Cottage Quilt Designs

Would you like to see a close-up of what I’ve been working on this week?

The first project (Patchwork Tree Skirt) in the Christmas Trimmings pattern for Kaufman fabrics is done. The Christmas Stockings were next on the list and here they are:

Isn’t the fabric gorgeous? I love the lacy gold patterns in the background of the poinsettia fabric. My shop has signed up for the Quilt Block Dash shop hop for June (through Cotton Spice Magazine-their link is on my link page). The gift from each shop are four fat quarters. I’ve sent in four fat quarters from this Holiday Flourish collection for the shop hop. If you sign up I hope you win them! The shop hop involves visiting just 14 shops and you win a free pattern from a BOM for each shop you visit and find the Ifoundit icon.

Gold thread was used to quilt the two projects and finish the edges of the fused squares on the green sections. This coming week I will be making the mantle runner with red tassels.

Take care,

 Rochelle

Do you machine quilt on your home machine and want to make it easier? The photo below show a product I use for making accurate designs on my quilts.

The paper is quilting stencil paper from Golden Theads. You trace on the paper the motif you want to machine quilt, pin it on the quilt and quilt over the lines. The paper is easily torn and brushed off to reveal the design on your quilt. It can be used for blocks and borders.

The photo shows the Christmas tree skirt for the second Holiday Flourish pattern I’m making for Kaufman fabrics. Most of the motifs are done on this skirt section and I have one more to do after I remove the paper on the finished square. Second tip: the lines sew straighter if you follow the traced line with your eye instead of watching the needle.

I’m tracing the motif from Harriet Hargrave’s book Heirloom Machine Quilting. This is the third edition of her book and excellent reference for learning how to machine quilt on your home machine. My copy of the book has been out several years so she may have updated it since then.

Golden Threads: http://www.goldenthreads.com/

Here’s a photo of a summer wallhanging I’m making for my daughter. She has requested it be hollyhocks in front of a fence.

As you can see buds and flowers are pinned and ready to be hand appliquéd. A bit of embroidery will be added to attach the leaves to the plant stem. I enjoy this type of appliqué the best-which is the freezer paper basted method.  In my free tutorials are instructions you can download to try this method on your own or give you some tips if you have appliquéd this way before. There’s a button on the homepage of my site named tutorials that you can click and find the free information.

It’s going to be beautiful! She requested these colors for the flowers. I’m going to add borders-pieced and one appliquéd border and show you the quilt when it’s done. At this time I’m planning on making it into a pattern that you can make either in fusible methods or hand appliqué. I’ve heard from some of you about how much you love doing appliqué so it’s wonderful to share this with you and know it’s going to find an interested audience! I’ve used tonal batiks for the flowers and Moda marble for the green foilage. The sky and fence fabric is printed cotton. Trying to do a bit every day-hope to show it to you soon!

Here’s the newest addition to the Children’s Designs pattern section. Last week I added Sweet Dreams made up in boy colors of teal, cream and yellow. This is Baby Charm Gift Set which has a 35″ square quilt and two bibs you can make out of white terry cloth.

Here are the two bibs.

I’m saving these for my first granddaughter. The quilt and bibs were fast and easy to make. Another quilter saw them and said she loved the rick rack! Doreen Clink machine quilted this one too. And with a different color in the border and center square this could easily be for a boy or match the color scheme of a new nursery. It’s been awhile since I had to use bibs for our children but I still have their old ones in the kitchen drawer. I used one of them to get the general shape that would fit a newborn or older baby.

Happy quilting,  Rochelle