Tag: wall hanging

Kim Diehl, Simple Whatnots, Simple Whatnots Club 11

Keeping Room Wall Hanging

Sew Happy by Sarah

The third Simple Whatnots Club 11 project I completed is Keeping Room. Quite a bit larger at 35″ square, it definitely took longer to make. The pattern called for a more controlled color palette limited to the reds, greens, and golds in Kim Diehl’s Right As Rain fabric line. It was nice to try something different colorwise and with the unique blocks and border.

The cross-like shapes were fun to make. They were actually supposed to all be the same design, but I inadvertently changed the pattern of the light green/red blocks and didn’t see the difference until it was all assembled! Oh well — they remind me of ribbon wrapped around a gift!

The border was very intriguing to me. It makes a nice frame around the piece and I love the alternating colors. In general, my block sizes are usually very close to the sizes given in the instructions, but I know they can be 1/4″ off. So, I was a bit wary about attaching the border and whether it was going to fit on perfectly. A solid strip of border is a bit easier to adjust the size if needed without being noticable!

Surprisingly it magically matched up pretty good. I say “pretty good” because I did have to ease it in a little. And because of that easing, the center of the quilt ended up a bit “baggy”… I had spent so much time on it already that I didn’t want to take it apart and try to get it to fit better, so I thought, “I’ll just quilt it to death and maybe it won’t be noticable!” Hence, I progressively added elaborate arcs and dense fillers until it pounded down any loose fabric and made it look like an intentional medallion design. 🙂 (Shh! That’s my secret!) I’m actually very happy with it! The fact that it came out square and hangs on the wall straight (not wavy) gives me a bit of confidence about my long-arming skills!

Finished Size: 35.5" x 35.5"
Pattern: Keeping Room from Simple Whatnots Collection 11 by Kim Diehl
Fabric: Right As Rain by Kim Diehl for Henry Glass
Kim Diehl, Simple Whatnots, Simple Whatnots Club 11

Hayride Mini Quilt

Sew Happy by Sarah

When Simple Whatnots Club 11 started in January, I vowed to keep up with the monthly projects as best I could. We’re in the fifth month and I’m posting my second finish now, but I do have two more that are almost ready to share! 🙂 I’d say I’m doing pretty good — especially since I’m balancing this with some other block of the month programs I’m working on.

Hayride was fun to make! I like the scrappy spinning star shapes and the secondary pinwheel design you can see if you concentrate on the brown pieces. It is the perfect size for a table topper at 16″ square.

Since I had a few small projects ready to quilt at once, I put them on the longarm together! I could have used my domestic machine for such a small piece, but it definitely saved time to not have to baste the layers together and just throw it on the batting and backing I had already set up.

I traced around the star shapes and then added an extra outline to the white background squares to create some additional texture.

Finished Size: 16" x 16"
Pattern: Hayride from Simple Whatnots Club 11 by Kim Diehl
Fabric: Right As Rain by Kim Diehl for Henry Glass
Anka's Treasures

Mr. Frosty Wall Hanging

Sew Happy by Sarah

How cute is Mr. Frosty! This pattern and fabric are designed by Heather Peterson of Anka’s Treasures whom I had the pleasure to meet in August 2021 at her presentation for my quilt guild. After seeing her trunk show of quilts, I purchased this kit (and some other patterns) at the meeting.

I love this classic snowman with some quilt blocks thrown in to look like snowflakes.

The original pattern was designed as a table runner, with the two snowmen placed opposite each other, head to head. As I pieced them together I decided they really need to be featured on a wall where I can easily see them, so I modified them and added a top border to each so they could be separate wall hangings.

Finished Size: 20.5" x 29"
Pattern: Mr. Frosty from Trendy Tables 3 book by Anka's Treasures
Fabric: Snowed In by Heather Peterson of Anka's Treasures for Riley Blake
Fat Quarter Shop, Sew Sampler Box

Fast and Flurrious Table Runner and Wall Hanging

Sew Happy by Sarah

The colors and patterns of this Cider fabric are something I wouldn’t have immediately chosen, but I grew to love them as I worked on this project. The fabric and table runner pattern came in a Sew Sampler box.

