Category Archives: Quilts & Quilting

Blogger’s Quilt Festival: Facets of Friendship

It’s hard to believe it’s already time for another Blogger’s Quilt Festival! It doesn’t seem so long ago that I was writing up a my post for the Spring Festival!

Facets of Friendship, 2008

Last year, my best friend, Jewells, of Julia Makes Stuff, had a big birthday. It was one of those lovely, once-in-a-decade numbers that seem ever so daunting when we’re staring them in the face.

She and I have been friends since college. In some ways, we’re polar opposites, but in all the ways that count, we’re not. The older we get, the more in common we seem to have. Jewells has been there for me through some crazy times in my life. She knew me before I started dating my husband of 15 years, before I had kids or a college degree. She stood up for me at my wedding and has been more like a sister to me than anything. The only thing I would change about our relationship is the geographic distance between us.

Jen & Jewells in 2007

To celebrate the big birthday and all the years we’ve been friends, I designed a quilt for her called Facets of Friendship. In it, I used only scrap fabrics from other projects I’d done. I wanted her to have a little piece of (almost!) everything I’ve made over the last decade and a half, just like she’d been woven in and out of my life over that time.

The quilt is inspired by a quilt top I found in a thrift store. It was completely hand pieced and unfinished, with a couple of blocks coming apart at the seams when I found it. I made my own version of the Four Pointed Star/Arkansas Snowflake pattern (paper pieced, of course!) in order to fill in those couple of damaged blocks. Those couple of blocks spawned the idea that to make an entire quilt for Jewells with that same paper pieced pattern.

The Thrift Store quilt that inspired Facets of Friendship

Over the course of several months, I shared lots of teaser photos, trying to not give more of a clue than I could. I wanted her to know I was working on something big for her, because, in my opinion, anticipation is one of the best parts of life!

Pile of Fabric
collecting the scraps (teaser #1)

all the quarters pieced (close up)

all the quarters pieced…close up! (this was teaser #2)

I also took photos of the process, so I could share them with her once the quilt was finished and in her hands.

arranging the quarters into blocks…with Marie’s help

The back pieced…with the paper still on

chain piecing the neutral border

the top pieced

My favorite way to gift a quilt – in a coordinating pillow case.

Jewells’ birthday is coming up next week on October 16. Her gift this year is not quite so exciting as last year, but she is still my best friend, so I guess that’s okay!

If you’re reading this, I’d love for you to take a minute to tell my best friend Happy Birthday over on her blog!

paper piecing: Quilt For Your Inner Genius

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5″ Pi pattern only on etsy

Living in a house full of incredibly smart people, it was only a matter of time until their interests started bleeding into my crafting. There have been cross-overs before with all sorts of fandom paraphanelia, from Star Trek to X-Men.

Now, it’s math.

I mean really, who doesn’t need a paper pieced Pi?

Alright, alright, it was my 11 year old son’s idea! Happy now?

And for the curious…

From Wikipedia:

Pi or π is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle‘s circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle’s area to the square of its radius. The symbol π was first proposed by the Welsh mathematician William Jones in 1706. It is approximately equal to 3.14159 in the usual decimal notation…

If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

Give Paper Piecing A Chance

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Wingless Wyrm available in the sewhooked shop

Hello, my name is Jennifer, and I am a paper piecer.

And a paper pieced designer.

And I teach paper piecing online and in real life.

And I talk about it on my blog, vlog, and to anyone that will listen.

And I run several paper piecing communities and belong to several others.

Okay, how about a paper piecing addict?

It’s true, it’s true, I love paper piecing. LOVE. Capital, bold and highlighted, burn-your-eyeballs-out-huge-flashing font love!

What is it about paper piecing? I can’t speak for others, but I can speak for me.

Paper piecing is, as you may or may not know, a quilting technique that produces a perfect mirror image in fabric of whatever pattern you may be attempting.

When I say perfect, I mean perfect. Whatever you see on the pattern is what your fabric will be when it’s done.

I love the intricacies of paper piecing, the way I can choose to make my design appear any way I want, how I can tweak this line or that to make the appearance of the finished pieced express whatever it is I want to express.

Mostly, I just love the control I have over the art I’m creating. Traditional patterns are great, but I loved to be tested, pushed and challenged. I love to be different and to bring all my friends, old, new and not-yet-met along for the quilty ride.

For years, I worked on Harry Potter Paper Piecing as a fan of J.K. Rowling’s work. I cut my teeth on those patterns. They have been a gift to me as much as they have been my gift back to the fandom that has given me so very much. These days, I feel a bit like the Mother of HP Paper Piecing, beaming with pride every time I get an email saying “I’m learing to paper piece just to make your patterns!” or there is a new designer that starts creating their own patterns after trying mine. There’s no way to express how amazing that feels!

Since 2007, I’ve been working on a book of original, never-before-published designs. The manuscript is in rough draft stage and every block and sample piece is completed. I’m insanely proud of the work as being not only fun and whimsical, but original and interesting, too. I was briefly contracted for my book, and then the recession hit and ripped my contract right from under my feet. Since then, I’ve been sending my proposal to an increasingly longer list of publishers, with one negative after another.

It has, in a word, been frustrating. Paper piecing is what I do. I love other crafts, but it owns me. I make it, teach it and share it. It’s the one craft that I could not live without.

Will I give up? Heck no! I’m exploring other options as I continue to plow through the list of publishers until I find one that fits and sees my work as new and exciting instead of “not mainstream.”

How to Paper Piece

vlog: TTMT – Gifts, Gifts, Gifts

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If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

quilting: Cat’s Quilt

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You may have noticed a distinct lack of quilty posts of late. It is not, I assure you, lack of quiltiness! In fact, the opposite is true, and I’ve been working on a number of gifts that were (and are!) under wraps until they are received.

There is a very special person in my life that I talk to almost every day. She has proofread my manuscript, tested my quilt patterns and helped keep me sane when I lost my book contract. She’s a guest designer on sewhooked, was a Crafty Witch with me when we both worked at Leaky, she’s a co-mod on twilight_crafts and is an all around awesome person that constantly gives of herself to her friends. She regularly sends my kids chocolate biscuits and keeps them in Phantom comic books. Most of all, she’s one of the most giving and selfless people I’ve met.

She lives on the opposite side of the world to me, and it doesn’t stop her from being one of my closests friends. So, I made her a gift. It has finally arrived in her mailbox and I can now tell you about it.

quilt-in-progress, lots of colorful batiks from my stash

further progress…looks quilty, eh?

Well, at least Marie approves. She had something to say about this, too. “Well, you did say it was for Cat!”

I present Cat’s Quilt, “From Austin To Australia” made especially for her because she exudes Win and Awesome and most of all FRIEND.

Special “gift wrap” made from the backing fabric and main batik.

Empty “gift wrap”

The main batik in the quilt was a gift that Cat gave to me some months ago. She said she’d had it for years and thought perhaps I could use it. I knew as soon as I received it that I wanted to make a quilt for her.

I fussy cut the flowers from the batik for the center of the Austin Block, found on Quilter’s Cache. The bright squares (seen in the first photo)s are all batiks I had in my stash. The black fabrics also came from my stash. The back and binding are a batik I bought just for this quilt, with the decisive help of my 14 year old daughter and my best friend, Jewells, who got to see the quilt in progress and pre-quilting when she was here in July. The sawtooth edge was made with all the triangles I cut off when trimming those blocks. It was quilted by my awesome bee friend Linda, on her long arm quilt machine. It was a labor of love and I’m extraordinarily proud of the way it turned out.

Happy Quilting!

vlog: TTMT – Operation Save Sue

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Add your Sewhooked-related photos to my flickr group and you might be featured in a future post!

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paper piecing: The sewhooked Sampler

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Occasionally, when testing patterns I’ve designed, and whenever it’sappropriate, I piece sets of blocks in the same fabrics. My intention in this is to eventually have not only tested the patterns, but to have samples to scan and eventually a set of blocks that can be pieced together and donated to The Linus Connection.

Earlier this year, I did have enough blocks for a 3×3 quilt, but decided that wasn’t quite what I wanted. I love Cat Magraith’s chicken patterns, available through the sewhooked Guest Designer page, so I decided to make a few of those, too.

Not all the blocks were exactly the same size, so I added borders in coordinating colors, then squared them all up to, if memory serves, 10 1/2″.

If you like trying out paper pieced blocks, or are maybe just learning, and don’t have a project in mind, consider piecing together a sampler and donating it to a local blanket-making charity. There are charities all over the world that take handmade quilts and yarn blankets and usually finding the one near you is one Google search away!

Included in the sewhooked sampler:

Row 1: Sasha’s Tree, Jar v.2, and Star of My Heart (available only in my etsy store)

Row 2: Scrappy Heart, Scrappy Heart II, and Wonky Log Cabin #1

Row 3: Wonky Log Cabin #2, unposted heart pattern (from a Demo I did for Linus), Jar v.3

Row 4: Hen with Chick, Rooster, and Chicks (all by Cat Magraith)

Like Star of My Heart, listed above, I’ve recently started posting new patterns for sale in my etsy store. Part of the purpose of this is to help fund sewhooked. I don’t currently have advertising or sponsors and I pay all the fees for the website and blog out of my own pocket. Now, I do love sharing free patterns and doing so has given me the ability to hone my skills to the point where designing is becoming my work-from-home career. I briefly considered a paypal donation button, but what would you get from that? I’m not a charity, I’m just one woman who loves to share, teach and inspire and I have done my best to do just that, for free, for many years now.

If you enjoy sewhooked and all it has to offer, consider purchasing a pattern or other item from the etsy store now or in the future. If not from etsy, I also have a number of items available through zazzle. All proceeds go right back into sewhooked and keeping all it’s free content online.

What you’d be supporting: sewhooked dot org – Free patterns, crochet & crafts by Jennifer Ofenstein
Etsy – ofenjen is sewhooked – handcrafts and original designs by Jennifer Ofenstein
Zazzle – Sewhooked – made to share – t-shirts, totes and buttons, designed by Jennifer Ofenstein

If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

vlog TTMT: Living in a Swap World

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<ul>

<li> <a href=”http://community.livejournal.com/twilight_crafts/102566.html” target=”_blank”>Twilight Crafts Black & Red Swap</a> </li>

<li> <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/ofenjen/sets/72157621912495129/” target=”_blank”>My black & red block photos</a> </li>

<li> <a href=”http://www.threadbanger.com/post/8168/how-to-crochet-a-neckline” target=”_blank”>Crochet Neck Tee Tutorial</a> </li>

<li> <a href=”http://photo1.walgreens.com/storepage/storePageId=MemoryBooks” target=”_blank”>Walgreens Photo Books</a> </li>

</ul>

Black/Red Squares 1-4

Black/Red Squares 5-12

Black/Red Squares 13-15

If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

Paper Piecing: Happy Halloween Challenge

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Sewhooked and the sewhooked blog are the proud sponsors of the Livejournal Community paperpieced‘s Happy Halloween Challenge.

Visit the community and participate in the challenge to win a fun prize donated by myself on behalf of sewhooked!

Also visit paperpieced’s sister communities:

vlog: TTMT – Squee!Mail

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Where I squee about Squee!Mail from archerpren, caitirin, elaby, hardhatcat and laci_l, show my finished green crochet block from last week, a sneak peek at a new project and my mom’s birthday gift.

Mom’s House – original paper pieced wall hanging made for my mom

If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

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