I was recently featured in a Redfin article sharing some of my favorite ways to decorate with quilts and wanted to share the article with you. There are a lot of great tips on how to use the projects you make and love to add warmth and comfort to your home.

You can find the article by clicking HERE.

Happy sewing!

 Two color quilts have always been a favorite of mine. They are timeless and classic and really let the pattern shine. This summer, I decided to try a two color quilt with a pattern I’ve never made before: a Double Irish Chain.

Amber from Gigi’s Thimble has a wonderful (and free!) pattern for a Double Irish Chain quilt, so I started by downloading her pattern. The pattern includes instructions for both twin and queen sized quilts and uses strip piecing for fast assembly.

I chose to use Confetti Cottons in Songbird and Riley White for a soft, calm color scheme then quilted it with a Centered Baptist Fans design.

The Double Irish Chain design mixed with the soothing blue and white fabric really gives this quilt an heirloom feel. You can find the free pattern download from Gigi’s Thimble HERE and the Etsy shop Simply Love Fabrics carries both Confetti Cottons Songbird and Riley White (plus ALL the other Confetti Cottons colors). So you can choose your favorite combination of colors for your very own Double Irish Chain.

Happy sewing!

We’re down to a little more than a week before The Sock Quilt Sew Along starts and I wanted to share a fun freebie–a printable coloring page plus schedule! Print out the schedule to follow along with each week’s tasks and color in the socks as you complete the blocks. Because who isn’t motivated by a color-as-you-go schedule?!?

Click on the link below to download your copy of the schedule and coloring page.

The Sock Quilt Schedule and Coloring Page

As you complete your sock blocks, you can also use the full page coloring sheet to plan out where you want each block to go. Or just bring it along to your next doctor appointment as a way to pass the time. 😉

Remember to sign up for the sew along (click here to sign up for free). I’ll be sending out weekly emails with the week’s assignment along with some tips and tricks to help you along.

In the meantime, keep gathering your fabric for the sew along. I’m excited to start cutting on May 17th!

Kristina

I’m so very excited to introduce my new pattern: The Sock Quilt!

The Sock Quilt is a throw size, beginner friendly quilt pattern that finishes at 66″ x 82″. There are three different sock blocks in the quilt–the Classic Sock, the Striped Sock, and the Toe + Heel Patch Sock. The variety of blocks plus the fun fabric options makes the quilt extra enjoyable to sew. There’s no time to get bored, since every single block is unique!

The Sock Quilt is perfect for all those great prints you have in your stash that you haven’t known what to do with (hello, fried eggs fabric!). In my sock quilt, I have lots of animal socks (my personal favorite), Halloween and Christmas socks (we all love holiday socks, right?), and a bunch of super quirky socks (octopus and mushroom socks for the win!). Really, anything goes for The Sock Quilt. Plus, the stripes and toe + heel patch pieces are great for digging in your scrap bins! With the large variety of prints, The Sock Quilt ends up being a super fun I-Spy Quilt that little (and big) eyes will want to search over and over.

You can find The Sock Quilt as a digital download in my Etsy shop HERE. The pattern is all traditionally pieced (no paper piecing or templates) and has color illustrations to walk you through every step of the process.

And if you want to get going right away on making your own sock quilt, please join me in The Sock Quilt Sew Along! I’ll be hosting the sew along on Instagram and I’d love for you to make a quilt alongside me!

We’ll start The Sock Quilt Sew Along on Monday, May 17th, and will be working our way through cutting the fabric, sewing the blocks, and assembling the quilt top before we finish toward the end of June. Right now, you’ll just need to grab your pattern HERE, sign up for the sew along HERE (completely free), and start choosing some fabrics for your socks! Plus, when you post your progress photos to Instagram , you’ll be entered to win some awesome weekly prizes!

I hope you’ll join me!

Kristina

Some of you may already know that my family moved to Alaska last summer. It’s been a fun and crazy adventure and we are loving our time living in such a unique location. So, it will be no surprise that when I saw that Riley Blake was releasing a new Destinations line for Alaska, I knew our family needed an Alaska quilt!

The Destinations panels are all 36″ x 42″, and even though this one is called “Alaska Wildlife Pillow Panel,” I thought the smaller graphics would also make a great quilt! I gathered my favorite coordinating Riley Blake Confetti Cotton solids and with some simple sashing and a flying geese border, the quilt top was finished!

For reference, the Confetti Cotton colors I used are: Bleached Denim (light blue sashing/border), Autumn, Cheddar, Chive , Riley Teal, and Mediterranean.

The quilt was begging for a fun backing, so I brought the flying geese to the back of the quilt, too! It’s a simple way to add a little bit of excitement to the backing while tying it into the design on the front. I also free hand quilted the Alaska quilt with a wood grain texture to add an extra outdoorsy factor.

