Peekaboo Mouse Pattern

September 17, 2018

A lot of people have pulled the little mouse from the Noisy Farm quilt pattern to use in other quilts – but not everyone wants to buy a pattern with twelve different farm animals just for the little mouse!

I’ve been getting a lot of requests lately for the mouse as his own little pattern.

He’s finally here!

You can use it on its own – that mouse would be adorable peeking out of a pocket. Or you can use it combined with other quilt patterns, as shown in the image above.

Important note – the pattern only includes the mouse – not the cat. The cat is just there to show the two ways you can use the mouse pattern in your quilt blocks.

I didn’t just write up the pattern – I also recorded some new video tutorials especially for this little guy!

This is the first pattern I’ve ever done where I also include a link to download an SVG file of the pattern pieces – for those who have cutting machines like Cricut and Silhouette.

This video shows what to do with that file (for a Cricut Maker) once you’ve downloaded it. Heads up – it’s a long one.

If you don’t use a cutting machine, that’s fine. The pattern includes the regular pattern pieces for printing or tracing and cutting by hand.

Once you’ve got all your pieces cut, here’s how to assemble the little guy. I show how to put him on the edge of the block, and also how to make him peek out from behind another applique critter.

Finally – there’s the outlining. I know a lot of people will see that face and think NO WAY. I don’t like hand-stitching and that’s too small to do on the machine.

Not so!

Of course you can stitch the face by hand, but you can do every bit of it on the machine – no fancy embroidery features needed. Here’s how I do it on mine, just using regular straight stitch.

That’s it!

Get the pattern here and start adding adorable little mice to all your projects. 🙂

Happy stitching!

Bears in the Hills – WIP

September 13, 2018

I don’t usually do all caps but. . .

I AM SO EXCITED WITH HOW THIS IS TURNING OUT!

Seriously! I can’t wait to get these guys in a frame to start stitching. You’re going to have to pry me out of my couch for the next few weeks. 🙂

And that’s not all!

I want you guys to stitch with me!

I decided the best way to make this a pattern is to actually make it a video workshop. I’ve shot video already showing how to position all the pieces and my little tricks for securing them in place while I stitch.

This was my studio today, with those fancy new lights in action.

Look at that awesome even lighting! 🙂

The next step is going to be whipstitching the edges down with matching thread (not embroidery thread – I want these stitches to disappear) and then I’ll jump into fancy stitching!

My plan is to get all the kind-of-boring-to-most-people-but-I-really-love-it whipstitching done, and then start recording videos showing how I freehand stitch the hills. Maybe one new video a week?

Update – the pattern is now available here.

Happy stitching!

Play with some felt! Try the Oddballs – a fun pattern for silly monsters.

New Colors for the Noisy Farm

September 10, 2018

I get a lot of emails from people asking for advice choosing quilt colors. I always point them to the Shiny Happy People group where they can see many, many different quilts made with my patterns – usually using different colors than what I used in my samples. Really – seeing a finished quilt is the very best way to imagine it in different colors!

So I’ll be making more of an effort to show my quilt patterns in new color combinations – just to show as many options as possible. 🙂

I recently remade the Noisy Farm quilt, using it as an example to how you can add sashing to any of my quilt patterns. While I was at it – I changed the colors too!

Here’s the original quilt in a crib size.

Noisy Farm made in the original quilt colors

And here’s the new version.

Noisy Farm pattern with added sashing and new quilt colors

In addition to adding the sashing – I used radically different colors!

I made the original sample before I had fabric bundles in my shop, so it’s not easy to say exactly what fabric packs they’d use now, but the Warm Neutrals would be the best choice for those natural-colored animals. The backgrounds are mostly greens and blues, so the closest match would be the Green Batiks and Blue Batiks.

The new version uses the Rainbow Sherbet bundle for the background blocks – pretty pale pastel solids. They really do look like soft sherbet colors. 🙂 

For the animals I went totally UNnatural with all kinds of fun colors and a wobbly, hand-painted gingham print. Here’s a close-up view of a silly pink sheep with a little turquoise mouse popping into the frame.

I love it!

That fabulous gingham print is called Gingham Play from Michael Miller fabrics. I sell bundles of my favorite Gingham Play colors here.

