10 Favourite Easter Projects

We've had so much snow in Calgary this winter that it's hard to believe that it is almost Easter. While I feel that I should still be stitching up snowmen, I think it's time to start thinking about flowers, bunnies and Easter eggs.

I've found 10 cute Easter designs that I think you will enjoy - and you still have time to create them. Here are a few of my favourites:

1. 10 Free Bunny Sewing Patterns

What would Easter be without bunnies? Diy-crush has curated lots of sweet bunny patterns for you to stitch up. 

From diy-crush.com

2.  Hippity Hoppity Easter Mini Quilt

More bunnies, but this time in a pieced wall hanging. Hippity Hoppity Easter Mini Quilt is from Nadra of Ellis & Higgs. I think you could have lots of fun choosing fabrics for these bunnies and I might be tempted to add a fluffy tail to them too!

Hippity Hoppity Easter Mini Quilt from Ellis & Higgs

3. Easter Brights

If you're wondering where the Easter eggs are hiding, you'll find some of them in Easter Brights from Chatterbox Quilts. 

Easter Brights from Chatterbox Quilts

4. Fancy Felt Egg

If you want to do a small felt project embellished with hand embroidery stitches, check out the Fancy Felt Egg from Wendi Gratz at Shiny Happy World. 

Fancy Felt Egg from Happy Shiny World

5. EggIE Softies

If you have little ones in your house, they'll love the EggIE softies. Fun for them and a great way to use up your fabric scraps and trims. 

EggIE Softies from Fiona Carter

6. Easter Bunny Pillow

Now that it's warming up (everywhere but Calgary!), you won't be needing your warm winter sweaters. Recycle your worn ones into this Easter Bunny pillow from Better Homes & Gardens.

Easter Bunny Pillow from Better Homes & Gardens

7. Easter Table Runner

Here's a super cute table runner to make and it will be quilted up quickly as it uses the quilt as you go technique. Check out the Easter Table Runner from Patchwork Posse

Easter Table Runner from Patchwork Posse

8. Quilted Carrot Table Runner

I'm sure all these bunnies must be getting hungry! I've got just the solution: the Quilted Carrot Table Runner from Better Homes & Gardens.

Quilted Carrot Table Runner from Better Homes & Gardens

9. Easter Treats

We've got the bunnies, the eggs, the carrots and even some flowers, but I'm missing the best part of Easter: chocolate! Easter Treats by Chatterbox Quilts includes a chocolate bunny between spring blooms. 

Easter Treats by Chatterbox Quilts

10. Decorating Easter Eggs with Lori Kennedy

In case you need some help quilting some of these projects, Lori Kennedy of The Inbox Jaunt has a wonderful tutorial on Easter egg free motion quilting. 

I'll be on Spring Break next week, so I'll be back with you in two weeks. I hope you have a wonderful (and warmer than Calgary) Easter. 

Creatively,

How to Use Estate Sale Finds in Your Quilt Studio

I love going to estate sales and that's where I find vintage linens and where I've also picked up some of my vintage sewing machines. There are always a lot of cute trinkets and smaller kitchen items that can be helpful in the quilt studio.

I have a hard time saying no to anything cute, but I really need to think about what I'm going to do with these items if I do buy them. Thank goodness I've found a way to incorporate them in my quilt studio (and can thereby justify my purchases to my hubby).

I share my quilt studio with my two cats, Teeka and Victor, and this means that things have to be "cat proof" or unbreakable. This pretty much rules out lovely china dishes, but there are lots of silver-plated items at estate sales, so I'm usually able to find something that would be useful.

To see what types of items I buy at estate sales with the intention of putting them to use in my quilt studio, you can watch the video below or on my YouTube channel.

Do you repurpose vintage items that you buy to use in your quilt studio? Leave a comment below to let me know what types of items you use to help organize your quilt studio.

Creatively,

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Wavy Line Walking Foot Quilting

Recently I've been exploring walking foot quilting on the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP and have been loving the results!

When you talk about quilting your projects, most people think that you are talking about free motion quilting, but that isn't always the case. You can get great results by using your walking foot to do your quilting.

In one of my previous blogposts, I showed my readers how to make a no binding self-metered placemat, perfect for setting your table or for gift giving. If you haven't read this blogpost yet, you can read all about it here. I quilted the centre of these placemats using my walking foot and I was thrilled with how quick and fun it was to do!

I chose to do a wavy design both vertically and horizontally on the project. This was so easy as I really couldn't go wrong with this type of design.

I started by stitching a wavy line vertically in the centre of the placemat and then continued to stitch wavy lines on either side of it. Once I was finished stitching in this direction, I repeated this process horizontally. I didn't mark my lines, but just eyeballed the distances between each line. 

There are so many variations possible with just this wavy line quilting:

• you could vary the waviness of the line to be tighter or looser

• you could vary the distance between the lines vertically

• you could vary the distance between the lines horizontally

• You could do wavy line quilting diagonally across your project

There are just so many possibilities with this simple quilting design.

To see how I quilted the placemat, just click on the image below to watch a video on my YouTube channel that provides more information.

Do you use your walking foot to do your quilting or do you prefer to free motion your quilts? Have you tried wavy line quilting with your walking foot? Leave me a comment below to let me know.

Creatively,

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Easy No Binding Self-Mitered Placemats

Valentine's Day is fast approaching and I've got a sweet project for you - that won't add any extra calories to your diet!

I like to make a special meal for my family on Valentine's Day and love to set the table with all things Valentine. This year I'll be setting my Valentine's Day table with a set of easy to make placemats that I created using my Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP.

The AccuFeed Flex system on my Janome 9400 made it super easy to do the wavy line stitching I used on this project. It’s easy to see where I’m stitching and using the AccuFeed Flex system evenly feeds my fabric and batting together without any stretching of the top fabric. It’s one of my favourite features on the Janome 9400 and I know I’ll be doing more walking foot quilting with this machine.

These placemats are so quick and easy to make, but the best part is that they don't require any binding. 

Let me explain what you'll need for this project:

2 Fat Quarters - one solid fabric and one patterned (preferably with a heart-filled fabric)

Batting – I would suggest 100% cotton low loft batting

That Purple Thang or similar to push out corners (include Amazon link)

Usual quilting supplies

That's about it! See, I told you it would be simple! 

You'll also need a good sewing machine, of course, which in my case is the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP. It was my best helper as I used the walking foot and AccuFeed Flex system on the machine for the quilting.

Since I wanted to make a set of placemats for Valentine’s Day, I used a heart-patterned vintage feeling fabric for the centre of the placemat and the solid fabric for the borders and backing (it’s all one piece).

You'll need to decide on what you want the finished size of the placemat to be and cut the fabric you’ve chosen for your placemat centre and your batting to this size. In my example, I used a 12” x 14” piece of fabric and this would be the actual size of my placemat.

Now, let’s get into a bit of math: don’t worry, it’s really not that complicated – believe me, if it was, it wouldn’t be me telling you about it!

To determine the cut size of the backing/border fabric (solid fabric in my example), decide on the size you want the borders to be. I wanted the borders to be 1½” wide. I then multiplied this number by 4: 1½” x 4 = 6” and added this amount to the length of the centre fabric. This was 14” + 6” = 20”.

I then did the same calculation for the width of the centre fabric, which was 12”. There were also 1½” wide borders on the top and bottom, so I multiplied this by 4: 1½” x 4 = 6” and added this to the centre fabric width of 12” for a total of 18” (6” + 12”).

Still with me?

The figures that we just calculated are the size that you’ll be cutting from the backing/border fabric. So, in my example, I cut a piece of fabric 18” wide by 20” long and this would be the backing and borders on the placemat.

Just to review: the centre fabric and batting were cut 12” x 14” and the backing was cut 18” x 20”.

Top and Batting cut to 12" x 14" with Backing cut to 18" x 20"

The next step in the placemat construction is to quilt the top and batting together. I used the walking foot on my Janome 9400 to do this and did some wavy line quilting vertically and horizontally. This was fun and so easy with the help of the AcuFeed Flex system on the Janome 9400. No bunched fabric and it kept both the batting and fabric together without even using pins!

