Last year when I published my Pansies, Snowdrops and Sunflower patterns, I mentioned that someone at the Chilliwack quilt show had asked if I had a poinsettia pattern. I didn’t have one but I thought that maybe I would like to come up with a few more of those flower wall hangings. A year has come and gone, and Christmas is around the corner, so it was time for me to get to work or postpone it to next year. I am happy to announce that I did not procrastinate this time and am ready to publish my Poinsettia pattern. There is plenty of time to get this done before Christmas. I am really enjoying this flower series and have already received another request, this time for violets. Inspiration hasn’t struck yet but I will definitely give it some thought.

Click to purchase Poinsettia pattern (English/Imperial)

Die Anleitung für den Weihnachtsstern ist auch auf Deutsch/in metrischen Maßen erhältlich.

(Kauf)Anleitung Weihnachtsstern (Deutsch/Metrisch)

It seemed to take forever but the Happy Hippo Hop pattern is finally ready to be published! It took a bit longer because I decided to make a matching pillow as well for those who don’t want to make a whole hippo quilt. The pillow has a 10″ hippo block while the hippos in the quilt are only 8″ in size. I just love this quilt, the smiling baby hippos are so cute, and they make me laugh every time I see them.

I wanted to incorporate the major elements of the quilt when I drafted the pillow design and put the colourful Flying Geese into the border. The hearts were separated and form the cornerstones.

Both patterns are now available for purchase in the store section (in English/Imperial measurements only). I have also created a discount code that is valid until October 30, 2020. Enter the code HIPPO during checkout for 20% off.

Click to purchase Happy Hippo Hop Quilt Pattern (English/Imperial)

Click to purchase Happy Hippo Pillow Pattern (English/Imperial)

Die Anleitung für den Happy Hippo Quilt ist auf Deutsch leider nicht verfügbar, aber die deutsche Anleitung für das Kissen findet sich hier:

(Kauf)Anleitung Happy Hippo Kissen (Deutsch/Metrisch)

It feels like forever since I published the last pattern that was not a BOM block. And there is a good reason for that, I have been extremely busy with quilting this year. It feels like the past four months or so have been one continuous Christmas rush. So if you are planning to get a quilt longarmed by me this year to give away for Christmas, please get your name in the queue right now. I am currently booking for mid-October, and there is only a limited number of slots available before Christmas.

But back to the Stepping Stones pattern: I quilted my sample back in February, and I managed to bind it and even put the label on in March/April when the Covid restrictions had just started and everybody was still hoping it would disappear quickly. And then people realized it was going to be around for a while and they had nothing much to do, and more and more quilt tops started showing up on my doorstep. But I finally finished writing the pattern, and I am very happy with the way my sample turned out. It is based on the scrap quilts I made as samples when I first started my longarm business. I made three small quilts, the tops all the same, but quilted them in three different ways, one with a meander, one with an edge to edge pantograph and one with different custom designs. I honestly didn’t give much thought to the design back then, just threw together whatever I found in my scrap drawers but people have been asking about a pattern for the quilt, and I promised I would eventually write one. The original quilts were pretty small, so I made a bigger version, and I had a lot of fun quilting it. The block design is part of a panto set called “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”, and on the outer border I wanted to try a curved crosshatch that turned out really nice.

The pattern is available for purchase in the store section. It does not include strip piecing instructions. All blocks were made individually from scraps. The pattern will be available with a discount until August 25, 2020. Enter the code STONES during checkout for 20% off.

Click to purchase Stepping Stones Pattern (English/Imperial)

I am back! And I chose the right day to fly back, there was snow here last Friday, and it snowed again yesterday but when I landed in Vancouver on Saturday, the roads (and runways) were clear. We are currently under an Artic Outflow Warning, schools are closed today, and traffic is a mess. It was a bit too warm yesterday before the artic air moved in, and there is a layer of ice underneath the snow which makes driving a nightmare. The highway is in really bad shape, lots of cars in the ditch, and there are still people driving like maniacs. Do they think winter tires alone make them invincible?

With temperatures around -12°C (approx. 11F) the weather is perfect for staying inside, drinking hot tea and sewing. Or writing patterns. I finally uploaded the full Tuxedo Cat pattern, both in English/Imperial and German/Metric and also updated all the direct links in the previous posts. I am not really happy with the picture of the quilt since it isn’t straight at all but there is no way I am going outside to take another one. Finished is better than perfect (says the perfectionist without really believing it… ), I will fix it when the weather cooperates. For those who missed most or all of the blocks and have been waiting to purchase the full pattern, it will be available with a discount until January 20, 2020. Enter the code TC2020 during checkout for 10% off.