For the sashing I used Hash Dot in linen, also Michael Miller Fabrics. I liked how it has a slightly barn-ish feel while still balancing nicely with the soft pastel background fabrics. Sorry – I don’t sell that one in my shop, but you can search for Linen Hash Dot and lots of online sellers will pop up.

So there you go! New colors and a new layout for a totally new look for a favorite quilt pattern.

Want to know how to add that sashing? Here are the posts you’ll need for that.

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

Free Beaver Pencil Case Pattern

September 8, 2018

I’m participating in the Back to School Sewing Series with Sulky. You can make this fun pencil case!

That beaver can’t wait to chomp on all those colored pencils. 🙂

See a little sneak peek of that beaver design here – including a look at all the beaver designs I didn’t use. 🙂

Materials

You can find links to sources for my favorite tools and supplies here.

  • one fat quarter of the main fabric
  • scraps of lining fabric
  • Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy
  • Sulky Petites 12 wt. embroidery thread
  • #8 embroidery needle
  • tiny scrap of black felt
  • 9 inch zipper

Step 1

Download the embroidery pattern here.

Step 2

Print or trace the pattern out onto a sheet of Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy at 100% size. The rectangle should be 4 x 9 inches.

Step 3

Peel off the paper backing and stick the pattern onto the fabric. Make sure you position it so that the whole image will fit in the hoop, with fabric all the way around.

Step 4

Choose your threads!

So many pretty colors. 🙂

Step 5

Embroider the design using two strands of Sulky 12 wt. thread. Stitch right through the stabilizer and the fabric.

I used backstitch for all the lines. Learn how to backstitch here.

I used satin stitch for the pencil leads. This video shows how I satin stitch pointy shapes.

Look closer!

I decided partway through stitching that I wanted a little more color on the barrels of the pencils – so I added some stripes running down them.

Your pattern has the added stripes. 🙂

That nose!

I wanted the nose to be solid, but instead of satin stitching I decided to applique it with a tiny scrap of black felt for a velvety soft texture.

At this point I just left it unstitched.

Step 6

Trim the fabric down to 1/2 inch outside the rectangle.

Make sure you do that now – once you soak away the stabilizer that handy line will disappear. 🙂

Step 7

Soak the piece in cold water for an hour or longer. I often leave mine to soak overnight with no problem. Rinse it in clean water, gently squeeze out the extra water, and iron it dry face down on a fluffy towel. This video shows how I iron my embroidery dry without smooshing the stitches.

Step 8

Whipstitch the nose in place using matching thread.

For a small piece like this I like to use a glue stick to hold the piece in place while I stitch it down.

Step 9

Stitching done!

The front piece for your pencil case is all fancied up. Now it’s time to sew it up into a pouch.

Cut a back piece from the main fabric 10 x 5 inches.

Cut two lining pieces, also 10 x 5 inches.

Step 10

Follow the instructions in this post to sew up your fancy lined zipper pouch. 🙂

Finished!

Now – go check out the rest of the series! It’s a fun group of free projects!

Happy stitching!

Cutting Felt with My Cricut Maker

September 7, 2018

Well – I finally opened the box of my new Cricut Maker.

So exciting!

But I’ll be honest – we got off to a bit of a rocky start.

The Design Space app didn’t install automatically and the link to click to continue the installation was a dead end to a nonexistent page. Not a huge deal – I know how to find my files and install them myself, but it’s the kind of thing that really frustrates a person who’s not super comfortable with technology so I thought it was worth mentioning.

They include some materials for your first project (a card) which is great. It let me walk through all the steps of making (not designing) and actual thing.

Designing was TRICKY. That’s going to take some practice – but I managed to get my first project (those bears in the hills) all set up and ready to go.

Time to cut some felt!

Uh oh. That does NOT look good.

I cut it on the felt setting and this was actually the second try with increased pressure. The first try just roughed up the surface of the felt without actually cutting anything.

I decided to lie to the machine and tell it I was cutting heavy fabric like denim. That prompted me to change it to the teeny tiny rotary blade instead of the knife blade.

Much better!

Look how clean the cuts are! And see the eye markings? The machine did that too with the pen attachment. So handy!

