Christmas Celebration Wreath Row

Say “Wreath Row” several times fast! No, it is not an airport in London. It is the fifth row in my Christmas Celebration quilt from the Shabby Fabrics Christmas Celebration Row Quilt series. There are six blocks to make in this fifth installment. Wreaths are made out of these six green fabrics and these two red fabrics from the Emmitt and Ivy Sweetwater line for Moda. It is always a nice surprise to see the new additions each month. This month the fabric not revealed before in previous rows was the cream background one with the mini Christmas trees, fifth from the left. I mistakenly made the red bow four times for a wreath out of this fabric. Details later.

 

I cut the six green fabrics three layers at a time, to assure cleaner cuts. I cut the two red fabrics at the same time and labeled my pieces with letters. The pattern does not assign the pieces letters, but this is a habit I use that helps me keep organized. I write my assigned letters on the pattern and then lay the corresponding Alphabitties on each stack. During assembly, a letter is easier to reference than the dimensions of a piece.

This is the first wreath I made. From the triangles I cut off each of the four corners, I made a pinwheel.

Then I made the inside of the other five wreaths all at the same time. These cut off corners were too small to make a pinwheel, even for pinwheel obsessed me. 

Next I decided to make all the bows at once. They are fussy and tiny and I was on a roll This is the bow for the wreath of mini Christmas trees. I made it once. I took it apart because I wanted the center knot fabric to face the same was as the loops of the bow. I reassembled it…wrong a second time. This next time I got it oriented the way I wanted. When I went through my stack of wreath centers to add the bow on top, I found, stacked between the layers, a bow I had already made…and correctly, too! Oh, well. Now I have an extra.

Here are the six wreaths all joined in a row. Above them is their corresponding bonus pinwheel. I now have an extra bow for the wreath second from the left. The row measures 8½“ high by 50½“ wide. I am excitedly awaiting the shipment of the sixth row near the end of July,

September Log Cabin and Schoolhouse

The theme for the  Pieceful Patchwork banner for September from Shabby Fabrics is a home and school focus. There are two Log Cabin blocks and two Schoolhouse blocks. The color scheme is made up of deep reds and autumnal oranges for the log cabin blocks. The central cream of the log cabin block has typeface on it, which is a favorite feature of mine. The school house blocks are navy, teal, and deep brown, with a calico like floral pattern in some that makes me think of Little House on the Prairie. As usual, I cut out the fabrics and organized the pieces in my tray with Alphabitties. I used blue Alphabitties for the warm tones of the log cabin and black Alphabitties for cool tones of the schoolhouses.

I made two log cabin blocks at a time. They seemed straightforward enough that the risk of me messing up twice was small. I am usually more cautious. September’s kit seemed simpler than other months.

I then moved on to the schoolhouse components. I also made both of these blocks at the same time. The roof and part of the front wall are shown in the next photo.

Next are two side walls with two gold windows and two completed front walls with a teal door each. When I assembled the schoolhouse parts, I also made a pinwheel from the corners cut off at the roof.

All blocks are ready to be assembled with green sashing, brown inner border, and red plaid outer border.

I have sandwiched the top with bamboo batting and cream colored backing. I usually procrastinate on this step, so I am proud I did not delay for September’s banner. My binding and hanging sleeve are ready to go. So now I am prepped for free motion quilting. This is when I need to stare at it for at least a day or two to decide the motifs to stitch. No. This delay is not undesirable procrastination. It is my normal, justified thinking time.

Zombie Wooble

My grandson is hooked on Woobles. I'm crocheting another for him for his 11th birthday. It is a Zombie and Zombie baby from the Minecraft video game. A Zombie in this game is the most common mob and it is hostile. In Minecraft, a mob (short for "mobile entity") is any living, moving creature or non-player character in the game. Zombies spawn in dark areas and attack by slowly approaching the player and punching them. These monsters will aggressively hunt and attack you if you get too close. Defeating them often yields valuable loot or experience points. Granted, I do not understand how they spawn or how they treat their young if they are that hostile... Curious about how zombies spawn? Check out this article and scroll down to the spawning section.

My goal is to make a Daddy Zombie and a baby zombie. Whoops, perhaps they are a Mommy and baby Zombie...? When I looked this up, according to AI:

Zombies in Minecraft do not have a specific gender. While their appearance resembles the default male player character, ... the game's original creator designed almost all mobs in the game to be genderless.

Making the main body progresses really quickly for me. The following photo shows the top half of the zombie's body. He is crocheted from the top down - dark green top toward dark blue bottom. I can finish the main part, complete with eyes and stuffing in very little time. Adding the tiny appendages and the detail embroidery are what slows me down, even though the instruction are very clear and specific on placement.

I followed the instructions carefully to attach the big Zombie's plastic safety eyes and to embroider his mouth and nose. In retrospect I  should have stitched his nose and moth in a color other than the dark green, perhaps black, to have it show up better on the variegated green. But I was faithful to the directions and perhaps this color palette is more true to that of the characters in the game. When I researched the "correct" color palette for a Minecraft Zombie, all the images do show a rather subdued nose and mouth.

