Pleasanton Craft Fair

On Friday, September 25th I met up with my friend Tekoa to take in the Pleasanton Quilt, Craft, & Sewing Festival at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. We arrived shortly before noon and spent about three hours there, breaking midway for lunch at the outdoor picnic tables. Tekoa and I prioritized visiting with each other over visiting the vendors. Nevertheless, we walked by every booth two or more times, entering and lingering in some for longer. The yellow colored booths on the map are where I bought something.

Here is list of my purchases, not necessarily in the order I bought them and not necessarily grouped by where I bought them. I had rough guidelines for this outing. I forbade myself from buying yet another kit to join those accumulating in my closet at home, waiting patiently to be chosen for my next project. I also wanted to minimize my purchase of novelty prints and restrict myself to basics and blender fabrics.

The first item that caught my eye at the show was this green/white pinstripe. It fit the criterion of being basic and is always useful for bindings. The one yard green/white pinstripe is from Sew 2 Cute (booths113-114). Later in our looping around, I added the  half-yard black/white wiggly stripes from Workman Farms (booths 201-204).

The time of year put me in the Halloween mood. I spied this witch hat pattern and thought it might be fun to make hats for the grandkids. The Spellbound Hat  inspired me to look at the Halloween fabrics. Yes, they are novelty prints; but if I use them up right away and do not design a whole quilt around them, do they really count? What if I make my first hat and find out it really is rather difficult and time consuming? Throwing caution to the wind I bought the fabrics anyway. How hard can it be? The witch hat pattern was from Quilter's Hollow (booths 611-613), one yard dark pumpkin fabric was from Elk Grove Sew & Vac (booths 501-502), one yard each orange mini-pumpkins, purple skulls, and white ghosts were from Workman Farms (booths 201-204). The Fibonnaci's Fancy pattern also called to me from Quilter's Hollow (booths 611-613). It is very effective in the cool monotones but I wonder if a rainbow effect would be pleasing as well.

Tekoa told me that a friend of hers had made several of these bowl cozies and gifted them to her. She uses them all the time. They work great for taking hot items out of the microwave, kind of a custom hot pad/glove option. I bought two packages from Patticakes Quilt shop (booths 306-309). I plan to make the red one for my own use and give the other to someone with a chicken themed kitchen. The package contains the fabric and the batting with instructions. No, this does not break my "no kits" rule. That is why I referred to this collection of supplies and fabric as packages and not kits.

At Material Girlfriends (booths 511-514) I bought a half-yard of a gray ombre fabric for making the Christmas Morning Delight Wall Hanging which I have admired for several years but never built up the courage to start. I have the pattern but not the kit. The center is appliqué which is not my first love nor my strong suit and the gray ombre that I think is critical to the effect is hard to find. I am now inspired to make at least that center section. The technique is raw-edge iron-on appliqué so I should be able to handle it.

Ok. Now the practical purchasing gives way to the impractical impulse buys. This scenic 36" x 43" Santa panel has such an icy-cold feel it called to me and I could not pass it up. My husband claims when he handled it, it gave him the chills. Not all fabric needs to be made into a quilt. I may just back it with cuddle (red or white or even gray) or staple it onto stretcher bars. I wonder if those bars can still be found or ordered in the sizes I would need. Hmm... maybe just taping it onto foam board would do instead. The Santa panel came from Material Girlfriends (booths 511-514).

I found this Hawaiian-ish print fabric to be uniquely interesting and it called to me. It did, however, meet the criterion of my novelty fabric ban. I walked away from it twice, then carried it around in my hand for a while deciding. With its 8½" vertical repeat it would make a great backing. I eventually caved and my final impulse buy was the one yard length of this Hawaiian-ish print fabric from Patticakes Quilt Shop (booths 306-309). 

It was a fun, inspirational, afternoon day spent visiting and indulging in some shopping therapy. I have already made up one of the bowl cozy packages. I no longer need to feel guilty about rationalizing it as "not a kit" to avoid adding to my pending kit count. Its making will be the subject of another post.

Jolly Tree Farm Completion

The first tree I quilted was from Week Three. I too was Feelin' Pine & Dandy because I'd been inspired with a quilting pattern. I did curves on all the triangles but intentionally did not stitch curves around the seam in the pieced triangle pair I wanted to look like a diamond (midway down blog post). In retrospect perhaps I could have lined up the polka dots better but that did not occur to me at the time of cutting.

Next up I quilted the week one tree Spruced Up. I managed to do all three trees, nine total boughs, without having to break thread. Here are those three trees and a closeup of the bottom center one over a trunk.

Next I quilted the week four tree Tree-mendous Holiday. It was already pretty simple with all those rectangles and I decide to keep the quilting simple, too, to show off all those luscious prints. All of the curves in these trees are freehanded so they are not identical.

While I was deciding how to quilt the week two tree I did a star. I quilted a star ¼" inside its perimeter and ¼" outside its perimeter, using a ruler to get straight lines. I used a very pale gray thread rather than white since I thought the houndstooth had equal parts white and gray.

For the week two Rejoice Fir-ever tree, my delay due to indecision was resolved when I overlaid a sheet protector and doodled triangles. Three triangles in the lowest bough, two triangles in the middle bough, and two smaller triangles with a diamond in the top tier seemed to work. This doodling auditioning is my response to the dreaded phrase "quilt as desired". Now I, too, could "Rejoice Fir-ever" once a plan had been decided and executed.

I then proceeded to quilt the remaining four pieced stars. After that I took a break to write this blog post since the conundrum of what to quilt in the background loomed. Whatever it was, it had to weave in and among those trees and stars. Waves using a ruler was not viable with so many interruptions in the flow. In the open areas it occurred to me that I did not need to do a continuous stitching filler. Some individual stitched stars like the pieced ones would fill in the area nicely. I could also do them in different sizes. 

I made myself a few templates and marked only the eight corner points of each star. Connecting these dots in the correct order would form a star. Normally I do not like marking my quilt tops. I am timid that if I do not cover the marks completely they may show if they fail to come out.  Tiny grey dots covered by pale gray thread disappeared. Here are some of my templates and the order for connecting the dots. After is a photo of the corner dots having been transferred to the quilt top. Those dots really are teeny tiny. I scattered stars of different sizes to fill in blank areas.

In the upper left,  among the week one Spruced Up trees, I put wedges to accentuate the triangular shapes. Stars would have looked too uniformly lined up here since they were randomly placed elsewhere.

I stitched the outer border with a simple zig zag, creating triangles that echoed those within the trees.

Here is the link for the free pattern series. I will caution that the fabric requirements are overly generous. The finished size is 31½" x 36½" which calculates out to an area of 1250 square inches. Looking at the background and border fabric requirements only (not backing nor binding)

1.5 yards background = 1.5 yd x 44inchesWOF x 36 inches/yd  = 2376 square inches

Layer cake  = 42 squares x 10 inches x 10inches = 4200 square inches

Sum of yardage + layer cake = 6576 square inches 

Yes, I realize seams take up some yardage, but not five times as 1250 sq in versus 6576 sq in. I had nine untouched squares left over from the layer cake.  There were also large scraps from partially used squares. Basically there is a pile of corals, a pile of greens and a pile of light/mixed. It is very fortunate that I love the Pointsettias and Pears fabric line so much.

Truly this quilt can be made from a stash of Christmas fabrics and does not need a layer cake. When you use a layer cake there certainly is less work and fewer time-consuming decision making than is involved when pulling together from a variety of fabric lines. With a layer cake, however, be prepared to be adding to your scrap pile/box/bin/bag/nest ... a lot!

I hand stitched my two labels diagonally in the lower corners of the back, and bound the quilt in green. For the backing I picked the coral background fabric from the Moda Pointsettias and Pears line by Sherri and Chelsi.

Here is the finished quilt. It measures 31½" x 36½".  Links to previous posts for this quilt follow the photo of the completed quilt.

The list of my five blog posts for this wall hanging follows.

Jolly Tree Farm Week One: Spruced Up (8/31/26) 11½” x 18 ½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Two: Rejoice Fir-ever (9/14/26) 8½” x 11½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Three: Feelin' Pine and Dandy (9/17/26) 12½"x 20½" 

Jolly Tree Farm Week Four: Tree-mendous Holiday (9/21/26) 14½"x 20½"

Jolly Tree Farm Completion: Assembly & Quilting 9/27/26 (this post) 31½"x 36½"

Jolly Tree Farm 4: Tree-Mendous Holiday

 Tree-mendous Holiday is the week four block for the Jolly Tree Farm Mystery quilt offered by the Fat Quarter Shop. It is made from the Poinsettia and Pear line by Sherri and Chelsi. I am still in love with this color palette. Once again I strove to make all the houndstooth in the background face the same way as I have done in previous weeks. One sawtooth star this week had houndstooth print also, so I had to pay attention when assembling it.

Sawtooth Stars
I will admit, I was getting a bit bored with sawtooth stars by this fourth week. The color palette still enchanted me but I made the two stars, two at a time so I could chain piece wherever possible. I was careful to cut two D rectangles vertical and two D rectangles horizontal for each star in the background houndstooth. Cutting the coral houndstooth was not as much an issue since all the those pieces were square. I just had to pay attention during assembly.

In the upper star section, the top two rows out of five rows total, included the tip of the tree. In the background houndstooth rectangles, C was cut vertical, A was cut horizontal, and B was square so its orientation for cutting was irrelevant.

Tree Section

Three more rows completed the lower section of the tree and its trunk. It was a nice relief to just do straight stitching instead of all those 45° angles with associated flipping and trimming. I lined up all those rectangles in order and then chain pieced as much as I could into two rows. I then added a trunk row at the bottom.

Here is the completed week four. It was by far the easiest of the weeks. It measures 14½"x 20½".

Assembly

It wasn't until Week Five that assembly instructions were given but I decided to include the sashing and borders in this post.  I very carefully figured out how to orient the borders so that the houndstooth continued to face a consistent way... and I did it wrong for the two longest pieces, borders D and E. Fortunately I could salvage E horizontals from the wrongly cut longer D verticals. I had to piece the D verticals because I did not have enough fabric length in the correct orientation.

 

Assembled, this top measures 31½" x 36½". I am on a roll... I even prepped my binding and made my labels. Let's hope I do not come to a screeching halt as I often do when it comes to the sandwiching.  The size is small enough that I suspect I will not procrastinate too much.

The list of my four blog posts for this wall hanging follows.

Jolly Tree Farm Week One: Spruced Up (8/31/26) 11½” x 18 ½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Two: Rejoice Fir-ever (9/14/26) 8½” x 11½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Three: Feelin' Pine and Dandy (9/17/26) 12½"x 20½"

Jolly Tree Farm Week Four: Tree-mendous Holiday (this post) 14½"x 20½"

Jolly Tree Farm Week Five: Assembly (this post) 31½"x 36½" 

One more post for this quilt remains for me to publish — the quilting and binding. 

Jolly Tree Farm 3: Feelin' Pine & Dandy

Feelin' Pine & Dandy is the Week Three block for the Jolly Tree Farm Mystery quilt offered by the Fat Quarter Shop. It is made from the Poinsettia and Pear line by Sherri and Chelsi. Once again I strove to make all the houndstooth face the same way as I did in the previous week. I set myself an additional personal challenge to minimize visual interruptions in that polka dot fabric and to orient other prints uniformly. 

Cutting

Starting out as is my norm, I cut out my pieces and labeled them with my Alphabitties and Clover Wonder Clips on my melamine tray. For the houndstooth on the two sawtooth stars, I made sure to cut two F rectangles horizontal and two F rectangles vertical for each star. The two background B rectangles are both horizontal and the two D rectangles are both vertical. In the tree section the D rectangles are vertical and the two C rectangles are horizontal. The Feelin' Pine & Dandy block measures unfinished 12½"x 20½". It is the largest section so far.

Sawtooth Stars
The coral colored sections of the stars happened to have a directionality, just as the houndstooth print did. I was careful and planned ahead to assure a uniformity in direction of those prints. Since these pieces were all square. I did not have to adjust their cutting direction; I could orient  each ""correctly at time of assembly.

Tree Section
The tree is essential a top, middle and a bottom tier, each tier made up of two rows. Laying out the tree pieces ahead of time helped me visualize the orientation as I sewed together six rows, two at a time, to form the top, middle, and bottom tree tiers. Then they are joined with the trunk to form the tree.

The upper row of the second tier and the upper row of the third tier had the polka dot print broken up and I did not like the look. To avoid that seam I cut three additional M pieces in the place of six N pieces, and changed my assembly method. I did not see an easy way to make those dots into uninterrupted diamonds, but I could at least eliminate that vertical seam between two flying geese. Besides, a horizontal line helps distinguish between tree boughs. 

Here are the steps I took to use rectangles instead of squares to build the top half of the middle tier followed by an image of the completed middle tier with lower row attached.

I repeated the process to build the the top half of the wider, lower tier. Success! No vertical seams in the polka dots. Continuing to build to the right, this row is then attached as the upper row of the bottom tier. The polka dot triangles are not interrupted in either row. 

Here is the completed tree of week three. I too am feeling fine and dandy.

When the star section is added to the top of the tree, week three, Feelin' Pine & Dandy is complete. Please notice that I managed to get the prints which were directional — two corals, one green and the houndstooth — to face consistently the same way.

Here are the pinwheels I managed to salvage from the cut corners of the flying geese blocks. The high contrast ones are my favorite (either end of top row). Some pinwheels are not as endearing as others but I do have my rules. A pinwheel must have two or four either light or dark the same. If the lights or darks are different they must all be different or have a partner with which to pair; there can be no one man out. I incorporated two HSTs from week one. I have two HSTs left over from week three. Following my self-imposed rules, here are what I salvaged from the scraps.

• two with four identical darks and four identical lights ( left column)
• two with two different darks and four identical lights (middle column)
• two with four different darks and four identical lights ( right column)

Here is a running list of my blog posts thus far for this wall hanging.

Jolly Tree Farm Week One: Spruced Up (8/31/26) 11½” x 18 ½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Two: Rejoice Fir-ever (9/14/26) 8½” x 11½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Three: Feelin' Pine and Dandy (this post) 12½"x 20½"