The Destinations line is perfect to remember a favorite city, vacation or other location that has special memories for you or a loved one. You can find the Alaska Destinations panels (and many other Destinations lines) in quilt shops now!

I was honored when Jessica Dayon asked me to participate in the blog tour for her book Season to Taste. I’ve been friends with Jessica for a couple years and she is not only an amazing quilt designer, but a generous and beautiful individual. Her book, Season to Taste, includes twelve different patterns, three for each season of the year. Some of the patterns are specific to the season they represent, but many of them can be customized to a different season depending on what fabric is used.

As I looked through the book, there were several quilts that quickly became a favorite, but one quilt really jumped out to me as a “must-make” pattern. Steadfast was included in the Summer portion of the book, and I fell in love with the bold stripes outlined with a border of stars. The red and white center portion goes together in no time at all and the miniature stars around the outside are perfect for chain-sewing while watching your favorite movie (Netflix marathon, anyone?).

For the red and white/low volume prints in my Steadfast quilt, I chose the new Moda fabric line Roselyn by Minick & Simpson. The blues in the star blocks are two different shades of Moda Grunge fabric along with a chambray that I had in my stash. After much internal debate, I settled on using lighter, washed-out blues and love the faded look it gives–like a well-loved flag.

I spent portions of the Christmas holiday break sewing everything together and kept thinking how even though the design was meant to be Patriotic, the red and white stripes also reminded me of candy canes! If the stars were changed to green instead of blue, this would be a perfect Christmas quilt, right?!? Maybe my Patriotic Steadfast quilt will get a Christmas Steadfast quilt cousin. 🙂

Season to Taste is available now (check with your favorite quilt shop or click HERE to find it on Amazon) and Jessica is even hosting a free quilt along for one of the designs from the book! Check out her blog (HERE) or instagram account (HERE) to learn about the quilt along and to see detailed photos of the other great patterns from Season to Taste.

When I recently saw the gorgeous prints of the new Bloom and Grow line by Simple Simon and Co. from Riley Blake, I knew those pretty designs needed to be turned into a fun bag as soon as possible! I wanted a bag pattern that would showcase the large florals and the By Annie Zip It Up case pattern definitely fit the bill. Plus, the By Annie patterns are so well constructed that I knew I’d end up with a high quality piece that played well with the different Bloom and Grow prints.

The main floral print in navy was a perfect choice for the outside of the case, and after falling in love with the tiny white floral print, I knew it had to be used on the inside of the case. I adjusted the pattern slightly to include two vinyl pockets on the inside (the pattern calls for one vinyl and one mesh pocket) and loved choosing zipper colors to match the Bloom and Grow fabric.

The Zip It Up pattern has two size options and to fully feature the large floral print, I made the larger size. I love that the large size can easily fit a notebook inside the pockets (I’m always wanting paper to write down ideas or notes) and the case would be a great gift for a sewer, quilter, or creative child.

I was only able to feature three prints from the Bloom and Grow line in my Zip It Up case, but wanted to include a photo of the whole line because I just loved the saturated burgundy color, too! You can find Bloom and Grow in quilt shops now, and the Zip It Up pattern is available on the By Annie website or Amazon.

Happy sewing!

It’s been a minute or two since I finished a quilt top (more like six months, actually) and this was the perfect project to get back into the swing of things! The quilt pattern is Scrappy Hearts from the book Playful Precut Quilts by Amanda Neiderhauser. When I originally flipped through the book trying to decide which one I’d like to make first, I knew this was the one. I just had to make it! Scrappy Hearts has the ease of using precuts (5″ x 5″ squares) but still gives off a wonderfully scrappy feel. Plus, that sashing?!? For once I was actually excited to do sashing on a quilt. Haha.

The fabric is New Dawn by Citrus & Mint for Riley Blake Designs and the background is Confetti Cotton Solid in Iron. Amanda’s Scrappy Hearts quilt from the book had a dark gray background fabric and I loved how it really highlighted the fun fabric, so I decided to go a similar route. The pattern calls for two charm packs, but I opted to use a 10″ Stacker of New Dawn and cut half the 10″ squares into 5″ x 5″ squares. This way, I could choose prints and colors that would work well together and with the dark gray background.

Along with the Scrappy Hearts pattern, Playful Precut Quilts has an additional fourteen patterns (quilts, baby quilts, table runners, and wall hangings). Amanda was so clever in writing this book because the blocks from all of the patterns are the same size, which means that you can mix and match the blocks within the different projects! It really adds a fun way to customize your own project so you can choose the block(s) you want plus the finished size you’re looking for.