I moved on to make the baby zombie. His face has embroidered eyes rather than plastic ones and he has no nose or mouth. Simple as it was, I messed up the first time with the eyes and had to unstitch and embroider them farther up. I think it really does make a difference, otherwise I would not have bothered.

Here are my completed Zombie and Baby Zombie. These are my sixth (and seventh?) Woobles. After the photo are references and links to my previous five.

• 1/22/24 Strawberry the Axolotl Wooble
• 10/15/25 Creeper Wooble
• 2/6/26 VAN the Guardian Robot Wooble
• 3/20/26 Chilly the Frog Wooble
• 4/30/26  Scooter the Wooble Raccoon

July Flags and Pinwheels Completed

For the piecing and assembly of the Flags and Pinwheels banner for July from Shabby Fabrics see my previous post dated 6/11/26. This post is about the FMQ, labeling, binding, and completion of the July banner.

Flag Blocks
FMQ on  flag blocks was wavy lines on the stripes to simulate the flag waving in the breeze. The wave is in every other stripe, namely the cram colored ones and also in the teal borders at the top and bottom of the flag. I used the deep wave side of my Handi-Quilter Wave F ruler.  The 4" wavelength worked out perfectly for the 12" width of the flag; I used the shallow 0.75" height as being the right proportion for the width of the stripes on the flag. For other info I have complied on Handi-Quilter wave rulers and their reissue under other names, check out my blog post for 10/1/25.

The sawtooth star section has straight lines set ¼" in from the outer edge seams. This offset seemed to bring out the star more than a stitch in the ditch would have and I like that the center seems to puff up.

Pinwheels
FMQ on the blades of the pinwheel blocks was inspired by Week 2 of a dot -to-dot video class by Angela Walters. On the outer edges I free-formed some curvy lines and vortexes to represent the airflow streams around a spinning pinwheel.

Sashing and Outer Borders
The gingham sashing between the flag and pinwheel blocks is FMQd with a simple zigzag echoing the 45° slant of the gingham. The stitching is not very noticeable but that's OK. For the outer borders I have always like piano key borders. I decided to modify this border by varying the spacing of the lines. The closer lines seems more like "stripes" when they alternate with the wider gaps. I got bored with doing these ruler-guided lines (¼" and ¾" apart) after the first side though, so I mixed it up. There is no rule all four borders need to be the same. 

Something different was needed for the top and bottom borders. What better goes with stripes in July but stars? I used the smallest 1½" star from my my Amanda Murphy star template set make stars on the top and bottom borders. 

I started in the middle and worked outward toward the left with just the tops of the stars, back inward toward the right with just the star bottoms, switching in the middle to continue star tops toward the right, then all the way left toward the middle to finish the star bottoms. No breaking thread, right! Except, I ran out of bobbin thread during this "continuous" process. Aargh! Photos show star border near completion and after it is all completed. In retrospect I wish I had used a heavier thread so the stars stood our more. The side piano borders have double stitching out and back. That may be why the stars look a bit weak by comparison. Oh, well, lesson learned and something to keep in mind for the future.

Labels
My tradition is to make my labels from grosgrain ribbon which I embroidered on my 20+ year old Pfaff. I have a stash of grosgrain ribbon of course, but it is not in a color or width I wanted. I miss JoAnn's. After a commando raid to my local Michael's I learned they did not have grosgrain ribbon. Seems like all the general population seems to want is wired ribbon or satin ribbon.  The clerk in Michael's did not even know what grosgrain ribbon was. I wound up having to order it from Amazon. Though not as convenient as a car ride away, I eventually did  get my grosgrain ribbon delivered the next day from Amazon. The assortment I bought was QingHan Grosgrain Ribbon 5/8 Inches 40 Yards (20 Colors x 2yards). I am used to buying Offray as a familiar brand name, but the quality of these ribbons was fine. I should be really set for grosgrain ribbon for quite a while. 

I embroidered my labels for the back lower corners, choosing navy for the ribbon color, even though originally I was looking for ecru. I embroidered them in ivory and set them on the diagonal in each lower corner. They read DIC_JULY_2026 and FLAGS_AND_PINWHEELS.  July stands for the theme month of the banner, not the month I completed it.

Completed Banner

This is the front and back of the seventh banner I have completed in this monthly themed series. I am just beyond halfway there to having an entire year of months represented. To preview how the July banner will look I snapped a photo and hung it outside my sewing room in a designated spot that I switch out monthly. I will change it back to the June banner, since the Strawberries theme has about a week of display time still due.

Here are my completions thus far for this series from Shabby Fabrics.

