EPP Pentagon balls

Last night at the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild meeting,  we shared demos for quick & easy gift ideas for the holidays. I was happy to share the English Paper Pieced Pentagon Balls that I've been making. There are tons of great tutorials online for these, including this one which was the one I learned from. Abby, at While She Naps, has links for materials that I used & a great photo tutorial. But since I promised the gals at guild a tutorial too, here's my version!


First up, you are going to need 1 inch Pentagon (that's right! Not HEXAGONS like usual, but five sided pentagon) papers. You can print these online and cut your own (which is what I did initially) but Lynn over at Stitched With Love has ordered them to carry in the shop! Who wants to spend her time cutting silly pieces of paper when she can be stitching away instead. Yay Lynn! We love you!

Prep 12 pentagons your favorite way (I'm a glue baster. to each her own!) This is an awesome project to use up little scraps! I had fun fussy cutting and color coordinating scraps for each of my balls. Lay your 12 pentagons out like this....

now you stitch the bottoms of the pentagons in the rings to the center pentagon like this...

And then stitch up the sides like this, creating 2 cup shapes (easiest if you remove the paper from the center pentagon first)....

Easy squeazy, right? The next part is a little fussy but you can do it! Flip one of your pentagon cups upside down on top of the other and stitch the two together around the edges. Take it one edge at a time and remove the papers as you go, as soon as they have been surrounded by stitches....

Stop when you still have two edges left unstitched....

remove the last few papers, then carefully turn your ball right side out.

Now comes the fun part! It's time to fill your ball. Filling them with polyester fiberfill makes a perfect baby toy. I purchased jingle bell inserts from American Felt and Craft on Etsy and tucked them deep inside the stuffing. Then I stuffed the ball as full as I possibly could and stitched the final edges together securely.

that's the jingle bell insert in white plastic on the left

Need more ideas? The three balls at the top of this post are filled with plain old rice (uncooked of course!). You see, my husband loves to juggle! I keep them in a pretty bowl in the hallway and frequently as he walks by, he picks them up and starts to juggle!

Maybe you'd like to fill some with potpourri to add a pleasant scent to your living space or dresser drawers? Or fill them with crushed walnut shells for fun pin cushions for your sewing buddies? Stitch a ribbon on and they become Christmas tree ornaments. The possibilities are endless.

Gratitude Quilt

I finished my fourth word-of-the-year quilt! Gratitude was my word in 2012. I chose a pumpkin to represent my word because I always think of the harvest when I think of gratitude. Also, I realized that this is ABSOLUTELY the longest word I can choose or I will have to make my paper pieced letters even smaller (and that, my friends, is NOT happening!)

For the pumpkin, I used this tutorial that I found via Pinterest (don't you just love Pinterest?) posted on the Fort Worth Studio Blog (which I love!) The finished quilt is 18x20, just like the other word quilts I have made. I can't wait to hang them all together eventually! I have one more to make before 2016 and my new word arrive. It's my 2011 word, Trust. I am totally stumped on a picture for this one. Any thoughts?

more improv play

My poor neglected sewing machine was calling out to me yesterday. I had a few scraps of the prints from the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild improv challenge left & decided to whip up another improv block. I mixed in some solids.....

simply framed up each wonky center with a solid, trimmed them all to equal size, sashed and framed in black.... and done. No measuring, just sew sew sew.

Now I have two blocks to turn in on Tuesday night!

Spice of Life CAL - Finished!

Well hello there! Remember me? Sorry I disappeared yet again. I'm full of excuses. First there was the torrential rain last weekend that totally prevented decent photo shoots for several posts I had planned. Then, on Monday, just when the sunshine returned, my gall bladder decided it was time to come out! Whoa. That laid me up for a few days (while the sun continued to shine.) Yesterday I finally began to feel human again! And, you guessed it, I woke up to gray skies and buckets of rain! Sigh..... So, indoor, gloomy photos it is! Sorry they will have to do!

Several days on the couch was just the excuse I needed to finish up my Spice of Life crochet along afghan. The only way to show you how enormous mine ended up is to spread it on my queen sized bed.....

58 X 88 way bigger than it's supposed to be!

Why did it end up so big, you ask? Great question. Did I add extra stitches to the rows? No. Did I add extra rows? No. Did I use US stitches instead of the required UK stitches? Indeed I did not. It's a mystery! But the fact of the matter is, the tension is even, it's gigantic and I love it.

It has found a happy landing spot on the back of one of our pretty chairs in the front room. I suspect it will wander into the family room on chilly evenings this winter. Seriously, it's big enough to keep hubby and I both warm!

I love the pretty soft green border (I had to buy another skein of light green yarn to complete it!) In fact, I love everything about this beautiful blanket. I'm so thankful to Sandra of Cherry Heart Crochet who created the lovely pattern, for her easy to follow directions, and the fabulous community of women she created on Facebook, Instagram and Ravelry to share our fun with. If you want to see more of these, check out #spiceoflifecal. It's wonderful how each afghan has a personality of it's own! I would love to make another someday soon.

And then there are the balls of leftover yarn from my blanket. What to do? I decided a simple double crochet (US) striped blanket would be the perfect way to use it up. And so I have begun....

flea market finds

Sorry for the little blog break. Although I've putzed around in my studio a bit this week, most of my creative time has been spent on my Spice of Life Crochet along blanket...

It's long enough to keep my toes warm while I work now (not that Texas temperatures require it but still). There are LOTS of rows to do this week so I'm madly crocheting away.

I did take time out to go to the McKinney Trade Days (flea market) today with my buddy Joellen. I have a real love for vintage linens and these beauties came home with me....

Two sweet hankies and two colorful tea towels. All were very reasonably priced and I couldn't resist them! I also have a love for milk glass, and added these two awesome pieces to my tiny (but growing!) collection...

it was a fun day for sure! Now back to my crochet....

Spice of Life CAL part 4

I've completed another week of the Spice of Life Crochetalong & I must say, I am loving this more and more each week!

That makes  67 rows done and my afghan measures 38 inches long so far. Here's a close up of this week's new rows...

I am loving experimenting with new stitches! Can't wait until Tuesday...

improv block

Tuesday night at the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild meeting, we received a small bundle of fabric and were challenged to create an improv block finishing at 12". The 3 fabrics on the right are the challenge fabrics....

I added the two solids on the left. I had an improv style I had been wanting to play around with, so I jumped right in this week. Here's my completed block...

I had a lot of fun with the slice & insert method and really like the way it turned out!

Our blocks will all be put together after the next meeting and made into charity quilts for Alberta's Hope, our charity that benefits cancer patients. Have you done any improv quilting?