I Heart You Patchwork Pattern Hack

Today I'm sharing a super easy (and more importantly - SUPER CUTE!) pattern hack for the I Heart You pattern! I made this tutorial into a printable below, so all you have to do is just save the file at the very bottom of this post to your computer and print when you're ready 👍 And just to make it super clear, this is a companion pattern to the I Heart You quilt. You will need both the printable below and the I Heart You quilt pattern to make the patchwork version 😊

[And if you weren't in the loop already, Then Came June and I are hosting a four week sewalong on Instagram for the I Heart You quilt that starts January 2nd! More details about that coming soon! Follow us on Instagram to stay in the loop!]

Raise your hand if you're a fan of patchwork! ✋✋✋✋✋ I love the modern vibes of the original I Heart You quilt [see below 😍], but this pattern hack is such a fun way to give the quilt a more traditional look. AND it's a pretty great stash buster as well!

And look how soft and pretty the scrappy version is below! 😍 I'm sharing the tutorial for this version now so you all have time to make your patchwork panels before the sewalong starts in January. Thought you might appreciate the heads up with the busy-ness of the holidays quickly approaching 😅 And if you don't have time to make your panels before January 2nd, no worries! You'll have time during the sewalong to assemble them too!

Anyways, hope you all love my scrappy take on the I Heart You quilt as much as I do and that you have the most fun making it! 💟 Printable instructions for the pattern hack below! 👇

The Holly Jolly Sewalong

We're only in week two of The Ghost Sewalong, but I'm talking about the Holly Jolly Sewalong today because it starts RIGHT after the Ghost Sewalong ends (September 17th to be exact)! We want to make sure everyone has pleeennnty of time to get ready for it! 👌

If you plan to participate in the Holly Jolly Sewalong, you'll want to start thinking about A) the look you're going for for your Holly Jolly quilt - Scrappy? Modern? Maybe a mix of both? B) What color scheme and fabrics you want in your quilt in. There are so many great holiday fabric collections that would work well with this pattern! Some of my favorite lines out right now are Swell and Vintage Holiday by Moda and Way Up North by Riley Blake! Solids would work great too, as pictured below! You can actually take all the guesswork out and buy a quilt kit for the solids version below from Fabric Bubb!

The schedule for the sewalong is below...The first week will be spent cutting out your fabrics for the quilt! I am going completely scrappy with mine and doing each block differently (You can see my fabric pull and two of my blocks in the first photo above) so my plan is to cut for each block and then bag all the cuts for each block together so I can just pull a certain amount of bags each week and start sewing asap!


HOLLY JOLLY SEW ALONG SCHEDULE:

September 17th - October 22nd

Week One - Cut out fabrics
Week Two - Make six blocks
Week Three - Make six blocks
Week Four - Make four blocks
Week Five - Assemble the quilt top


The piecing for the Holly Jolly blocks is a little more intense than the previous two sewalongs so if you don't regularly piece blocks with a lot of seams in them, I highly encourage you to watch my Piecing 101 video on Instagram (Link HERE) before you start sewing. I go over how to get a perfect scant 1/4" seam allowance, piece blocks with a lot of seams and a lot of small pieces. I hope you find it helpful!

And just a reminder - there will be a prize at the end of this sewalong! One lucky person will win free longarm services for their Holly Jolly quilt from Knot + Thread! To qualify, all you have to do is share your progress each week to Instagram tagging Then Came June and myself, Pen + Paper Patterns. Include the hashtags #hollyjollysewalong, #hollyjollyquilt, #thencamejune, and #penandpaperpatterns in your post each week as well.

I also have a fun little giveaway planned at the beginning of this sewalong so make sure you're following me on Instagram so you're in the loop about it!

You can purchase the Holly Jolly quilt pattern HERE! And the material requirements for the quilt are directly below!

The Ghost Quilt Sewalong

The sewalong I've been anticipating the most since Meghan and I released the Modern Holiday Quilt Collection is almost here! 🙌 Even if I weren't the other half of this collab with Meghan of Then Came June I would still be participating in the sewalong. Which I know sounds completely biased, but I just think it's the cutest Halloween pattern out there! (I'm realizing it's impossible for me NOT to sound biased haha, so you all will just have to take my word for it 😉)

As I mentioned before, my plan with all four sewalongs is to make scrappy versions of each quilt and to use up as much of my stash as possible. I think I purchased most of the fabric for the ghost bodies and bought my background fabric too so I kinda failed with the "using up my stash" part, but it will definitely hit the mark in the scrappy department. A photo of my fabric pull so far is below....I'm planning to use various low volume/tone-on-tone prints for the ghost bodies and use the black Dear Stella print for the background. Meghan/Then Came June wrote a blog post about what you need to make your own scrappy ghost quilt. You can read it HERE! She also made mock-ups of the Ghost quilt in various, fun color schemes that you'll definitely want to check out. They're guaranteed to inspire you! 

