The Happy Campground

Make this quick easy table runner and coordinating cozy lampshade in a weekend! It’s just that easy.

Happy Camper Honey Bun, Charm Pack, 1/3 yard red pindot for star points, 1/3 yard red plaid for binding, 1/2 yard backing fabric, lampshade

rick rack, ribbon, lace or any other interesting trim for lampshade

Select 6 charm squares for star bodies. Selecting coordinating star points and bodies lets your stars stand out in this runner. Select 18 charm squares for remainder of runner, setting aside 4 of those for corners.

Cut (26) 2 3/4 inch squares from red pindot

Draw a line diagonally through red pindot squares.

Stitch a red square on opposite corners of each star body, stitching on pencil line

Stitch a red square on one corner of the remaining squares EXCLUDING the four corners.

Press squares towards corners on all blocks. Cut away excess triangles if desired. I cut away the inner portion.

Using the finished runner as a guideline, layout blocks. Stitch blocks into rows pressing in alternate directions. Layer and quilt as desired. Bind with 2 1/4 inch binding strips. Sit back and enjoy your fast and easy table runner.

One quick and easy Happy Camper table runner. (14 x 36.5)

With gathering foot set as 6, gather a variety of honey bun strips 1/4 inch from top of strip. The number of strips needed will depend on the size of your lampshade. This medium sized shade took 16 strips. Set aside your favorite strip for the very top. I used one color for each layer. Lay out your strips and decide how you’d like your lampshade to look.

Begin at the bottom of the shade. Using a hot glue gun or fast drying craft glue, run a small bead of glue at the binding line of the shade. Line up the stitch line on the strip with the binding line in the glue. This will keep your outside edge nice and even. (Note: I like things that line up and appear nice and even, you might like it more whimsical. My instructions are a guideline.) Follow along edge of shade.

On a medium sized shade one strip will only cover about half the circumference of the lower half of the shade. I glued the end of the first strip to the edge, then folded over 1/4 inch of the incoming strip and glued it over the first strip for a nice transition.

At the end, trim off excess, fold end of strip under 1/4 inch and glue in place over first strip. It is more important the bottoms of the strips match than the tops.

For the remaining rows, apply glue to gathering stitch line on strip, about 1 1/2 inch or so at a time. Line up so that the bottom of the new strip just covers the stitch line of the previous row. Begin and end rows in the same manner as instructed above.

The last row is attached by running the glue bead around the binding at the top of the lampshade and adhering the last strip so the top is even with the top of the lampshade. A strip of trim can be used to hide stitching if so desired.

A fun and frilly lampshade!

I hope you enjoy these Happy Camper Accessories as much as I do!

pam

Summer Swing Skirt

This swingy summer skirt is made with a one-size fits most design, but can easily be adapted to plus sized by adding a square or made smaller by removing a square from the top layer of the skirt. It’s just that easy! Look for easy size changes in italics.

1 Santorini layer cake
1 Santorini Jelly Roll
1/2 yard of any Santorini fabric
1 package of 1 inch no roll elastic

This skirt is made in three layers. The first layer is 5 pieces of your layer cake. Seam allowance is 1/4 inch through out this project.

Pam: Just grab any five!

Elizabeth: Uh, no. Of course you don’t grab “any five”. You need to stare at all of them for awhile…stripes are slimming, but you can’t have nothing but stripes…hey this one with the green I think is my favorite so it has to be on the front…gotta get the combination of colors just right…so keep agonizing until Pam shoots you a dirty look and tells you she could have the skirt halfway finished by now.

Stitch your five layer cake pieces together forming a tube. This is the top tier of your skirt.

Unroll your jelly roll strips and gaze at them a bit. Doesn’t Moda do a nice job with these fabrics?

At this point you should try it on and make sure it’s not too big or too small. Add on a square to make it a plus sized skirt. Subtract a square or a portion of a square to make it smaller.

Ruthlessly cut them in half at the fold.

Pam: Randomly pull strips from the pile and stitch them together.

Elizabeth: OK, this time you try to be totally random…so you get into the spirit of just grabbing prints, until Pam tells you that you’re about to have a big blob of green in the middle of your skirt. So I guess you sort of randomly pull strips. They all go together quite well, and it’s fun to see combinations of prints you might not have thought of trying, but avoid blobs of one color. At all costs.

You will need 50 strips for this tier. For every 1 inch you added to the top tier, add 1 strip. (one layer cake square equals 10 strips) For every inch you removed, remove 1 strip.

Press seams in one direction.

Once your strips are all stitched together, stitch into a tube.

Trim to length. For our ‘maxi’ skirt we trimmed to 19 inches. Total length of the skirt is 38 inches. This is the perfect time to measure a skirt you love pick your own perfect length. Most purchased tiered skirts are between 34 and 36 inches long, as a guideline. For an average length skirt cut at 18 inches.

Gather your tier using your ruffler attachment, or your favorite method of gathering.

Ours was gathered using the ruffler foot set at 6 and stitch length set at 4.3. Yours may vary.

Pin your ruffled strip to your top tier. Stitch together.

Woo hoo , it looks like a skirt now doesn’t it!
Randomly select 20 layer cake pieces from your remaining pile for your last tier. For every 5 strips you added to your second tier, add 2 layer cakes pieces. For every 5 strips you removed subtract 2 layer cake pieces. Its not critical that you add or remove at this point. Its going to be ruffly regardless.

Gather at the same settings used before. Attach gathered layer cake tier to strip tier.

How cute is this?

Hem your skirt by turning up bottom tier 1/4 inch, then again 1/4 inch, for a nice small hem. For a more casual look, stitch 1/4 inch from the pinked edge and let it get that frayed look. Its summer fun, go for it!

From your 1/2 yard of waistband fabric cut (2) 2 3/4 inch strips. Stitch short ends together for one long strip and trim to 48 inches OR the measurement of the top of your skirt, if you made any alterations.

Elizabeth: Pam’s measurements and instructions are exactly right–but be sure to use a very accurate seam allowance when you stitch the waistband to the skirt and when you top stitch the top of the waistband make sure you stitch very close to the edge…because it might be a tiny bit difficult to thread the elastic through the casing. And if you tell Pam that the waistband should be cut maybe a little wider she’ll tell you “no”. If you don’t think you want to be that precise, you could cut your waistband pieces maybe 1/8″ wider, and Pam probably won’t find out.

Stitch into a tube leaving a 1 inch opening in the seam as shown. This will be the opening to insert your elastic. Fold right sides together and press.

Pin your waistband to the right side of your skirt with the opening facing away from the skirt.

Top stitch at the fold very close to the edge. This gives a nice professional look to your garment.

Insert elastic into your waistband and adjust to fit comfortably.

Stitch elastic ends securly everlapping for a flat finish.

Whip stitch the casing closed.

Pam: I used contrasting thread so you could see the stitching!

Elizabeth: Psst! Just between you and me? She used green thread because that’s what was already in the needle.

Your swing skirt is done! Go on, celebrate!

One very swingy summer skirt!

Summer fun brought to you by Elizabeth and Pam!

Sweet Secret Stars

 Here’s my attempt at an artful shot of my Sweet Secret Stars quilt top. I’m no Camille, that’s for sure. I hope this doesn’t discourage you from trying this Sweet project!

For this project you’ll need a Sweet Honey Bun, Layer Cake, 3/8 yard of pink Bella solid, 3/8 yard green Bella solid and 1 yard of the Sweet border of your choice.

If you can bear it, unwrap your cute honey bun and cut the strips in half at the fold. Take as much time as you need, I can wait!

Select 4 of your favorite strips and stitch them together making a strip set. Press seams in one direction.

Make a minimum of 16 strip sets. Vary the placement of lights and darks as this will make your blocks more interesting.

Cut each strip set into 1 1/2 inch segments. You will need a total of 200 segments.

From your Sweet Layer Cake, cut (49) 4 1/2 inch squares. (I cut 2 from each of the 40 layer cake pieces so that I would have plenty of choices when I laid out my blocks.)

Cut 160 pink 1 1/2 inch squares for your snowball blocks and your half snowball blocks. Draw a pencil line diagonally across each pink square, place on larger square and stitch on the line. OR stitch across using your favorite method. For your snowball blocks stitch a pink square on each corner, for your half snowball blocks stitch a pink square to two adjacent corners. Press away from square to create a corner triangle, trim excess from back of block.

This is where I suggest the line method, so you will have nice points that match up with your patchwork blocks. Unlike mine, which match up, some of the time.

For this quilt you will need 31 snowball blocks, 50 patched blocks and 18 half snowball blocks.

Layout your blocks as shown in the photo of the quilt below. The half snowballs blocks have their pink points facing inward. Begin and end row 1 and all odd rows with a patchwork block, alternating blocks. Row 1 and 11 will have only half snowball blocks, row one facing down, row 11 facing up. Even rows will begin with a half snowball facing to the right and end with a half snowball facing left.

Borders

From Bella Solid green cut (5) 1 1/2 strips. Measure length of quilt, stitch 3 strips together and cut two strips for side borders. Stitch to sides of quilt. Measure width of quilt, using remaining strips cut top and bottom inner border. Stitch borders to top and bottom of quilt.

From Sweet Border print cut (6) 5 inch strips. Stitch 3 strips together for one long strip. Measure length of quilt. Cut two strips for side borders. Stitch to sides of quilt. Stitch remaining 3 strips together, measure width of quilt, cut two strips for top and bottom borders. Stitch to quilt.

This quilt would be called Sweet Not So Secret Stars had I reversed the green and pink, the green is a higher contrast and would show off more. But I like the subtle nature of the pink.. so there you go. You can decide for yourself which you like best. You could use your squares plain and it would be just as Sweet!

Fresh from the garden

One 56 x 48 inch Sweet Quilt top!

Stitch your segments into units of 4. This is where you’ll thank me for suggesting you press those strips in one direction. You will need 50 blocks.

Betty’s Baby Bowtie Quilt

One charm pack of Hello Betty by Chloe’s Closet for Moda
1/2 yard Bella Solid Ivory (sku 9900-60) block background
3/4 yard Bella Solid Betty Pink (sku 9900-120) alternating blocks
1/3 yard Bella Solid Betty Green (sku 9900-121) binding
1 yard backing, batting 36 x 44

Select 32 charm squares from your Hello Betty Charm Pack. From each square cut (2) 2 1/2 inch squares and (2) 1 1/2 inch squares

Cut (64) 2 1/2 inch ivory squares
Cut (31) 4 1/2 inch pink setting squares

For each bowtie block you will need (2) 2 1/2 inch and (2) 1 1/2 inch bowtie squares and (2) 2 1/2 inch ivory squares
Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of each of the 1 1/2 inch squares

Place a small square on each of the 2 1/2 inch background squares and sew on the line. These are your knot units.

Sew your block together as shown :

Press center seam open if desired, for a flat center

Make 31 more blocks! They’re super fast. Set in 9 rows of 7 blocks alternating bows and pink setting blocks, using completed quilt as a guide. Layer and quilt as desired. This old fashioned quilt is perfect for grid quilting (on sample) or meandering! Bind with Betty Green Solid and enjoy!

Press towards the knot and cut away the back of the knot fabric in the middle, leaving the background piece.

One very cute old fashioned looking bowtie quilt 28 x 36 inches.

Betty’s Baby Bowtie Quilt by PamKittyMorning