Holiday Small Things - Finished!

It’s that time of year! The big finishes are secrets, but there’s also lots of little finishes in between, so… Here’s a pile of the little stuff, in holiday order!

THANKSGIVING TRIVETS

My neighbor asked for Thanksgiving trivets, and I bought a bundle of this fabric from Walmart or Tuesday Morning a few years ago. She said she was fine with scrappy patchwork, so I cut out two 12” squares from the focal fabrics, then everything else into 3” strips.

A bit of strip piecing later and voila - trivets! I double stacked Insul-bright interfacing and quilted them with a turkey design, which you totally can’t see at all.

See!? Totally on theme and then I just sewed on the backing and Mr. Turkey disappeared. Ah well, I know he’s there.

The top stitching was a delight with two layers of Insul-bright, but whatever. Not offering them for sale so they don’t need to be perfect. Neighbors get the almost perfect stuff. (Sorry, Judy!)

thanksgiving table runner

And then, since I had plenty of 3” strips leftover (it was a five fat quarter bundle), I kept piecing and piecing and piecing until I had a lovely runner for my own Thanksgiving table. In true last minute fashion, I put the binding on just before putting the turkey in the oven, and hand stitched it to the back while racing the roast. (I won. Barely.)

I didn’t take a picture of the quilting, but it’s a scrolly border design that fit nicely onto the 15” of runner.

CHRISTMAS PILLOWS

And then… So I should probably mention that I was quilting all this on a flat sheet - I like to do this a couple of times a year and just quilt up the accumulated leftover projects and pillow covers. In this case, I also had two pillow covers from my mother in law to longarm, so I was just slapping whatever fit on the sheet in between.

One of those things that isn’t pictured here is the scrappy version of Oh What Fun - you’ll have to wait until next week to see that! I used a 10” square/layer cake (Gingerbread & Holly by Connecting Threads) to make the scrappy version, which left me with leftover pieces that were 10” wide but varying lengths. I sewed them all together on the 10” side, cut the strips in half (so I had two 5” x Really Long Strips.) Then I cut them into 19” sections, sewed those together, and voila - two Christmas pillows!

Those were quilted with a lovely holly single block design, which again, you can’t see on the front. So here’s a quick shot of the back before it was turned. Ooh, ahh, so pretty!

They are backed, envelope-style, in the red main print from Gingerbread & Holly. (Which is now sold out unless you get it in a kit or fat quarter sampler.)

And already on the couch! And yes, my village is already up. We did the lights outside today while my oldest was home from college, and the inside decorations are slowly getting changed over.

Then finally, as before mentioned, I made the scrappy version of Oh What Fun. I had a few squares leftover, so I made a small fabric coaster.

It’s quilted with a single fancy candy cane from an edge-to-edge design. And I forgot to take a picture with the back, but I used a small bit of the Gingerbread & Holly red that was leftover from making the pillow backs. So it’s just scrappy all the way down.

Tune in next week for the scrappy version of Oh What Fun, followed by Christmas stockings, followed by…well, not the t-shirt quilts until after Christmas. So probably more little things, whee!

Stay Organized, Quilt More: Favorite Planners for Quilters

I am still a paper planner girlie, mainly because I can't convince my family to get on board with a Skylight. We have a standard desk calendar on the wall, and I write out my social media posts in a very old school basic monthly planner - not even color coded for blog vs Instagram!

But I drool over all the pretty planners in existence, and dream about being the kind of person who will actually be organized on a regular basis if only I had the perfect planner.

So I started looking and...there's not much out there. Did we already pass the heyday of quilting planners? I swear I remember every designer making one. So much for that Christmas present idea. Here's a few sort-of planner options:

Photo Courtesy of For Creatives Publishing

THE QUILTER’S PLANNER

There's the OG of planners, the only one still going strong: the Quilter's Planner. And it's incredibly customizable; packed full of patterns, resources, and to-do lists; heck, you can even pick your binding. Because all quilters have a preferred binding method!

(Psst - 10% off with the code QPKATIEMAE!!)

Photo Courtesy of C&T Publishing

the quilter’s project planner

The Quilter's Project Planner isn't calendar based, but since it tracks the details about twelve different projects, it could be a monthly thing! I want to tackle my UFOs in 2026 (I say that every year) so the project wheel tracker could be a motivator.

Photo Courtesy of Aurora + Holly

PRINTABLE PROJECT CARDS

Or, you can get a free printable project card from Aurora + Holly! (You can buy printed ones in her shop if you're a Canadian.) Then you're not limited to twelve projects. You can just start another new one…and another…and…

Photo Courtesy of Jennifer Lopez / By the Yard Comics

BY THE YARD CALENDAR

Okay, so I know I'm probably not going to keep up with an actual planner...but a monthly wall calendar? Featuring a cute Featherweight-esque machine who knows exactly what fuels my sewing room? I can manage to flip a page once a month!

Photo Courtesy of the Fat Quarter Shop

HAPPINESS IS HANDMADE

Or, the Handmade Happiness calendar with illustrations by Nicole Tamarin includes digital downloads to use the monthly pictures as computer/device backgrounds, so you’ll always have a bit of quilty fun with you.

Photo Courtesy of C&T Publishing

THE QUILTER’S DATE KEEPER

The Quilters Date Keeper isn't exactly a calendar, but a place to write down the recurring yearly dates. Like all my nieces and nephews who were born on the 4th. Or the 6th. Maybe? Featuring the scrappiness of Bonnie Hunter!

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BOMs Away - Eternal Bloom November

This is probably the least exciting month for Eternal Bloom. Or, well, December is probably also going to be boring because I’m going to make my mother and sister help me sort and cut all the black bits for the remaining blocks over Christmas. But for now, most boring month ever!

The plan for this month was to cut and piece the boring filler sections, to make sure that I have enough green (yes) and black (probably not) to finish the quilt. I already cut the large black pieces and green border for the last blocks that I need to make, so in theory, I’ve cut all the necessary green and have about 1/8 yard left. (Who was worried? Not me!)

My mother-in-law already picked up another two yards of the black for me, so that should be good! I have enough to finish the border sections, but the extra two yards will add the stop border and binding. So whew - now I have no excuses to finish!

The deets

Pam Bono’s Out of the Darkness / Eternal Bloom / A New Beginning - out of print and extremely hard to find (believe me, I tried)

Fabric: Block of the Month kits from a quilt shop that closed in 2015

BOMS AWAY FOR EVERYONE

BOMs Away Monday is currently being hosted on Facebook - please join and post your block of the months in the group!

Oh What Fun - A Finished Mini Quilt Pattern

After a good three years in development, I am more than pleased to introduce…the Oh What Fun mini quilt pattern!

THE PATTERN

Yes, seriously - I came up with this idea way back during my younger son’s holiday party in fifth grade. He’s now in eighth. And I promised it to everyone back in 2023 when the Peppermint was a Quilt Block Mania block. And I even ordered all the Shimmer fabric for the cover quilt at the end of 2024!

The pattern is based on blocks from my Scraphabet and Just Desserts Block of the Months.

Everything got delayed a bit as I tried to figure out the best way to write the pattern for both scrappy and non-scrappy. As you can see, the non-scrappy version was finished first. But now that it’s done, I realized how amazing it can be and immediately started a remake in the scrappy version!

(Also, I’m remaking it because I planned out a series of weekly emails that go along with the pattern, and I forgot to take pictures of the steps that need to be done weekly. So…yeah, I’ll be slightly ahead of the emails, but not as far as I had planned!)

Anyway - the Oh What Fun mini quilt pattern - get it here! You can make it all non-scrappy, like the cover quilt. You can make it with scrappy letters and single background yardage. You can make it with single letter yardage and scrappy background fabric. Or you can make it all scrappy, all the time.

The pattern also comes with the aforementioned weekly emails - assuming I got the automation set up correctly. So if you want it broken into shorter weekly steps, plus a Christmas movie recommendation to watch while you sew, plus a cookie recipe because obviously cookies are the best part of Christmas - buy it right away! Emails start on Monday, November 24th. I have no idea if they’ll go out as scheduled after that. Technology is hard.

THE FABRIC

The fabric is Shimmer Basics by Connecting Threads, because…shimmer. Obvi. For the cover quilt, I did alternating red and green letters, with the peppermint in red. That’s not at all a requirement - I just thought it would be fun.

Since the minimum order for Connecting Threads (and many online shops) is 1/2 yard, and you barely need a 1/4 yard for the letters, I used the white and red leftovers to make my backing. Like a peppermint stripe, get it? I dunno, I don’t normally piece backings, y’all. I’m trying.

The leftover green became the binding and hanging corners. It’s actually going to be hanging in an art gallery in December!

THE QUILTING

The quilting is Jingle Bells. I make no apologies. I love a theme! (I hope the song is in your head, for the entire season.)

25x31”

Oh What Fun Mini Quilt Pattern

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