The Ghost Quilt Sewalong will be five weeks long and super fun! The sewalong will be hosted on Instagram using the hashtags #ghostquiltsewalong and #modernholidayquilts, and you'll receive weekly newsletter emails sharing what is in store for that week. By posting the weekly photo prompts on Instagram while using the hashtags, you'll have a chance to win FREE long arm quilting from Kaitlyn of Knot and Thread Designs on your finished Ghost quilt!

THE DETAILS

DATES: August 6th - September 3rd

DURATION: 5 weeks

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

• Be sure to sign up for the weekly newsletter!
• Follow along on Instagram with the hashtags #ghostquiltsewalong and #modernholidayquilts.
• Grab the Ghost Quilt pattern here or the whole Modern Holiday Collection discounted bundle here.

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

If you want to make the exact version of the Ghost Quilt Meghan made, use the info above OR Fabric Bubb carries this exact bundle as a kit on their site! Go grab one now.

 TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:

WEEK 1: Pick out your fabrics and cut all the pieces.

WEEK 2: Make 7 Ghost Blocks.

WEEK 3: Make 7 Ghost Blocks.

WEEK 4: Make 7 Ghost Blocks.

WEEK 5: Make 4 Ghost blocks and sew your top together!

I cannot wait to see all the amazing versions everyone will create! Don't forget to SIGN UP NOW and GRAB THE PATTERN NOW.

Firefly (or Bees!) Sewalong

The Firefly Quilt pattern can now be found in my Etsy shop HERE!

Exciting news! My FireFly pattern, with bonus Bee Block instructions, releases next month through Pattern Drop! Can't believe it! Annnndddd, did you hear?? Pattern Drop is hosting a sewalong for the pattern this summer too! Yay! I posted the schedule for the sewalong at the end of this post! 

For anyone wondering - what the heck is Pattern Drop?? It is a subscription-based pattern club! You can sign up for a 12 or 6-month subscription and every month an awesome digital pattern is sent to you + other goodies! And, because of the sewalong, Pattern Drop has made the Firefly pattern available to purchase individually! You can pre-order the pattern right now, by following the link HERE.

All the information you need about the sewalong + purchasing the pattern can be found over at Pattern Drop (Click HERE to go directly to it)! And if you purchase the 6-month membership to Pattern Drop, make sure to use the coupon code 1FREEPENANDPAPER and get one of those months free! 

If you're wanting to make your Firefly quilt similar to the sample, you can purchase quilt kits through Fabric Bubb or Sewtopia!

SEWALONG SCHEDULE:

Week 1 – July 2-6: Cutting

Week 2 – July 9-13: Piecing the 1st 5 blocks

Week 3 – July 16-20: Piecing the 2nd 5 blocks

Week 4 – July 23-27: Piecing the remaining 6 blocks

Week 5 – July 30-Aug 3: Piecing the quilt top

Week 6 – Aug 6-10: Catch up week

Week 7 – Aug 13-17: Quilting

Week 8 – Aug 20-24: Binding

Week 9 – Celebration and show and tell

Starry Skies Sewalong - My Scrappy Version!

My plan for the Starry Skies sewalong (actually my plan for ALL of the Modern Holiday sewalongs) is to use up as much of my stash as possible. Luckily, I had enough in my red, blue, and white fabric bins for the stars and diamonds on the quilt and only had to purchase fabric for the background. Always nice when that happens right?

(For anyone wondering, my background fabric is Essex Homespun Linen in Chambray by Robert Kaufman. You can buy it HERE!)

I really want an Americana/vintage/scrappy vibe for my Starry Skies quilt so I decided to change up the placement of the prints from the pattern and keep all of the points on my stars the same prints. I also decided to mix up my center squares so that each star block is different. In the pattern you make four sets of four different stars (photo of the quilt below), but, in my version, none of my star blocks will be the same. In the end, it'll look like I used a much larger variety of fabrics, but in reality, I'm only using four fat quarters of red prints and four fat quarters of blue prints.

And a photo of my first four blocks! Confession - I might have gotten so excited about making these blocks that I finished all 16 blocks in one day 😂🙈 In my defense, they are SO quick and SO fun to make. Basically, it was impossible to resist 😉 

The sewalong for Starry Skies starts on Monday the 23rd and it's still not too late to join! You can purchase the pattern HERE and sign up for the Starry Skies Weekly Newsletter HERE.

The Sew-Along will be casual and four weeks long. It will be hosted on Instagram using the #starryskiessewalong and #modernholidayquilts hashtags, and you'll receive weekly newsletters sharing what is in store for that week. Be sure to post your weekly photos of your progress using the above hashtags and you'll be put into the prize pool to win free long-arm quilting on your completed top by Kaitlyn of Knot & Thread.

SCHEDULE:
Lindsey's schedule noted in ( ). 

WEEK 1: Choose Fabric, Cut Fabric & Make 4 Star Blocks (or 16 whatever you want to do)

WEEK 2: Make 6 Star Blocks (pretend you made 6 that week)

WEEK 3: Make 6 Star Blocks (again more pretending)

WEEK 4: Make all Diamond Blocks and sew the top together! (Contemplate doing this between weeks 2 and 3, but wait until the very last minute of week four instead)

UPDATE! Here's how my Starry Skies quilt turned out! 

Modern Holiday Quilt Collection - I Heart You Quilt

Today's spotlight is on my Valentine quilt, I Heart You!

First of all, this quilt comes together FAST! You could easily finish this in a day or two. Not to get too cheesy, but originally I was going to name this quilt "Speak Love." The world today can feel so dark and heavy at times that I think spreading love whether through your words or actions is more important than ever before. Because this is technically a Valentine quilt, I went with something a little lighter and named it "I Heart You" instead. The speech bubbles with the hearts also make me think of conversations or cards/texts you might get from a loved one on Valentine's Day. The ones that make you smile real big and feel so loved inside. I wanted to make a quilty-version of that feeling. 

Meghan and I also are doing casual sew-alongs for each quilt for the Modern Holiday Quilt Collection over the next nine months (The first sew-along, Starry Skies, starts 4/23 so get ready!). I am really excited about the I Heart You sew-along in particular (right behind The Ghost Quilt 😍😍😍) Right now, my plan is to do a blue-green floral background with white speech bubbles and coral, pink, and peach hearts...In my head, it's going to look super cute. Hope I can make it just as cute in real life!

Fabric Bubb is selling bundles in the Kona Solids we used for each quilt too! You can find those bundles HERE.

Our tops were all quilted by the super sweet and talented, Kaitlyn from Knot & Thread! We may or may not be giving gift certificates for Kaitlyn's longarm services as prizes during each sew-along too! More info about that coming soon!

We hope you love these quilts as much as we do and have the most fun making them! 💗 We currently have the entire collection and bundle discounted in our shops until midnight tonight! The bundle especially is an awesome deal right now. Three patterns for the price of four! Woot-woot! Take advantage of it while you can!

The Modern Holiday Quilt Collection - Angry Clown Edition

I am so excited to officially introduce the Modern Holiday Quilt Collection on here!! This is a collection that Meghan/Then Came June and I have been working on for awhile and we can't believe it's finally time to show these quilts off! The patterns are available in both my Craftsy and Etsy shops (available in Meghan's shop as well!) and we currently have them discounted until Sunday the 8th! You can purchase the patterns individually or save a little bit and buy them as a bundle instead!

I will be honest, this was mostly the brain-child of my bestest quilty friend, Meghan aka Then Came June, who very graciously asked if I'd like to collaborate with her on it. I was feeling pretty burnt out at the time, but my gut said, "DO IT!" and I'm so glad I listened. It's been a really fun eight months working with Meghan! She's extremely talented in SO many ways, hilarious, and I so admire how driven and business-minded she is. I can be pretty intense when it comes to work-related stuff, but Meghan and I not only agreed on nearly every decision and how to execute them, but she challenged me to push myself a little farther than I normally would. We made a pretty awesome team if I do say so myself 😉

Meghan and I decided we would design four holiday-themed quilts, each of us taking the lead on two of them, and that they would be modern and beginner friendly. I designed the quilts for Christmas and Valentine's Day and Meghan took over for Halloween and Fourth of July. Her Halloween quilt KILLS me. If you haven't checked it out yet, I give you full permission to abandon ship AKA this post and go look at it instead. It is THE CUTEST. But then come back here when you're done because I've got a hilarious tale to share about the making of the Holly Jolly quilt.

Remember when I mentioned how intense I was? Well, this is a great example of what I meant...

So when I chose to do the Christmas quilt I almost immediately knew I wanted to do holly berries. I wanted the berry blocks to look randomly placed on the quilt - like someone had just laid a bunch of holly berries down on a flat surface and they were ready for a Pinterest-worthy photoshoot. I had a vision and I was SO excited about it, but very quickly realized how challenging this idea would be. To make this quilt traditionally pieced and not appliqued or paper pieced in the style that I wanted was going to be really difficult...

I was determined to make it work though and luckily I had Meghan there to bounce a bajillion (wish I was exaggerating) ideas off of. I ended up going through about three different versions of the idea. Each version had 20 different spins on it. I think I text Meghan non-stop for three days straight trying to figure out what to do.

And thus I introduce to you a photo montage of the evolution of the Holly Jolly quilt...

This was the first idea and pretty close to the final design. But I still wasn't 100% happy with it, so I played around with it more and landed on this...

I liked how this idea had more of a Scandinavian vibe, but after making one of the blocks I noticed it sorta reminded me of a face. And specifically a very hostile clown-like face 😠🤡

I did everything I could to make the clown less angry, but I only made it angrier...

So, I think you all know what happened next, we lololol'd A LOT and then, sadly, the clown was killed off #ripberrytheclown

Then, after bouncing a couple more ideas/versions off of Meghan, I basically ended up where I started 😂. Cue the violin music for Meghan, right?

Anyways, the story had a good ending and that's all that really matters 💗 I am really happy with how it looks now (phew!) and can't wait to make a scrappy version of it myself when we do the sew-along for it in September! I think a version with a low volume background and scrappy red and green prints for the berries and leaves would be so, so cute! I'm not the best with scrappy so we'll see if I can actually execute it 🙏

Tomorrow Meghan will be sharing more details about her amazingly cute Ghost quilt that you won't want to miss! And come back here Sunday when I share a much less entertaining blog post about the I Heart You quilt 😉

🤡

Vegas Wedding Quilt Tips & Tricks - Part 4

In this last and final Vegas Wedding quilt post, I will be sharing a few tips for assembling the quilt top! I planned to get a full shot of my top finished this weekend, but....life happened so the photo shoot didn't 👎 You all will have to pretend that graphic below is the real thing for now 😂😉 I am SO excited with how it turned out though and can't wait to get some photos and share them with you!

The Vegas Wedding Quilt pattern can be found HERE

The hardest part of assembling the top is lining up the angled seams of Blocks Two and Three with Block One. I have a tip I discovered while making my first Vegas Wedding Quilt that made it pretty much fool proof. But, first a tip for sewing Piece J....

When sewing a halved Piece J to a Block One, either finger press Piece J in half and line up the center crease with the center seam of Block One. OR you can just make sure the point on the triangle is lined up with the center seam too! Either method ensures that Piece J is centered on the block.

Alright, and now my tip for getting the angled seams of Blocks Two and Three to line up with the straight seams of Block One....Lay a Block One and Block Three, right sides together (RST) like shown in the photo below. Line up the left raw edges of both blocks. My Block Three is positioned a little lower than Block One in the photo below so you can have a better visual for how these seams will line up.

To make sure that the angled seams of Block Three line up with the straight seams of Block One, you want the point of the diagonal seam to line up with the edge of the seam it is pointing towards/needs to line up with.

An example of how these two seams will line up is below. The most important thing to pay attention to is the direction your angled seem is going. In the example below the diagonal seam, or seam that the bottom arrow is pointing at is going toward the right. So the point of that seam needs to line with the right edge of the straight seam below it or the seam that the top arrow is pointing at.

This tip will also apply to when you pin Blocks One and Block Two together. If you notice in the photo below, the angled seam on the left is going to the right, so the point of that seam will then be lined up with the right edge of the seam in Block One above it. Also, make sure the center seam of Block one is intersecting right through the center point of Block Two. I just simply fold back the center of Block One a little bit and adjust as necessary until that center seam intersects perfectly.

I like to pin as many blocks together as I can from each row before I start sewing. It really speeds it up if you chain piece as much as possible.

I also save time by not pressing the seams until each row is pieced. So after I sew the stack of blocks above, I'll lay them out on my floor, pin the units/blocks together from each row again - until the entire row is pieced, and then I will press my seams.

It helps to press the seams from each row in alternate directions so the seams nest together when you sew the rows together. For example, if the seams in Row 1 are pressed to the left then the seams in Row 2 are pressed to the right.

Here are all of my rows finished and ready to be sewn together...

After you've sewn the rows together you will need to square the quilt top by trimming 1/4" away from the outermost points around the perimeter. I do this by simply lining up the 1/4" marking on my ruler with the points on the quilt. Also, in example photo below, you will want to line up one of the horizontal markings with the horizontal edge of the corner. This ensures that your corner will be square or a 90° angle later.

I like to trim right up to the second point, move my ruler up so now I'm measuring 1/4" past the next point while making sure the ruler lines up with the previous point I just trimmed.

I keep moving my ruler along all four edges, measuring from point to point, until the entire quilt is trimmed. Add your borders as instructed in the pattern and your top is finished! 🙌

I hope you all found these tips for making the Vegas Wedding quilt helpful! Like always, email me at PenAndPaperPatterns@gmail.com or comment below with any questions! And use the hashtag #VegasWeddingQuilt when you share your progress on social media! I'd love to see how your quilts turn out!

Thanks!
Lindsey