After I got the settings figured out I was on a roll. 🙂

I cut all the pieces for my new Bears in the Hills in about an hour – while I was cleaning my studio. 🙂

Next week I’ll have a video showing you how to layer all these guys up and prep for stitching.

I can’t wait to try the Cricut on regular fabric for applique quilt blocks – that’ll be my next project with the machine.

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

Sneak Peek at a New Project: Which Beaver Is the Cutest?

September 4, 2018

I’m making a new project for the Back to School series at Sulky – and I needed a beaver.

Not a quilted beaver. . .

. . . and not a stuffed beaver. . .

. . . and not a crocheted beaver. . .

For the project I had in mind I needed to embroider a beaver – and I wanted to see him from head to toe.

I sat down to draw some sketches and then remembered that my husband had a whole page of adorable beaver drawings in his airplane sketchbook.

Perfect!

You might think it was hard to choose between all those sweet faces – but I had my favorite picked out with one glance. It’s the one down in the right corner.

Isn’t he a cutie?

Now for a much harder decision. . .

Choosing thread!

That lucky beaver has something colorful to chomp on, so I get to dip into the rainbow. 🙂 So many colors to choose from! And these are only about half of my stash of Sulky Petites 12 wt. thread. (You can read my review of this thread here.)

Final project coming Saturday! It’s going to be a free pattern. 🙂

Update – the free pattern is here now!

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

Adding Sashing to (Almost) Any Shiny Happy World Quilt Pattern

August 31, 2018
Pastel quilt with applique farm animals, demonstrating adding sashing to a quilt pattern.

For years I’ve had people ask me about adding sashing to a quilt pattern from Shiny Happy World.

That’s an easy question.

Yes!

You can always modify any pattern to add (or take away) sashing.

Sometimes they have another question. How does adding sashing to a quilt change the yardage they need to buy?

Well – that’s a whole other question that requires a much longer answer. 🙂 So long that the best way to give it to you is as a printable download. It has fabric requirements, cutting guides, and assembly diagrams for six different quilt sizes with sashing and borders. Download it here.

First – let me clarify. I say almost any quilt pattern because these measurements will only work for square blocks. If you’re adding sashing to a quilt with double blocks or half blocks, you’ll need to do a little extra math for that. But the measurements in that PDF work for any of my quilt patterns that have 10 inch square blocks – and that’s almost all of them. 🙂

Remember, there’s a general post showing how to add sashing to any quilt here, and one with details about how to prepare and sew sashing or borders with Quilt As You Go quilts here.

These tutorials will also be helpful. . .

And one more reminder – all of these measurements only work if you have an accurate 1/4 inch seam. If you don’t have a quarter inch foot on your machine, I strongly recommend getting one. It will make your life sooooooo much easier. 🙂

Find links to all the posts about pattern size and layouts here.

Quilt Sizes and Supplies Needed

Play with Your Layouts – Multiple Possibilities for One Quilt Pattern

Sashing

How to Make Applique Bust Out of Its Frame

Alternate or Broken Grid layouts (adding half and double blocks)

How to Make an Applique Rag Quilt

How to Make a Polaroid Quilt

How to Make a Wonky Churn Dash Frame for Any Block

Finished with this topic?

Return to the Let’s Make a Quilt main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons about choosing your fabric.

Happy quilting!

Divide and Conquer – How to Pin Long Seams

August 30, 2018

I’m moving right along on my version of the Noisy Farm quilt with sashing added, and I realized this is the perfect time to share a little tip with you about pinning long seams.

I’m not very bossy about pinning most of the time. Some people pin, some don’t, and I’m mostly a live and let live kind of person. 🙂

But when it comes to long seams (like the ones attaching those looong sashing strips to rows) you’ll find that pinning – and actually pinning in a very particular way – will save you a lot of headaches.

Here’s the problem. If you just slap a long strip on your strip of blocks and just start sewing without pinning – there’s a really good chance that when you get to the end of the long seam, one of those pieces is going to be significantly longer than the other. This happens even if you use a walking foot and even if you’re really careful about keeping your tension even. It just happens.

You know what keeps it from happening?

Pins. 🙂

I’ve got a specific method I use to pin longs seams. I call it Divide and Conquer.

Here’s a seam I just pinned. (Actually clipped. When I pin already-quilted layers together I prefer to use sewing clips. They distort the fabric less.)