This was an easy, relaxing project and it was perfect to bring along to a quilt retreat I attended in September 2021. It’s comprised of two different types of blocks, so it was nice to assembly-line sew these and then lay them out to create the rows.

The table runner pattern was written to be even longer, but I modified it and used the remaining fabric to make a wall hanging.

I cycled through a few quilting designs for each shape and added some simple straight lines to the border.

Finished Size: 18.5" x 58.5" for table runner, 26.5" x 27" for wall hanging
Pattern: Fast and Flurrious exclusive to the Fat Quarter Shop Sew Sampler Box for January 2021
Fabric: Cider by BasicGrey for Moda Fabrics
Kim Diehl, Simple Whatnots, Simple Whatnots Club 11

Twist and Turn Mini Quilt

Sew Happy by Sarah

Last year I discovered pattern and fabric designer Kim Diehl who specializes in traditional style, mini quilts and applique. When I tried out one of her patterns, I was hooked! I absolutely love working with tiny pieces! I learned that each year she releases a new line of fabric and a set of mini quilt patterns for her Simple Whatnots Club. The 8-month club is only available through quilt shops and the shops provide the patterns and the coordinating fabric kits. I signed right up when I found it is offered from a local shop near me.

My shop offers a monthly meeting for the members where we receive that month’s pattern and tips and tricks for how to make it. We also share our projects with each other. In the January meeting we received our first pattern: Twist and Turn. For this project I spent about half of the time cutting out all these 1.5″ wide pieces and pairing them up to create a scrappy, but coordinated look. The main blocks went together pretty straightforward being all squares and rectangles.

Once it got time to assemble the blocks together, I had to think through the steps a bit more. This on-point layout with a triangular border was new to me. I had not done anything like it before. I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out correctly!

I experimented with some detailed quilting in the border and some additional outlines in the blocks.

I can’t wait for our next meeting to share my work with the group and get the next pattern!

Finished Size: 16.5" x 22"
Pattern: Twist and Turn from Simple Whatnots Collection 11 by Kim Diehl
Fabric: Right As Rain by Kim Diehl for Henry Glass
This & That

Feathered Friends Winter Wall Hanging

Sew Happy by Sarah

I’m always up for a sewing challenge, so when I heard about a “Stash Buster” monthly challenge at a quilt shop and saw January’s pattern featured a bird I bought it and got to work! The idea is you make the pattern for the month using fabrics from your stash and you have creative free rein to make whatever modifications to the design you’d like. Then, during the following month, you post your picture on the shop’s Facebook page and whoever’s picture gets the most “likes” wins $20 to spend at the shop. I noticed only a few people submitted entries for the previous month, so I had a good chance to win something!

Choosing fabrics for this was quite different for me, as I usually make quilts from kits where the fabric is already chosen. I stretched myself on this and got to use some of my scraps. The mix of greens for the tree was fun to pick out. I decided I wanted a dark background so it would look like a midnight scene out in the stars. Well, I found some midnight blue glittery fabric scraps leftover from a dress I made my daughter and knew it was the one! I chose the blues for the birds in hues similar to the sky. I used neutral grays for the gift and borders because I wanted the focus to really be the bird and the tree.

I quilted subtle echos around the stars to try to bring them out and for the bird I did some angled lines. The quilting for the tree was my favorite part. I knew I wanted to represent the layers of branches somehow and when I came up with these curves I was so pleased! They add a bit of whimsy and make the tree more interesting.

In the end, I got second place (out of two total entries). No big prize money for me, but I did win next month’s challenge pattern for free. Coincidentally I also won $10 from the shop in a random drawing the evening of the contest results, so I came out good on this! The next pattern is “Feathered Friends – Spring” featuring this bird in a flowery Spring scene. Looks like I better get working on my next entry!

