Karin Jordan Studio

Tutorial: Easy Flax-Filled Eye Pillows

For teacher's gifts this year I decided to make eye pillows, to be given with some tea and wrapped up in a cute ribbon-tied package. I'm on the Board of Directors for the kids' school, so I'm making eighteen patchwork eye pillows for all the teachers and aides as a thank you from the Board. 

Many flax-filled eye pillows are scented with lavender, however, some people don't like that herb much so I'm making them unscented. These go together quickly with scraps, and there is no hand sewing (this will also help ensure no flax seeds escape!). 

I used my Sizzix Fabi with  the 2.5" x 4.5" rectangle die (2 x 4" finished). This is a fantastic way to use up leftover binding, provided you typically use 2.5" wide binding! I ran eight layers of fabric through at a time — cutting pad, die blade facing up, fabric, cutting pad — and in no time I had more than enough pieces to make 18 eye pillows. Each eye pillow uses five 2.5 x 4.5" rectangles, one 4.5 x 10.5" piece of fabric for the back and 8.5 ounces of flax seed (available at most grocery stores).

Arrange each top with five rectangles and sew together with 1/4" seam allowances. Press seams open. Top stitch on each side of the seam; this is for decorative detail as well as to keep the flax seeds from getting trapped in the inner seams. Use the chain piecing method for the top stitching to save time. Separate the eye pillow tops from each other. Right sides facing, pair each top with a bottom and sew around three sides with a 1/4" seam allowance. Clip the corners, turn and press. 

Sew a line across the bottom, 1" from the last seam (see arrows, above); it will stop the flax seeds from getting into the ends. 

I use a crude cardsock funnel made from junk mail (sorry, Amex). If the bottom is too narrow, the funnel will clog. The bottom of this funnel is roughly 3/4". Holding the eye pillow and funnel over a bowl, pour in 8.5 ounces of flax seed. 

There is exactly 8.5 ounces of flax seed in this Pyrex measuring cup.  

The empty eye pillow weighs .25 ounce, so each eye pillow weighs 8.75 ounces. I love using my kitchen scale for sewing projects! Do not fill the pillow — it is important that there is plenty of room for the seeds to move around. 

Pin and clip eye pillow above the seeds, making sure that the top rough edges are aligned. Sew a line 1" away from the last seam. This seam holds the flax seeds in the pillow. 

Turn the raw edges under and press. Top stitch the opening closed, making sure to be close enough to the edge to catch the raw edge in the seam. Turn the pillow around and edge stitch the other side so they match. My machine gave me grief with this until I remembered to use my edge stitching foot. 

It was a wonderful excuse to go through my scrap drawer. Some of the color combinations were new, some were random and others were inspired by the quilts that left the scraps. 

Fussy cut cats were fun, and the bottom eye pillow of this trio is made from scraps from my last Supernova block. 

Seven are done, which means I still need to fill and finish these 11. You can almost get three eye pillows out of one 24 ounce bag of flax seed, but as I chose to make them with 8.5 ounces each, I wound up needing a little bit more. 

Mickey Mouse was tired from too much Thanksgiving turkey, so he kicked back with an eye pillow for a little snooze. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

        

The Making of Our Seacoast MQG Banner

Group creative projects are typically met with trepidation. We've all seen the collaborative projects on Project Runway; they occasionally succeed, but more often than not personalities clash and there are conflicting style issues. I have to admit that this is the first project that I've worked on as a group that went swimmingly well from start to finish, and I wanted to share the details.

Our guild is only a few years old and we didn't have a banner. One of our members, Jess, spearheaded the effort to form a subcommittee of people who were excited about making this happen. The group consisted of Jess, Mary, Kali, Sarah, Stephanie and me. We wanted to stick with the original logo design of a wave. After an initial pre-guild breakfast meeting, most of the planning was done over email, including font selection. Our homework was to each make a handful of 12 x 12" slabs of fabric out of scraps. Then we met one cookie-powered Sunday afternoon and made it happen. 

Jess and Mary took the slabs and sliced curves into them to add to the wave effect but also to mix up the scraps so they'd work together well (a k a flow - heh). We built the wave up so that it would fit over the paper-drawn template, fused a large part of the blue to Pellon® 805 Wonder-Under and used the template to carefully cut out the wave. The wave was then fused to the background fabric and we went to work on the letters. As the letters go through the wave, we wanted the color to change so we sliced the S and the O in half to help the transition. We borrowed the MQG font directly from the official web site and did a double appliqué (blue over off-white) so that the blues would stand out. 