Edit: Seven months later, and I finally managed to take a new picture…

I would also like to thank all of you for your comments of comfort and sympathy. I usually try to reply to every comment individually but in this case I just didn’t have the time. The internet can be such an ugly place sometimes, even the quilting community can be quite nasty once in a while, which makes me appreciate the kindness and thoughtfulness of those who left a comment on the passing of my Dad even more. 

Click to purchase Tuxedo Cats Pattern (English/Imperial)

(Kauf)Anleitung Tuxedo Cats (Deutsch/Metrisch)

Wasn’t that a great Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop last week? So many delicious recipes and inspiring projects, many thanks again to Carol who organizes this event every year. And thank you to all of you who visited my blog and took the time to leave a comment. I always enjoy reading them, and I try to reply to every single one. This was the first time I ran a giveaway with Rafflecopter that I set up myself. I have had a few for the annual Row Along events but in these cases I just added the code I was given to the blog post and had nothing to do with the setup and drawing of the winners, so I wasn’t at all sure how any of this works. It turns out it is super easy and straightforward and not difficult at all. The winners have been drawn this morning, and the patterns were emailed to them. 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

If you didn’t win but would still like a copy of the pattern, it is now available for purchase in the store section. And again I wrote a German version although I said I wouldn’t. Because as soon as I said I wouldn’t offer German/metric patterns anymore, people started buying them. Some kind of reverse Murphy’s Law? I don’t know but I am certainly not going to question it LOL. In any case, if I have time and the project is small I might still add a German version but as a general rule I am going to focus on English/Imperial patterns.

Click to purchase O Christmas Tree Mug Rugs pattern (English/Imperial)

(Kauf)Anleitung O Tannenbaum Mug Rugs (Deutsch/Metrisch)

Yay, I made my self-imposed deadline… this is the last unpublished pattern that I have been selling at quilt shows in the paper version. This is actually the oldest one, I have been selling it for over a year. As you can tell by looking at the mug rugs, this is the first pattern I designed after buying the Brother ScanNCut last year. I was so excited by the possibilities that I didn’t consider how difficult it would be to manually cut out the words “Coffee Break” in that fancy font I used. I ended up selling two versions of the pattern, either printed pattern only or printed pattern with the precut words included. Since I am only offering digital versions of my patterns online, I have added the cutting file for the words to the pattern download, in both SVG and FCM file format. They are included as a courtesy to those who have cutting machines, and there is no additional cost. If you don’t own a fabric cutter, just ignore the additional files.

Click to purchase Coffee Break Mug Rugs pattern

Today I am publishing three new patterns at once. Two of them are not particularly new, the Pansies and Snowdrops are based on postcards I made about ten years ago and then recreated for the Quilt Canada Postcard Challenge in 2017. I resized them and turned them into wall hangings. The Sunflower is a completely new design that I created this August. Our neighbours had some beautiful sunflowers in their yard that I could see when I was sitting at my desk working at the computer, and I thought they might make a nice addition to the flower series. At the quilt show in October somebody asked if I had a Poinsettia as well. I didn’t, and I still don’t have one but I still have some of the background fabric I used for the appliqué, and I like the idea of adding more patterns to this series, so I have made a note of the Poinsettia request and will wait for inspiration.

Click to purchase Pansies pattern

Click to purchase Snowdrops pattern

Click to purchase Sunflower pattern

As promised (or at least as planned), here is the other Tuxedo Cat pillow pattern. My favourite block is block #5 with the sleeping kitty. I am really happy with this design, I still think you can almost see her paws twitching, and those little pink paw pads are just adorable. This will be the last Tuxedo Cat block to be turned into a separate pillow pattern. As with the other pillow, I enlarged the block to 12″ instead of 10″ to make handling those small pieces easier. I have four more patterns left to publish and two weeks to go until Black Friday, I will try to have them all up on the website by then.

Click to purchase Sleeping Kitty Pillow pattern

Here is the next of the patterns that I finished quite some time ago but never posted on the website: a Tuxedo Cat Pillow. If you have been following the Tuxedo Cats BOM, you will recognize this kitty from the first block that I published back in January. It is just a 12″ block instead of a 10″ one, and the Flying Geese border is 3″ instead of the 2.5″ from the quilt. I had planned to do a separate pillow pattern from the beginning. Not everyone is such a cat lover that they need a quilt with twelve different blocks, and this is also a great gift for the favourite cat lover in your life. I started selling the printed pattern at the Abbotsford show back in April, and it was a big hit, the patterns sold out right away. Over the summer I turned another block of the quilt into a pillow pattern, I am hoping to post this one next week, so stay tuned.