Finished Size: 22" x 23"
Pattern: Feathered Friends - Winter by This & That Patterns
Kim Diehl, Simple Whatnots, Simple Whatnots II Book

Matchsticks Mini Quilt

Sew Happy by Sarah

Just as promised, here’s another mini quilt! I bought Kim Diehl’s Simple Whatnots II book and plan to make my way through most of the projects with a stack of her Gratitude & Grace fabric line. Quilt number one is unlike anything I’ve made before! Its scrappy look with vibrant colors, dynamic design, and tiny 1-inch wide strips (before sewing together!) were all new to me and I’m very pleased with the result.

First off: 1-inch strips and 1-inch squares! I tried to cut as accurately as I could with those teeny things! I’m wondering now if 1 inch is the smallest pieces I’ll encounter in this mini quilt journey or will they get smaller? Everything went together well, though! I took a little bit of extra time trying to make sure the same fabrics didn’t touch each other — you know, “controlled scrappy”. 🙂

For the quilting I used some brand new rulers I wanted to try out: Baptist Fans Expansion Pack from Michael Davison. They were surprisingly easy to use after I watched his YouTube videos. A great all-over quilting look for someone who doesn’t have a computerized longarm. Since this was such a small quilt I actually did the quilting using my regular sewing machine with free motion.

Baptist Fans Expansion Pack from Michael Davison
Guest appearance from Mindy!
Finished Size: 16.5" x 17"
Pattern: Matchsticks from Simple Whatnots II book by Kim Diehl
Fabric: Gratitude & Grace by Kim Diehl for Henry Glass
Fat Quarter Shop, Sew Sampler Box

Starflower Table Runner and Wall Hanging

Sew Happy by Sarah

This fresh, bright floral fabric along with this playful pattern were in my April 2021 Sew Sampler Box from Fat Quarter Shop. I had more than enough fabric for the table runner in the pattern so I made a coordinating wall hanging out of the rest!

I had fun quilting the main octagon shapes using a curved ruler which made perfectly fitting orange peel designs. I also played around with creating a secondary diamond shape design in the negative space surrounding the shapes.

I did similar quilting for the wall hanging for extra practice!

Finished Size: 16.5" x 56.5" for table runner, 30" x 27" for wall hanging
Pattern: Starflower Pattern exclusive to the Fat Quarter Shop Sew Sampler Box for April 2021
Fabric: Sunday Stroll by Bonnie & Camille for Moda

Front Porch Quilts

Tulip Twist Wall Hanging

Sew Happy by Sarah

As I was gathering ideas for Spring decor projects, I remembered this Tulip Twist pattern and fabric kit I had purchased at Front Porch Quilt Shop two years ago. I pulled it out and made it along with my other recent tulip projects. I love the movement this piece creates! Both with the turning flowers and the dancing border.

The border was perhaps the most time-consuming part of this project. It involved making strip sets of each color of fabric sewn to a white strip and then cutting those down into 1.5″ pieces. (Small!) What took up the most time was sewing all those 1.5″ pieces together. The finished product was worth it though!

I took the opportunity to play around with the quilting, trying different designs in each flower. I used some of my rulers and a bit of freehand.

Close ups of the quilting

Ironically my real tulip garden outside looks like it’s not going to bloom this year, but at least I’ll have these cute flowers inside!

Finished Size: 32" x 32"
Pattern: Tulip Twist by Front Porch Quilts
Cluck Cluck Sew

Easter Tulips Wall Hanging

Sew Happy by Sarah

My mom was in need of another wall hanging so she could change out the winter one I made her last year. As I was making the Easter Tulips Pillows and a corresponding table runner that isn’t quite finished yet, I took some extra tulip blocks and quickly made this wall hanging!

I added the white border around the blocks to create the desired width and length, then I threw it on the longarm! Small projects like this are a great way to practice quilting designs. I’m still learning and they say the more you quilt, the better you’ll become. I played around with some rulers and did freehand on the leaves. I’m feeling a little more confident in using the machine now!

Finished Size: 11.5" x 30.5"
Pattern: Easter Tulips from Modern Holiday Table Runners by Cluck Cluck Sew