EPP Star Ornament - 12 Days of Christmas in July

Hello and welcome to my stop on the 12 Days of Christmas in July blog hop, hosted by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Sarah is doing a quilt along during the hop, plus there are great projects being shared every day, so be sure to check it all out.

If this is your first time visiting me, I'm glad you're here! I'm a quilt pattern designer (see all of my patterns here) and a Christian. I share devotions here every Monday morning (read my most recent one here) and my quilting adventures all the time 😊 Sign up for The Bulletin to get my newsletter, which is filled with news from here, a delicious recipe and fun things to make.

For today's post, I made a cute EPP star ornament and wrote up a tutorial so you can whip up a galaxy of ornaments in plenty of time for Christmas. I made three similar ornaments for my grandmother for last Christmas, but this one has more room for stuffing so it's a little more pillow-like.

To make your ornament, you'll need:

• fabric scraps. They can be the same fabric or two different fabrics. The best choices will be solids or small prints, since large prints will disappear when cut into these small pieces. That being said, I chose to use the red with white dot circles even though the whole circle design would be lost because I liked the randomness of the white dots when they were cut up.
• small pins
• needle for hand stitching
• thread for basting. This doesn't need to match the fabric, since it will all be hidden on the inside of the finished ornament. I love to use up old bobbins or almost empty spools for basting EPP pieces. Here's how I store thread from nearly empty bobbins.
• diamond template. You can download the template here. Warning: don't try to make a quilt out of these diamonds as they will not lie flat when stitched into stars!
• scissors - both for fabric and paper
• not pictured, because I forgot about them when I took the picture - thread to match your fabric, ribbon for hanging the ornament and stuffing or batting scraps.

Let's get started!

Carefully cut out your paper templates. You need 12 diamonds per ornament, which means there are enough diamonds on the template to make two ornaments.

Pin a template to the wrong side of your fabric, then cut around it leaving a ¼" margin. I just cut that with scissors, eyeballing the seam allowance as it really doesn't matter if it's off by a bit or if it's not straight. Cut 6 matching fabric diamonds for each star.

Baste all the way around the diamond, without going through the paper. I have a full tutorial here showing how I baste EPP shapes using hexagons, but it's the same method for diamonds, too. Remove the pins once the diamonds are basted.

The one thing I do differently for these ornaments is to baste down the extra fabric at one pf the diamond points, which will be the outer point of the star. I do that by flattening down the extra fabric, then bringing my needle up through the center of the flap.

Then I fold one side over and tack it down so all of the fabric is hidden.

Repeat for the other side. I don't bother doing this for the other point, since that point will be the star center and that extra fabric won't be visible. See how all that extra fabric is hidden when viewed from the front?

Do that for all 12 fabric diamonds.

Using a whip stitch, stitch three diamonds together into a half star, making sure the basted points are towards the outside, not the center. Repeat with the other diamonds to make 4 half stars.

Then join them together to make two stars, again using a whip stitch. You can see here that these stars do not lie flat at all. Instead they puff up in the center. This would be awful if we were trying to make a flat quilt out of them, but is perfect for these pillow-y ornaments 😊 Take the papers out now.

I forgot to take a picture of this step, but cut a piece of ribbon about 6" long and baste it to the back of one of the star points. That will make it a lot easier than trying to hold the ribbon in place while stitching the stars together (learned that the hard way with the first ornament I made back in December!).

With the stars wrong sides together, start stitching about halfway up one of the points, using a ladder stitch. Keeping the stitches small will keep the stuffing from showing through the gaps later. Stitch all the way around the star, until you are going down the point before the one where you started. This will leave a gap along one of the "valleys" between points so you can stuff the ornament.

I used a strip of batting trimmed off a quilt for my stuffing. I put the strip on my cutting mat and run my rotary cutter over it, cutting the batting into tiny strips (which don't show very well in the picture, unfortunately).

Then I cut across the strips in the other direction, creating small bits of batting that are perfect for stuffing the ornament.

Start by stuffing the star points, then keep filling the star until it is as firmly stuffed as you want it to be. I am always surprised by how much stuffing this actually takes! Close the opening with a ladder stitch. I found that when I reached the center of the "valley," I wanted a little more stuffing in the point I had just finished closing, so I poked a bit more through the hole that was left. Then, when there were only three or so stitches left to go, I poked in another tiny bit to really fill that last point. 

I used the sticky side of a bit of tape to remove all the batting fluff left on the outside of the ornament.

There you have it, one finished EPP star ornament, ready to hang on the tree!

As I said before, there are plenty of great projects being shared as part of the blog hop, so go check them all out and get your Christmas crafting list started early 😊

Wednesday, July 14th
Joy of Days Filled With Joy
 
Thursday, July 15th
Moira of The Quilted Snail
 
Friday, July 16th
Jamie of L'Fair Quilts
 
Saturday, July 17th
Bonnie of In Stitches With Bonnie
 
Sunday, July 18th
Joanne of Everyone Deserves a Quilt
 
Monday, July 19th
Kate of Katie Mae Quilts
Shasta of High Road Quilter
 
Tuesday, July 20th
Vicki of Vicki's Crafts and Quilting
 
Wednesday, July 21st
Leanne of The Devoted Quilter (that's me!)
 
Thursday, July 22nd
Kathy of Kathy's Kwilts and More
Sandra of Musings of a Menopausal Melon
 
Friday, July 23rd
Carole of From My Carolina Home
 
Saturday, July 24th
Joanne of Everyone Deserves a Quilt (Part 2)
 
Sunday, July 25th
Karrin of Karrin's Crazy World

Fruit of the Spirit - Part 5

 While I'm taking my annual summer break from writing new devotions, I'm sharing this series on the fruit of the Spirit, which was originally published in 2016.

Devotion for the Week...

It's time for the fifth installment of our fruit of the Spirit devotion series! If you missed the previous devotions, click to read the introduction, about love, about joy and about peace.

Once again, here is our verse for this series: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law" (Galatians 5:22,23).

Okay, so this translation says forbearance, but other versions use longsuffering or, as I first learned it, patience. I find the nuances of those words to be interesting. Though they are synonyms, they don't quite mean exactly the same thing. Google dictionary defines forbearance as "patient self-control; restraint and tolerance" while longsuffering is "having or showing patience in spite of troubles, especially those caused by other people" and patience is "the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset." One puts the emphasis on controlling ourselves, another on the source of the trouble we are being patient about and the third on the reaction we are not exhibiting because we are being patient instead! 

Really, the translators used these different words in different translations because the original word, makrothumia, carries the connotations of all three English words. So, then, Paul wrote the word makrothumia meaning that the fruit of the Spirit is 'controlling ourselves in spite of troubles, especially those caused by other people, while exhibiting the capacity to accept those troubles without getting angry or upset'. Wow! That's a lot for one word to convey, isn't it?

Would you say you have makrothumia? Or are you like me and find there is abundant room for improvement? One thing I have definitely noticed is that my patience evaporates when I am tired.

I can remember when Zachary was a newborn and I lived in that sleep-deprived haze that is the first weeks and months with a new baby. Aiden was about two at the time, just learning to talk, and I must have used the phrase, "Mommy has no patience right now" a few too many times because one day he announced to his toys that "Ma ha no pa-ence now!" Yep, that was me. Still is some days.

My first thought as I prepared to write about patience for today (other than Aiden warning his toys), was that God never gets tired. Psalm 121:3-4 says, "He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." God doesn't need sleep, which means He never gets tired and He never has those moments when His patience evaporates because He didn't get enough sleep the night before. Isn't that a wonderful thought? No matter how irritating or exasperating or frustrating we may be, God is never too tired to be patient with us.

That is the kind of constant, predictable, unwavering patience His Spirit can cause to grow in us. The kind of patience that doesn't change, no matter how we are feeling or what our circumstances may be. The kind of patience we certainly can't create for ourselves because we don't have an inexhaustible supply. But He does. And He can (and will!) cause it to become part of us if we rely on Him.

Moment by moment, irritation by irritation, we have a choice to make. Will we react out of our own limited supply of patience, or will we choose to let God's unlimited patience flow through us?

I know three things for certain. 1. We will not always get it right. 2. We will never run out of opportunities to try again.

And the best one of all...God will be patient with us when we get it wrong.

Marbles - Summer Scrap Elimination

Hello and welcome to my stop on the Summer Scrap Elimination Challenge! I love sewing with scraps, so when Sheridan asked who would be interested in participating in this challenge, I signed up immediately. A challenge like this is always great motivation to dig into those scraps.

If this is your first time visiting me, I'm glad you're here! I'm a quilt pattern designer (see all of my patterns here) and a Christian. I share devotions here every Monday morning (read my most recent one here) and my quilting adventures all the time 😊 Sign up for The Bulletin to get my newsletter, which is filled with news from here, a delicious recipe and fun things to make.

Late last year I finally sorted all my scraps by colour and it has made it so easy to find what I need! I should have done it years ago, but I was hung up on the idea of needing beautiful baskets to store the separate colours in, but I didn't want to buy them, lol. Finally I decided to use shoe boxes instead, since I had a few of those lying around already, and that allowed me to get the job done. If you haven't yet found the perfect sorting/organizing system, I encourage you to just go for it, even if it's not Pinterest worthy. Being able to easily find the scraps we want makes it so much more likely that we will actually sew something with them!

For my project for the challenge, I decided to make colour coordinated panels from scraps, just sewing random bits together until I had a useable size. In this case, I chose to make the blocks 8 ½" square.

Crumb quilting like this is perfectly mindless and relaxing, though it is a bit time consuming. Sometimes, you just want to sew pieces together without worrying about matching points or precise cutting and this is perfect for those times.

Keeping the blocks all one colour, while also using a variety of fabric, was more challenging than I would have thought...it can be so hard to decide if a fabric is teal or blue, lol. Really, there are no wrong answers, though, so it was all good.

Just like this, these blocks would make a pretty quilt, but I chose to turn them into snowball blocks, with black corners (also pulled from the scrap box!). Of course, snowballs don't come in all the colours, so I'm calling these my Marbles 😊

I had every intention of having a finished mini quilt to share today, but then life happened, in the form of deadlines that needed to be met, hikes that needed to be hiked and campfires that needed to be enjoyed. So, instead of a mini quilt, I have one finished Marbles block and 6 squares ready for their corners, with another square started. 

This is an approximation of what they'll look like when I finish more blocks and get them made into a mini.

Want to make you own Marbles block? Here's how I made mine.

Start with a fun assortment of pretty fabrics, all in one colour. You'll also need thread, either in the same colour as your fabric or a neutral. I chose to use Aurifil 2600, which worked nicely with my variety of teal fabrics. You'll need a good pair of scissors to trim up your pieces and I use my Clover mini iron to press seams open as I go. When paired with my homemade pressing board, I can press the seams without leaving my chair. This is the only time I don't purposely set up the iron across the room, thereby forcing me to move regularly while sewing. If I did that while making these crumb blocks, I'd never finish a block! Lastly, you'll need your rotary cutter, mat and ruler.

Without thinking too much, pick out two pieces. If needed, use the scissors to straighten up the sides, then stitch them together. Press the seam open. There will be a lot of seams in this block and pressing the seams open really helps the block to lay flat(ish).

Use the scissors to trim them even, giving you a straight edge to add the next piece to.

Again, without thinking about it too much, pick out the next piece and stitch it on. Don't be afraid to cut up a larger scrap if you need a shorter piece. Press the seam open again.

Trim with the scissors to give yourself the next straight edge and just keep going.

I usually like to work on several small chunks at the same time. I add a piece to each chunk, chain piecing them, then press them all at the same time. 

Before long, you'll be able to join the chunks together into a larger piece.

Keep repeating the same process, adding individual pieces or joining chunks together as you see fit. This is the mindless, there-are-no-wrong-answers part of the process 😊

After a while, the pieces would get so big that I didn't feel like I could cut a straight edge with my scissors, so I use my ruler and rotary cutter. In this case, the piece is bigger than the 8 ½" I was aiming for, so I trimmed one side and then set it aside while I worked on the chunks to make the other half of the block.

When I had enough sewn that I knew it would be bigger than 8 ½" square, I trimmed the other two chunks and then stitched all three of them together.

At this point, it's all crazy and wonky around the edges.

Use your ruler and rotary cutter to trim it to 8 ½" square. Depending on how big the trimmed off pieces are, you might want to throw them back into the scrap box for the next time, or just dive right into stitching your next block using those trimmed off bits as your starting point.

Because of the way bits are sewn together, then trimmed, it's quite likely you'll end up with seams right at the edge...

or pieces that will probably end up disappearing in the seam allowances. No big deal. That's just the way these blocks go.

To turn the squares into Marbles block, you'll need four black 3 ½" squares. Draw a line diagonally from corner to corner on the wrong side of all four. Because this is the Summer Scrap Elimination challenge, I'm also making bonus HSTs when I do these stitch-and-flip corners. There's no point in creating more scraps while making a scrap elimination project, right? I learned about using Triangle Buddies from Bonnie Hunter and I love to make bonus HSTs this way, so that's how I draw my second line on each square.

Pin the squares in the corners of your crumb block, with the diagonal lines going across the corners as shown. Stitch right on both lines.

Trim off the outside corner, leaving a ¼" seam allowance.

Press the corners open to reveal your finished Marbles block 😊

But don't forget about those bonus HSTs! Trim their seam allowance to ¼" and press them open.

In the interest of using them right away, I stitched my bonus HSTs into a little pinwheel block. Since I've only finished one Marbles block, I've also only made one pinwheel, but I plan to make a bonus mini quilt out of these pinwheels.

And that's it! Somehow my scrap boxes don't seem much emptier than they were when I started, but I truly think they multiply when we're not looking. Just means I have what I need to make lots more Marbles blocks and other scrappy projects, right?

I hope you'll tag me on social media when you make your own Marbles blocks. I'm @devotedquilter on Instagram and @devotedquilterdesigns on Facebook.