Farm Girl’s Potholders

I’ve been doing a little sewing from Lori Holt’s Farm Girl Vintage book that I bought this past summer. In retrospect I think I subconsciously bought the book to make potholders. The six inch blocks with an added border of background fabric are just the right size.

It’s a cold and cloudy day here in Saskatchewan so I didn’t dawdle taking these photos !

page 30 “feed and seed” block

page 48 “old red barn” block

page 10 “baby Chick” block

page 13 “baking day” block

I think the neighbours heard me groan when I saw that the hst’s on the feed and seed block were 1.5″( btw – the closest neighbour is a mile away) Once you get all the cutting done though, it’s quite enjoyable to sew all the little pieces together. I had a stack of small paper plates and I sorted the pieces onto the plates as I followed the cutting list.

Maybe I’ll get around to one of the many quilts in the book in the new year.

Thanks for having a look. I hope that those of you that celebrate christmas have a very merry one and to everyone, I wish you peace and joy always 🙂

linking up with Amanda for Finish it up Friday.

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Stars on Point

I’ve been doing a little christmas sewing for myself this week aaand using up some practice paper piecing blocks. The big surprise here is that I did not turn them into potholders ! I have to admit that I did think about it though 🙂

I made these blocks about a year ago with no particular end use in mind, I just liked them and wanted to practice paper piecing. I had a fair selection of christmas fabric in my stash so the fabric selection was easy. The first block is called a seven point star and is available for free here.

7 point star

The second paper pieced block is called Diamond Star and is also a free template available here. Both blocks are 10.5″ unfinished.

I have been wanting to put something/anything on point for several weeks now… So I decided to treat these blocks as I would economy blocks in order to put them on point. I’m not particularly good at math so I employed a few different strategies. The first was to see if anyone else had done the math for me and I found this great tutorial by Melanie. The second was to follow Allison’s double check, scrap paper, method to make a paper cutout before I cut into my fabric. Unfortunately I didn’t think of taking pictures during my progress but the square of fabric I cut was 19″.  I made two diagonal cuts, resulting in 4 triangles and sewed one to each side of my 10.5″ block. There was a small amount of trimming and squaring up done. I then quilted the 18.5″ block, made an envelope style back, layered and bound as I would a quilt.

The second pillow was even harder than the first to get a decent picture of. I think my camera hates red.

…and the backs

This is the second set of pillows I have made. For the first set I used zipper closures and I have to say that even though this envelope style is faster,  I prefer the look of the zipper closure.

Thanks so much for having a look, enjoy your weekend !

Linking up with CrazyMomQuilts for Finish it up Friday.

An apple a day…

Tis the season for sewing handmade gifts and what have I been sewing, you ask ?

Potholders, of course !

the potholder is square – it’s the photographer that’s not, honest !

I came across this excellent tutorial and free paper pieced patterns by Charise Creates and couldn’t resist.

Unlike Charise’s tutorial, my potholders finish at 8″ square. I think I’m going to have to make a round pair at some point as well.

Thanks for dropping by, have a great weekend.

Linking up with CrazyMomQuilts for Finish It Up Friday.