Appliqué – Page 10 – Pumpkin Patch

Monkey Business BOM – Block #2

Beatrice | February 1, 2021 | 9 Comments

Welcome to February! Isn’t it nice how much more light there is in a day already? After the winter solstice it takes a little while before it is noticeable but by now I have been commenting on it at least every other day. I have stocked up on vegetable seeds, and I am eager to go. I will try to grow everything from seeds this year. If my attempts fail, I can always buy seedlings later. A very long time ago, maybe 25 years or so, I grew hot peppers on my balcony back in Germany. I started the seeds in a little windowsill greenhouse and then transplanted the seedlings later on. I had a huge success rate and a great harvest during the two years I did it, I produced many jars of hot sauce back then. It was a lot of fun, and since the pandemic will be around for quite a while longer, this will give me something productive to do (other than quilting, of course).

On to this month’s block: The dancing monkey was a lucky accident. I was manipulating the basic monkey body shape, trying to do something entirely different, and suddenly I thought, hey, that looks like the monkey is dancing! And with one arm overlapping the rest of the body piece, meaning I had to cut it as two separate pieces, I needed something to cover up the part where the two pieces meet. So I added a lei and declared the monkey a hula dancer. And yes, I know that hula dancers can be both male and female, and while I have never really thought about my penguins as male or female, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have an explicitly female monkey and added the little bow that picks up the lei colours. Some of the later blocks could actually be monkey children, so this year’s BOM will have the whole family pictured on their summer vacation. As always, the pattern will be available for free until the end of the month and move to the store section when the March block is published.

EDIT: February is over, 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.

Longarm

Flower Baskets

Beatrice | January 20, 2021 | 6 Comments

This quilt was also made by the very talented Brenda. These are not Brenda’s usual colours, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about the quilt but I think it turned out great. It is a gift for a little girl who loves pink and purple, so it should be perfect for her. Brenda asked for custom quilting, and I had a lot of fun with it.

Show and Tell

Penguin Promenade Gallery

Beatrice | January 6, 2021 | 2 Comments

As promised, here is the gallery of finished Penguin Promenade blocks. I enjoy looking at them, all the different fabrics, all the small things that are a bit different, so much to see, what fun! If you click on the first thumbnail, it will take you to the slideshow view of the gallery, and you can see a bigger picture. I will add more pictures as they come in. I will send out the finishing instructions to those who qualify at the same time, so when you see your picture in the gallery, you know I have emailed the instructions. Please check your spam folder or even better, add my email address to your contact list, so the email won’t be marked as spam in the first place.

If you are looking for my email address to send in your finished Penguin blocks, it can be found on the cover page of every pattern, on the left-hand side at the bottom, underneath the fabric requirements. Please DO NOT use the contact form or Facebook comments/messages to ask me for my email address. I do not have the time to email it to everyone individually. These requests will be ignored. Thank you for understanding.

And now grab a cup of coffee and enjoy our little Penguin Promenade:

Pattern

New Pattern: Penguin Promenade

Beatrice | January 4, 2021 | 2 Comments

And here it finally is: the finished Penguin Promenade quilt. I hope you had as much fun with the little guys as I did. I have sent the finishing instructions to everyone who has emailed me a picture of their finished blocks, and I will post the gallery of penguins in my next post, sometime this week. I enjoy looking at all this creativity and the different fabrics everyone picked and how it all comes alive. For those who have only collected the patterns and know they are not going to make the deadline for sending in their finished block pictures, the finishing instructions are now available as a separate pattern in the store section. And for those who missed most or all of the free blocks, the pattern for the full quilt with all nine blocks and finishing instructions is now available for purchase as well in both English/Imperial and German/metric.

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.

Block/Pattern of the Month

Monkey Business BOM – Block #1

Beatrice | January 1, 2021 | 18 Comments

Welcome to 2021! May the new year be better and brighter than the last one! Let’s start it off with some fun stuff, the first block of my brand new “Monkey Business” Block of the Month 2021. This year there will be 12 blocks once again, all of them featuring a monkey. The first block has a monkey that is doing something close to what we would consider “normal” monkey things. The other eleven blocks are all more cartoonish, with the monkeys doing all kinds of summer things and carrying accessories. Think along the lines of last year’s penguins, and you’ll have the general idea. The finished block size is 10″ again. I don’t particularly like going over 8″ because larger blocks won’t fit on a regular letter page but even though I don’t mind small details, there are limits, so 10″ it is.

