Archives for August 2012

My mom (Grandma Jane) is back today with another fun tutorial.  I am doing my best right now to balance keeping up with the blog, my Etsy shop, pattern sales and writing my book, but it is a lot….oh yeah, and my two most important jobs…..mommy and wife.  I know I wouldn’t even have all of these amazing opportunities if it weren’t for you guys, the readers of The Cottage Home blog, so I just want to make sure that you don’t feel like I have left you hanging in the creative department (since a lot of what I’m working on can’t be revealed until a later date). Thankfully, Mom has agreed to help lighten my load and guest blog more frequently with some quilting tutorials. Mom’s are the best, aren’t they?

And on top of her being so kind to put together these tutorials, she is offering a GIVEAWAY today that she put together all on her own.  How sweet is that?  So, make sure you check out at the bottom of this blog post for more information on how to enter!  Take it away, Mom……..

Lindsay and I were lucky enough to be able to say hello to Pat Sloan at her booth at Quilt Market in Kansas City and see her new fabric line, “Eat Your Fruit and Veggies.”

At the time, I thought the line was really cute! I loved the name of the line and the inclusion of batiks with the more traditional prints was an interesting twist. I couldn’t resist ordering some of the charm packs (which do not include the batiks) and when they arrived at my doorstep, I went a little crazy. Usually with new fabric, I spend days or weeks (or months) trying to decide what to do with it but not this! I immediately knew that these darling charm packs with the bright, lively and happy colors were going to be made into half square triangles (HSTs) accented with white and I would decide the quilt details later. So there I was late at night immediately cutting white fabric squares and sewing away. I love the versatility of the simple HST and thought I would share how easy these are to make.

Cut your background fabric squares the same size as the charms—5” squares. I was using 2 charm packs of 42 so I cut 84 white background squares. This will make 168 finished 4 ½ inch HSTs.

With a pencil or marking pen, mark diagonal lines on the wrong side of the background fabric squares. I like to mark all the squares at once.

Place one charm square and back ground fabric with right sides together.

Stitch a scant ¼ inch away from the diagonal line on one side. This is where “chain-stitching” will come in handy. Don’t lift up the presser foot. Place another pair of a background square and a charm under the presser foot and keep stitching. Do not cut the thread. I stitched 15-20 pairs together at a time. You can do more or less.

Cut the thread and flip the squares around and chain stitch down the other side a scant ¼ away. Now you have a pile of all these little squares connected by two threads. Cut apart.

Place each square on your cutting board and line up your ruler with the drawn pencil line. Cut along this line with your rotary cutter to cut each square in half. Take care that you do not cut into the stitched lines.

Set your seams with your iron. Press open with the seam toward the darker fabric.

Square up the HSTs to 4 ½ inches. This takes some time but you will be glad you did it when you start to sew your squares together. Line up your 45 degree line along the diagonal seam and cut off the little bit on the right side. Turn your square with the newly trimmed edge to the bottom and measure again. Cut if needed.

PS: You can find more tutorials from Grandma Jane including her piecing, quilting and binding tutorials by clicking HERE.