Winners!

Congrats, deserae and Shannon! I'll contact you guys soon!Don't be too disappointed about not winning this giveaway!You can always snatch your own Winter Woolies pattern here at Kerry's etsy shop! It's a truly amazing pattern with lots of possibilities! 
Thanks for stopping by! 

Scissors Block

Hope you are having a great weekend! It's a Sunday morning in Japan.
I thought I would post this before we go on a long bike ride today.It's a scissors block for Amisha in the patchwork 318 bee.In this bee, we use block patterns in Kumiko Fujita'sPatchwork 318 book (which is unfortunately completelyout of print) and use our own fabric. I love this concept of this bee.Just the right amount of challenges ;) Not too hard but not too easy either.
I know Amisha is a big fan of Kumiko Fujita and Suzuko Koseki,so I used a lot of fabrics designed by these two Japanesetextile designers! The "Quilt Work America" fabric ismy lucky find from auction. It's a very old Kumiko Fujita print. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to snatch it for my block for Amisha!
Would you say it turned out too busy...?Keeping my fingers crossed Amisha will like it!

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of the weekend ;)

Kerry's Winter Woolies Pattern - Giveaway!

Thank you so much for everyone who left comments on my organizer baskets tutorial! It's been so fun and rewarding to see your baskets popping up in the Pink Penguin flickr pool.I also enjoyed hearing about your plans for your baskets' usein the comments. I'll make a list of your ideas for the basketsand add it at the end of the tutorial post sometime soon.
I wanted to share with you a few projects I whipped up in this past few weeks. The mittens above were made usingKerry's first paper pieced pattern for sale! Isn't it the most adorable thing?! Have you seen Amy's take on it?Such loveliness! I especially love those mittens, so I am making a tea cozy with these blocks for my new small tea pot. (I enlarged the pattern quite a bit.)The pink mitten is mine and the other one is Joe's. When I saw the creature fabric, I had to snatch it right away because it was the Joe-est fabric I have ever seen! Joe doesn'tlike the fabric, but hopefully he'll change his mind after seeing a tea cozy, hehe.
Here is one of several tissue box covers I made for friends.I had quite a few failure attempts in making this pattern,but I ended up coming up with a pattern that is just a perfect fitfor a Japanese standard tissue box (it's so short!).I'll have to make one for myself!

And this is a block for Angela in Stash Trad bee.This is her original pattern called Cracker Scraps, and you can findher super easy to follow tutorial here! With her clear tutorial, I was able to make this without making a single mistake. It felt so good!!
Ok now to a giveaway! Kerry has allowed me to giveaway her Winter Woolies pattern to one lucky Pink Penguin reader!For your chance to win the pattern, leave one commentin this post by the midnight of October 26th. Good luck :)
Thank you for stopping by! Hope you are staying warm!

12 Gifts of Christmas Blog Hop: Organizer Basket Tutorial

I was flattered when Jennifer of Ellison Lane Quilts kindly
asked me to be a part of 12 gifts of Christmas Blog Hop! You've probably read about it over Jennifer's already by now,but we are bringing you 12 free tutorials on Christmas gift makings! One tute per day through October 25th!Sounds fun, right?! Jennifer started it off with a fabulous double sided pace mat tutorial yesterday and here I am hosting a second stop
with a tutorial on how to make these
easy-peasy organizer baskets!

Not ready to think about Christmas yet?

Me neither, but we know it will come before we know it!

Jennifer picked this perfect timing to get this rolling

so that we have plenty of time to whip up gifts!

It's been over a year since I last posted a tutorial, 

so I was a bit nervous writing this up, although it is

probably the easiest project among all sewing tutes 

I have ever written, hehe. Hopefully I took enough pictures

so that the visual will help you through! If you have any
questions about this tute, you know you can contact me anytime!

Ok, here you go!

To make one basket, you'll need two 13" x 7" cotton rectangles
(one for exterior, one for interior) and one piece of
cotton batting that is just a little larger than 13" x 7".

Spray the wrong side of the interior piece and add the batting.

Quilt as desired. I like mine diagonal cross hatch quilted.
I marked a line from one corner to the point where it's 6" from the other corner.

Quilt along the line. (My stitch length was set at 3.0)

This quilter accessory is such a big help!
I sew while guiding the quilter over the previous row of stitching.
(My quilting lines are approximately 3/4" apart from each other.)

Like that. If your sewing machine didn't come with
this accessory, you can mark parallel lines throughout the interior piece.

Here is how this looks after diagonal quilting is done.

Now mark a line perpendicular to the stitching and quilt in the same manner.




Yay quilting is done!




Chop off the excess.




Now fold in half the piece with right sides together lengthwise
and sew both short edges. (1/4" seam allowance)


 

Time to box corners!




