Good morning! It’s Cindy reporting in today with the 4th block of our Christmas 2020 Series.
Sandy’s design for this little Santa Gnome is so cute! I decided to make two versions, one with a dark background and one with a light background.
Click on the link below for the pattern:
RC 2020 Sew Along Day 4 Santa Gnome
We interrupt our Christmas in July/August paper piecing project to present a palette-cleansing scrappy, double Irish chain, low-volume quilt finish.
Cindy and I were estate sale shopping last year (or the year before — is your concept of time messed up too????) and I stumbled on an old quilt in need of some love. The quilt was in pretty rough shape, but it just called to me. I bought it for the tag price of $5 because I loved the uniform bold blue squares and the clever quilting. I mention the quilting because what looks like many small white pieces, is, in fact, large muslin pieces quilted to mimic the size of the blue squares. Clever, right?
I knew I wanted to replicate the pattern, but I couldn’t muster up enough dark blues to make it work. So I decided to go with a scrappy, low volume approach. I went through my pre-cut stash of 2″ squares and pulled enough to build the quilt.
When I had a few finished blocks, I started to doubt my scrappy color approach — it just didn’t feel vibrant enough in proximity to the original. But y’all encouraged me to keep going, so I did.
When the top was finished, I was still on the fence but I went to The Backyard Quilter, a new-to-me quilt shop nearby, to look for a unifying backing fabric. They had some wonderful wide bolts to choose from and I fell in love with a beautiful teal fabric with a distinctly modern pattern. (Truth be told, sister Sue helped me pick it out — she has an amazing eye for color. She saved me from buying some subdued green swatch of blah.)
With backing in hand, I let the fabulous Ms. G do her quilting thing. I used the same teal fabric for the binding, and — oh my — that teal color made the whole project just pop!
This may be one of my all-time favorite finishes. Maybe instead of giving it away, I will keep it for myself….?
Need a cute Christmas stocking block? You can stop your search, Sandy has cornered the Christmas stocking cuteness block.
We know some people like their Christmas stockings to face right and others like them to face left. That’s why Sandy created a pattern for each!
These two patterns are super easy and a great way to practice your paper piecing skills. Click on the links below and get ready for maximum cuteness!
Hello! It’s Cindy bragging about Sandy designing the cutest paper pieced Christmas block patterns. 
Since Sandy designed 4 very adorable blocks, we’re hosting a PAPER PIECING SEW ALONG. You can make a Christmas banner, a table runner or a mini wall hanging. We think either one is guaranteed to make your 2020 holidays brighter!
The first block is a rustic evergreen tree. For printing these patterns, we suggest using thin copy paper or a special paper made for paper piecing from your favorite quilting store.
Since I am a novice at paper piecing, I used colored pencils to color code the rustic tree block pattern. This helped me to keep track of the fabrics I was using for each section. Who said you have to color within the lines? Not me! 
Here’s a close up of my first tree. I had fun picking out these fabrics! 
Do you need a paper piecing tutorial? Here’s a link to a great tutorial by Crafty Gemini. Sandy and I both learned our paper piecing skills from Vanessa.
The link to the Day 1 FREE BLOCK PATTERN of our Rustic Christmas sew along is below:
Rustic Christmas Sew Along Day 1
Have fun!