• JAN    Snowmen and Snowflakes (2/10/26)
• MAR  Shamrocks and Irish Chains (4/6/26)
• APR   Bunnies and Carrots (3/6/26)
• MAY   Roses and Pansies (9/11/25)
• JUN    Strawberries (9/6/25)
• JUL    Flags and Pinwheels (this post 6/24/26)
• AUG    Bees and Sunflowers (9/21/25)
  

July Flags & Pinwheels

The theme for the patriotic Pieceful Patchwork banner for July from Shabby Fabrics is Flags and Pinwheels, two of each. The color scheme is made up of navy, gold, muted teal, soft reds, and cream. The cream has writing on it, which is a favorite feature of mine. As usual, I cut out the fabric and organized the pieces in my tray with Alphabitties and Clover Wonder Clips. I used black Alphabitties for the pinwheels and blue Alphabitties for the pinwheels. I made up the two pinwheels first before I took the photo, and so the black letters are empty. Note the two pinwheels have opposite polarity, minimizing scrap generation.

Next up were the two flags, each with one Sawtooth star in the flag's traditional field of stars. The instructed method to make the flying geese for the star points was different from my usual method. This four-at-a time method wastes less fabric but precludes me from adding to the pinwheels I usually make from cut off corner scraps using the flip up corner method with rectangles. The trim down after the four-at-a -time method is a bit tedious, but it does make a crisp precise flying geese rectangle. It does require a bit of head scratching on placing those "A" squares if the fabric is directional such as a stripe. It was fortunate that both the gold and navy fabric with mini-stars is direction independent.

The red and cream stripes of the flag build quickly. They are simple, uncomplicated strips of fabric joined, so I took this opportunity to try out my new purchase of a cordless iron. I'd recently bought a

Panasonic Red 360 Freestyle Cordless Iron NI-QL2000R. Here are the basic units of the flag adjacent to the iron in its charging cradle. I studied reviews of the iron before buying and realize that any complaints leaned toward using it to press a large weekly load of laundry, but using it for piecing in quilting is very handy. The complaints refuted:

• It does not get hot enough ...
  — this iron is 1700 watts and I found myself using it on the medium setting, not high
  — the steam was adequate; the smaller water reservoir made for less weight
• It does not stay hot long enough ...
  — not a problem for pressing parts and seams within quilt blocks, not an entire garment
•  It requires more space for the cradle ...
   — no more space than the footprint of a larger corded iron encompasses
• Replacing it in the heating cradle is awkward ...
  — not having a "heel" to rest it on was initially something I had to get used to
  — but muscle memory quickly took care of that issue as I learned the new motion 
• Having no flat heel end is weird ...
  — the tip on this smaller iron (both ends) is better for getting into tight spots
  — it was exceptionally more maneuverable when pressing open ¼" seams

Here are the two completed flag blocks. Once I add sashing and join them up with the two pinwheels, I will be off to sandwich, FMQ, label, and bind. There is still time in June for me to get this banner completed for July.

Note: Both flags are the same size. My mediocre photography skills introduce a skew that I have yet to learn how to remove. I should have been more careful when lining up my cellphone camera parallel with my design wall.

Christmas Celebration Gift Row

There are eight blocks to make in this fourth installment of the Shabby Fabrics Christmas Celebration Row Quilt series. Gifts are made out of these fabrics. The pale blue ornaments #23, the green snowmen #25, and the wonky red gingham #29 from the Emmitt and Ivy Sweetwater line for Moda are new to this fourth row. It is always a nice surprise to see the new additions each month.

Numbers 6&14, 4&22, 23&28, and 25&29 pairs to make four gifts, then the four pair trade positions, 14&6, 22&4, 28&23, and 29&25, for the other four gifts. I cut the eight fabrics four layers at a time, to assure cleaner cuts. I label my pieces with letters. The pattern does not assign the pieces letters, but this is a habit I use that helps me keep organized. I write the letter on the pattern and then clip it to the piece with my Alphabitties and WonderClips. A letter is easier to reference than the dimensions of a piece.

First I made up the four gifts from the 6&14 and 4&22 combinations starting with the upper portion of the bow on the top of the gift. These went really quick. The cut off corners were too small for me to try to make them into pinwheels as I often do. I was only constructing the block parts with no extra freebies from the scraps. Here are the tops of four gifts.

Then I made the bulk of the gift itself using the wider fabric pieces for the wrapping paper and the narrower pieces for the ribbon. I made a group of four at a time from two pair of complimentary fabrics 6&14, 14&6, 4&22, and 22&4.

 

I repeated the process for fabrics 23&28 and 25&29, making the other four gifts

Instead of all eight gifts adjacent in a row, they were divided up into two groups of three and a central group of two. In this case I used my Alphabitties for a different purpose— to denote the letter of the completed block as specified in the pattern.

Here is the whole row assembled. It is 9½" high and 50½" long. It is long enough that my design wall is not wide enough and the row needs to wrap around the corner on the left.

I made up this row within a day of it arriving in the mail. Now I have a whole long month to wait until the next row installment comes. But I like the pacing, and the project does not become overwhelming. Besides, now I have an imposed window to make progress on all those other UFOs I have been avoiding.

Links to the previous three rows in this series are: 5/29/26 stockings, 5/30/26 trees, 5/31/26 stars.