After Christmas is before Christmas, right? So here is a look at another holiday quilt, this one made by Karen. Doesn’t the layout look like stacked gift boxes? A wonderful idea for a Christmas quilt. The pantograph we used is called Holly Berries, an easy choice given that there were holly-themed fabrics in the quilt.
EDIT: As it turned out that most of you love this quilt pattern and Karen went through the trouble of locating it for all of us, here is some more information. Karen used an easy Layer Cake pattern by Yoan Sewing Studio that was run as a Quilt Along in 2019, with a YouTube video and everything. So if you are interested in making a version of this quilt, head on over to Yoan to explore.
After a year of monkey blocks, I finally present the full Monkey Business pattern, all twelve blocks including finishing instructions for those who missed most or all of the free downloads. I’ll even throw in a special discount code, enter MONKEY20 during checkout for a 20% discount. The code will be valid until January 10, 2022 11.59 PM PST. I had fun custom quilting the monkey blocks and tried to find a background filler for each block that works with the general theme of what the monkey is doing. The sashing and border fabrics are quite busy so the quilting isn’t very visible but overall I am very happy with the result. Bright and beautiful, just the way I like it!
Für die deutsche Version mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem Kauflink unten für die englische Version folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung in der gewünschten Sprache.
Happy New Year 2022! I’ll repeat my wish from last year that this one might be better. 2021 has been a particularly bad year for me, and I really hope it will just be uphill from here. But I did manage to work on my patterns a lot during the last few months, and one of them is a brand new Block of the Month for 2022 called “Hunny Bunnies”. Once again there will be twelve blocks with a finished size of 10″. They all feature a bunny doing mostly human things, as you already know from my previous BOMs, “Monkey Business” and “Penguin Promenade“. It is a spring-themed quilt but not an Easter quilt, there will only be one Easter block.
The layout will be the same as last year’s, the finished quilt size is approx. 52″ x 64″. The finishing instructions will be available for free download in December as a separate pattern. I am always happy to see pictures of your finished blocks, my email address can be found on the cover page of every pattern, in the lower left corner, so feel free to send them my way.
I have also provided an estimate on the cover page of the amounts of fabrics you need if you want to use the same fabrics for all twelve bunnies. For the accessories just dive into your scrap bin and see what you have. The exact colours don’t really matter, just go with what you have and don’t forget to have fun!
The free pattern will only be available in English/Imperial again. There will be a German/metric version available for purchase later. The rest of the rules are the same as always, and I copied them from last year’s post:
A new block will be published on the first day of every month at 9 am Pacific Standard/Daylight Time. Any changes I might have to make due to unforeseen circumstances beyond my control will be announced here on the blog. Since I am in the Pacific time zone, it will already be the second day of the month for some of you. Please be patient and please don’t email me asking when the next block will be published. I don’t like to schedule posts to be published in the middle of the night. There can always be a problem with one of the pattern files, and I would like to be able to fix it within minutes instead of waking up to dozens of messages complaining about the bug. If you find an issue, then please don’t hesitate to contact me, so I can fix it ASAP.
Each block will be available for free download during the month of its publication. It will be moved to the store section when the next block is published. If you miss a block, you can still purchase it for a small fee. Please do not email me asking me to send you the pattern for free. I will ignore these requests. I only charge $2 per block (and that’s Canadian dollars – as I write this, this amount equals approx. 1.56 US dollars and 1.38 Euros – you can’t even get a decent coffee for these amounts anymore!), and I will make bundle packs available again for three or six blocks, once we get there, that will give you an additional discount. Please respect my copyright and don’t pass your copy of the pattern on to your friend who might have missed the free download. This will just result in designers not offering free patterns anymore.
Thank you for reading all this, and without further ado, here is the download link for the first block. Enjoy!
EDIT: The month of free download is over, and the block has moved to the pattern store where it is now available for purchase. If you just need the finishing instructions, they are still available for free download.
Für die deutsche(n) Version(en) mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem/den Kauflink(s) unten für die englische(n) Version(en) folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung(en) in der gewünschten Sprache.
Wer nur die Anleitung zur Fertigstellung sucht, kann diese nun auch auf Deutsch kostenlos herunterladen.
Drumroll… I proudly present next year’s Block of the Month project called “Hunny Bunnies”. After doing winter and summer in 2020 and 2021, the next logical step was a spring quilt, and when I thought of spring, bunnies immediately popped into my head. I also like rhymes and alliterations, and I have been a fan of the phrase “honey bunny” ever since watching the movie Pulp Ficton for the first time a very long time ago. I tried to make the basic bunny design less complicated than the monkey, he was fairly intricate with his hands and feet and all those points that needed to be cut for the fur. I also tried to make the blocks a bit less involved which didn’t always work.