The finished quilt size is approx. 52″ x 64″. I will provide the finishing instructions with the last block. They won’t be anything special, just plain old sashing and a border. Feel free to come up with something a bit more creative if you find that boring. I have decided to do the same layout for future BOM projects, it makes writing the finishing instructions easier and faster. I would still like to see your finished blocks though. I have already received a few pictures of finished Penguin blocks, and I will create a gallery for all of you to see them. Hopefully next week, so stay tuned. Remember that you still have three months to send me pictures of your finished Penguin blocks to get the finishing instructions for free!

On the cover page of the first pattern, you can find an estimate of the amounts of fabrics that you need if you want to use the same fabrics for all twelve monkeys. There is no need to do that, just dig into your scrap bins and have fun. The accessories will need a lot of small scraps in different colours, and the exact colours don’t really matter, so go with what you have and use some of those scraps. You know they will multiply anyway as soon as you turn your back 😀

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. 1.55 US dollars and a bit less than 1.30 Euros – you can’t even get a 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: January is over, 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.

Wer nur die Anleitung zur Fertigstellung sucht, kann diese nun auch auf Deutsch kostenlos herunterladen.

Miscellaneous

Happy Holidays

Beatrice | December 19, 2020 | 7 Comments

Christmas will certainly be different this year! Due to Covid restrictions, many of us will not be able to celebrate the way we are used to which is of course disappointing. But protecting all of us and our loved ones is more important than physical gatherings, and with the help of technology we will still be able to be together and maybe even create some new traditions. A lot has changed in the last few weeks, and with the arrival of vaccines, hopefully we will be able to get back to more normal times next year. I will be taking a much needed break for the next two weeks. Have a happy holiday season, thank you all for reading my ramblings and leaving comments, you are all very much appreciated. I’ll see you on January 1, 2021 with the first block of the new Monkey Business BOM. Until then, have a good time and be safe!

Pattern

New Pattern: Reindeer Romp Mug Rugs

Beatrice | December 9, 2020 | 2 Comments

What a great Cookie Exchange Blog Hop we had last week! I agree with Carol of Just Let Me Quilt… every year I think this was the best hop ever, and then next year comes along and tops it. So many delicious Christmas treats and holiday projects to choose from and admire. A big thank you to Carol for all the work she puts into her blog hops. And thank you to everyone who visited my blog and took the time to leave a comment. I always enjoy reading them, and I have to apologize because this year I just didn’t have the time to reply to them all. Not just for the blog hop post but all of my recent (and not so recent) posts. There are only so many hours in the day, and I spent a lot of them getting next year’s BOM ready, so I hope this makes up for being a bad hostess and not replying to all the wonderful comments. But please know I read and appreciate all of them and all of you.

Early this morning I drew the winners of the giveaway and emailed the patterns 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

Lori S.
Michelle D.
Mary A.
Inge L.
Connie S.

If you didn’t win but would still like a copy of the pattern, it is now available for purchase in the store section. I also wrote a German version of the pattern with metric measurements. It’s relatively easy to do for small projects that don’t involve a lot of math.

Blog Hop

Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop 2020: Mandelsplitter and Pattern Giveaway

Beatrice | December 4, 2020 | 36 Comments

Welcome to the last day of the Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop 2020, and a big thank you to Carol of Just Let Me Quilt for organizing it again. I wish I could join more blog hops but with my main business being longarm quilting I simply don’t have the time. But I didn’t want to miss the Cookie Exchange, this is my 3rd year, and I love all the delicious recipes and Christmas projects that are being shared.

Once again I will be sharing a German recipe. After German Butter Cookies in 2018 and Hazelnut Cookies last year, I am going with Mandelsplitter this year, a German chocolaty delight that requires no baking. The name translates to “slivered almonds”, and they come in all kinds of variations and are very popular in Germany. I have been making these for 30 years or so, and somehow the recipe got lost during our move to Canada. I was sure I had scanned and saved every recipe I wanted to keep but this one was nowhere to be found. Not a big problem, I remembered the amounts of chocolate and almond slivers and how to put it together.