I took it home to do the appliqué; I did the wave first and then all the letters. 

I've handed it off to Mary who quilts like the wind. Wait until you see the amazing job she did on our QuiltCon challenge quilt; there are cats in the quilting. CATS! I'm most curious to see how this banner will turn out, but after the entire experience with these lovely ladies and knowing how Mary quilts, I have no worries whatsoever. 

  

        

Dresden Forest Mini (a k a Holiday Placemat)

I love a good Dresden, but it's fun to think of new ways to use traditional shapes, in this case a tree-filled landscape on a sunny, snowy day. I made this thinking it could be used as a mini quilt or the first in a series of placemats. Finished size is 14 x 19". It's a scrap-friendly project; I had fun digging through my green pile! I used my Fabi, Dresden and Circle dies to quickly create the shapes. Sizzix is offering an amazing deal and a Holiday Gift Guide for the holidays - additional details are below. 

You will need one 14 x 19" piece of background fabric, five green fabric scraps and one piece of yellow for the sun that's at least 4.5" square. 18 x 23" pieces of batting and a backing fabric, and 80" of 2 1/4" binding should do the trick. 

To wind up with trees of varying heights, I had pieces of fabric in different sizes. From left to right, scraps were 10", 7", 8.5", 10" and 7.5" high. When die cutting the fabric, make sure the scraps are closer to the top, or pointy part of the die blades for the thin trees and closer to the bottom for more squat trees.

Make the Sizzix sandwich (cutting pad, die blade facing up, fabric, cutting pad) and die cut the five trees. Using the 4" circle die, die cut the sun. 

Arrange the trees and the sun on the background fabric, keeping in mind that the edges of the background fabric will be covered up a bit by the binding. 

Take the trees off one at a time, fold the edges under and press. Glue basting after pressing makes the appliqué go more smoothly. 

Slightly clipping the corners before folding them under helps reduce bulk. I folded this short tree in more on the sides at the top than I did with the tall thin trees. 

Time to make a nice, round circle. Create a 3" circle out of thin cardboard. I traced the lid of a ball jar. 

Place a square of aluminum foil down on your ironing board. Place the die cut fabric circle wrong side up on the foil and then center the cardboard circle on top. 

Carefully fold the foil around the cardboard circle a little bit at a time, pressing as you go. Press both sides and allow it to cool. Don't burn yourself!

When you remove the foil and the cardboard, you should have a nice circle that looks like this. If you wind up with bumpy edges, simply reinsert the cardboard and press with the foil again.

I used 505 Spray Adhesive on the backs of the trees (this works best if you place the trees and sun wrong side up on a rag towel before spraying). With a regular stitch length, sew around the edges of the shapes. Make a quilt sandwich and either use the 505 again or pin baste. Quilt as desired. A 2 1/4" binding makes a nice thin border to frame the piece. I used Chocolate Brown Metallic Quilter's Linen for the binding to add some holiday sparkle. 

Sizzix is offering gift bundles for a limited time: This Fabric Lover's gift pack contains a Fabi die cutting machine with the Dresden and Circle dies. It's available for $100 - half the regular price! The are other value packs on their site if you are thinking about holiday shopping. (Gah - I know!). 

I can't decide if this is a work in progress — it is if I need to make more placemats! Thanks so much for visiting; I'm switching into holiday project mode so be sure to check back!

  

        

 

 

Tutorial: Dala Horse Quilt

A few months ago I made a Dala Horse wall hanging for my daughter's room. This quilt actually happened at the same time and I've just now finished it. It uses a Fat Quarter bundle of Wee Wander by Sarah Jane (both Sunrise and Twilight colorways) and a bundle of coordinating solids. For the full tutorial please visit the Sizzix blog here.

Melissa of Sew Shabby did the floral quilting on her longarm. I asked her to go right over all the appliquéd horses and I love how it turned out. 

I had more of the colorful wavy striped fabric on the back that I used on the wall hanging. The other back panel is small pink and purple dragonflies.

It's always a good sign when the kids snuggle under a quilt that I'm still hand binding. Annabel slept with it on her bed for the first time last night. When she got up this morning she came downstairs and thanked me for making it and said it's her favorite thing ever. Melt. Success!

PS - I have a giveaway going on for a $25 gift card from Southern Fabric — to enter please click here. 

  

        

Introducing Southern Fabric, & a $25 Gift Card Giveaway!

