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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 […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Lovely sunny morning today, still chilly but fingers crossed that the worst of the snow falls are over! It’s too late to stitch up something for St. Paddy’s Day, but a bunny or two for Easter is still doable. I love having a cute bunny around for Easter and then into spring so I don’t have to put every Easter decoration away immediately. Try this link to find lots of adorable bunny ideas. Click here. Top o’ the mornin’ to you!

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Quilting makes strange bedfellows sometimes. Here’s an unusual pairing: Ken Burns, the filmmaker, and the Kardashians, famous for being famous. Quilting has been in the news of late; both of these mentions surprised me in different ways. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns really values quilts. When talking about one of the quilts in his collection, he says, “If you consider the thousands of woman-hours that went into this, it’s just an extraordinary thing.” “I would not trade it for a $25 million painting by you-name-the-artist,” he added. Click here to view his collection. If you see the large NRA quilt, don’t worry that a political statement about our current state of affairs in this country has snuck in. That quilt is from a different NRA-I’ll let you explore the exhibition for yourself to find out. Can you believe this pairing: the Kardashians and red and white […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. The end of the holiday season is approaching. (Thank goodness!) Soon life will be settling into a regular winter routine and perhaps there will be more time for quilting/crafting/snoozing! Each year around this time many of us make some resolutions for ourselves-sometimes for life in general, sometimes for quilting. How many of us have resolved to work on our UFO’s or to use only the fabric from our stashes (with very little success)? I’m going to take a different tack this year for my quilting “goal”. Here’s mine-I’m going to learn some new techniques for edging/binding my quilt projects. I’m currently finishing up a quilt for which the designer planned a binding from the same fabric as the background in the blocks. I’ve decided the quilt would benefit from more contrast along the edge. I’ve done bindings with an inserted contrast flange in the past, […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Those of you who know me well know I am not a big fan of hand stitching-if the job can be done by machine that’s definitely my preference. But that said, I will make exceptions for projects that are not achievable by machine, if they are lovely enough. I came across such an exceptional project this morning. I think this fabric star is just beautiful. Here’s a link to the directions for those interested. You fans of English paper piecing with fussy cut motifs will already know what to do and how to do it! Can you get one of these done by Christmas? Click here for directions.

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Are you ready? Projects finished (lol)? Presents wrapped? Cookies baked? Who am I kidding anyway? But I have something cute for those of you who have made, or are making crafty things to give as gifts this year. Here are some links to gift tags to attach to your hand made items. Free downloads that you can print out yourself. (I’ll have to tell you about the items I made in a post after the holidays, since some of the recipients read this blog now and then.) Click here for tags.  Or here.  Or here. Happy holidays to all -no matter which holiday is yours, I hope you have a happy, fun celebration with your family and friends!

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Yesterday I worked on a new project for a class I have coming up. I decided that I needed a different background fabric than I had purchased at the outset. In the quilt shop when I originally chose the fabric combination, it looked great. However after making all of my “block A’s”, I got out the fabrics to be used in “block B” and discovered that my chosen background fabric did not want to stay in the background–not enough contrast at all. So I headed to one of our local quilt shops and bought a new option. Because of a time crunch I decided not to pre-wash it and jumped right to the cutting. This new fabric has a very subtle directional pattern, so the persnickety quilter in me decided I needed to straighten the fabric (all 4.5 yards of it!). No matter how many […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I spent a lovely evening yesterday at the BNHV’s dinner party “A Taste of Christmas Past”. While in line at the various food stations I had time to really examine the decorated Christmas trees. We (our quilt guild) made quite a few lovely ornaments for one of the trees. Since it seems that quilters like to do handwork at the holidays, I’m thinking you might enjoy this resource. The difficulty levels vary and the techniques used do as well. Click here. How’s your progress on your handmade holidays? Baking? Knitting? Sewing? Quilting? I’m somewhat off kilter this year. Our weather didn’t do the gradual lead up of snow flurries and frosty mornings to give the subtle warnings that the holidays are on the way. However I shouldn’t be surprised once December begins-we do have the holidays at the same time every year after all. I’d […]