Both Playful Precut Quilts and New Dawn fabric are in shops now (yay!). You can find Playful Precut Quilts on Amazon and I’ve seen New Dawn popping up in several Etsy shops (and from what I hear, selling fast, too!).

Happy sewing.

The Gobble Gobble Sew Along has officially come to an end and while I’m a bit sad it’s over, at least I have my cute Mr. Gobble to lift my spirits. 😉 It’s been so fun to follow along with the #gobblesewalong hashtag over on instagram and I hope you’ve enjoyed making your own pillow cover.

Even though my turkey doesn’t have his button eyes yet (I didn’t have any luck at the store I checked, but will find some!) he’s such a fun addition to our fall decor. Technically, I already have one Gobble Gobble pillow cover that I made for the magazine, but since we recently moved we don’t have any of our seasonal things with us yet. And really, two turkeys are better than one, right?

You can see that I decided to finish my pillow off a little different than the pattern instructions said. Since my original turkey pillow was finished off with an envelope back and binding around the edge, I decided to make this one a bit different with a quilted back panel and a zipper on the bottom. I love the weight that the quilted back gives it and I had the perfect tan zipper, so I feel it was meant to be.

If you didn’t get around to making your Gobble Gobble pillow cover with the sew along, you still have plenty of time! The pattern can be found HERE and you can be inspired by all of the fun projects on instagram by searching the hashtag #gobblesewalong.

Happy sewing!

Here we are on the last week of the Gobble Gobble Sew Along! It’s been so much fun to see all of your turkeys pieced together and this week we get to turn them into pillow covers. I have just a few items that might help as you get started on your pillow cover.

The Gobble Gobble pattern includes instructions for an envelope pillow back, but if you’d like to finish off your pillow with a zipper instead, you can follow this tutorial I wrote in 2019 HERE. The tutorial is my go-to method for adding a zipper to a pillow cover and is seriously so fast and easy. Plus, with this method you won’t have to add binding on at the end. I’ll let you decide if not having to do binding is a good thing or a bad thing-haha! Don’t be scared off by the word “zipper” either! It’s absolutely something that you can do!

The zipper pillow tutorial also includes info on how I like to quilt my pillow covers. For my Gobble Gobble pillow, I quilted it just as described in the tutorial–complete with using my favorite Odif 505 spray for basting and Clover Hera Marker for marking the quilting lines.

In the past I have done a lot of pin basting, but after trying Odif 505 Basting Spray a couple years ago, I pretty much exclusively spray baste my smaller projects. It’s so convenient and simple to use that I only use pins if I don’t have any Odif 505 around. A full step by step on how I use it can be found on my zipper pillow tutorial HERE.

I’m also in love with using the Clover Hera Marker for marking lines for straight line quilting. I combine it with a long ruler to make indents exactly where I want to quilt on my basted panel (can you see the faint lines on the right half of the turkey below?). Generally, I’ll make lines 1″ apart from each other, quilt straight lines right on top of those lines, then go back quilt in between the 1″ lines to get 1/2″ quilted lines across the top (I just eyeball the lines in between by keeping my walking foot evenly spaced between the quilted 1″ lines). Now that I have my routine down for straight line quilting, it all goes pretty smoothly and I really enjoy the process.

You can, of course, hand quilt your turkey instead! I’ve gone that route with several pillow covers and hand quilting definitely adds such a nice touch. Below, I’ve included a photo of a pillow I finished just last month where I hand quilted a crosshatch design. I spray basted with Odif 505, used the Hera marker to help me keep track of where I wanted the hand quilting to go, then followed the indented lines with a needle and embroidery thread.

After quilting, you’ll want to trim all three layers (pieced turkey, batting, and lining) to the same size. Don’t worry if the top doesn’t measure exactly 18″ when you trim. Quilting frequently causes the layers to shrink in a bit, so don’t be surprised if one or both sides are smaller than 18″. I generally just trim to the edge of the top pieced section, trying my best to square up the edges as I go.

After the quilting and trimming is done, it’s time to add the button eyes. Place them about 1/2″ above the flying geese beak and sew them on with a matching thread color–you don’t need fancy thread or anything, just whatever you have on hand. After the eyes are on, you can go ahead and finish off the pillow by using the envelope back instructions in the pattern, the zipper tutorial HERE, or your own favorite way to make a pillow cover.

There really are so many fun options for finishing off your Gobble Gobble turkey and I’ve been excited to already see some finished pillow covers pop up on the #gobblesewalong hashtag! For this week’s giveaway, I have an awesome bundle of ten fat quarters from the Flurry line by Ruby Star Society up for grabs. You have until next Monday, September 14th to post any progress or finished pillow photos to be entered to win.

Happy sewing!

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