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Hey Merry Christmas from the North Pole League. The start of this quilt was made by enlarging one of the baseball card appliques from a quilt pattern we did in 2003 (baseball at the north pole theme). With this one, I kept adding strips around the card, trying to use up leftover Christmas fabrics. I thought it would be fun to try delectable mountain blocks for the final border and was lucky enough to have enough fabrics. It Was fun and the blocks are really easy to make using half square triangles. After adding all the strips and borders, this quilt is somewhere around queen size. The baseball card center is about 48" tall enlarged from a 5" x 7" original. Whoops... forgot to measure the baseball bats and ball. This one's a gift for my son's Christmas birthday. You can't see it in the photo but it's quilted with an overall snowflakes pattern. We plan on re-releasing the North Pole League applique patterns sometime next year. Happy Holidays everyone! 
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Here's an easy quilted tic tac toe game for toddlers. All kinds of fabrics can be used for this, just make sure they are bright and fun. Any shapes can be used for the game pieces. The one pictured below has a monkey theme with sock monkey heads and banana shapes. I made another one with X and O game pieces. Download and print out the free instructions at the bottom of this post. Monkey head and banana shapes are included. 
Pinking Shears 9 - 6.5” squares 1 - fat quarter for backing 6 - 1.5“ x 6.5” for sashing between squares 2 - 1.5“ strips x width of rows sewn together Scraps of low loft batting and fabric for Xs and Os 30” grow grain ribbon Make a big nine patch block with sashing in between for game board. Sew it together, pressing as you go. Piece together a backing or use a fat quarter. Make a quilt sandwich of backing, batting and top. Quilt as much as you like. In the ditch along the binding/sashing strip edges, Xs across the diagonals of the 6.5” squares. Trim and bind this little quilt. 
I'm excited to share this new pattern with you. Ichimatsu Mountain Home. Think Sunbonnet Sue with Asian flavor. You can use your stash of beautiful Asian prints in large and small scale to make the quilt. Or take a look at the beautiful lines of Kona Bay Fabrics and Hoffman. The Ichimatsu Doll appliqué, mountain blocks, and house block can be used for other future projects too. I was thinking it might be fun to do an Indigo table runner with the Ichimatsu Doll stitched out in Sashiko. Pattern is available here in PDF download format. Hope you have fun with it. 
  Be sure to visit the Moda Bake Shop today and download Holly on 25th and Pine. I'm excited to be sharing another pattern with you. It's an easy table runner with holly leaf exclamation points and a good way to use up scraps from your stash if you like. I had fun making it and hope you will too. The 25th and Pine line is by Basic Grey from Moda and this pattern uses either two Charm Packs or a Layer Cake.
I've been on a sock monkey kick again... After making a couple of baby quilts, it must be time for some Christmas tree ornaments. They're kinda funky but I'm sure the granddaughter will like them if no one else. To make these, I used the Sock Santa, and Rudolfarilla applique template patterns from my first post on the Moda Bake Shop.There is also a template for Moda Elf which I haven't done yet. http://www.modabakeshop.com/2011/12/sock-santa-modaelf-rudolpharilla.html#more 
There is definitely some work in these but they're kinda fun and funny looking peeking out from the tree. 
