Poof! What do you need?

Hey y'all! See the title for the blog post up there ^? That's for my mum! That's her favourite line from Aladdin, but I also thought it was pretty funny because...

Poof! I made a pouf! Oh boy, I slay myself! Alex and I are working on redecorating out living room and we were looking at poufs and ottomans to brighten the space up and to give a little bit of extra seating, but man, all of the ones we found were ridiculously priced. I figured, hey, I can make that!

The pouf is currently paired up with our new Strandmon chair and new bookshelves. We've got a new couch and coffee table on the way too - pretty exciting!

I used this tutorial - which was totally awesome! I expanded the size of my pouf (which is why you can see a break there in the fabric by the handle). Both the mustard home dec fabric and royal blue piping are from Fabricland (a bit like JoAnn in the States but their home dec fabric is all really nice quality). This was the first time that I've ever put in piping and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.

"But, oh! to be free! Not to have to go 'Poof! What do you need? Poof! What do you need? 

Poof! What do you need?' To be my own master, such a thing would be greater than 

all the magic and all the treasures in all the world! But what am I talking about? Let's get real here. 

It's not gonna happen. Genie, wake up and smell the hummus." - Aladdin

Tutorial: The Euclid Quilt

Hey y'all! You ready for this? After years of being asked about the original Euclid quilt, here is a tutorial just for you! As I mentioned in my last post, I have gotten many requests for a tutorial or pattern for this quilt over the last three years and after showing Alex snuggled up under it recently on Instagram, I received a renewed wave of requests. I decided that I should just do it! It's a pretty easy quilt to put together - it's the math that seems to be a killer for people who've tried to figure it out for themselves. That's why it's called Euclid. Let's go!!

Materials:
24 - 2.5"xWOF strips of fabric
1 Yard solid fabric
4 Yards fabric for backing
1/2 Yard for binding

*Finished quilt measures 48x64". All seams are 1/4" unless otherwise stated. Press in between steps. Also, you don't have to use a solid for the centre of the blocks - something like a text print, or texture (like Sketch) would be really fun! Fabrics used are Botony by Lauren and Jessi Jung and Kona White.

Directions:

-From each 2.5"xWOF strip cut two (2) 2.5"x4.5" strips and two (2) 2.5x16.5" strips.
-From the 1 yard of solid fabric cut twenty-four (24) 4.5x12.5" rectangles.
-Pair up the four pieces from each WOF strip with one solid rectangle. These five pieces will comprise one finished block.

-Sew one 2.5x4.5" strip to each end of the solid rectangle. Press.

 

-Sew one 2.5x16.5" strip to each long side. Press.

You now have one finished rectangle block. Repeat the above steps with your remaining strip and solid sets.

-Take three of your finished rectangles and lay them out like the above. Sew the two horizontal rectangles together. Press. Sew the vertical rectangle to the previously sewn horizontal rectangles. Press. I like to call this the "big rectangle block".

*Sorry, that there aren't any pictures for the next stop. But you can refer to the finished quilt top above. You can also refer to the colouring sheet that I've made (link is below).

There are four rows of two big rectangle blocks that make up the quilt top. Lay out your blocks as indicated below and sew together.

Row 1 (Top): Vertical rectangles to the left

Row 2: Vertical rectangles to the right

Row 3: Vertical rectangles to the left

Row 4: Vertical rectangles to the right

Your quilt top is now finished - yay for you! Sandwich, quilt as desired, and bind!

If you would like a colouring sheet for the quilt, you can get it here!

My quilt isn't finished yet, but I'll show it here when it is. It's actually going to be a wedding present for my godmother who is getting married in October. Have I mentioned that I have two (TWO!) weddings and my birthday all in the same weekend?! Craziness.

So what do you think? I hope that those who have been asking for a tutorial or pattern for this quilt for the past three years are excited to finally have it. If you do end up making the quilt, make sure that you post pictures in my Flickr group! I'm excited to see what you do.

Awesome Gifty Goodness!

Hey y'all! In my last post, I mentioned that my lovely friend Amanda had sent me a couple of presents in the mail before I sent her the Lumos/Nox mini quilt - I thought I'd share those awesome presents with you today!