Quilting the top and batting with the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP's amazing walking foot with AcuFeed Flex system

After the quilting is finished, it’s time to centre the quilted top onto the backing and then stitch everything together ¼” in from the outside edge of the quilted centre. You may find pins helpful here to keep everything in place.

Be sure to centre the quilted top and batting when you are pinning it to the backing

This next part is when the mitered corners are created and it’s almost like magic! Trim off all 4 corners of the backing on a diagonal to remove excess fabric. Be sure that you are ¼” away from the corner of the quilted centre.

Trim off the excess batting on a diagonal

Fold in each of the sides (the backing) to meet the quilted centre and press them to keep them in place.

Press the sides to keep them in place

Flip the placemat over and match adjacent sides, being sure to line up at the corner and down the side. Pin to keep in place.

Line up adjacent sides and pin to prepare for stitching

Once everything is pinned properly – don’t make the mistake I did – you can stitch the seam at each corner with a ¼” seam.

Be sure to backstitch at the beginning and end to hold the seam in place

When you have finished this stitching, you can trim the excess fabric and batting on the corners and then flip the corners out to the front and push out all the corners using That Purple Thang or similar tool (be careful not to poke too aggressively or you may end up with a hole in your corner!).

Push corners out gently with That Purple Thing or similar tool

Press the placemat down and then topstitch the open edge all around the interior of the placemat with a ¼” seam or you could use a decorative stitch. If you want to do additional quilting in the border, you could do that too.

Topstich 1/4" in from edge to complete the placemat

Now that you’ve seen how easy it is to make one of these placemats, keep going so you’ll have a complete set of 4 or 8 or…?

I think that a set of placemats would make a perfect wedding or house warming gift and with this pattern you can design them to any size you want.

This was the first time I’d used the walking foot for quilting and I was pleased at how easy the AcuFeed Flex system on the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP made it. I’ll definitely be doing more walking foot quilting on future projects. 

Click on the image below to view a video on my YouTube channel that shows you the step-by-step process to make these easy placemats.

Click here if you would like to see my favourite quilting tools.

I hope you'll try creating these easy placemats on your own. You could make a set for every holiday!

Creatively,

Download the free Get Out of the Ditch! guide to learn how to start free motion quilting by clicking here.

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Suggestions for Quilt Panels

What's the easiest way to make a quick quilty gift? By using a quilt panel, of course!

You may've heard them called cheater quilts, but I prefer to think of them as "helper" quilts since they help a quilter to whip up a baby quilt, a lap quilt for a sick friend, or any have-to-have-a-quilt-made-now project. 

Quilt panels come in all different sizes and some may need a little extra help to get to the size we might want them to be. With some panels a border or two will suffice, but others may need to be cut up and have some fabric added to make it large enough.

Some quilt panels are really just too small to be made into a bed-size quilt - the panel would get lost in all the fabric that you would have to add to it to make it large enough. Keep this in mind when you are trying to decide what to do with your quilt panel. Not every quilt panel was made to be a king-size quilt!

This panel is so small that it is really only ever going to be a wall hanging.

A larger panel may just need a border or two added to them. That's a really simple way to quickly make a lap quilt or even a bed quilt.

Some panels can be cut apart and you can have lots of fun with these ones! You can add additional fabric vertically or horizontally - or both! If you think that it would add to the panel, you could add pieced blocks, rather than just solid fabric. This would take a bit more time to do, but could be quite effective.

This panel would be easy to cut up and insert some coordinating fabric.

If you are cutting up a panel and adding additional fabric, consider where you want the main part of the quilt panel to be so it will be highlighted to its best effect.

Click on the image below to watch a video on my YouTube channel which gives more information on options with quilt panels.

Creatively,

P.S. Did you know that you can sign up to receive FREE emails full of quilting goodness? Just click here to receive FREE content directly in your email inbox every few weeks from Chatterbox Quilts. I know you'll be glad you did!