I have to back up a bit here and admit that I don’t like to cook at all, and baking is only marginally better. It’s not that I can’t do it, I am just not loving it. I love eating though… 😀 Anyway, my husband loves to cook, and he is quite good at it, you can actually taste the love he puts into his creations. Both he and my son belong to those people who religiously follow every step in a recipe and carefully measure out each required amount. I on the other hand believe that these amounts and instructions are only suggestions which sometimes leads to tension in the kitchen, especially when my husband tries to write down one of the recipes that I have only in my head, and I can’t give him proper amounts and just say “as much as you need”. This also applies to the Mandelsplitter recipe because I honestly don’t know how much butter and honey I use. Somewhere between one and two tablespoons, I start out with one and add more when the almond slivers look too dry. Anyway, we made them last weekend, and they are delicious, even with my eyeball measurements. The taste of roasted almonds with a hint of caramelized honey, all covered in chocolate… yum!

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.

Quilting for others cuts into my own sewing time, and this year has been especially crazy with everybody cooped up at home, producing quilt top after quilt top. So in between getting them turned around as quickly as possible and trying to come up with a new BOM design for 2021 I did manage to make another Christmas mug rug called “Reindeer Romp”. The pattern is ready to go and will be published next week. Here is a little preview, and I am also giving away five 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 Monday (December 7, 2020, 11.59 PST), and I will announce the winners on Wednesday and email the patterns. Please scroll down to the end of the post for giveaway rules and guidelines.

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.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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.

Tuesday, December 1

Creatin’ in the Sticks

Doreen – Just Let Me Quilt Guest

Bumbleberry Stitches

Home Sewn By Us

Quilt Schmilt

Food for Thought

Life in the Scrapatch

Ms P Designs USA

Just Sew Quilter

Cathie’s Craftworks

Cynthia’s Creating Ark

Wednesday, December 2

Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life

Thursday, December 3

Songbird Designs

For The Love Of Geese

Stitchin At Home

Dreamworthy Quilts

That Fabric Feeling

Friday, December 4

Happy Cottage Quilter

Pumpkin Patch BC (that’s me)

The Darling Dogwood

Kathleen McMusing

Scrapdash

Giveaway Rules and Guidelines

Please take the time to read them.

- 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 9 or Thursday, December 10, 2020.
- 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.
- 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.
- This giveaway is void where prohibited by law.

Block/Pattern of the Month

Penguin Promenade BOM – Block #9

Beatrice | December 1, 2020 | 10 Comments

And here we go: It’s December, and this is the last block of my Penguin Promenade BOM 2020. This last little guy is going down the mountain on his snowboard. I went with the brown fabrics that I used for the sled but you can use your imagination and give him all kinds of crazy board colours. Dig into your scrap bins! I hope you had as much fun with this project as I did. Remember that I will email you the finishing instructions if you send me pictures of your finished blocks until the end of March 2021. My email address can be found on the first page of every pattern. (Edit: As announced earlier, the finishing instructions will be available for purchase in January for those who can’t meet the March deadline.) (Edit 2: You can send me your pictures anytime, and you will receive a confirmation email. The finishing instructions will be mailed out in January when they are published.) As for the new BOM, it’s coming along nicely, and I am almost ready to announce it but not quite yet. Stay tuned, it shouldn’t be long. I am also quite confident that I will be able to publish the first block in January. Probably on the first of the month, as usual, or if I need a bit more time, I’ll switch it to mid-month and publish all blocks on the 15th. Either way, I will announce the details soon.

Don’t forget that the Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop also starts today. I am going to post on the last day which is Friday. Head on over to Carol’s blog Just Let Me Quilt to see the schedule and visit the participants’ sites for yummy recipes and lots of fun stuff. And please come back on Friday for my recipe (lots of chocolate!) and a giveaway.

The last Penguin block will be available for free download until the end of the month and move to the pattern store in January.

EDIT: The Penguin Promenade BOM is now finished. Any patterns you might have missed are available for purchase in the store section, including the last block #9. I have also created another pattern bundle at a discount price. The finishing instructions are available separately for those who are not going to make the deadline for sending in pictures of their finished penguin blocks. And of course the pattern for the whole quilt is also available for purchase as of now. Don’t forget to check out my new BOM for 2021 “Monkey Business” and download the free patterns every month.

Longarm

Anniversary Hearts

Beatrice | November 30, 2020 | Leave a Comment

When Sharon’s son got married last year, she prepared some muslin, cut it into heart shapes, embroidered the couple’s names and the date of their wedding and had the wedding guests write their good wishes for the bride and groom on it. For their first wedding anniversary, she turned the wedding wishes into this colourful quilt. What a great gift and keepsake! The heart panto I used for quilting it is called “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”.