I'm happy to announce Southern Fabric as a new sponsor! As a welcome, Aubrey is offering my readers a chance to win a $25 gift certificate. Since 2004, Southern Fabric has been selling fabric online (that's ten years!). There is a terrific selection of precuts, bundles, patterns and notions in addition to the regular fabric yardage. 

They have some lovely new arrivals. 

There is a Daily Deal as well as $2 Tuesday. For the head's up, sign up for the newsletter and receive alerts by email. 

Check out the fat quarter stash club, and the fun scrap bags. For every purchase you earn loyalty points that can be redeemed! 

These are a few of the things that caught my eye. . .  :)

To enter the giveaway for the $25 gift certificate, please leave a comment below saying what your favorite color combination is! Southern Fabric followers get a second entry; please let me know how you follow them. Their Instagram feed is full of inspirational photos. Giveaway closed Friday, November 21st at 9pm EST. 

Congratulations to #51 (chosen by Random.org) Dawn Jones who said, "I like turquoise and black." 

  

        

Getting Unstuck: Freeing Myself From Bundle Pressure

My Supernova hiatus is over! For the past two months Jess and I have been busy with other things and we agreed that it was okay to push off our Supernova blocks. Then I felt guilty. Then I felt sad. That's when I realized I was stuck. I love the Supernova blocks; it's fun choosing fabrics in color progressions that radiate. I don't even mind having to match seams on an angle. I decided that having to relearn the block every month was playing a big part in keeping me from making progress. 

Last Saturday I had a Guild meeting and then on Sunday a few us took a fabric shopping excursion to Marden's in Maine. It was not a particularly nice drive through rain, snow and sleet but we went anyway and had a great time. I got home, went into my studio to put my new fabric finds away and had another realization. My sacred, pretty, organized fabric bundles made me mad. It's hard opening a beautiful bundle. It's even harder to cut into it. Don't get me wrong, I love a good bundle. Anyone impatiently waiting for Doe, for example? I'd let bundles get the best of me; I couldn't see the trees for the forest. I felt so inspired by all the individual fabric choices I'd made at Marden's, and I realized how limiting my bundles had started to feel. What did I do? I set them free! I untied all my untouched bundles and filed them in my stash. 

This block is the direct result of me feeling free from the pressure of bundles. Since Jess and I both made pillows that sat next to each other on the couch in Jessica Levitt's Cascade booth at Market, I knew I wanted to use Drip in Bayou. For the corners I pulled out the Center City print that I'd gotten so excited about at Marden's. And then. . . I went for the Cotton + Steel and the Catnap that had previously been tied up in bundles. I can't tell you how good it felt.

I made four Supernova blocks in two days and then made Jess this card with the new Sizzix Spool of Thread die. I hope to continue making the cards that I enclose with my bee blocks — it's fun and I want to start using more of my paper stash. Perhaps I should create piles of individual sheets out of those bound pads?

  

        

Riley Blake Flannel Tour Wrap Up

The Riley Blake Designs Flannel Blog Tour wraps up today! To check out all the fun projects, please visit their blog here.  Ed the Cat is still snuggling on or around his new bed, depending on his mood. 

 

 

 

To conclude the tour, Riley Blake is giving away three fat quarter bundles of super soft flannel. It's a flash giveaway that ends tonight (November 4th) at 10pm MST. Head on over to enter here. Good luck, and feel free to check out the stops on the flannel tour if you missed them.

9/5 Riley Blake Designs - Flannel Play Dress

9/9 Quiltscapes - Pajama Pants & Pillow

9/12 Fishsticks Designs - Reversible Button Bibs

9/19 The Stitching Scientist - Toddler Nightgown

9/23 Sassy Quilter - Patchwork Dog Bed

9/26 Simple Simon & Co. - Flannel Pajamas

9/30 Fabric Mutt - Seat Cushion

10/3 Just Let Me Quilt - Nightgown & Quilted Cape

10/7 Jedi Craft Girl - Baby Blanket & Burpers

10/10 Rose and Odin - Christmas Pillowcase

10/14 Sew We Quilt - Newborn Nightgown

10/17 Haberdashery Fun - HST Baby Blanket

10/21 Leigh Laurel Studios - Personalized Pet Bed

10/24 Riley Blake Designs - Chenille Baby Blanket & Pillow

10/28 Flannel Queen - City Gym Shorts in Flannel

10/31 Lucy Blaire - The Cora Dress

11/4 Riley Blake Designs Final Post + Giveaway