Round 2 goes to Crafty Waffles

I made a second attempt at designing a paper pieced pattern, this time a house for Santa- I went with the theory that more straight lines = easier to plan.

Having learnt a few valuable lessons from my previous attempt, like carefully planning the order of the pieces to make sure that each piece can be added with only 1 stitch line... (yeah, duh!), I went back to work.

And voila... may I present Santa's house

A bit Swiss cottage meets Swedish farmhouse I think. And yeah, it couldn't be a straightforward house, it needed to have a bit extra. I had a great wood print fabric that would be perfect for the house... and the front entrance was a bit bare so I added in some trees (again... overacheiver anonymous here!)... so, it quickly went from a simple plan to a rather complex one, will I ever learn?!

Luckily this time the execution went much better, I could even say perfectly (woohoo, chest thump and a high five!)... there is no doubt I think that THIS is a house!

Even H gave his seal of approval, which says a lot! My only minor dissapointment is that it doesn't look too Christmas-y... but then again I suppose that penguins aren't exactly your typical Christmas fare either!

The Support Team

The paper piecing extravaganza continues here at Chez Crafty Waffles, with the introduction of Santa's little assistant...

Yes, I took a break from my own designs to finish up the Christmas blocks kindly provided by Sew hooked.

Next up... Penguin 2.0

Trial and Errored

So, the time had come to attempt my master plan for Santa's sleigh. I gathered my supplies and prepped the templates.

I wouldn't call it a failure, but I definitely learnt a few things along the way (my 6 piece pattern turned into 8 pieces as I had not correctly planned the execution side of the design... oops!). What I ended up with was this:

It matches the drawing pretty closely- I think...

But, H said that it is a rather abstract version of a sleigh-- It could be that he is an amateur Santa guy- In Belgium Santa plays second fiddle to St. Nicholas (or my less than stellar fabric choice for the sleigh's runner)-- and that he thought I could do better... sigh!

Since I now had two "dud" blocks -my dirty bird and the sleigh, I decided to stick them together to make a pot holder-ish thing.

Thanks to some scrap batting, I was able to whip it together pretty quickly, now it just needs to be bound.

Now back to the drawing board to take my learnings and prove that I can design a paper pieced block!

Going to Pieces

As you know I've been pretty distracted recently by the cute Christmas blocks I found over at Sewhooked.




However, when I triumphantly showed H my handiwork he wasn't too impressed... actually he said something along the lines of "you're following a pattern, that's cheating"(humph! yeah, no comment Mr. Party Pooper!), and then proceeded to challenge me to make my own paper piecing pattern.


As I needed more blocks for my planned Christmas quilt and couldn't find what I was looking for online, and never one to back down from a challenge, I did a little research, and decided to give it a go, nothing ventured nothing gained right?!


I figured that my Sanata and Mrs Clause would need a sleigh to get around in (why a sleigh you ask and not something easy like a tree for my first homemade pattern???.... ummm, not sure either because I roll with the philiosophy of go big or go home, or because I am a total overachiever... most probably it was a moment of insanity due to the latter!). Anyways, I had decided on a sleigh.

As I don't have photoshop which was used in the tutorial, I turned to my BFF MS Illustrator, and after a rather pleasant 1.5 hours I ended up with this...

Yeah, I even did the whole seperate the pieces and add seam allowances thing (which took about 1 hr of the 1.5 hr design time!), total overachiever. I think I need to get out my pocket protector!

Sorry I digress, I think it turned out pretty well. Now to see if I can actually make the darn thing!

He`s got a dirty face

I`ve been plugging away on my Christmas paper piecing blocks (2.5 more done, woo woo!). I say 2.5 because I was happily dry ironing away while working on a block when this happened...

Yeah... my penguin has a dirty face :(

I am pretty sure it is from the black fabric not the iron -- because silly ole me was too psyched about making more blocks lazy and impatient to bother pre-washing the new black fabric that I picked up last weekend.

I gave him a quick face wash, which seemed to get most of the black off, and finished him up, but now I don`t know what to do. Do I:

1. Chalk it it to experience and start again (with pre-washed black fabric!)

or do I

2. Throw caution to the wind and put him into the quilt and cross my fingers that the black won't bleed into his pretty white face?

Has anyone had any experience with this? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

On a happier note, my little Christmas project is really starting to come together.

all patterns from Sewhooked excluding the 3 tree block