Happy almost holidays everyone! I just wanted to tell you about a new free paper-piecing block pattern you can download from me over at Sew Mama Sew. The Icicle Star is a great block to adorn a pouch or pillow or as the center of your own medallion quilt, and the download includes 6" and 12" block templates so you can go big or small! Check it out right here!


Happy holidays!

And all through the house...not a creature was stirring...except the mom who had eleven thousand things left to do before Santa comes to visit! It's Christmas Eve Day and in our family that means two things: it's my longest day of the year, and it's also my husband's birthday, so we've got our plates doubly full for the day.

I did manage to sneak in a bit of sewing time yesterday, to finish off a quilt top for a class I'll be teaching in Minnesota next summer at the Minnesota Quilt Show, using three blocks from the 2013 Lucky Stars Block of the Month club and one more that I designed a while back. I then found the perfect box (thank you Amazon!) in my garage to ship it and the other two quilt samples for my classes up there and brought everything to UPS yesterday, which was pleasantly empty compared to my last visit over there last week!

I better get going on today's To Do list before everyone wakes up - first up, making frosting for the husband's birthday cupcakes, yum. Happy holidays to you and your family! I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas, and that you enjoy a lovely day with your family :)

I love zip pouches, just love them, can't get enough of them, and I'm hoping some of my friends feel the same way this year. I had a dream a few weeks ago about some doing a foundation paper pieced star block-of-the-month club on my blog next year, and the next morning, I sketched out five stars to get started with. I drafted them in Illustrator, and liked them so much that I wanted to make them right away...so I decided to make some them into 6" blocks and put them on the front of some zip pouches for holiday gifts.


Pouch #1
Fabrics from: Carolyn Friedlander's Architextures, various gold and aqua prints, RK Quilter's Linen in Straw


Pouch #2
Fabrics from: Cosmo Cricket's Tailor Made, Alexander Henry's Heath, Ellen Luckett Baker's Quilt Blocks, Free Spirit Designer Houndstooth, Jenean Morrison Silent Cinema, RK Quilter's Linen in Gray

Pouch #3
Fabrics: Alison Glass's Lucky Penny, various fuschia, purple, green, and blue prints, mystery black print from stash, Essex Linen in Lime

Pouch #4
Fabrics: Carolyn Friedlander's Architextures, Alison Glass's Lucky Penny, various aqua, teal, and gold prints, Essex Yarn Dyed in Black

Pouch #5
Fabrics: Carolyn Friedlander's Architextures, Joel Dewberry's Heirloom, various aqua and orange prints, RK Quilter's Linen in Azure

For the actual pouches themselves, I used Elizabeth Hartman's super detailed Perfect Zip Pouches pattern, and I highly recommend it - especially if you've had zipper troubles in the past or if you're frightened of trying zippers out. Elizabeth truly makes it easy, and I was able to learn another way to install zippers than the way I typically do for a zip pouch, so the pattern was well worth the purchase. I made pouch style C, in the large size for all of these pouches.


I hope the recipients enjoy these pouches as much as I enjoyed making them. It still surprises me how much I enjoy paper piecing these days, when it used to infuriate me so much when I first started it! Speaking of paper piecing, you be interested in a paper pieced BOM? Or am I just crazy (as usual)? I hope your holiday sewing is going well, and that you're having a great day!

And happy Christmas Eve to the rest of you :)  Good luck with any last minute holiday to do's you've got left to take care of today!  I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and I'll see you next week after the dust settles.