October 2018

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. If you still haven’t made a cute Halloween decoration for your front door, here’s a free pattern to have a look at. It’s from the Bernina blog but of course any machine will do. With the time crunch til the holiday, I’d offer some suggestions to speed this up. Instead of making the quilt sandwich as they describe it, try using one or two layers of craft felt. I’m guessing that at this time of year, yellow or orange felt is available by the yard at the big box craft stores. Felt would eliminate the need for hems on the sides or bottom. I have successfully couched down the “hairy” types of yard that the pattern calls for by using just an open toed embroidery foot with a zigzag stitch, and a stiletto type tool to help guide the yarn. Most of us sewed for […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Just ran across this free pattern for a very fun witches hat. If you or someone special need a very funny, and possible funky, hat for greeting trick or treaters, or for a party you’re attending later this month, you might want to make one of these. All of you ladies who will be working at the museum…so fun! Click here for the link.

Hello all, Mary Ellen back again. I’ve been looking for an easy fall pattern that isn’t Halloween themed and isn’t pumpkins. I have so many of those already. I came across this yesterday-a very cute fall banner that could go from September through until the holidays. She makes it from wool, with hand stitching. I think plaid homespuns or flannels with machine stitching would be very cute as well. Click here for a free acorn banner pattern. We talk now and then about the status of quilting these days-more or less interest than there used to be? how to attract some younger quilters into the guild? traditional quilting growing? “modern” quilting taking over? I found a source for a few answers to these musings. When I was the guild newsletter editor I would follow the multiple survey results that would appear online and in quilting publications fairly seriously. Since I […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here, I have no good excuse for my long absence from blogging. I’m going to make an effort to get back to posting more often. I recently made a fall quilt for a demo that left me with lots of orange and black scraps. This morning I spent some time looking for a quick and easy small project to put those scraps to good use. I found one that I think will work well, and even better I can easily adapt it to use the size of small square scraps that I have. If you like to decorate for fall, and not so much for Halloween you could certainly change the colors of the squares to make yours more of a gourd quilt, rather than a pumpkin quilt. If you don’t have many autumn scraps, the designer starts off with a pillow pattern-one block only to […]