I loaded up a really large image size here so you can click on it to see it even bigger on your screen.

Those numbers show you the order in which I placed those clips.

First I start by clipping the ends – 1 and 2. That way I know that my ends are going to be perfectly lined up.

Next I want to divide that space in half (Divide and Conquer) and I place the clip right in the middle. That’s #3.

That leaves me with two large spaces – the one between 1 and 3 and the one between 3 and 2. I divide those spaces in half by adding clips 4 and 5.

Finally, I divide all the remaining spaces in half by placing clips 6, 7, 8 and 9.

It’s always the same – I start by securing the ends, then just keep dividing the remaining spaces in half over and over again until my clips are close enough together to take it to the machine.

Divide and conquer. 🙂

I hope this is helpful!

The post with all the information about adding sashing will be up tomorrow!

Best,
Wendi

Some Extra Help for Downloading Pattern Files

August 21, 2018

If you’ve been here for any time at all, you’ve heard me go on and on about how important it is to download your pattern files and save them to your own computer, and to back up ALL your files. It’s in every pattern delivery email and I do a PSA on social media about once a month reminding people to back up their files.

Well – I got an email from someone last week saying she wants to back her files up – but doesn’t know how. In my experience, when one person asks a question it means there are a bunch of other people who really WANT to ask the same question but haven’t done it yet.

So I just made two new videos to help out the folks who are super comfortable with a needle and thread – and less comfortable moving around digital files.

Here’s the first one. It shows (in a LOT of detail) how to download the patterns you purchase – and two ways you can easily back up those files.

See? It SHOULD be as easy as clicking on the download button.

But sometimes things go wrong – and that’s what this video is about. I share easy fixes to a few of the most common download problems.

These videos now live on my FAQ page, so they’re easy to find if you ever need them.

Just to be clear – I’m ALWAYS happy to help anyone who’s having technical difficulties.  But I usually step away from my computer on weekends, which means your email asking for help can sit unanswered in my inbox for a couple of days. I’m hoping these videos will help you try some easy fixes yourself when that happens. 🙂

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

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A New Version of the Noisy Farm Quilt!

August 10, 2018
Noisy Farm Quilt pattern from Shiny Happy World

I’ve gotten a lot of questions lately asking for suggestions for the background colors of the Noisy Farm quilt pattern.

The cover sample you see above is from before I had fabric bundles in my shop, and most of the fabrics I used are no longer available.

One of the things I love about the way I do fabric bundles now is that you can use any bundle for any quilt. Here’s an example of three quilts that all use the Warm Neutrals fat quarter bundle for the animals – but different bundles for the background colors.

Here are the Playful Puppies made with Solid Rainbow for the background blocks.

And here are the Cuddly Cats with the slightly-more-grownup-but-still-colorful Box of Crayons for the background blocks.

And here is the Bunches of Bears pattern made with the Rainbow Sherbet bundle for the background blocks.

See what a difference?

Changing just the background colors really changes the whole feel of the quilt – and I love them all!

So when people ask for suggestions for background colors for the Noisy Farm pattern – I want to tell them they can use anything! Go totally bright with the Solid Rainbow! Go a little more subdued with Box of Crayons! Go baby sweet with Rainbow Sherbet! Go natural with Green Batiks! Want even more suggestions? Go to the Noisy Farm pattern listing and look at the additional photos. There are a bunch showing finished quilts that other people have made with different fabrics than my samples.

For my new version of the Noisy Farm quilt I used Rainbow Sherbet for the background blocks. I went totally wild with the animals and using the Gingham Play fat quarter bundle. Gingham always says “farm” to me and I can’t wait to make the animals in fantasy colors.

Pastel version of the Noisy Farm quilt pattern

One more change – I made this one a silent farm. 🙂 I left off the half-blocks with animal sounds and added sashing. I get a lot of requests about adding sashing to a Quilt As You Go quilt. There’s a tutorial here showing how you can reset (almost) any of my quilt patterns with added sashing. I even did the math for you for all the sizes. 🙂

If you’ve made any of my quilt patterns using a different color scheme – please share! Seeing all the different versions of my patterns makes me Muppet-arms-flailing happy – and it’s a great resource for your fellow makers out there to see different options. 🙂

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi