Heartsy Pillow

Hi! I’m Wendy from Sewing in the Wendy City, and I’m so glad to share my 5th Moda Bake Shop tutorial with you. This is a quick project to decorate for Valentine’s Day and beyond.

1 charm pack of Pezzy Print
3/4 yard of any solid or print in the Pezzy line
14″ pillow form
14″ square of Wonder Under or Steam a Seam
2 18″ squares of batting
small amount of polyester fiberfil
neutral or invisible thread

Choose 9 of your charm squares to be the heart appliques.

Print out the heart template included in the Printer Friendly Version. Be sure to print at 100%, no scaling. Each side of the square should measure 5″ when printed.

Trace the heart shape onto the Wonder Under (paper side) 9 times and roughly cut out the hearts and iron them onto the wrong side of the charm squares you chose. Make sure the rectangles of the Pezzy Print squares are all going the same direction for the hearts.

Cut the hearts out and set aside.

Choose 9 more charm squares, and iron one heart onto each. Just for fun, I made sure the rectangles in the background fabric were going the opposite direction as the rectangles in the hearts.

Layout your squares into a pleasing design and sew the squares together into a 9-patch.

Layer the 9 patch, batting, and a scrap of fabric for the backing. The scrap will not be visible when the pillow is finished.

Quilt the background and use a zig-zag stitch to go around the edges of the appliqued hearts but do not quilt inside the hearts.

Clip a small hole in the backing in the center of each heart. Be careful to only cut through the backing layer and not the batting.

Take a small amount of stuffing and put it between the batting and the backing to make the heart puff out a bit.

Then hand stitch the opening closed.

Trim 1/4″ from the edge of the 9 patch.

Cut 2 pieces of the solid fabric to 10″ x 16.” Hem one of the long sides of each piece by folding over twice 1/4″ and stitching.

Overlap the two backing pieces to create an envelope closure. There will be some excess on the sides that will be trimmed later.

Pin the back in place and sew from the top 1/4″ from the edge all the way around.

Trim around the edge of the batting to remove the excess.

Making and attaching the binding:
Cut two 2.5″ wide strips of the red fabric. Sew end-to-end, press seams open, then press in half lengthwise. Attach binding to the back of the pillow. Fold it over the edge to the front and topstitch near the edge of the binding to secure.

Insert your pillow form, and you’re done!

One cute and funky pillow, just in time to decorate for Valentine’s Day!

Wendy Poling

{Sewing in the Wendy City}

On the Move With Jane

Nov12

Hi, I’m Wendy from Sewing in the Wendy City, and I’m thrilled to be back with my fourth tutorial at Moda Bake Shop!

I came up with this idea because I was planning teacher gifts for Christmas for my kids’ teachers. I wanted to make handmade items, all different, from one line of fabric. A layer cake is a great way to do this, and Fairy Tale Friends is so darling and has so much variety that you can’t go wrong!

One layer cake has enough layers for 5 bags. Then each bag requires a yard of fabric for the handles, lining and strips down the front and back.

1 layer cake of American Jane “Fairy Tale Friends”

1 yard of 21606 – 11 (red argyle) for lining and handles

Thread for topstitching

Batting scraps:

1 piece of batting approximately 34″ x 20″

2 strips of batting approximately 45″ x 1.5″

Choose your 7 favorite layers. One layer cake (plus some yardage) will make 5 bags!

Cut each layer cake into 3 pieces:
two 4″ x 10″
one 2″ x 10″

Choose 10 of the 4″ x 10″ pieces to use, and then cut the remaining larger pieces into half so that the measure 2″ x 10″

You will need: 10 4″ x 10″ cuts and 12 2″ x 10″ cuts

Divide the 4″ pieces into 2 groups of 5 and sew together.

Sew all the 2″ pieces together, then cut in half so that you have 2 identical long pieces.

From your yardage, cut 2 1.5″ strips width of fabric and 2 4″ strips width of fabric.

Cut the narrower pieces in half, then arrange as pictured.

Sew them together, and then baste onto a piece of batting approximately 34 x 20. I used spray baste to do this. You do not need a backing fabric in this quilt sandwich.

Quilt as desired.

Once the outside is quilted, trim off the excess batting and square it up.

Time to make straps.
Cut 2 1.5″ strips of batting approximately 45″ long.

Find the strips of yardage you cut earlier at 4″ wide. Fold over one long edge 1/4″ and press.

Pin to the batting, with the raw (not folded over) edge lined up with the edge of the batting and the right side facing the batting.

Sew the length of the batting. A walking foot is helpful here if you have one.

