Christmas Traditions...Holiday Scrap-a-long Phase 1

Hey quilters...hope your week is off to a great start. I'm having a blast with this scrap-a-long. The quilt brings so many Christmas memories with my family as I am sewing. I designed the quilt due to all the fun Christmas traditions with my family in hopes to inspire you to create a nostalgic quilt as well. I for one get wrapped up in a traditional quilt design so this series is such a fun whimsical one for me. The design featured is using Snowy Greetings by Susan Winget for White Owl Textiles/Lumin fabrics. The prints feature snowmen, poinsettias, village scenes. gifts and winter motifs. Plus, the color hues are beautiful for that traditional Christmas feeling. I am using my collection of Festive Wishes by Lumin Fabrics from my stash. The design layout is very easy consisting of just two blocks that are staggered for fast piecing. The design layout has plenty of blocks for you to personalize with your family traditions. My design is throw size at 52 x 56 but you can easily enlarge just by adding more rows or extra borders. I used a fat quarter bundle plus two coordinating prints at a yard each. Due to the large scale of the blocks, it makes it fat quarter friendly if desired. I used my Accuquilt GO! Classic 2" Alphabet die to personalize the quilt and fusible raw edge appliqued around the letters for stability. I do recommend doing some form of a stitch around the letters to secure for washing. You'll be creating a Christmas heirloom quilt that can be passed down for generations so stability for washing is the key. I'm not too far ahead of y'all so I'll be posting the design in phases and you can go at your own speed. My first tip is to jot down your family traditions to get your layout of words/phases and how you would like to embellish your quilt as well. As you can see you have many options to make a Christmas Traditions quilt full of special memories. Talk soon!

Blessed Quilting from My Home to Yours,

Cat

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Christmas Traditions...

Here's all you need...

* Fat quarter bucle plus 2 coordinates one yard each and extra yardage for border/binding/backing depending on your size. Design is very versatile if you decided to use crap fabrics too of your favorite Christmas fabrics.

* Accuquilt Classic 2" Alphabet die

* Coordinating Aurifil thread

* Double sided fusible web for letters

* Basic sewing tools

* Oliso iron for perfect pressing :-)

* Brother sewing machine for fun & easy piecing :-) 

Tip...I highly recommend a great rotary cutting tool and ruler for fast and easy precise cuts. 

Here's all you do...

Per design...

14 Staggered rows...

Rows 1,3,5,7,9,11.13 

3 Blocks 3.5 x 15

Rows 2,4,6,8,10,12,14

2 Blocks 3.5 x 7.5 & 2 Blocks 3.5 x 15

Note...Rotary cutting diagrams includes a 1/4" seam allowance...

* Finished 3.5 x 7.5 block

* Finished 3.5 x 15

I hope this helps inspire your layout for you to create a Christmas Traditions quilt to pass down for generations. 

Talk soon,

Cat

Christmas Traditions...Holiday Scrap-a-long!

 Hey quilters.... happy Monday. Can you believe it's already November. I will admit yesterday I spent the day thinking how can I keep sewing with Skully and Stella. It's funny, even at my age of how you can get attached to certain people/skeletons. But you know me they are pretty close by in my sewing room. Yup they are guarding my stash in my closet. :-) They do say "don't grow up 'cause it's a trap!" Well...today I'm sharing "Christmas Traditions" Holiday scrap-a-long with y'all. I had a blast designing this quilt this summer. I kept thinking of all the fun family Christmas moments with my family to really create a unique quilt to pass down for Generations. The featured quilt is using the beautiful "Snowy Greetings" collection designed by Susan Winget for White Owl Textiles/Lumin Fabrics. The collection features snowman, poinsettias, village scenes, gifts and winter motifs. The collection is perfect for a festive Christmas quilt. I'll be using a collection from Lumin Fabrics that my family loved last Christmas. The layout is very Fat Quarter friendly along with coordinating yardage and consists of only two blocks staggered throughout the quilt. The rows come together quickly due to this method. I will be hosting the design in stages. I personally found it easier to a-play-que the letters first per row and fuse any decorative items as well. I used accuquilt GO! Classic 2" Alphabet letters & Aurifil thread 50# for the piecing and a-play-queing. You have many blocks to really get creative and personalize the design to your family traditions. My design is a throw size, but you can easily enlarge to your needs just by adding more borders. I will say this would really make a special gift as well. I hope this design inspires you to create your own Christmas Traditions quilt to pass down for generations. I'll be sharing Phase 1 real soon. Thanks so much for following!

