Shirley made this quilt as a gift for a little animal lover. She started with a panel and added borders to achieve the right size. There was a lot of negative space to fill, and the pantograph “Deer in the Woods” was just right for Shirley’s project. Lots of animals to discover in the panel and the quilting, and the quilting shows nicely on the outer borders.

This pretty quilt was made by Karen as a gift for a friend. The batiks she used had floral and leaf motifs, so we went with “Wedding Vine”, a leafy pattern, for quilting. This quilt pattern and similar ones have been around for a while, and you have probably seen several variations. I especially like this one because it extends into the border in some places which always adds interest.

This quilt was also made by Thomasine. I am not sure what pattern she used but I’d assume it would be a great pattern for a batik charm pack. Sometimes it’s not easy to figure out what to do with all those different bright squares, and turning them into tropical fish is a great idea. And “Champagne Bubbles” was the perfect choice for quilting Thomasine’s project.

I have been planning to make a matching pillow for the Penguin Promenade quilt for quite a while, and I finally got around to it. I also made a second pillow featuring a curling penguin. This was suggested by Linda and her sister who thought that in Canada winter activities need to include curling. And of course they were right! In Germany, curling is something that you see every four years at the Olympic Games and then forget about it until next time, so it never even occurred to me when I was designing the blocks for the Penguin Promenade quilt. But I was happy to follow up on their suggestion and came up with this little guy.

I emailed Linda the pattern a few weeks ago, and she surprised me by putting the block together quickly and sending me a picture. Isn’t he cute?

Linda’s Curling Penguin

Patterns are available for both pillows in English and German. I have also created two bundles with special pricing, one with just the two pillows and one with both pillows and the full Penguin Promenade quilt for those who missed the free downloads in 2020.

Click to purchase Penguin Pillow (English/Imperial)

Click to purchase Curling Penguin Pillow (English/Imperial)

Click to purchase Penguin Pillow Bundle (English/Imperial)

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade Bundle (Quilt & Two Pillows) (English/Imperial)

Anleitungen für beide Kissen sind auch auf Deutsch und in metrischen Maßen erhältlich, entweder einzeln oder als Bündel zum Sonderpreis. Und für diejenigen, die den kostenlosen Download im Jahre 2020 verpasst haben, gibt es auch ein Sonderpreis-Bündel mit dem kompletten Penguin Promenade Quilt und beiden Kissen.

(Kauf)Anleitung Pinguin Kissen (Deutsch/Metrisch)

(Kauf)Anleitung Curling Pinguin Kissen (Deutsch/Metrisch)

(Kauf)Anleitung Pinguin Kissen Bündel (Deutsch/Metrisch)

(Kauf)Anleitung Penguin Promenade Bündel (Quilt & Zwei Kissen) (Deutsch/Metrisch)

This very cozy and very Canadian quilt was made by Thomasine. It has moose and deer and maple leaves and also a few beavers here and there. The pantograph she chose is called “Diagonal Plaid Bias Cut”, and I think it is perfect for quilts with lots of squares and adds great texture.

This fabulous scrap quilt was made by Leslie. I called it Four Patch but it is actually a mixture between a Four Patch and a Log Cabin, and the clever use of light and dark fabrics makes for an interesting secondary pattern. One of those quilts I can look at for hours, and my brain never gets bored. And it uses up a lot of small scraps as well. Leslie chose a leaf pattern for her project, this one is called “Ground Cover”.

Today is the last day that you can get the full Monkey Business pattern with a 20% discount, and to remind everyone not to miss the deadline, I am going to show more Monkey block pictures. Here are Elaine’s blocks 10, 11 and 12:

And here are Sigrid’s, still featuring the custom backgrounds:

Thank you to both ladies for sending me pictures every month, I enjoy seeing the finished blocks.

Here is another one of Karen’s quilts, I am assuming this one was made from a Layer Cake as well, and I quite like the positive/negative effect of the layout. If you click on the thumbnails you can see that one of the fabrics had tiny stars in circles which inspired the use of the “Ginger Star” pantograph.

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.

Click to see on Yoan Sewing Studio

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!

Click to purchase Monkey Business Quilt Complete Pattern (English/Imperial)

(Kauf)Anleitung Monkey Business Quilt Komplett (Deutsch/Metrisch)

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!

Click to download Hunny Bunnies Block #1 pattern (English/Imperial)

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.