… just barely. The DH had a hectic day and got to the flower shop 20 minutes after its official closing time. But there was still a trail of men going out the door with bouquets, so though they were sweeping the floors, Dana was able to pick up the beautiful flower arrangement he had ordered. His record stands.

flowers.jpg

seedlings.jpg

“Seedlings” — for next year!

Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs

Happy Valentine’s Day! The chocolate has been bestowed, and now I’m anticipating the bouquet. This has been a tradition throughout our 18 years of marriage, chocolate for him, flowers for her, and he hasn’t missed one yet. So although there aren’t any flowers yet, the day is young :).

Here’s another of my favorite blocks from Growing Heart to Appliqué.
I call it “Fly Away.”

fly-away.jpg

Freezer paper on top, hand appliquéd, hand-embroidered stems.

Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs

Here’s another block from Growing Hearts to Appliqué. A fun one, yes?

seed-packet.jpgWhen brainstorming on a theme,”growing hearts” or whatever, it’s so wonderful to let your imagination roam free and think up all sorts of notions about how to portray your ideas.

For this crazy design, I used freezer-paper templates on top, and I hand-embroidered the letters. The little black heart seeds are inked on with a permanent fabric marker.

And don’t faint, but maybe you can see that this quilt is hand-quilted. It still happens now and again.

Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs

Valentine’s Day is coming up. I’ve already got the heart-shaped box of chocolates for the DH stashed away. Like many quilters, hearts are a favorite motif of mine. I love them so much that I published a whole collection of heart designs, Growing Hearts to Appliqué. Here’s one of my favorite blocks, which I call “Cutwork.”

cutwork.gifTo make this, I used freezer-paper templates on top. In this method, you trace the shapes onto the paper side of the freezer paper, cut them out on the drawn line, then iron the templates to the right side of the fabrics. Cut out the shapes, adding a 3/16″margin all the way around. Then you can baste them in place using a tracing-paper overlay as a placement guide, either leaving the templates on as stitching guides or taking them off for good old-fashioned needleturn. There’s been a lot of appliqué under the bridge since I made this, but I think I probably left the templates on for the straighter parts and removed them to work on the intricate parts.

I’ll put up some more of my growing hearts blocks as the month goes along.

Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs

Here’s my quilt of the same name, and here’s hoping you’re having a most happy one!

Until next time,
Kay

Here’s the cover quilt for A Merry Little Christmas to Appliqué. It’s a wee little quilt, at 18 x 20, perfect for putting up on a wee little wall space during the holiday season. This one is fused and machine appliquéd with a small blanket stitch. It’s called “A Right Jolly Old Elf.”

Note Dana’s plum pudding again… my favorite design from the book!

The jolly old elf always leaves fat quarters in my stocking. Can’t wait to see this year’s selection!

Until tomorrow,
Kay

I already put this one up on the Quilt Puppy Show & Tell Center, so take a ride on over and see the funny story of Santa and the Christmas chickens.

When my husband, Dana, was a kid, his mother fixed plum pudding every year at holiday time, steaming it endlessly in a pan on the stove and topping it with gobs of homemade hard sauce. Young Dana did not care for that hard sauce at all, so just mention “plum pudding” to him and see the trials of childhood in his eyes.

Later in life, when Dana found out that “hard sauce” was “frosting,” plum pudding became much more tolerable. One year I wanted to make soft hanging ornaments for my friends, so I asked him to draw me some holiday-like shapes. Guess what issued from his pencil… a fat plum pudding, replete with dripping hard sauce!


When I pulled together my book of holiday designs, I made sure to include that plum pudding! Here’s my version, hand appliquéd on a patched background.

Until next time,
Kay

I have a book of designs called A Merry Little Christmas to Appliqué that’s filled with festive designs in incremental sizes that play nicely together. Since it’s now a week until Merry Merry Day, I’ve decided to post a bunch of those Christmassy appliqué quilts between now and then.

Pam Crooks made a beautiful repeating poinsettias quilt using rich batiks. When she was planning this project, she emailed and asked how I felt about fuchsia. I replied, “Gotta love the fuchsia!” so this elegant wall quilt was born.

Karen Garret made an apron to wear at holiday time and decorated it with the same poinsettia pattern. She did a neat stylizing thing with it, and added sew-on decors. There wasn’t room in the book to show the whole apron, so we just showed the poinsettia.

Until next time,
Kay

Close
E-mail It