Making Beginner Charm Pack Placemats Placemats with Sherri and The Fat Quarter Shop

I just finished a great project that's perfect for quilters of all skill levels, especially beginners.

 Sherri's Beginner Charm Pack Placemats!

You all know my friend Sherri McConnell from A Quilting Life?  Well, she just did another video tutorial with Kimberly from The Fat Quarter Shop. 

In this video they show us how to make Beginner Charm Pack Placemats!

It's a perfect way to use that Charm Pack that you love, but hasn't found its way into a quilt yet.

 It's also a great time to try out your free motion quilting skills or that new stitch that you've been interested in using!

You can watch the new Fat Quarter Shop video on their YouTube Channel right now by clicking here or by clicking on the arrow below.

I made my placemats primarily with the Summer Fest fabric line to give my kitchen a bright, happy feeling.

It was difficult to choose which fabrics to use for the larger squares and which to use for the four patch units, because I wanted to feature all of the fabric!









Originally, I had planned to use white fabric for the 2 1/2 inch strips along the sides of the placemats.

 I thought that would frame my Summer Fest fabric nicely and make my striped binding really pop.

I had cut out my white fabric strips and I was all ready to go, but when I got the center section of the placemat completed,  I was so pleased with it that I didn't want to put the white strips on the sides.

I set it down for awhile to think about it, before I committed to the square shape of my placemats.








In the end square was the way to go for me!

I'm thinking of it as in between a placemat and a mug rug.

More along the lines of a snack mat.

A perfect addition to my kitchen this summer with my teen boys at home!

As you can imagine, someone is always grabbing a quick snack!  

I like that the projects in these tutorials can be easily customized to your needs and quickly adapted to what you like as you go along.

In fact, I just had to make a few extra four patches with Sherri's quick and easy method because it was so fun!

I'll be saving the extra four patches I made for projects in the future, or maybe even another pincushion. 

After that last video tutorial from Kimberly and Sherri, I have pincushion fever!  

If you didn't get a chance to see the pincushion video tutorial from The Fat Quarter Shop, you can check it out here or got to my last blog post and to view it.

Stop by and visit these other stops in the Beginner Charm Pack Placemat Blog Hop and of course the Fat Quarter Shop's Blog The Jolly Jabber  for more placemat inspiration!

Amanda from Jedi Craft Girl

Nicole from Modern Handcraft

Jessica from Quilty Habit

Tina from Emily Ann's Kloset

Greg from Grey Dogwood Studio

Melissa from Happy Quilting

The Fat Quarter Shop Pincushion Sew Along with Sherri McConnell

Aren't pincushions fun?

They're cute, useful and quick and easy to make!

 I'm so excited to show you the cute pincushion I made over the weekend using the new Cute As A Button Pincushion video on the Fat Quarter Shop YouTube Channel designed by Sherri McConnell for The Fat Quarter Shop!

After I watched this instructional video featuring Kimberly from the The Fat Quarter Shop and Sherri from A Quilting Life,  I raced over to my cutting area, pulled out my fabrics and my rotary cutter, and got started. 

It was that easy!

You can watch the video here by clicking on the arrow.

I used the Valley fabric line by Sherri and Chelsi for my pincushion

 The combination of light and dark fabrics worked great for this project.

The ribbon I chose was loosely woven and I was a little concerned that the ends might fray and get kind of messy while I was sewing up the sides.

A quick zig zag stitch over the ends of my ribbon fixed that right up and there was no fraying at all!

For the back, I wanted to use a piece of fabric from the Valley line which wasn't a heavy fabric like Kimberly recommended in the video.

To make my backing fabric a little heavier, I simply layered a piece of muslin the same size as my backing fabric piece wrong sides together, and stitched an eighth of an inch away from the edges all the way around the rectangle to hold the two layers together.

This gave the back of my pincushion a little more weight and stability to contain the walnut shell pieces.

    

Now, I have an adorable new pincushion to add to my growing collection!

There are some that I've made and some that I've been gifted by friends.

Sewing my Valley pincushion made me interested in creating a few more.

I'll definitely be using lots of those walnut shells soon!    

If you make one of Sherri's pincushions yourself, and I hope you do, use the hashtag #cuteasabuttonpincushion when you're sharing, so we can see what you created!

Be sure to check out the Fat Quarter Shop's latest pincushion blog post at the Jolly Jabber, along with the other stops on the Fat Quarter Shop Pincushion Sew Along with Sherri to see more versions of this cute pincushion.

Kitty from Night Quilter

Amanda from Jedi Craft Girl

Nicole from Modern Handcraft

Jessica from Quilty Habit

Jessee from Art School Dropout

Tina from Emily Ann's Kloset

Angie from Gnome Angel

Sinta from Pink Pin Cushion

Melissa from Happy Quilting

Thanks for stopping by!

Popsicle Mini

Happy Monday!

It's all about my Popsicle Mini today!

This one was so fun to make.

I hope to keep my momentum going with it and get it quilted soon.

 It would be so fun to have it out for summer!

 I used a new table runner pattern called Mini Popsicles by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree and Co.

These Popsicles were calling out, "Make me into a mini quilt!" So I did a little math and I made a few changes and I came up with this!

Joanna will be releasing a pattern for a big version of Popsicles very soon and I just might have to make one of those too.

I've seen a sneak peek and its adorable!

The background fabrics here are various low volume pieces that I've been collecting recently.

I especially love the orange bird fabric, although I usually don't like birds on fabric.

I don't know why.  It's just not my thing.

The fabrics for the Popsicles are mostly Noteworthy by Sweetwater. 

There's also some Nine Dots by Carrie Nelson and a few Sunkissed scraps, also by Sweetwater,  leftover from my Endless Summer quilt.

Last summer, I bought a Popsicle mold set and made lots Popsicles for the boys to eat after summer cross country runs.

The Popsicles made from from leftover smoothie were delicious, so when there was any left in the Vitamix, I pulled out the Popsicle molds and filled a few up.

I'm planning on making our first batch of the summer today.

 This one has got to be one of my favorite summer quilts, but I'll bet you already figured that out!

It doesn't get much more fun than making a simple Popsicle quilt at the beginning of summer.

I'm going to get out those Popsicle molds and make some smoothie right now.

See you later!

  

Popsicles on Parade and a winner too!

It's June!  What a happy month!

We're deep into high school exams right now during the last week of school and we're all looking forward to a fun, relaxing summer!

I can't think of a better way to begin this summer than with some cool treats to celebrate.

How about a Popsicle Parade?

For the Minis and More pattern this month Sherri from A Quilting Life and I chose the new Mini Popsicle pattern by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree and Co.

It's a pattern for a table runner, but I've seen it turned into some other fun projects too!

Take a look at Mindy's projects this month!

She made two!

The first is this adorable table runner, quite possibly the cutest red, white, and blue table runner I've ever seen!  

This cute little mini also belongs to Mindy.

I love the summery colors she used and also that beautiful yellow border she added.  Really creative Mindy!

The next Popsicle mini quilt is mine. 

I liked these Popsicles so much that I just had to make a few more and they turned into a mini quilt!

I offset the rows a bit so the Popsicles would look like they were scattered around and I added a little extra spacing between some of the Popsicles too.

I can't wait to get this one quilted and in use as a cheerful summer decoration!  

You can find the rest of the Popsicle Parade on Sherri's blog A Quilting Life.

I know there are some amazing versions of Mini Popsicles over there!

And on to our prize winner!

After our last Parade, Sherri and I chose a Minis and More prize winner and it was Hildy!

Hildy's prize package was mailed to her in Germany.

More prizes are to follow for our next Minis and More winner.

You're entered once in the drawing for each time you enter a project in a Parade, and a winner will be chosen each quarter.

The next Parade will be the first of July, so Sherri's Star Bright Mini seemed like a great selection for our next pattern!  

You can find the pattern here in Sherri's etsy shop.

I don't know about you, but I plan to make mine in red, white and blue.

Photo borrowed with permission from Sherri at A Quilting Life.

This would look amazing in any color scheme.

Sherri's is made with her Bright Sun fabric line.

You could even get ahead for Christmas and make it in holiday colors.

 The sky is the limit!

Photo borrowed with permission from Sherri at A Quilting Life.

In fact, Sherri also has a full size version of Star Bright listed in her shop if you're motivated to make a large quilt this time. 

Just email Sherri or I a picture of your quilt to be included in next month's Parade before July 1st.

See you at the Parade!