Category Archives: Quilts & Quilting

Sewing: Turkle the Turtle

Deep in the wilds of my backyard lives the ferocious Quiltus Turtleus, called Turkle by his friends.

His markings are wholly unique and set him apart from all other Quiltus Turtleus.

A canny camera person can get quite close to Turkle, just watch out for the super massively strong jaws!

Quiltus Turtleus are known for their pointy and exceptionally cute tails.

When forced to show his belly, Turkle will display a fierce purple leopard print, frighting off predators for fear of a badly dressed…oops, this a “G” rated blog!

Ancestry of the Quiltus Turtleus, decended from the Quiltus Buttericktus Family.

Happy crafting!

Paper Piecing: Drawing a Patchy Heart

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Patchy Heart Pattern

One of the most constant requests I’ve had over the years is for a video tutorial showing how I design paper pieced patterns.

Putting together a pattern is a step by step process, but designing is not. It’s artistic and intuitive. Even so, there are some basic techniques that stay the same every time you start a new pattern.

The absolute best advice I can give you is practice, practice, practice!

This is how I do it. In the next two videos, I’ll walk you through, step-by-step, my own process. Both videos are real time.

Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

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

Happy crafting!

Paper Piecing: Star Trekking

vlog #4 – Talk To Me Tuesday, Birthday Show & Tell and a Little Paper Piecing

Quilting: Bloggers Quilt Festival

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I just heard of the First Annual Blogger’s Quilt Festival yesterday and my first thought was “why didn’t I think of that?!” What a great idea, bringing quilting bloggers together by sharing photos of our quilts.

The idea is to post photos of your favorite quilt that you’ve made and tell it’s story. Excellent idea, huh!

My Magical Lens, designed, pieced and quilted by Jennifer Ofenstein

My all time favorite quilt that I have made, absolutely hands-down, is my Harry Potter quilt. I embarked on this project in early 2006. My family had long been fans (we started reading Harry in 1999) and I’d been quilting for a few years. After discovering what so many HP crafters now know, that licensed fabric is out of print and nigh on impossible to find (and expensive if you do!), I decided to try to design my own.

The very first HP block I designed was Hedwig, though not the one that ended up in the quilt (you can see it in the photo below…bleargh!). It was pretty dreadful, too complicated and just bad, bad, bad. I’d only ever designed simple blocks before, so I changed gears and started with a broom and a lightning bolt. The stack of blocks began to grow. All through the process, I was sharing on the Harry Potter Crafts Yahoo! Group. Members started asking if I’d share my patterns, and before long, my little craft site, then called Jen’s Crochet & Crafts, grew into sewhooked, full of all kinds of crafts, crochet, and now paper pieced patterns.

I went to Lumos in Las Vegas in 2006 and took my HP blocks with me to share with my online craft friends. By this time I was a Moderator at Harry Potter Crafts. Sharing my designs and other projects I’d made with them for myself and friends, on top of the fact that I knew HTML, led to a year and a half as a Crafty Witch at The Leaky Cauldron where I made truly amazing friends. The quilt that wasn’t a quilt yet was already helping me to connect with people.

In the fall of 2006, I decided to attend Phoenix Rising in New Orleans which, like Lumos, was a Harry Potter fandom conference, and was scheduled to take place in May 2007. Even though my quilt wasn’t even close to done, nor was I close to having enough blocks designed for a whole quilt, I entered a mock-up for consideration in the Phoenix Rising art gallery, and was, to my surprise, accepted. With a deadline looming, I started churning out patterns and blocks, finishing up the quilt in March of 2007, just two months before it was to be shown in New Orleans.

This quilt is more just a million bits of fabric stitched together. It represents all the years I’ve loved Harry Potter and some of my favorite things about the series. It has brought me friends, and fans, and brought more quilters that I can count into the wonderful world of paper piecing. In the fall of 2007, I started hp_paperpiecing on Livejournal as way to share more with other Harry Potter quilters than just patterns. I’ve posted over 100 unique HP themed blocks there and have in the process met a lot of awesome quilters and designers, many brand new to paper piecing.

The mock-up submitted for submission into the Phoenix Rising art gallery (complete with horrible Hedwig).

I don’t design as many HP blocks as I used to, though I’m still very involved with hp_paperpiecing.

Harry Potter patterns at sewhooked, free for personal and non-profit use.

See loads more photos of the making of My Magical Lens over at flickr.

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

Happy crafting

Quilting: The Generosity of Quilters

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I have a little story to tell.

Over on Livejournal, I run a group called hp_paperpiecing, short for Harry Potter Paper Piecing. I’m sure most of you know by now that I’m a huge HP fan and spent several years designing HP quilt blocks that I’ve shared with the fandom. That’s been the purpose of hp_paperpiecing, and until recently, HP blocks and block-related challenges were what we shared.

A few months ago, I read about the Bushfire Quilt Project, started by Tia of Camp Follower Bags & Quilts, for making quilts to give to those affected by the Australian bushfires in Victoria earlier this year.

My first thoughts were that I myself would make a block or two and share the project with various quilting friends. I posted about it on hp_paperpiecing, asking our members to consider sending in a block.

The members did me one better and within a day, my suggestion of sharing blocks morphed into the group itself making all the blocks for a quilt, including the free services of a professional quilter who is also part of our group!

Within a few weeks, we had a full quilt worth of blocks, pieced, quilted and shipped off to Australia.

Photo by Tia from Camp Follower Bags & Quilts, quilted by Shannon Shaw

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The quilt label, made by me from the Pigwidgeon pattern.

We had to have one HP block on the quilt!