Here's how these were made. Circle background 1 - Cut 3, 6.25" circles, 2 fabric and 1 cotton batting. Layer the fabric circles right sides together, fabric on top of batting circle. Pin and sew around the circle leaving a small opening. Turn right side out, smooth seam with a chopstick and press. Close opening with whip stitch. Applique Background 2 - Trace a 5" diameter circle on sew in interfacing. Lay interfacing on top (right side up) of applique background fabric. Shorten stitch length to 15-18 stitches per inch and sew around circle on drawn line. Trim around circle, 1/4" seam allowance. Cut slit in interfacing only and turn circle right side out.Smooth seam and press. Reduce the applique templates by 50% so they end up being approx. 4" tall. Trace reversed templates on to fusible webbing and fuse to wrong side of applique fabrics. Cut out appliques on drawn line, remove paper and fuse pieces together using an applique pressing sheet. Carefully peel assembled applique from the pressing sheet. Fuse to background 2 except for anything that hangs over on to 1st background. You can download and follow the instructions for assembling appliques from the original recipe. http://www.modabakeshop.com/2011/12/sock-santa-modaelf-rudolpharilla.html#more Most of the embellishment for these is done on background 2. Interfacing and anything you don't want to show will be covered when ornament is finished. The interfacing makes a nice stabilizer if you want to outline the characters in satin stitch. I also added some hand blanket and stem stitch for fun. Fuse any pieces that hang over to background 1 (like Santa's pom pom) last. Button eyes, tiny light button earrings and a ribbon are used for Rudolfarilla. Oh and a little gold snowflake found in the button box for some sparkle. Sock Santa has one button eye and a bead for the other. I finished by stitching background 2 to background 1, using blanket stitch and metallic embroidery thread. Then one more time around on first background edge with blanket stitch and a piece of embroidery thread is used for the hanger. 
 Weather was cooperative and we had fun showing the quilts. Here are a just a few pictures of how it looked. This was an easy way to make a fabric sign in case you ever want to do it. I used two tall garden supports and made a big pillow case. Then sewed straight lines down each side to create slots for the garden supports to slide in to. Then stuck them in the ground. We pounded tent stakes into the ground also and used twine to help support it. That worked great too. Went to the scrap bag for the lettering and fused to both sides.      The one in center back of this picture is a mid 70s Cathedral Window. It took a solid six months of sewing and a lot of 6-8 hour days. It is entirely hand stitched. Kind of got obsessed with it... We decided to have a quilt show and sale in our garden this Saturday. Most of the quilts are mine but a few are made by family and friends. This Pineapple beauty will be hanging from our birch tree to greet everyone and was made by my friend Linda from Kauai. If you happen to be in the Sequim/Dungeness area on the Olympic Peninsula on Saturday, come by and see us. Hoping to get the for sale quilts added to the online store also. Linda's quilt is just for show. Keep your fingers crossed for a beautiful day!  Small frogs in hydrangeas in a past garden. Our garden here is new and hydrangeas are young but maybe we'll have some new frog friends eventually. 
Great to be sharing the Cherry Spools block with all of you! All of the instructions are up on the Moda Bake Shop. Below is a picture of one of my test blocks using jelly roll scraps from Bonnie and Camille's Bliss line. Many thanks to Oda May and the Moda Bake Shop for the Trifle Quilt Challenge! Layer two is up today. Hope you have fun making each one!  Here's a new quilt to make. It features a traditional pieced basket tipped on it's side with some easy appliqued blossoms and leaves. There is more open space around the basket and flowers to give it a modern feel and feature your quilting. Two sizes of flower and leaf appliques included in the pattern. Gentle curves on the appliques make that part simple too and it finishes out at 49" x 63". This pattern is only available on the website (Easy pdf download). Buy the pattern and download here. 
One wasn't enough. Had to make it in pastels too. Here's how it came out. The basket weave quilting pattern worked out great for both quilts. 
Our Mom was an extraordinary knitter. She never told me who taught her to knit but she could knit anything. Her fingers would fly and I swear she wasn't looking a lot of the time she was knitting. Knitting was her passion and if she wasn't doing something for our large family, she was knitting. My big sister and I live hundreds of miles apart. Some years ago she sent me a dress Mom knit for me. She says I wore it when I was about 3 years old. It had been passed down through the little girls in our family and her granddaughter was the last one to wear it. It was probably knit on #1 needles and please notice the lovely swans on the bottom and garter stitch detail inside the pleats. It's wool and still in great shape after many many decades and wearings. Sorry for the reflections in the first picture. Took that one through glass... My husband framed this for me for Mother's Day one year and it's been hanging in the sewing room ever since. A constant source of inspiration. She taught most of her daughters and others to knit and quilt. The quilting is what resonated with me and what I do most but a basic knitting project is still fun now and again. Thanks so much Mom! 
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