This will be the first block* to be published in January. It has quite a few pieces but they are not as tiny and intricate as the monkey ones. The next blocks will be a lot less complicated. I debated just using the bunny with the carrot without the basket but it didn’t look right to me. The turquoise bow is the needed dot of colour that balances the whole block. The whole design came together surprisingly fast. Once I started thinking about it, it all poured out of me, and I think I drew all the blocks within two weeks. I had a lot of fun putting it all together, and I hope you will join me for next year’s Block of the Month. There will be twelve blocks again, finished block size will be 10″, and the final layout will be the same as for the Monkey Business quilt. The finishing instructions will be available for free download next December. It will be a spring-themed quilt but NOT an Easter quilt although there will be one Easter block.
The instructions for the first block will be published on January 1, 2022 at 9 am PST, and the rules will be pretty much the same as before, I will post details with the first block. The blocks will be available for free download during the month of their publication (in English/Imperial only).
Someone asked last week about my handmade Christmas cards. Here is this year’s design which is a smaller version of my gingerbread man from my Ginger & Fred Mug Rugs pattern. They are not always this involved and most of the time not based on my patterns, it depends on what pops into my head and what fabrics I can find. The cards have a finished size of 4″ x 6″, and I create them like the AMCs that were all the rage about 15 years or so ago. I appliqué the top like a quilt block, then iron it to a stabilizer (I am using Timtex which is the closest thing I could find to the product I used in Germany). I also iron a piece of fabric to the back (not a busy design, something that I can write on), then I zig zag around the edges, and voilà. Easy enough to do, just time consuming, especially if the object is quite detailed. I usually make around twenty cards, and they go to a list of people who I know appreciate the effort.
Thank you for stopping by, and have a happy and safe holiday season. I am going to take the next two weeks off, and I will see you all in 2022 with the first block of the Hunny Bunnies BOM.
* The green border is NOT part of the block/quilt, there just wasn’t enough room for the text on the plain block.
Once again, thank you to everyone who stopped by last week to make the Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop special. And also once again I have to apologize for not replying to every comment, I just can’t find the time, and my health issues are leaving me very tired these days, and I have to prioritize. But I still want you to know that I read and appreciate every single one of them.
I drew the winners of the pattern giveaway yesterday and emailed the digital copies to them right away. If you are a winner and didn’t receive an email, please check your spam folder. If you still can’t find the pattern, please let me know. Congratulations to
Cindy P.
Wendy
Becky T.
If you didn’t win but would still like a copy of the pattern, it is now available for purchase in the store section. A German/metric version is also available.
Für die deutsche Version mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem Kauflink unten für die englische Version folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung in der gewünschten Sprache.
And speaking of prioritizing… I did make good use of my time, and next year’s BOM is ready to start on January 1, 2022. I will be officially announcing it on Friday, so stay tuned.
This quilt is the next of Sharon’s works, and she even designed this one herself, following the requests of the family member she made it for. There are lots of open spaces to be filled with quilting, and the “Feathered Curls” pattern she chose works well with the traditional blocks.
This is the next quilt that Sharon made last year for Christmas to be gifted. Isn’t she just fabulous? When I first started quilting, it took me a while before I attempted anything with triangles, and I have been very impressed by her rapid progress. The pantograph we used for this quilt is called “Overlapping Crop Circles”. It works very well with straight geometric patterns and adds great texture.
It’s Cookie Exchange time! First I would like to thank Carol of Just Let Me Quilt for organizing it again. This is my favourite blog hop of the year, and I never really have enough time to join many blog hops but this is the one I try not to miss. I started working on my project in July this year, knowing that with my health issues I would need extra time. And for once I actually finished with lots of time to spare. No last minute night shifts for me this year.
And once again, I have a German cookie recipe. (For previous entries, check German Butter Cookies in 2018, Hazelnut Cookies in 2019 and Mandelsplitter in 2020.) This time I made Vanillekipferl. I think this is as German as it can get. Or maybe Austrian. Because I started thinking about the name. Vanille means vanilla, and Kipferl means the crescent shape of the cookies. But Kipferl is not a very German word, in fact these cookies are the only context I could think of. So I looked it up, and it turns out that it is Austrian which makes perfect sense. Yes, they speak German in Austria but they have different words for some things that the average German does not understand. And Kipferl fits right in there. I also found out that the recipe originated in Vienna, so it isn’t even German at all. But they are delicious and one of my favourites for Christmas.
In Germany, the four weekends of Advent leading up to Christmas are a big thing, and we traditionally started baking on the first weekend. In most years that’s the last weekend in November. My mother is a fabulous baker, and she made lots of Christmas cookies but she stored them all in safe places and we didn’t get to eat most of them until Christmas. She needed them for another very German tradition: “Bunter Teller”. It literally translates to “colourful plate” and means a plate full of cookies, chocolates, nuts and other delicious goodies. I have three siblings, and each of us would receive their own plate as an additional Christmas gift, and nothing on that plate needed to be shared. If you have siblings, you know how special that is. If you would like to know more about this tradition, check out this post by German Girl in America. She explains it in detail and with pictures. We used to have some of those coated cardboard plates with Christmas images that she shows, and I got all excited seeing these vintage paper plates. Exactly how I remember it.
In our house we don’t believe in waiting until Christmas because there is always so much food anyway, and it feels like you are eating constantly. So we start eating our Christmas cookies as soon as we make them, nibbling one or two with our coffee in the afternoon. There is always enough left at Christmas, and when our son comes home, he will happily make more, especially if most of his favourites are already gone.
A few words of caution/disclaimer: This is a German recipe. Germans measure only liquids by volume, solid ingredients are measured by weight. And everything is metric, of course. With the help of the internet I have provided the imperial measurements but there is no guarantee these are correct… it’s the internet after all. So if a number looks suspicious to you, please double check the math.
And once again I have come up with a Christmas mug rug design. I am always super busy towards the end of the year, not only with longarm quilting but I also have to finalize the new BOM project for next year, and I always send out handmade Christmas cards. A few years ago I started designing next year’s Christmas card right away and always buy the fabric in December, thinking this would take the pressure out of the last minute rush. And then I put everything in a drawer, forget all about it, and suddenly it’s November, and I haven’t worked on my cards at all. At least I don’t have to scramble to come up with a design and run out to buy fabric but it still takes up a lot of my time in November and early December. So in July I decided I could count on Carol running the Virtual Cookie Exchange again and started drawing Christmas designs. This year I played with holly leaves and came up with two designs that I liked. I couldn’t decide which one I like better, so I kept them both. The pattern is ready to go and will be published next week. Here is a little preview, and I am also giving away three digital copies of the pattern (English/Imperial measurements only). If you would like to win one, please leave a comment and enter the giveaway. Entries will be accepted until Sunday (December 12, 2021, 11.59 PST), and I will announce the winners on the following Wednesday and email the patterns. Please scroll down to the end of the post for giveaway rules and guidelines.
Deck The Halls Mug Rug #1Deck The Halls Mug Rug #2
Comment moderation is turned off for today to make it easier for you to enter the giveaway. But please don’t leave your email address in the comment text. It is not necessary to do so, and the spam protection software will kick in and not publish your comment, so it will have to be moderated after all. I will be happy to manually publish it but please keep in mind that I am in the Pacific time zone and will still be asleep when this post publishes.
Thank you for visiting today, and please make sure that you visit all the participants of this blog hop and look at their fabulous projects and mouthwatering cookies. Here is the full schedule of all four days of the event.
You must leave a comment to enter the giveaway. If you don’t leave a comment, your winning entry will be ignored and cancelled.
You are only allowed to enter once.
The winners will be announced either on Wednesday, December 15 or Thursday, December 16, 20201
You must give a valid email address when you enter the giveaway. Any email returned to me loses the ability to win automatically.
I will email the digital patterns to the winners right away. Please check your spam folders if you are announced as one of the winners and didn’t receive an email. Especially Gmail likes to send anything I send straight to the spam folder. If you have a Canadian address with Shaw or Telus, they are even worse and often reject my email address without notifying me or the recipient.
No purchase whatsoever is necessary.
You must be 18+ in order to win a gift.
All winners are chosen at random.
All winners will be announced on the blog via the Rafflecopter entry form and a post. All winners must allow for their first name and first initial of their last name to be announced on this blog.
Odds of winning a prize are based on the total number of rafflecopter entries.
Lyn made this cute autumn quilt a few years ago and finally got around to finishing it. I had the perfect panto called “Meandering Pumpkin Patch”. I bought it when I first started my business, because of the name, of course, and this was the first time I was able to use it.
And here we are, starting the last month of the year. It doesn’t really feel like December yet, especially with this warm and rainy weather. Not that it gets really cold here, compared to most parts of Canada, but still, it is too warm even by our standards. Now that gardening is pretty much on hold, I missed it and started a batch of radishes under grow lights. And of course I have been drawing a lot, and next year’s BOM seems to be right on track for a start on January 1. I am not promising anything yet but if nothing comes up unexpectedly, we should be good.
As for our Monkey friend, he is relaxing in a hammock under a palm tree today, not a care in the world. This was actually one of the earliest blocks I drew but then I decided it would make a great last block for this BOM. And I have also said that Block #12 would contain the finishing instructions but I have changed my mind about that. They are now available as an individual pattern with no charge, so make sure you download two patterns below. Block #12 will be free until the end of the month and move over to the pattern store in January. The finishing instructions will always be free. They are very simple, just sashing and one outer border, and I will use the same layout and measurements for next year’s BOM, so I can concentrate on the fun part (designing the blocks) and won’t have to worry about doing the math and double checking it seventeen times.
EDIT: The year is over, a new BOM has started, and the block has moved to the pattern store where it is now available for purchase if you missed the free download. If you just need the finishing instructions, they are still available for free download.
Für die deutsche(n) Version(en) mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem/den Kauflink(s) unten für die englische(n) Version(en) folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung(en) in der gewünschten Sprache.
Wer nur die Anleitung zur Fertigstellung sucht, kann diese nun auch auf Deutsch kostenlos herunterladen.
