Valentine's Day Candle Mat and Table Runner

Pinterest and Craftsy have been so inspiring for me! And a bit addicting, as I am sure they probably are for most of you too. 

When looking for valentines day projects I started with fabric before I decided what to make. While on a trip to Joann's If found some great flannel solids on sale so I bought four colors of pink and then white as well. 

Next I set out cutting squares out, I did all my cutting first and then started creating  patchwork heart sets. I decided on making a table runner and a candle mat. 

For the candle mat it was pretty simple, I just took the heart block patter consisting of squares and half square triangles and sewed them together and then added the backing, backing, and binding. I did stitch in the ditch, with my decorative heart stitch around the heart shape for quilting. 

The table runner consisted of three of the heart squares, each with a different background color and heart color. Then I used white sashing and a white backing and binding. I stitched in the ditch around the hearts on this as well, but I also added some decorative heart stitching on the sashing, utilizing pink thread to help it stand out. 

If I were to re-do the table runner I would have put the hearts side by side, horizontally instead of up and down, vertically as they are in the picture below. However, for my first attempts at sewing with flannel while doing patchwork I felt pretty good about these two projects. 

Weekend Update

This weekend went by way to fast! So instead of making three post to cover Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'm just going to put everything in one post. 

Friday I didn't get much time to work on my quilting, I mainly looked up potential patterns to try to decide what I would want to do with the items that came in my Craftsy grab bag box that I purchased. 

Items In my Craftsy Grab Bag (Fabric Covered Journal, 4 2 inch by 2 inch Moda Mini Charm Packs, a May Fair charm pack, a Roll of 20 coordinating fabrics that are 6 inches wide and 44 inches long, and a Robert Kauffman Fat Quarter Bundle of 10 coordinating fabrics. 

On Friday I didn't decide on what to start next, but I did update my Craftsy account to add my latest projects, including my completed candle mats. When I did that I also pinned the info to my Pinterest. And to my surprise before bed while I was surfing pinterest I saw that Craftsy had repinned my own pin--- and from that 25 people had also pinned it! 

Of Course, I took a Photo of it to share!

As of tonight (Sunday) 42 people have repinned and 8 have liked it! Made me very proud! 

Saturday was spent mainly at work, I worked in the morning and then had my office holiday party in the evening. To ensure I got my next project going I picked a pattern to work of with my Craftsy grab box materials. I decided to use inspiration from Melissa at the Polka Dot Chair blog. She had made quick and easy quilts for her kids using blocks of 6.5 inch by 9.5 inch fabrics. I decided to use my 6 inch cuts to build this quilt so I wouldn't have to do a bunch of cutting. My blocks would be 6 inches by 8.5 I decided because this would allow me to get five blocks from each fabric and have very little waste. So between work and the holiday party I got started on ironing and cutting out my blocks, but didn't get much further than that. 

Sunday, I spent the morning baking cookies for our HOA's annual Ladies Luncheon and Cookie Exchange, but when I returned from the luncheon I set forth working off the calories by cutting fabric. I got all my blocks cut out (with only one small miss cut-- where I cut 2 blocks an inch shorter than they needed to be) and then took them to the living room to space plan. 

I liked how in Melissa's quilt she had a row that was offset, and you cut the first block in that row in half and then moved the second part of it to the end of that row. So I did my planning and decided instead of doing 7 blocks across, and 12 blocks down as I planned I would do 6 blocks by 12 and it'd be a good size for use in our living room. 

I went forth with sewing each row together, first the ones with all standard blocks, then the ones with the 1/2 block, I chain pieced each row, and ironed them all at once instead of between stitchings, this saved me a ton of time. I should have done that when I was working on the Christmas Tree Skirt (Live and Learn I guess!). 

Once I started linking the rows I realized that the rows with the 1/2 blocks were a 1/4 inch shorter than the whole block rows due to seam allowance. I also had found the blocks weren't all a perfect 6 inches tall. So when I got everything sewed together I laid it out on my living room floor and took my long ruler to one side and started trimming. I ended up getting it cut straight 66.5 Inches Long by 46.5 Inches Wide, can't say I had a good method for doing this but I got the job done and was happy with the result. 

I have to say I would have never chose the fabrics on my own, but I love them. I'm a huge fan of purple and the husbands a big fan of green so this will look really nice in our house. 

To finish the quilt I'll need to go get backing fabric, batting, and a binding fabric (which I'm thinking solid purple for both of those). I can't wait to get going on finishing the quilt so we can use it. I will probably choose to stitch in the ditch which is what Melissa of Polka Dot Chair did.

Candle Mats

As I shared yesterday, my goal today was to create Candle Mat's that could be used as gifts, my inspiration for this was a Pinterest pin of an Etsy product (which if you don't want to make yourself you can buy for about $15). 

After purchasing some white fabric and navy fabric I decided to make my candle mats with the navy snowman fabric I had been using in my holiday projects. I love this fabric because it's holiday but doesn't scream Christmas. 

To make my candle mats I wanted to do a 10.5 by 10.5 square, and I didn't want to have to make 8 half square triangles per candle mat, so I made large pin wheels with only four sides. So all together I created 3 candle mats, with the use of 6 HST's made from originally 6 inch by 6 inch square (I make them big and cut them down to ensure it looks like had good accuracy). The first square I did on it's own, but when I started the second I decided to do all the cuts for the third as well and produce them at the same time, turned out to be a great idea because I wasn't switching task all the time. 

I used pinwheel instructions from Quilts for Kids which is a non-profit organization that collects quilts for kids who have illnesses or hardships going on in their lives. (Seems like a good organization, and once I get to making quilts I would love to do something like this.) 

The three mats turned out really well I think, I loved how the backs turned out the most. 

The back almost looks like a snowflake pattern because I kept my bobbin thread white.

On the top I quilted each individual pinwheel, for white I used navy thread, for the snowman fabric I used white thread. And handy dandy,stitch 23. 

The interesting thing about stitching these versus my last projects is I was just using regular cotton thread so I was able to up the speed on my machine to full blast and it was fun! I zipped right through each pinwheel segment. I also kept my 1/4 foot quilting foot on the machine which I don't know should have been left on, but it allowed me to make sure I was leaving the right amount of space so all of the pinwheel segments were quilted in the same way. 

All Three Completed Candle Mats, one with a candle to show scale. 

This is a candle mat on top of our sub-woofer. I figured if it's going to be in the living room it might as well be festive. 

Just another picture but on our end table. 

I am certainly glad I made three, I might make a few more even. I am going to keep one for myself and I have two that will be gifts and I'm super excited to finally get to share my quilted pieces with other people. 

Now I just need to get some quilting tags so I can put created by on each one :)