Today’s Meet and Make blogger is Road Home Quilting. Road Home Quilting is a quilting blog with regular quilting posts and tutorials.
Let’s meet the team at Road Home Quilting!
10 Fun Facts about Road Home Quilting:
1. Road Home Quilting is a family team of three; Mom designs, Alex blogs, and Kitty Pearl supervises and personally tests each pattern for fun and functionality.
2. Pearl is a talented Kitty; she also writes quilty stories, Pearl’s Posts, for Alex’s blog. [Please watch http://roadhomequilting.blogspot.com for Pearl’s Posts.]
3. Mom’s favorite sport (after quilting, of course) is crew rowing. Yes, she took a class and even won a skulling race in a team of eight!
4. We believe each quilt tells a story. Mom’s designs all start with a title of the dream we want to share.
5. Alex’s favorite color is blue. When you see blue in a Road Home Quilting project, you can thank Alex for getting it in there.
6. Speaking of blue, Alex has a big blue LQS bike. Yes, we won a bike at Quilt Bloggers Meetup, and since it is blue…Alex rides everyday.
7. Do you know why the quilt book reviews on our RHQ blog are so amazing? Mom was a librarian. She also applies her research talents in our Totally Tech Tuesday blog reports, where Mom hunts for quilty tools on the web for maximizing the computer in your sewing room.
8. Alex is the best stitcher in the family. Mom has made some amazing silk ribbon projects, but Alex is a natural talent. Pearl just hides pins.
9. We love patterns – collecting, reading, study, everything! And we want to share pattern fun everywhere. That is why Road Home Quilting patterns have an extra one-of-a-kind feature; each pattern cover is a real postcard you mail!
10. Shhhh, can you keep a secret? August 6 is not really Kitty Pearl’s birthday. If you are Kitty Pearl’s Facebook friend, you may have noticed her profile lists her birthday as 8/6. But Pearl is a rescue Kitty, so we don’t know when her real birthday is. We chose August 6 in memory of Alex’s Great Grandma Lola, who taught us the real meaning of home.
Here is Road Home Quilting’s Project:
Quilted Candy Corn Pillow
Materials:
- 2 fat quarters each of white, orange, and another color fabric
- Batting – about 40″ x 24″ or 20″ x 48″
- Halloween-themed cookie cutters and ink pad (optional)
- Stuffing (feel free to use fabric scraps for stuffing)
Instructions:
1. Cut fat quarters in half to create 9″ strips. Join the strips into 3 very long bands with orange in the middle.
2. Press seams flat. Direction doesn’t matter in this step.
3. Make a Candy Corn pattern. [Recycle Tip: We use grocery bags for pattern papers.] Pattern is a triangle, 24″ tall with 20″ base. Use a cup or bowl to help you draw round corners. Center your pattern over your stripes. Mark both edges of the orange stripe on your pattern to create “register marks,” that will help accurately reposition the pattern.
4. Start cutting out some Candy Corn! [Tip: We like pan lids for pattern weights.] Flip your pattern upside down with each cut. Remember to use the register marks to re-align your pattern.
5. Sort pieces. Some will have white on top, some will have white on bottom. Decide if pillows will have matching backs or reversed backs. Pair pillow pieces. [If making one pillow, you will have a reversed back] Notice that orange band now appears to be the largest stripe. Spooky!
6. Press pillow pieces so that seams run opposite on each piece, and will easily nest together when pillow is assembled.
7. Layer pieces with batting. No backing necessary. We like spray basting, but any method will work here. Fusible craft batting is also suitable.
8. Quilt as desired!
Quilting Tool TRICK: Turn cookie-cutters into quilting stencils. Ink holiday themed cookie cutters with a stamp pad. Use washable ink if you are stamping on quilt top. We stamped and quilted on the batting side.
9. After quilting, trim batting with bevel cut. Hold scissors parallel to top. Batting is angle cut to reduce bulk in seam allowance area. Press one last time.
10. Secret 3-D Step: Baste curved edges. Pull basting bobbin to gather edges. Easy!
11. With right sides together, match orange seams and stitch around pillow leaving a hole in side.
12. Turn pillow case right side out through hole. Remove basting stitches in corners.
13. Stuff pillow then close hole by hand with blind stitch. Because pillow is lined with batting, it will be hard to stuff with batting. The battings will want to stick together. This is an opportunity to recycle that box of cuttings and “scraps too small to use.” [Admit it, you know you have one too.] Go ahead and stuff your Candy Corn Pillow with scraps. Since pillow is lined with batting, the scraps won’t feel lumpy. Sweet!
Optional: Having trouble matching the orange side seams? Hide uneven seams with giant ric-rac.
- 7 Must-Have Quilt Patterns for the Holiday Season - October 29, 2015
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- 13 Reasons to Start Quilting Today - July 24, 2014