Blessed Quilting From My Home to Yours,

Cat

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Follow on Autumn Skies Stitching Etsy page for unique Heirloom quilts and gifts (link also on home page)

Christmas Traditions...Holiday Scrap-a-long!...

Talk soon,

Cat

Series...Handmade-Home Cooked w/Love "Spooktacular Cookie Crust Chocolate Pie & Trivet"

 Hey quilters. Hope you're having a great week. I can't believe Halloween is this weekend. This month has flown by with all the fun events with Skully and Stella. They have been such a joy to teach sewing techniques and now Skully is featuring the trivet he made featuring a chocolate pie recipe over on my cooking blog (link upper right on home page) We've had a great time perfecting the recipe to share with y'all for that perfect Holiday entertaining. I love featuring a handmade trivet along with a home cooked recipe as the center when entertaining. It gives me joy when setting the table knowing that I made something so unique to share with my family and friends. The trivets are fun-ctional and make great gifts too. Skully shared how to make the trivet on previous post (9-12) so you still have time to make one too. I'm loving this series that I'm sharing with y'all. It combines my love of sewing/quilting with Lumin Fabrics/Island Batik and cooking. I thank y'all so much for following and check back soon for more designs featuring Lumin Fabrics for the upcoming Holidays. Talk soon!

Blessed Quilting from My Home to Yours,

Cat

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Spooktacular Cookie Crust Chocolate Pie...

Series "Handmade-Home Cooked w/ Love"...Songbird Casserole Trivet for Entertaining

 Hey quilters...happy Sunday. I hope y'all are having a great weekend and weather. I'Im sharing with you today a fun project using your scraps for entertaining. I say entertaining but this would make a great gift as well. I love to make a handmade gift any chance I can and using my scraps of this beautiful collection of Songbird was the inspiration. In my previous post I was blessed to be part of the Songbird Blog Hop w/ curlicuecreations.com Jennifer Thomas new fabric collection "Songbird" for Lumin Fabrics designed by Jerry Khiev. This collection is stunning. The entire time as I was designing my project then cutting the fabric all I could think of what I was going to do with the scraps. With all the colors and prints my brain went into a fun trivet for entertaining. Which inspired my new home decor series that I'll be sharing seasonally. The project is very simple and beginner friendly. You can use the instructions below and adjust to fit your desired casserole dish. Mine was the large oblong size, and my scraps were perfect then made strips from the lighter print for the lattice strips. I made a "cobbler" that I'll be sharing soon on my cooking blog with y'all as well. What I love about this fun design is it's very versatile for any occasion just by changing the fabrics. I'm sharing the instructions today while Skully and Stella are working on their own creative projects. Alot going on in my sewing room :-) Check back soon for more adventures of Skully and Stella. Enjoy!

Blessed Quilting from My Home to Yours,

Cat

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Songbird Casserole Trivet...est. finish at 10 1/4 x 14 1/4

Here's all you need...

* Songbird fabric scraps to your desired measurements.

* Thermoweb Heatnbond Lite

* Insul-Bright 

* Pellon fusible fleece

*Aurifil 50 weight #2520

* Olfa rotary cutter w/pinking blade

* Oliso iron

* Brother sewing machine

Here's all you do...

* Rotary cut your front fabric and backing to desired size (mine 10 x 14)... set aside.

* Rotary cut Pellon fusible fleece to the size of your front fabric.

* Fuse following manufacturer's directions. Set aside.

* Rotary cut your fabric for lattice strips and heatnbond lite to desired size and fuse following manufacturer's directions.

* Using your rotary cutter with pinking blade...cut strips 1/2" x desired lengths. 

Tip....I cut mine long then squared up even with front fabric after I weaved the strips.

* Peel off backing of strips :-) 

Yup...I did it...had my lattice strips perfect then realized I forgot to peel off the paper backing. UGH!

* Place strips as desired on front fabric...forming the weave of a pie crust (under/over) as desired then fuse following manufactures directions.

* Square up even with front if needed.

* Quilt a running stitch on lattice strips to secure or quilt as desired.

* Place backing...right side down then heatnbond lite then top....secure with clips.

Tip...I like to do a fast-basting stitch all around my trivet using my Brother sewing machine before adding the binding. Helps hold strips in place. 

Bind as desired or...

My binding method of rotary cutting strips 2" x desired length. 

Start at front (top) sew with right side together using a 1/4" seam allowance. Press.

Repeat for bottom...then left/right side.

Starting at top...fold strip to back then tuck in half to secure raw edge...clip to secure and top stitch on front of fabric. 

Repeat same method with bottom...then left and right sides.

Note...this is a fun time to play with decorative stitches on your machine for the top stitching on front.

Just make sure you catch the back fold to secure binding.

Songbird Trivet front...

Songbird Trivet back...

Enjoy!

Check back this week on cooking blog (link upper right on home page) for the cobbler recipe. 

Sneak Peek....Fall entertaining project using Songbird scraps!

 Hey quilters...can you believe it's fall season already? I don't know about y'all but I'm ready for some coolish weather. I love it when the leaves start turning colors and the air even smells crisp. Even the birds seem to chirp a bit more too. Along with all the fun fall decor comes with one of my favorite things to do and that is bake. So this coming weekend I'll be sharing a project using your Songbird fabric scraps for entertaining. I might even throw in a recipe too. That was a hug hint of what's to come :-) Below is a sneak peek of how beautiful this fabric collection "Songbird" designed by Jerry Khiev of Lumin Fabrics for Jennifer Thomas of @curlicuecreations. I'm using my scraps from previous project when featured using the collection for @curlicuecreations recent blog hop. You can see below of why I wanted to use all of this fabric. Way too pretty! Talk soon.

Blessed Quilting from My Home to Yours,

Cat

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Songbird fabric sneak peek...

My apologies...Video below can be viewed on facebook...

and sew it begins....Skully's girlfriend Stella!

 Hey quilters...happy Sunday! Well, you just never know what is going to happen in my sewing room. Yesterday Skully's girlfriend Stella arrived with clothes to be altered. First of all, I didn't know Skully had a girlfriend, that was news to me. Second...she already knew how to sew! Stella couldn't wait to alter her clothes using my Brother sewing machine. She was having a blast using the stitch regulator and my Aurifil 50# thread black matched perfectly. I'm thrilled that Stella is here to help Skully and me with all the Halloween projects we have planned. She couldn't have arrived at a better time. Tis the Season for Skully & Stella!

Blessed Quilting from My Home to Yours,

Cat

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Stella having a blast!...

Tis the Season for Skully....suspender fitting gone wrong! :-)

 Hey quilters...happy Friday! I"ve had an eventful week so far. Starting calm...Skully and me planning a fun event coming soon, then my sweet cat Lottie enters the sewing room. I love my sweet Lottie. She usually watches me sew...we have eventful conversations...she plays with my Aurifil thread. All this is normal but yesterday was a different adventure for us. Skully wanted suspenders for his upcoming event. I guess this is normal for a skeleton to look his best??? As I was fitting Skully for his suspenders my sweet cat Lottie jumps on my cutting table and decides to help. I will admit at first it was so sweet...she was trying to help hold the suspenders for me...I think. Then she was maybe getting a bit too close to Skully's neck area. Just so y'all know at this time I couldn't resist grabbing my phone to snap a few pics. But little did I know what was next. I guess Lottie might be a bit jealous of the attention Skully is getting. I don't know you be the judge ;-) Everything seemed so innocent until I heard "crunch." Yup...my sweet almost 90 (in cat years) bit Skully's arm. Seriously! I was snapping a few cute photos then it happened. Wow!!! Lottie bit Skully's arm. First, I didn't know cats could be jealous of a skeleton...right? But...it's on camera! I did laugh then after the fact, but I guess we'll be a bit more careful in the future until they finally bond. :-) I hope! Skully didn't get hurt but his ego was bruised a bit. In the meantime, Skully is preparing for a fun event coming soon so check back for all the details. Wishing y'all a great stitching weekend.

Blessed Quilting from My Home to Yours,

Cat

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Skully's suspender fitting gone wrong!...

THEN...