Tag Archives: tutorial

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It’s nearing the end of the year. If you’re a wall calendar user, it’s almost time to swap for 2020. Here’s an idea to upcycle and repurpose the 2019 calendar you’ve enjoyed this year.

I used my Curated Quilts wall calendar, which is perfect for these simple cards since they are one sided pages on white cardstock and blank on the back. Scroll to the bottom for an adaptation for other types of calendars.

I started by removing the days of the month section by the perforations.

Then I trimmed the page to 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" using my rotary cutter and straight acrylic ruler. I didn’t center the quilt. Instead I shifted to show as much of the quilt as I could on the front of the card (the left side in the image above). I was mindful to keep the name of the quilt and artist on the card. This one is It's My Birthday! by Evie Jespersen.

Once trimmed, I simply folded the cards in half. You can purchase A2 size envelopes (4 3/8" x 5 3/4") wherever you purchase office supplies.

Here are my dozen new cards, blank inside to use for any occasion.

 

If you have a calendar with thinner pages or it’s printed on both sides, a simple option is to adhere your calendar images to a folded piece of cardstock. Use 8 1/2" x 11" cardstock, cut into two 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" pieces. Fold each piece in half to make 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" cards. Then cut your calendar images down to 4" x 5 1/4" and adhere to the front of a card with glue stick or sewing machine stitching.

I'm participating in the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge with Cheryl of muppin.com.

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Welcome to my stop on Tutorial Week with Finish-a-Long. I'm sharing my process for using scraps to create pumpkin blocks.

 

Grab your orange (or yellow or white or whatever color you want your pumpkins to be) scraps. Depending on the size of your scraps and the size of your desired pumpkins you can use your scraps as is (which I've done with my single fabric pumpkins) or you can piece together your smaller scraps to form a scrappy slab (as shown in the large pumpkin) before constructing your pumpkin. You'll also want fabric for a stem and a contrasting background fabric.

Pumpkins come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Cut the largest rectangle (can be square or not) from your orange fabric.

Background is attached to the pumpkin by adding snowball corners to each corner. To determine the size of these background triangles I recommend cutting squares that are 1/5 to 1/3 the length of your pumpkin's shortest side. Make these calculations using finished dimensions. For example, for my 5" x 6" orange rectangle, subtract 1/2" in each dimension for finished size: 4 1/2" x 5 1/2". Next, calculate 1/3, 1/4, or 1/5 of the shortest length, in this case 4 1/2".

1/3 of 4 1/2" (4.5 divided by 3) is 1.5" or 1 1/2"

1/4 of 4 1/2" (4.5 divided by 4) is 1.125" or 1 1/8"

1/5 of 4 1/2" (4.5 divided by 5) is 0.9"

There isn't anything super precise about the choice you make here. The range of these calculations in this example is roughly 1" to 1 1/2". You can round to the nearest 1/4" for friendlier measurements. Then add 1/2" to your choice to get the dimensions of the unfinished square. Cut 4 squares in these dimensions. I used 1" finished (since it is between 0.9 and 1.125), so I cut four 1 1/2" squares for my corners on this pumpkin.

Use your preferred marking tool to mark the diagonal on the back of each of your four background squares, align pumpkin and background fabrics right sides together and sew on the marked diagonal line.

Trim 1/4" from stitching line and press open. (Tip: if you are working with larger pieces, you can sew a second line of stitching 1/2" from the first so that the remnant you trim off is a finished HST as shown in this previous tutorial.)

The simplest stem option is to include a rectangle of brown fabric on the top edge of the pumpkin. (You can experiment with different shaped stems and even add leaves!) For my stems I cut a brown rectangle the same width as the background square above and 1/2" taller. In this case I cut a 1 1/2" x 2" brown rectangle and two 2" strips of background each approximately half the width of the pumpkin. Piece the strip with two background pieces and one stem piece, trim to same width as pumpkin, and attach. You can center the stem on the pumpkin by folding each part to find the centers and align to attach the stem. I just eyeballed it since in nature the stems aren't necessarily perfectly centered.

Add background fabric to bring up to your desired block or mini quilt size.

Here's a glimpse of all the pieces (except for background strips).

 

Bet ya can't make just one!

This mini pumpkin is made from a 2" x 2 1/2" scrap of orange fabric, with 1 3/8" corner squares. The stem is 1 3/8" x 1 7/8".

 

This Scrappy Slab version is made from a 6 3/4" x 7 3/4" scrap of orange fabric, with 1 3/4" corner squares. The stem is 1 3/4" x 2 1/4". You can find all my tips for making your own Scrappy Slab in my on-demand class.

Happy Sewing!

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This tutorial features fabric given to me by Island Batik.

My two favorite ways to make HSTs (half square triangles) are to make them 2-at-a-time or 8-at-a-time. For my September Island Batik project I chose to make sawtooth stars. 8-at-a-time HSTs are perfect for these blocks, so I thought I'd put together a tutorial for you!

For this project I used precut 10" squares, but they work with any size squares. See the table below for size of squares and size of HSTs you can create. Two starting squares will create eight HSTs.

Step 1: With right sides together, mark the two diagonals on the wrong side of one square with your favorite marking tool. When marking the second diagonal it helps to make sure that one of the lines of your ruler lies on the previous line. This will ensure that your marked lines are perpendicular. My preferred marking tools are Dritz Dual Purpose Marking Pen (for light fabrics), Fons and Porter White Mechanical Fabric Pencil (for dark fabrics -- that's the one I used here), and a Hera marker (which I generally use for solids). 

Step 2: Stitch 1/4" on either side of each line. I use my 1/4" foot. If you don't have a 1/4" foot, you may want to mark your lines before sewing.

Step 3: Cut the square in half in both the horizontal and vertical directions to make four squares.

Step 4: Cut on your original marked diagonal lines.

Step 5: Press seams. Note: If you are pressing seams open (which is my preference), you'll have to trim off the stitches in your seam allowance as shown in the first picture below. This can be done with scissors or your rotary cutter.

Step 6: Trim down each HST to the desired size. Use the chart below to determine the largest HST you can make from each starting square size.

Happy quilting!