This seems complicated but really isn’t, so hang in there with me. After you make that seam, fold the fabric over so that the right side is out and the raw edge is inside. Press. Then wrap the fabric all the way around the batting like this….

So that it meets up. Pin it. Press it.

Sew as close as you can to that folded edge all the way down the strap. Then sew on the other side so that the strap has a seam close to each edge. I added one more down the middle.

Cut both straps to the same length, and then fold up the raw edge twice and stitch to secure. It may be helpful to measure on yourself or on a bag you like to determine the length of straps you want. Mine were 40″ long.

Give the bag some shape

With right sides together, sew the side seam of the bag so that you have a tube.

Then match the panels of yardage and pin, and then sew the bottom seam.

To gusset the corners, pinch the bottom corners of the bag and pin approximately 3″ from the tip of the triangle you created. Sew where the pins are.

When you do this on both sides, your bag will stand up! Please note that the side seam is not actually on the side, it’s on one corner.

And here’s what it looks like on the inside.

Time to make lining

Cut a piece of the yardage that is 18″ by 32.5″.

With right sides together, sew the side seam. Then sew the bottom seam. Gusset the corners here as well, but be sure that the flaps go outside instead of inside so that they will be hidden between the outer bag and the lining. The right side of the lining should not have any raw edges showing.

Unlike the outer bag, the side seam stays on the side.

Put the lining inside the bag.

Line up the top raw edges, pin and sew.

Center the straps on the outside of the bag and pin.

Stitch all the way through the bag and lining.

To finish off the bag, cut one more strip of yardage, 2.75″ x width of fabric. We are basically going to put binding on the top of the bag. Fold it in half lengthwise and press. Align the raw edges with the top of the bag on the inside and sew 1/4″ from the top. Fold it over to the outside and topstitch along the folded edge.

A cute tote bag, suitable for carrying lots of stuff lots of places.

Thanks so much for reading! Want to win a set of my extra layer cakes to make your own tote? Stop by my blog and take a look!

Wendy Poling
{sewinginthewendycity.blogspot.com}

Hot Cross Buns

Aug8

Hi everyone, it’s Wendy from Sewing in the Wendy City, back with my third Moda Bake Shop post!

I’m thrilled to bring you a pattern for a child-sized quilt — not quite a lap size, but bigger than a baby quilt and long enough to cover the toes of your grade-schooler. For fabric requirements for a larger sized quilt, please visit my blog.

1 Layer Cake of Amelia by Me and My Sister Designs
1.5 yards of sashing (white with black dots, # 22167 17)
0.5 yards of binding (purple stripe, #22165 14)
1.5 yards of backing (flannel purple flowers, #22161 14F)

Cutting:

from sashing:
cut 18 strips Width of Fabric (WOF) that are 1.5″ wide
cut 5 strips WOF that are 2.5″ wide

from binding:
cut 5 strips WOF that are 2.5″ wide

Choose 20 of your layer cake squares to go in the quilt. Since my sashing had a white background, I avoided the layers with a white background.

Separate them into 5 piles of 4 squares each. Each of the 4 squares should be a different color or background.

Start with your first pile. Stack the 4 squares on top of each other. Take them to your cutting mat and cut a straight line on the diagonal. No need to measure, you can’t do this wrong!

Just make sure you are cutting all 4 at one time — very important!

Now you are going to sew a piece of 1.5″ sashing to all 4 of the left pieces (the larger piece). Leave a little extra at the top and the bottom. Press. Trim even with the edge of the block.

Next, sew a matching piece to the other side. You will have 2 groups when you do this, so your 4 blocks will look like this:

Notice that the purple and teal florals are paired, and the blue and pinks are paired. This is on purpose so that it all goes together nicely at the end and each finished block has all 4 prints in it.

Stack all 4 blocks and make another cut crossing the first one as shown.

Again, be sure you are cutting all 4 blocks at once.

Sew a piece of 1.5″ sashing to all 4 of the top pieces. Leave a little extra at the top and the bottom. Press. Trim even with the edge of the block.

Finally, match up the other side of the block so that each block has all 4 prints in it and sew.

You will end up with 4 blocks, each with all 4 prints.

Repeat for the 4 other piles of 4 blocks each until you have 20 total blocks.

Trim all to 10″ square.

Lay them out in a pleasing design.

From your 1.5″ sashing strips, subcut into (16) 11″ strips. These will be sewn to the bottom edge of 16 of the blocks.

Then sew into columns as shown.

Add in a 1.5″ sashing strip between the columns as shown.

Finally, add the 2.5″ strips of sashing to all 4 sides of the quilt top.

Trim the corners, quilt and bind as desired.

I used a flannel print from the Amelia line for the backing, and I love how pretty and soft it turned out!

1 beautiful child-sized quilt, measuring approximately 43″ x 53″

Boy do I love a striped binding!

Edited to add…

If you wanted to make the same quilt larger, you could make it from 30 squares.
To do this, you’d need 2 3/4 yards sashing and 1/2 yard of binding.
Finished size would be approximately 65″ x 73″.
Make 5 columns of 6 blocks each.

Want to see what I made with my leftover layer cakes? Head on over to Sewing at the Wendy City to see!

As always, I am honored to post on Moda Bake Shop. Thanks for reading, and have a lovely day!

With love,

Wendy Poling

{Sewing in the Wendy City}

Squaredy Cat Quilt

May22

Hi this is Wendy from Sewing in the Wendy City. I’m thrilled to bring you my second Moda Bake Shop recipe! This time I got to work with Momo’s Just Wing It! collection, which is fabulously beautiful.

I call this quilt my “Squaredy Cat” quilt because it uses giant squares to make a large quilt and goes together very easily and quickly. If’ you’ve always been a “Scaredy Cat” about a bed-sized quilt, then “Squaredy Cat” is a good pattern for you!

1 layer cake in Just Wing It by MoMo

2 Jelly Rolls in Just Wing It by MoMo

1 yard of a coordinating print for binding

5 1/2 yards of a coordinating print for backing

From the layer cake, pull out the following:

18 squares that will be the centers of our blocks

4 squares that will be the corner posts on the piano key border (trim to 8″ square)

9 squares that will be subcut into 2.5″ x 10″ strips (yielding 36 10″ strips)

3 squares that will be subcut into 2.5″ x 8″ strips (yielding 12 8″ strips)
The rest of the layer cake can be pieced into the backing

From the 2 jelly rolls, you will need the following:

8 solidish strips to be the inner border. I used the blue toned ones.

36 strips, each cut into: one 18-inch strip, a 14-inch strip, and an 8-inch strip

Another 36 strips, each cut into: one 14-inch strip, and three 8-inch strips

When you finish cutting you will have:

36 10-inch strips

72 14-inch strips

36 18-inch strips

156 8-inch strips

It may be helpful to find a ziploc or a basket for each size of strips.

Now, time to sew! It is very, very helpful to chain piece these. If you do this, it will go pretty quickly.

To each of your 18 center squares, add the following:

10-inch strips to each side,

14-inch strips to the top and bottom,

another set of 14-inch strips to the left and right

And finally, 18-inch strips to the top and bottom.

At this point, your blocks will be approximately 18 inches square. Press them well, and take them to your cutting mat.

Cut vertically and horizontally to make four 9-inch blocks.

You will have 72 of these 9-inch blocks.

Layout the blocks in pairs like so… and pin them. Make sure you have the squares lined up… in the top right on the left and the bottom right corner on the right. I suggest pinning them all and then chain piecing all 36 pairs.

Aren’t they pretty all lined up like that?

Next, sew the pairs of blocks into rows of 4 blocks, alternating the square placement each time.

Then put 2 groups of 4 together so that you have 8 blocks. You will have 9 identical rows of 8 blocks each.

Find the 8 jelly roll strips you reserved for the inner border and sew them together end-to-end.

Add the inner border onto your quilt center.

Find the giant pile of 8-inch strips you cut earlier, and sew them together to make a piano key border.

So that I didn’t have to deal with a very long border at one time, I split my strips into approximately 4 strips and pieced them together as I needed to to add to the quilt.

I used corner posts on mine.

First, add the piano key border to the short sides of your top. Then we do some careful measuring. Put an 8-inch square onto one end of a piano key strip. Then carefully lay it out, marking where you get to the other end where the other corner post will be.

Trim the piano key border 1/4″ past the inner border, then sew on the other corner post. Pin carefully so that your points line up.

Backing:

I love a pieced quilt back!

Here’s the backing fabric. Isn’t it beautiful! I used 5 yards of the backing fabric, but it was close! So I’m suggesting 5 1/2 in the pattern.

I had several leftover layer cake squares and I pieced them into the back with my leftover jelly roll pieces.

I took my leftovers and arranged them to be as large as the quilt top. There are many ways to do this, but here’s mine:

I used the dark blue as my binding fabric, and it worked well. I think one of the solids would also be lovely.

To make your binding, cut 9 strips that are 2.5″ by the width of the fabric.

Quilt and bind as desired.

A beautiful oversized-full sized quilt, measuring approximately 87″ x 96″.

I’m so pleased with the way it turned out.

And pieced backs are so much fun!

Here’s a full shot….

And I made this cute butterfly pillow with my leftover scraps.

For the pattern and more information on making the pillow, please visit my blog, Sewing in the Wendy City, for the full tutorial.

Thanks so much for reading.

Blessings to you–

Wendy Poling

{Sewing in the Wendy City}

LOVE Bunting

Jan30

Hi I’m Wendy, and I ramble often at Sewing in the Wendy City, right here in the heart of the Texas Panhandle. This is my FIRST Moda Bake Shop Tutorial, and I am over the moon about it!

I am an avid quilter, but I must admit that my favorite kind of projects are ones that involve not only beautiful fabric, but also can involve my children. I have a toddler and a preschooler, and we share a love of crafting together! This “recipe” was one of those fun projects, and I am thrilled to share it with you.

1 jelly roll of Pom Pom de Paris by French General

1/3 yard of any fabric in the line. I used the pink and brown bird print (#13572-16 )

1/3 yard of a solid color. I used the ivory solid (#13529-70)

batting (a piece approximately 36″ x 36″ will work)

thread for piecing

thread for topstitching (I used red)

disappearing ink fabric marker

sewing machine with both a presser and a free-motion foot

chopstick for turning triangles

iron

acrylic paint (I used a mix of two pinks to match the fabric)

First, please cut your solid into an 8″ strip, selvedge to selvedge.

Then, let’s do some measuring. On one side, measure 3.5″ and make a mark. On the other side, measure 7″ and make a mark. These are the points for your first triangle. Then from each mark, measure off 7″. Cut as shown below. Leave the fabric folded so that you can cut all 8 triangles.

Here’s a cutting diagram (drawn with love by me):

Then, with much fear and trepidation, break into your lovely jelly roll. Before cutting that rubber band, admire it one last time.

Choose 8 strips that will be the outer edges of your pennants. I chose the pink tones. See how nice they look with my backing fabric?

Take one of your triangles and one of your jelly roll strips. Allow at least 2 inches extra of the strip on top of the triangle and at least 3 inches extra on the tip. Sew.

Press your seam under the jelly roll strip.

Then add a strip (of the same fabric) to the opposite side of the triangle. (Now you can see why we needed the extra at the tip.)

And press it under the pink as well.

Repeat this process for all 8 triangles.

Grab your backing fabric and cut it into an 11.5″ strip. From one side, measure 5.5″ and mark. From the other side, measure 11″ and mark. Then measure 11″ from each mark.

Now we need some batting. Stack your batting, then your pieced pennant front, then your backing fabric. The 2 fabrics should have their right sides together, as shown. Pin.

I pinned several and then cut them apart to sew.

Sew a 1.4″ seam on the 2 sides of the triangle with the jelly roll strips. Leave the top open.

Trim off any excess so that you only have 1/4″ excess beyond the seam.

Clip straight across at the tip of the triangle. Be careful not to clip your stitches!

Use a chopstick or turning tool to turn the pennant.

Press your pennant so the edges stay nicely in place to be topstitched down.

Load your machine with your topstitching thread (I used a lovely shade of red!) and topstitch around the edges of your pennant.

I also stitched around the inner part to give it some definition…

I then added some free-motion loopy quilting down the middle of the border just for fun.

Now, for the connecting piece! Choose 3 strips. I went with the reds this time so they would stand out.

Cut each piece into 4 strips, 10 inches wide.

Sew them together end-to-end, alternating your prints.

Two options here… You can press this long strip in half so that the pinked edges show, like this:

Or you can make double-fold binding…

And it will finish up looking like this:

Either way, press your long strip, and lay out your pennants. When you have them in a pleasing order, pin them into the binding strip.

Beginning at the very end, start stitching and catch each pennant as you go.

When you get finished, you’ll have something that looks like this:

Now, to the decorating… if you want to:

First, find the cutest hands in your house. Here are the ones at my house. (Aren’t they darling?)

I wanted to match the pink in the pink prints, so I ended up mixing 2 paints to match it properly. If I’d had time to visit another store I might have been able to find an exact match… but you see those cute hands up there? Well, they were helping me shop!

Mix the paint in a bowl, and use a paper towel to blot paint onto cute hands.

Have them carefully put their prints on the pennants. I did one pair on the far left, other pair on the far right.

On the 4 middle pennants, I added some small hearts.

And then I used a Disappearing Fabric Ink pen to write the letters L-O-V-E on those 4 middle pennants. Photoshop and I worked together to show you what that step looks like: