enchanted sal - lilly

Hi everyone! Thanks for joining us on this last Sunday before Christmas and the last edition of the Enchanted Fall Sew Along. I am so happy you could make it. Get your cup of coffee, tea or morning breakfast ready to take in a little reading this morning.

Today, we are introducing the lovely princess, Lilly. She is a modern day princess and only wears her crown on special occasions and state events. She has no y-seam which makes her construction appeal to sewing novices, but I truly find the y-seam angels, fairies and princess easier to construct. There are more points to line up without the y-seam which makes it a tad trickier to sew.

So without further adieu, here is Princess Lilly. I decided to give her the original hairstyle and the mermaid style dress with a short sleeve top. Did I already mention that Lilly is one of the most versatile to make? She actually has two hairstyles, three dress forms (pencil, mermaid and fishtail) and optional gloves. This was the funnest part about designing the mix and match enchanted figures. You have the choice of how you want your figure to look. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of different possibilities to design the figures.

Let us take a quick look at Lilly in several of her outfits. Here is her 1960's sleeveless pencil skirt dress and added long gloves. She looks pretty charming doesn't she? Just skip over her hair band if you wish for a more sophisticated look.

Change up the skirt portion of the dress for a mermaid tail and gloves. She is ready for a gala! 

And of course, there is the version shown above in the lovely fabrics from Art Gallery Fabrics, Mystic Land designed by Maureen Cracknell.

Wait a minute. Should she put on a crown? She will borrow the crown from Isabella for tonight. Or should she put on the tiara from Jael?

But wait a minute, there is more to play with. You can design your own brides as well. By adding white to the bottom section of the hair, you can create a veil. Or, you can omit this section and use it for hair extensions. How super cool is that??

 You can mix the other bodices in from the other templates to make your very own wedding dress as well.

 

And the very special feature of Princess Lilly is her bonus hairstyle. She kind of looks like Samantha from Bewitched with red hair! I'm in love! I know I will be making this one in the future!

I hope you have enjoyed this blogpost and seen more possibilities of what you can make with the extremely diverse pattern. You not only can make a single princess, a fairy, an angel but also brides and stylish girls for yourself or another special girl in your life. Almost all of their features can be interchanged to make new figures. You can even change the bangs and hair elements for new designs.

You can purchase the PDF for Lilly on my Etsy shop or purchase the entire pattern with all 12 mix and match 12" blocks in the pattern book. It contains full size templates, easy to follow instructions, coloring images and instruction for how to mix and match templates. Use the images and cut out the different segments to see how your design will look before sewing. You can also purchase the hardcopy patterns with 64 pages at these shops within Germany.

• easypatchworkshop
• einfachbuntquilts
• niemanns-land

Thanks for joining us. Happy sewing! Stay tuned for some more fun. We will be voting on winners for the sew along content. We will be picking one winner for the (1) the cutest ever and (2) best use of mix and match templates. Check back on the other posts for what you can win. There is still time to sew, oost and enter. Voting will take place on Instagram starting December 25, 2019 and end on 'Sunday, December 29, 2019. Hope to see you there. Happy holidays.

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Take a look at previous posts and see the other figures. 

Agatha | Babette | Celeste | Daphne | Eva | Fiona | Gigi | Hailey | Isabella | Jael | Katharina | Lilly

enchanted paper dolls sal

Hi everyone! Thanks for dropping by today. I bet you are really curious about the Enchanted Paper Dolls Sew Along as well as getting your hands on a copy of the pattern. Me too! There was (and still is) a problem with the printing. I had a special edition spiral bound version and booklets printed. The spirals came out fine, but the booklets had problems with the scaling. Over the course of 64 pages, the templates no longer measured what they were supposed to. They were 3,4mm or >1/8th of an inch off. I talked with the printing company, and it wasn't supposed to happen a second time, but it did. So, we all are just going to have to wait patiently for new booklets. It is my honor and commitment to offer you the best quality product for the best price. Hang in there, it will be worth the wait.

So, with this unexpected curve ball in my sew along planning, I have decided to push the entire sew along back two weeks as well. I want to give everyone the possibility to have the hard copy pattern before the sew along begins. That way, you can plan your fabric choices better. This will not be a mystery sew along. The blocks are the same as in the pattern booklet.

