". To my absolute giddy delight, it was a free pattern (like, for real?? A pattern this cute and it's FREE???) Naturally, I had to have it, so I snapped it-and a bunch of others-right up. I'm not even that into cats! I just had to make this block! And you know how it goes, you make something and you absolutely love it so you have to make a whole bunch more. I decided to contact Jo and see if she'd be interested in letting me host a quilt along using her pattern. Not only did she say yes, she also agreed to creating a few patterns to go along with it! Before I get to that, let me show you my litter of Candy Cats so far:

I'm trying hard not to buy any new fabric. Instead, I'm use some of my favorite pieces and scraps that I have in my stash. My goal is to make about 25 cats, but I haven't quite decided yet. Once we get all the complimentary, complementary patterns out, I'll have to finalize a layout and how many cats to make.

Jo released our first free pattern, Fishy Bones. I absolutely love this block. It has more character than a Disney movie! Here's my first Fishy, his name is Ralph:

Isn't he the best?? Fishy Bones has been out for a week now, which means it's my turn to give you a free pattern. Since I'm not an FPP designer, I am giving you a break from sewing on paper by offering you MEOW, a nice and easy patchwork pattern:

 MEOW is designed to take up some space in your quilt, to add a little more whimsy and to allow you some freedom from being so symmetrical. MEOW can be sewn in a row of four letters, or a square of two by two:

Because this post is already long enough, and I'd like to keep the tutorial page as simple as possible, I will write the instructions for MEOW in a new post as soon as I get home from picking up my daughter from school. Until then, I hope you'll join us and this fun quilt along. The Cats can be made in about 45-60 minutes, and take only scraps and small pieces to make. Every #candycatqal hashtag is an entry to win one of two prizes: a Choose Five pattern bundle from Jo, or a quilty prize pack from me. Every completed quilt top is entered to win FREE LONGARM QUILTING from The Cotton Farm Longarm. (*Winner must pay shipping*) It's not too late to join! Jump in any time! We are trying to post a new, free pattern every Monday but we are busy mom's with busy families, so we'll do our best to notify you if there's a change in the schedule. 

Head on over to Instagram for more information, inspiration and friends to sew along with. 

Be sure to follow me (@schnitzelandboo), 

Joanna (@unicornharts) 

and our sponsor (@thecottonfarmlongarm) for more good stuff throughout the QAL!

Happy FPP'ing!

-Kristi

Animal Quilts by Juliet van der Heijden (and a Paper Pieced Rhino)

About four years ago, I taught myself how to foundation paper piece (FPP). It was confusing, frustrating, and challenging. I had only just begun to learn quilting, and I was eager to learn every technique I could. I made Badskirt's Sew Out Loud block for my friend Katy (@imagingermonkey on all the various social media stuffs) with the words "slave to the needle" embroidered on it. If you know Katy, you would totally know how perfect that was for her! Anyway, even though it was an entirely maddening experience, I was completely hooked and began to FPP every chance I got.

One of my favorite FPP designers, Juliet van der Heijden,  has recently written a delightful and charming new book called Animal Quilts. In it are 12 animal FPP patterns, instructions and helpful hints so that even the very beginner can handle stitching up a stunning new quilt. I was thrilled to be asked to join the blog hop for this book, but not so thrilled that I had to choose just one pattern to feature. I wanted to do them all, but time wouldn't allow it. SIGH!

 They are all so unique and gorgeous! The monarch butterfly on the cover immediately jumped out at me, but I thought that it would probably be done a few times, so I flipped through the pages again, trying to decide which one to sew, which one would challenge me, which one would be unique.

The highland cow was a strong contender, and it's not hard to see why. Isn't he amazing?? I'm going to make this one anyway. In fact, I'll probably sew my way through this whole book (it's that good!) I'm fairly certain that's what Paul has been doing, actually! (See schedule below for Paul's information. You won't want to miss it!)

 I LOVED the highland cow, but eventually decided to do the rhino pattern.

He was everything I dreamed of: challenging, unique, quirky, and charming. I started working on him at Aurifil's demo table at Quilt Festival in Houston. Lots of people stopped by to watch me work, admire the book, learn, ask questions or exclaim over how tiny the seams were in some of the pieces.

{the eye: some seams are only four 1.5 length stitches long!}

{messy business!}

Because I was continuously starting and stopping, I wound up making a several mistakes and had to redo five sections. I think it was worth it, though. I love the way it turned out. 

I am working on a second one right now, it's his eye you see pictured above.

When this pair is finished, I will quilt them with a layer of batting and muslin, then turn them into pillows for my dear friend Elizabeth. It's her birthday today and these are exactly perfect for her. 

I hope you will stop by the blogs and/or Instagram accounts of the other hoppers below. There are some gorgeous pieces being featured (and more photos of the book and quilt patterns!) 

Happy Sewing!

Kristi

Monday 6th November – Juliet from Tartan Kiwi

Tuesday 7th November – Annabel from Little Pincushion Studio

Wednesday 8th November – Chris from Made by Chrissie D

Thursday 9th November – Quilting Daily

Friday 10th November – Matthew from Mister Domestic 

Monday 13th November – Kate from Quilt with Kate 

Tuesday 14th November – Kristi from Schnitzel and Boo (That's me!)

