Birthday Club Handmade: October Edition

This month’s birthday girl is a HUGE Disney fan, so I thought a Disney mini quilt would be perfect. I included my three favorite princesses (Ariel, Jasmine, and Belle – in descending order), plus Pocahontas. I can’t say Pocahontas is my favorite movie, but I’ve enjoyed the music since playing it as part of my middle school orchestra.

Hope the birthday girl likes it!

You can see other birthday gifts our swap group has made on Instagram with the hashtag #birthdayclubhandmade. We sew a gift and provide a few extra goodies for each person’s birthday, once a month or less. One of our birthday club members has left the group. If you have a spring birthday (February to May) and would like more info about what it would mean to join the group, I would love for you to email me at dakotapatchwork at gmail dot com.

Here are some more in-progress shots:

Maybe because Halloween is this month, I think the back side looks like Disney princesses with zombie makeup!

Free (!!!) Disney princess patterns are by Michelle Thompson and are available on both her website and on Fandom Stitches. She was even kind enough to fix the Jasmine link and email me when I asked! I normally wouldn’t point out mistakes, but I did make a few in the mini above and want to be clear that they are my own and not part of Michelle’s awesome patterns.

Sew Kitschy Cookie Jar

This is month two of the Sew Kitschy Block of the Month (“BOM”), and I’m not sure why I’ve never done a BOM before! Sewing just one block per month is really easy (at least if you’re not participating in multiple groups!), and at the end of the year, you basically have an entire quilt top.

I re-worked last month’s block a tiny bit since I was lazy about lining up the last seam:

Still not perfect, but much improved.

My month 2 block came out much better, in my opinion. It’s a cookie jar. I’m going to embroider the word “cookies” on the jar once I select a font.

 

I’m also subscribed to the Lucky Stars BOM, but I haven’t selected the colors or fabrics for it. I am thinking I might just try to hammer out both years’ worth of blocks once they’re all released and see which strategy I like better. If you’ve had a favorite quilt-along, I’d love to hear about it.

Paper Piecing: Practice Makes Perfect

I am SO excited that Kristy at Quiet Play is making her Sew Kitschy quilt block designs available for FREE as a block-of-the-month (BOM) quilt along. Check out details about the Sew Kitschy BOM here, or download the first pattern at her Craftsy site here.

I already traced (kind of) the blocks to create a coloring sheet so I can determine a palette for my blocks.

My plan for Sew Kitschy is to use bright colors. The only way I can justify starting a new project when I have so many pending is to use scraps or fabrics I bought solely to add to my stash. I am embarrassed how much money I spent on hobbies last year. I am even more embarrassed when I consider how few projects I finished. But no matter.

I even finished January’s block, an oven mitt and pot holder:

It was working great until the very last seam: the bottom of the oven mitt doesn’t line up exactly. I’m hoping it’s less noticeable once there are more blocks. I think the colors will look better together once there are more blocks, too.

While sewing this block, I also learned the important lesson that big prints are okay, but you shouldn’t use two prints with the same background color (e.g. white) side-by-side if a shape is supposed to emerge.

When I’m finished with all the blocks, I hope to make a lap quilt for my sister. How perfect a gift will this be for a pastry chef?! To make the gift more personal, I used some of the same fabrics for the January BOM block as the fabrics I used to make her a real oven mitt and potholders for Christmas!

I’ve only done one other paper piecing project so far, so I am especially looking forward to a new challenge. I am also looking forward to watching other quilters’ color selections. There’s still time to join the BOM!

Dear Jane Resources

You may recall that last year I started what I thought was a Dear Jane quilt, only to discover it was probably closer to a Farmer’s Wife or Sampler quilt. However, my blog has received a fair bit of traffic from people searching for Dear Jane information. (My thanks to WordPress for showing the search terms that lead people to my blog!) I thought I could help by redirecting Dear Jane searchers to the info that helped me determine my quilt isn’t actually a Dear Jane:

My Time with Jane by Miriam Bruening. Displayed at the Madison Quilt Expo, September 2012. Photographed by the CraftProwler.

Free Blocks of the Month (BOMs) for Dear Jane quilts are available here.

The Dear Jane complete autographed book and templates are available here, and the Amazon copy of the book is available here.

Note: A woman named Brenda Papadakis seems to be the leading expert on Dear Jane quilts. Two of the links above go to her website/book. Internet rumor is she also responds to email requests and is a very helpful person in general.

A ton of block tutorials are available on this website. The tutorials are linked on the right side of the page, just below the Google members.

Another blogger has drafted her own Dear Jane templates and posts photos online here. Scroll to the bottom left of the page to see additional redraft links.

Dear Jane foundation piecing tips are available on this blog.

Hope this helps some of you Dear Jane enthusiasts!