Click to purchase Tuxedo Cat Pillow pattern

As promised in my previous post, I am working on adding my new patterns to the website. Today I am starting with the newest, a Halloween pattern that I just finished writing, it isn’t available in a printed version yet. We did a mug rug swap at our guild meeting this month, and although a Halloween design wasn’t required, this is what I came up with. These little guys make me laugh, aren’t they super cute? They don’t take long to make, you can still finish them in time for Halloween.

Dieses Muster ist auch auf Deutsch/metrisch verfügbar. Ich weiß, ich weiß, ich hatte gesagt, ich veröffentliche keine deutschen Muster mehr, aber dann setzte plötzlich ein Run auf die Ginger & Fred Mug Rugs ein, also habe ich probeweise doch wieder eine deutsche Anleitung geschrieben.

Click to purchase Boo! pattern (English/Imperial)

(Kauf)Anleitung Boo! (Deutsch/Metrisch)

If you have been following my BOM last year, then you are already familiar with the Barnyard Bash pattern. I finally managed to quilt my sample after Christmas, and the full pattern is now available in the store for those of you who missed the free downloads. If you only missed a few blocks, the bundles with three and six blocks and the individual blocks are also still available. For quilting, I chose two different background fillers for the blocks, one for the dark and one for the light background. I liked the circles in the purple blocks so much that I used them again in the sashing and also incorporated them in the free motion flower design that I quilted on the outer border. The pattern will be available with a discount until January 11, 2019, enter the code BB2019 during checkout for 10% off.

Wer im letzten Jahr meinen BOM verfolgt hat, kennt dieses Muster natürlich schon. Nach Weihnachten habe ich es tatsächlich geschafft, meine Version zu quilten, und die Komplettanleitung ist jetzt auch verfügbar für diejenigen, die den freien Download verpasst haben. Die einzelnen Blöcke und die Bündel gibt es aber auch weiterhin für diejenigen, denen nur wenige Blöcke fehlen. Gequiltet habe ich zwei verschiedene Füllmuster in den hellen und den dunklen Blöcken. Die Kreise im lila Hintergrund haben mir dann so gut gefallen, dass ich sie in den Zwischenstreifen und auch in dem Blumenmuster auf dem äußeren Rand wieder aufgegriffen habe. Bis zum 11. Januar 2019 ist die Anleitung zum Sonderpreis erhältlich, einfach beim Checkout den Coupon Code BB2019 für 10% Rabatt eingeben.

Click to purchase Barnyard Bash pattern (English/Imperial)

(Kauf)Anleitung Barnyard Bash (Deutsch/Metrisch)

Guess what… all the customer quilts that needed to be finished before Christmas are done. After working extra shifts in November I actually finished earlier than expected. I used the extra time to work on my patterns, and today I present the first new pattern in quite a while. I made the “Puppy Paws” wall hanging as a gift for a dog lover. It can easily be used as a table runner too and will appeal to dog lovers of all ages. I especially like the dog bone border and I added even more bones while quilting. The pattern will be available with a discount until December 24, 2018, enter the code PUPPY during checkout for 20% off.

Ich kann es selbst kaum glauben, aber ich habe tatsächlich alle Kundenquilts beendet, die noch vor Weihnachten fertig werden mussten. Nachdem ich im November Sonderschichten eingelegt hatte, bin ich sogar viel früher fertig als erwartet und habe die freigewordene Zeit genutzt und an meinen Mustern gearbeitet. Heute gibt es daher nach langer Zeit mal wieder ein neues Muster. Den Wandbehang “Puppy Paws/Hundepfoten” habe ich als Geschenk für eine Hundeliebhaberin genäht, er lässt sich aber auch gut als Tischläufer verwenden. Über den Rand mit den Knochen muss ich immer noch lachen, und beim Quilten habe ich das Thema Knochen ebenfalls aufgegriffen. Bis zum 24. Dezember 2018 ist die Anleitung zum Sonderpreis erhältlich, einfach beim Checkout den Coupon Code PUPPY für 20% Rabatt eingeben.

Please remember that you will receive an email with a unique download link after your purchase has been processed. This email often ends up in the spam folder, please make sure to check there before contacting me. There have also been reports about expired download links, I have changed the settings, hopefully the links will work now. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Click to purchase Puppy Paws pattern (English/Imperial)

(Kauf)Anleitung Hundepfoten (Deutsch/Metrisch)