I count myself to be incredibly fortunate to not only know so amazing online crafters, quilters and other fans, but to be part of their generosity. I volunteer and donate locally on a regular basis, something I find easy to incorporate into my life. Volunteering to make something that will then go in the mail and travel thousands of miles before it ends at it’s final destination for no financial gain is a true gift.

My virtual hat is off to every single Harry Potter Quilt that participated in the Bushfire Quilt Project. You are ALL amazing!

You can see more great photos from the hp_paperpiecing group quilt here and many amazing quilt photos in the Bushfire Quilt Project Flickr Group.

Much love,

Paper Piecing: Eggsactly

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Combine the joy of spring with the joy of quilting and you have one of my all time favorite combinations!

How about Three Eggs (pictured above) made in happy spring colors or prints? Three Eggs was created for my friend Cat, who loves chickens and is putting together a wonderful chicken/barnyard themed quilt!

Once you’ve scrambled your eggs, why stop there? There are loads of great paper pieced patterns that would translate to a happy spring quilt or wall hanging!

Spring & Easter Themed Patterns:

lamb, snail and lily patterns from sewhooked

Patchpieces – find a basket, an easter egg, butterflies and a chick
Winnowing by Christine Thresh – scroll to the bottom of the page for Posy Pots, morning glory and Baby Chick with Easter Eggs
Paper Panache Guest Patterns – Spring Nosegays and Little Rabbit
Quilt Designs Northwest – Poppy & Calla Lily
Piece by Number – various flowers
AZ Patch – baskets and eggs
Compuquilt – flowers and flower pots

There are so many great free patterns out there and a slew of wonderful quilting books, too. Whatever inspires you, grab it with both hands and enjoy!

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

Happy crafting

Quilting: Around the Psychedlic Rainbow

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I did not make this quilt. In fact, I had very little to do with it at all.

Back in January, I started cleaning out my sewing/craft room and one of the things I unearthed (a term I do not use lightly) was a quilt top my mom had given to my sister ages ago.

The top was made by a friend of my grandmother’s back in the 1960s, completely hand-pieced out of old clothes that belonged to our mom and aunt.

My sister doesn’t quilt (yet!) and I had told her I’d help her finish it up.

It sat in my sewing room for a long time before I found it again and I’m pretty sure my sister had stopped thinking about it by that point. When I found it, it occurred to me what a great surprise it would be to finish it for her and then give it to her as a birthday gift.

I bought batting and a fun backing fabric. After spending ages ironing down all the lumpy bumpy seams created by hand sewing all kinds of fabrics together, I passed the quilt top on to my lovely and talented friend Linda, who quilted it on her long arm machine.

She finished the quilting in record time and then I squared up the wonky sides and adding a dark green binding and a label. Unfortunately, I don’t yet have a photo of the that. It has the names of everyone involved in making it as well as my sister’s.

I dubbed the quilt “Around the Psychedelic Rainbow” because of it’s fun 60s colors and it’s Around The World quilt pattern. It was handed over to my lovely sister last weekend and I feel especially happy with the project knowing I’ve shared in the history of this quilt.

The whole shebang on my bed.

The back.

Fancy “gift wrap”

As always, if you make any pattern or craft from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the Friends of sewhooked flickr group.

Happy crafting

x-posted from my personal blog

Make A Mini Valentine

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One of the best things about paper pieced patterns is that they are so easy to scale.

The great majority of the patterns I design finish 5″, which makes the math a bit easier. Want a 10″ block? Print at 200%. Want a 1.5″ block? Print at 30%.

Miniatures have long been a favorite of mine. They work up quickly and are just so darn adorable when you’re done!

Use Scrappy Heart in miniature and some card stock and you’ve got yourself a cute, fast handmade Valentine for your sweetie!

When choosing a paper pieced pattern to miniaturize, the simpler the pattern the better. Choose a pattern that is all one piece or only a few individual pieces. The more paper pieces you have to work with, the trickier your pattern will get and the thicker the seams will be.

For the Valentine’s Card you’ll need:

Scrappy Heart (pattern updated Feb. 2012) or other heart pattern, printed at 30% OR use my 1.5″ heart sets with 12 patterns per page
scrap fabrics in reds, pinks and whites
pink or red thread
a piece of card stock, whatever size pleases you, but big enough to fold in half OR pre-folded blank cards
a sewing machine
scissors
rotary cutter & ruler
wall paper or seam roller (optional)
dry iron

What to do:

Print your scaled pattern (shown here with the original 5″)

OR use the 1.5″ pattern sets created just for this tutorial (added Feb. 2012)

Piece the block like you would any other

Paper Piecing: Step By Step

When piecing in miniature, the smaller your seam allowance, the better. I like a scant 1/8″

This is your block finished from the back and the front.

Follow the stitching line around the block. This will make it possible to remove the paper without stretching the bias edges. Contrasting thread shown.

Remove the paper from the block.

**note – normally, the paper needs to stay on the block until it is pieced in it’s final destination, but because we are appliqueing it, that’s not an option here**

card stock and wall paper or seam roller

Fold the card stock in half, and press the crease with the wall paper roller. The same effect can be achieved with a scoring tool.

Position the block on the front of the card. Use a zig zag or other decorative stitch to applique in place.

Now fill the inside with sweet nothings and you’re ready to give it to your Valentine!

Get lots of free patterns right here on Sewhooked!

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

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Announcement: Guest Blogger on Quilting Gallery

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It’s Guest Blogger Month on Quilting Gallery. Yours truly is today’s Guest Blogger!

I had a great time writing up the post and collecting quilty photos and would like thank Michele from Quilting Gallery for including me in such an awesome project.

There’s a prize from me for the first five commenters, so be sure and have a look.

Don’t forget about the Friends of sewhooked challenge!