Mark where the seam line is at 1 1/4" from both sides.
(2.5" long from one edge to the other.) Sew along the marked line.




Cut off the corner. Leave a small seam allowance.




Repeat the same process for the other short edge so that
your quilted interior looks like this.




Do the same with the exterior piece.




With right sides together, place the exterior inside the
interior. Match seams and pin in place.




I like to start sewing just about 3" away from the seam.




Leave about 1 1/2" wide opening. Turn the right side out from the opening.



Press the opening.




Top-stitching!




Now you've finished making this organizer basket!
(Finished size: 2"H x 9 1/2"W x 2 1/2"D)
These nicely soft baskets serve well as drawer organizers/utensil trays,
but if you want to stabilize the baskets a little,
you can alternate the pattern by using interfacing on
the back of the exterior and/or using stiffer batting and/or...



Top-stitching four corners.




Your basket will be more squarish like this.
(these were made in the same way except for top-
stitched corners.)




This basket is a perfect size to put together 16 spools of Gutermann 250m
threads for a gift. (Oh I just had a vision of this basket filled with spools
and one big handle in the middle! That would make a cute gift, wouldn't it?)




Or maybe pen holders? Whatever you or the recipients
of your baskets can think of :) Lots of possibilities!

I would love to see your baskets in this flickr pool and
here for anything you made using tutorials in this blog hop!


Fabric used: Sew Cherry and Kei

I hope you'll find some great inspiration for Christmas

gift makings by hopping over these amazing blogs.

I am so looking forward to seeing what they'll come up with
because I haven't decided what I will be making for Christmas yet!

 Friday, October 14- Jennifer/ Ellison Lane Quilts

Saturday, October 15- Ayumi/Pink Penguin
Sunday, October 16- Amy/ Lots of Pink Here
Monday, October 17- Faith/Fresh Lemons Quilts
Tuesday, October 18- Penny/Sew Take a Hike
Wednesday, October 19- Kati/From the Blue Chair
Thursday, October 20- Lee/Freshly Pieced
Friday, October 21- Elizabeth/Don't Call Me Betsy
Saturday, October 22- Melanie/Texas Freckles
Sunday, October 23- Lindsay/Craft Buds
Monday, October 24- Amanda/A Crafty Fox
Tuesday, October 25-Vanessa/Little Big Girl Studio

 Oh and to make this blog hop more exciting, there are

a giveaway at each blog stop AND a grand prize you could win

- $250 gift certificate to fabricworm! (Yes you heard it right :))

Enter to win a $25 gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop by leaving

one comment on this post by the midnight on October 26th.
I'll have the random number generator
pick a winner for me on October 26th. 

Make sure to leave a comment on Jennifer's tutorial
for the the chance to win the grand prize!

And just for stopping by, you can take advantage of a generous 

15% off discount at Fabricworm with the coupon code fw12days 

through the end of the blog hop.

Thank you for your time to stop by!

Mini Cross Quilt + Pinnie

September 30th was my fabulous friend Kerry's birthday!
I whipped up a mini quilt and a matching pinnie for her
earlier last month so that my gift for her would get there
on time. I surprised myself by finishing them up way before
the deadline - a week before her birthday. Unusual of me :D She gave me such a pretty pillow
for my birthday/house warming gift. (which I'll show
you how wonderfully it looks in my craft space once I am
done setting it up!) It is the cutest and most meaningfulpillow I have ever owned! I knew I would not be able to makeanything comparable, but I still wanted to send her
handmade love :)



Choosing fabrics for this quilt could not have
been more enjoyable, because each and every fabric
used here is what I know Kerry likes! Kumiko Fujita,
Suzuko Koseki, Denyse Schmidt, Lori Holt, cooking,
sewing, typography, vintage fabric, and linen - so ya,
we share the love for lots of fabric designs! And
you know it makes quite a big difference when
you are making something with the fabric not
only you but the recipient covet!




At the time I was making this, I didn't have a quilting
spay on hand, so the quilting didn't come out as flat
and nice as I had envisioned, but I like the fact it has more
"handmade feel" to it because of my not-so-great quilting.




Kerry has inspired me to use alphabet stamps for sewing
craft. If you are a big fan of everything she makes
like me, I bet you too have wondered about stamps
(if you have yet bought them :) I still need practiceto get better impression!



Here is a matching pinnie!Sewing teeny tiny pieces is another thing we both love :)



The back side is her initial 'K' pieced.


I had been meaning to blog about these on her birthday,
but I was busy whipping up tissue box covers for my
friends this past weekend. I'll be back to show you one
of the tissue box covers I made and hopefully other things too.
In the meantime, don't forget to check out Kerry's
great freezer paper/paper piecing tutorial and to
enter her birthday giveaway!

Thank you for letting me share my creations :)