So, here's what happened: Amanda pretty much decided that I wasn't allowed to buy the black Harry Potter screen print from her Etsy shop! I really wanted to pay her for it (since her stuff is super-awesome) but she said that I wasn't allowed and that she was just going to send it to me - I couldn't even get around her because she refused to set up Canadian shipping for me. Cheeky lady! Imagine my surprise when it arrived along with one of Amanda's Knight Bus totes!

I snapped this pic of myself with my tote the day after it arrived (and yes, that is the bathroom at work)! I love my little tote! The purple ink used to screen print the Knight Bus has a sparkle to it and is so pretty - it's also lined with fabric from an HP sheet set. If you like this little beauty, Amanda has another for sale in her shop along with a bunch of other super-geeky funness including some Doctor Who drawstring pouches and individual screen prints on fabric - there are usually more screen prints but she just sold a whole bunch of stuff including some awesome zipper pouches. You should definitely check out her sold items to get a feel for her handmade items.

I stole this shot from Amanda's Instagram (with permission of course) of the Lumos/Nox quilt up on her wall! I love the wall it's on and the fact that it's paired up with Superman (who, if you didn't know, is my favourite superhero). P.S. I am also on Instagram and my username is KayePrince, just in case you wanted to know, y'know.

Next up, I've got a brand-new, long-awaited, much-requested tutorial for y'all! A hint: I made the original quilt over four years ago, but have continued to get requests for a pattern or tutorial over the years. I'm not even kidding, even though it is four years old, in the past month or so alone I have had at least four different people ask about it. So, I figured why not?! The tutorial is done other than getting a shot of the quilt top - which I will do once it stops raining (seriously, stop raining!!).

Lumos/Nox

Hey y'all! Some of you may know that I am a bit of a Harry Potter fan (and I know that I'm not alone). My dear lovely friend Amanda is too and when her birthday rolled around I knew that I needed to make her an HP-themed present.

Originally, my only two ideas were Harry Potter and mini quilt. I started thinking about the spells in the books, then I remembered Elizabeth's Refrigerator Magnets alphabet pattern (which I also used here), and then I spotted all of the wonderful scraps of Constellations I had left over from making Orion.

In case you don't know, Lumos is the spell used to illuminate a wand's tip (like a flashlight) and Nox is the counter-spell that turns that lights off. For the Lumos portion of the quilt I used the light blue fabric to reflect the casting of light, and for the Nox portion I used black fabric to reflect that that the wand light was out.

I love Lizzy's Constellations line so much - it is just too too perfect! I still have some scraps left and I might just need to hoard them for awhile.

When it came to quilting this little guy, I knew that I wanted to put some sort of picture from the series into it. Originally I was going to do a lightning bolt that echoed out, but while looking at various symbols associated with Harry Potter, I spotted the sign of the Deathly Hallows and knew that it was just perfect! I traced the single symbol out using a washable pen and then echoed around it used the width of my walking foot as the measure.

I used fabric from The Ghastlies for the back which I not only thought worked well, but was also my little ode to Severus Snape. The binding is Sketch in Mist.

I'm happy to say that this mini arrived at Amanda's house last week (only a little bit late for her birthday) and is now up on her wall. It was pretty hard for me to give this little guy up because I really love the way that it turned out, but I knew that Amanda would appreciate it and she sent me some pretty awesome goodies recently too including a handmade Harry Potter tote - I'll have to share that one soon!

Are you a Harry Potter fan? If so, which is your favourite book and/or scene? I might just need to make myself a little HP mini and could use some inspiration!

Introducing... Doughnut Kiss!

Hey y'all! So, it's been a little while since I've been seen around these parts, I'm finding that with work and some other goings on that I don't have quite as much time to sew as I would like. That's not to say I haven't been doing anything though - I'm still working away on my Hermione socks, am writing a new quilt tutorial (yay!) which will hopefully be here soon, and have been finishing up my sample for my Sewing Summit class.

Since, I'm trying to make a fresh start, I decided that I might as well welcome myself back to this space (haha!) with a little something for you! Since my Sewing Summit English Paper Piecing class is less about the pattern I'm sharing, and more about tips and tricks for EPP, I thought that I would share all of the templates and such for my sample here. How does that sound?

So this is the sample I sewed up recently for my class, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to sew up another quilt version that includes interlocking Doughnut Kisses. I don't even know where the name Doughnut Kiss came from for this, but I just thought it was so funny that I'm sticking with it!

Now, I'm not going to go into a whole EPP tutorial here, but I'll give you a couple of tips. Since these pieces are a bit bigger (2"-4" sides) I used the EPP method where you sew through the templates rather than just whipping around the corners like I demonstrated in my QAYG Hexie Coaster tutorial. This helps to keep the 1/4" seams from popping out away from the template.

Even though I included a template page for the 2" squares to download, to be a bit more environmentally friendly, I recommend just cutting the square from a regular piece of paper. You can get 20 2" squares out a regular A4 piece of paper - you will need 21 square for the pillow so just cut the remaining square from the scrap generated by cutting your other templates.

I just wanted to share the back because I love it! I did the standard envelope back that I demonstrated in my Not-You-Traditional-Log-Cabin-Pillow tutorial (it's even the same size so you can use all of the same measurements). This is the first time that I've ever finished the whole way around a pillow with binding and I really love the look!

The templates for the squares and both sizes of the elongated hexagons, as well as a colouring sheet featuring the interlocking design can be found here. Just a note on the templates, all sides should measure 2" except for the long sides are the larger size of elongated hexagons which should measure 4". Be sure to print out the templates at 100% without scaling; if you have any problems, you may need to fiddle with your printer a bit.

Here's just a little example of a coloured in sheet. The sheet contains a finite number of sections so if you want to make it bigger you may need to do some creative taping together. For the crosses you can be super scrappy, or go more tonal with you colour choices. It's really up to you and each different combination of fabrics will create entirely different looks!

I really hope that you enjoy the templates and I'd love to see any example using the Doughnut Kiss templates that you come up with!

Templates Download

Another Vox Case + the Giveaway Winner!

Hey y'all! Some of you may remember the Kobo Vox case I made my mum two Christmases ago, well, I made another one.

This one is for my mum's friend D. She not-so-subtly hinted that maybe I should make a case for her Vox too seeing as she does my taxes every year (for free *cough*). For those of you who don't know, a Kobo Vox is a tablet e-reader similar in many ways to the 7" Kindle Fire.

If you saw the post with my mum's case, you'll notice that I used the same fabric but in a different colourway. It's pretty hard to say no to fabric with books on it for this purpose and D's favourite colour is pink. Plus, knowing my mum and D, they will probably think it's a hoot that they have matching cases to go with their matching readers. Girls.

The exterior fabric is from the Grand Tour by Victoria and Albert for David's Textiles and the interior solids is one of the newer Kona colours which I believe is called Iron. Once again, I resized Amber's iPad cover tutorial to fit the Vox (which is a really great tutorial!), which was a feat in and of itself let me tell you! I didn't have any measurements written down from my mum's case (I probably did at the time) so I had to figure out the adjustments all over again; I'm really hoping the Vox fits well since I didn't have one in front of me this time either to test out as I went. I hope she likes it.

So, I bet you want to know who won the giveaway?! Well, without further ado, the winner of the Winter's Lane fat quarter bundle is...

Congratulations Amy! Please send me an email with your mailing address and the good folks over at Fat Quarter Shop will get your bundle out to you!

It's Giveaway Time - Winter's Lane!

Hey y'all! So, it's giveaway time again - woot! Once again, the lovely folks at Fat Quarter Shop and I have teamed up to bring you some pretty awesome swag.

This time around we're giving away a fat quarter bundle of Winter's Lane from Kate & Birdie Paper Co. for Moda. This is a really great winter-themed collection, but one of the things I really like about it is that many of the prints could easily be incorporated into sewing year-round. The greys are my absolute favourite! It's been awhile since I've seen a winter-themed collection that doesn't scream "CHRISTMAS!", so this is just great.

Yep, super-pretty. I think I definitely need reams that print that looks a bit like pine branches, especially in the grey (and the ice-blue).

Okay, so I guess you want to know how to enter, right? You have two chances but please be sure to leave separate comments for each entry. Here's what you've got to do:

1. Leave a comment letting my know which item (fabric, pattern, bundle, etc)

is your favourite from FQS' Coming Soon page.

2. Leave another comment if you are a follower of my blog.

That's it! Two easy-peasy ways to enter! I will close the comments in a week (on May 28th) and announce the winner here on the blog. International entries are, as always, welcome! Also, please remember that I have comment moderation enabled so if you don't see your comment right away it just means that I haven't had the chance to approve it yet (duplicate comments will be deleted).

*the giveaway is now closed*