Wednesday 15th November – Angie from Gnome Angel 

Thursday 16th November – Paul aka Evildemondevildog

Friday 17th November – Sarah from Sariditty

Tutorial: How to Join the Ends of Quilt Binding

Me again! Two days in a row, weird! I'm back, as promised, to show you how I join the ends of the quilt binding when finishing my quilts. It has taken me a LOOOOOOONG time to figure out a good method for this, and an even longer time to remember how. Now that I've got it down, I'm comfortable with sharing it with all of you

 I almost always cut 2 1/2"xWOF strips of fabric to make my binding. *WOF= Width of Fold, which is generally 42 usable inches. To figure out how many strips to cut, add up all four sides of your quilt and divide that number by 42. For example, my quilt was 82"x90". 82+82+90+90=344. 344 divided by 42= 8.2. Always round up, so in this case, I cut 9 strips of 2 1/2"x42". Join them all together, then roll it up to make it tidier for stitching. 

Until I can write my own tutorial, click here for a good how-to on making quilt binding, 

and here for how to attach it.

You will need:

-Fabric scissors

-Ruler with a 45* angle

-Fabric marker

-Pins

 Once you've got your binding mostly stitched on, you are ready to join the ends. Make sure to give yourself plenty of space between the loose ends to work! 20" is ideal, but make the most of what you can with the size of your quilt.  

Now is a good time to trim the other binding end to a 45* angle if you haven't already done so. Align the 45* line with the bottom edge of your opened up binding; use the fabric marker to draw the line. Notice that this is the tail on the left.

Open up the binding tail on the right, aligning the bottom raw edge with the edge of the quilt. Make sure there are no gaps or wrinkles in the binding and that it is perfectly smooth and matched up with the quilt! Pin it in place so it doesn't shift while you're working on the rest. 

Place the tail on the left on top of the pinned tail on the right.

Use the ruler as a guide to draw the cut angle of the tail onto the binding below it.

Remove the top tail, measure 1/2" to the LEFT of the original line; cut on this new line. This accommodates the 1/4" seam allowance for both sides.

Place the tails right sides together; pin in place and stitch. 

Because the ends are at an angle, you will have little triangles sticking out of both sides by 1/4". This part always confused me, so I took a picture at a distance and close up so you can see how this is supposed to look. 

Now all you have to do is finger press that seam open, refold the binding on its original crease and finish stitching it to the quilt. Well done, you! 

I'll do my best to remember to take photos of the making and attaching steps the next time I'm working on a quilt. I hope you've found this tutorial to be simple and straight-forward. 

Happy sewing!

-Kristi

PS For details on the above quilt, click here.

SO MANY TRIANGLES! (and hexagons, too!)

Hey! Wow, does this thing still even work?? 

I guess we'll find out, right?

So, hi there! It's been QUITE AWHILE. You could say I've been a little busy. Oh just a tad...I was hired as the Technical Creative Specialist at Aurifil, which means lots of travel, Roo has taken up ice skating and horseback riding, I started a guild, adopted a new puppy, painted my sewing room, became a Brand Ambassador for Shannon Fabrics etc. Busy and overwhelmed has been the new me, but now that I have that all under control and in the daily routine...

I would like to show you my most recent finish: a triangle and hexagon quilt featuring the Reverie Fusion fabric collection by Art Gallery Fabrics. My friend Mathew, aka "Mister Domestic" is the zany, crazy, awesome personality behind their brand and he's come up with a brilliant way to showcase their various collections by hosting Mister Domestic's Sewing Party. He asked if I would like to participate in the upcoming round, and of course I said yes. I sat down with my graph paper and newly purchased (and now lost) mechanical pencil and sketched out a design. A little quilt math, some coloring between the lines, a quick peek at the collections online, and I was on my way.

It took about three solid days of cutting and sewing the triangles,
and a day and a half for the hexagons themselves.
Of course, I had to use the unstitcher stick on the first pair of triangles I put together,
 that's just the way it goes!

Before long, I was doing two rows per hour.

Somehow there were a few extra triangles, but it didn't matter because I still had to trim the quilt.

Knowing what my plan for the hexagons was, it seemed a shame to cover up such perfect points:

Then again, I also had a few not so perfect points in there as well!

I figured that since my top was already perfectly in place on my quilt batting design wall, I would just use that for the quilt and replace the one for the wall. It was about that time anyway, the bunnies had nibbled the bottom of it and it was looking kinda ratty. This was actually a really good decision because it made making the quilt sandwich a lot less tedious. I only had to spray baste the backing to the batting/top-and no pin basting! Yay!

Thank you to English Paper Pieces for the handy little 1 1/4" papers and the acrylic template!

Luckily, I had the perfect shade Aurifil 50wt thread in yellow (#2130) to do the quilting. 

It was the perfect bright golden shade for this collection of fabrics. 

 

Taffy (the puppy I mentioned earlier) kept me company while I worked.
She's such a sweet little doggy!

Peek-A-Boo!



I am really happy with the way this quilt turned out. It still amazes me when I can pull something out of my head and make it turn out exactly as I imagined. 

Come back tomorrow for a quick little tutorial on how I join the ends of my quilt binding!

Happy Sewing!
Kristi

PS Please follow along with the rest of the party as we each bring you something to inspire you each day during the party. Our schedule is below, I think you'll love seeing us through our creations. You can check it out on Instagram and our websites:

August 28th - Justin Stafford (le vintage chic) @keatonquilts www.keatonquilts.com

August 29th - Kristi McDonough (reverie) @schnitzelandboo www.schnitzelandboo.com

August 30th - Paola Baker (bachelorette) @loveoffabrics 

August 31st - Alisa Kutsel (spices) @astitchinbetween www.astitchinbetween.com

September 1st - Elise Baek (le vintage chic) @eliseandemelie www.eliseandemelie.com

September 2nd - Mathew Boudreaux (woodlands) @misterdomestic www.misterdomestic.net

Thank you for being such an inspiring host, Mathew! I had a great time! XOXO