I will provide fabric requirements for three different layouts - 2 x 2, 3 x 3, or 3 x 12 blocks if you choose to make a different layout. However, I will not be giving the cutting and assembly directions. The pattern does include a 40" x 40" wall hanging with four blocks of your choice.

Feel free to add the blinkie below to your website or blog if you decide to join in the sew along fun.

Stay tuned for some fall sewing fun! Please join us starting September 29, 2019. Thanks for dropping by!

enchanted paper dolls - the newest collection of mix and match fpp quilt blocks

Hi everyone! Thanks for dropping by! It has been two months since my last blog post. That's right. I almost feel like going to confession by saying that. : ) I am not Catholic though.

I've been busy. I have been finalizing my latest mix and match foundation paper pieced pattern. This one is called Enchanted Paper Dolls - A Collection of Angels, Fairies and Princesses. I am truly excited about it too, because it has been in the works for close to one year. Where should I start? Hmm. I think I have to start at the beginning with the Paper Dolls - the Mini Collection.

The original collection contains three (girl) dolls with interchangeable hairstyles, dresses, bodices, arms and legs. It is very simple and easy foundation paper pieced sewing even for beginners. If you are new to FPP, this is a great start for you.

Then I designed a little witch, because I love the different holidays, especially Halloween. I added the cute witch's hat and extended the block outside of the 6" x 9" format. Since this is a "seasonal" item, I offered the pattern as a PDF - instant digital download. There is no hardcopy pattern for this block.

And I just kept going and designed the North Pole Edition with elves and a Santa. It was the first time I added boys into the group!

Then I started thinking about other types of figures and started to play around with angels. I found that they looked best with their hands down to their sides, with a warm and welcoming gesture. One of the challenges was the dress. As you can see below, the angel on the right is constructed in a block format. The other two blocks on the left are constructed with a y-seam. Which one looks better to you? In my opinion, FPP should not distract from the design. The dress on the right being sliced through the middle disturbs me.

A lot of people are also afraid of y-seams. Yes, they can be intimidating, but as long as you know how to sew them together, you won't have problems. They are much easier to sew on FPP templates than a regular pieced block, because all of the points are already marked for you where you should start and stop.


Of course, I could have designed angels and fairies just as stand alone blocks, but I took it is a step further. You can mix and match the figures to create new ones!

The first figure in the series is Agatha. As you might notice, she has a lot of of similarities to the center angel above. With the addition of the crown and the feet and the extension of the wings, I could extend this block to a 12" x 12" standard size. (Most quilts are designed with 12" blocks.)

After creating the four figures, I designed a quilt setting to show them off. I never made a scalloped border and thought this could be "cute enough" to frame the fairies and angels. The scalloped binding was actually much easier than I thought too. Most importantly, the quilt was sent to Birgit Schüller of Creative Bits Long Arm Quilting. She did the most beautiful job at accentuating the fairies.

Here's another look at that scalloped border.

I used fabrics from Art Gallery Fabrics the Signature Collection and mixed in another collection from AGF. For the skin and hair of the figures, I used fat quarters from Sediments from Robert Kaufman - Kona Cotton solids. The binding fabric is a solid from Gütermann.

I could have stopped there. Yes, I really could have, but I just kept going! I designed eight more figures! You can mix and match their crowns, hairstyles, arms, hands, feet, dresses and bodices to create hundreds of different figures or just that right one for you. I added princesses to the pattern as well - for all of those women who need more nobility in their lives.

Here is what's inside the full color, 64-page pattern:

• Instructions (construction/pressing directions) and full-size templates for 12 stand-alone, 12" blocks
• Instructions and fabric requirements for 1 quilt ~ 40" x 40"
• Instructions for the Sunkissed Cross © block using strip piecing
• Mix and match options to design your own figures
• Color-coded templates
• The Y-seam made easy
• Coloring blocks for your own color schemes
• Overview with all figures

The 64-page pattern booklet will be available on Sept. 6, 2019 in my Etsy shop as well as other fabric stores. If your store doesn't carry it, ask them to contact me about wholesale orders. If you live in and around Munich and are going to the Patchworkmesse-Erding, you will find the quilt and patterns sold by Verena from einfach bunt Quilts. Hope to see you there!

I am happy to announce, there will be an Enchanted Paper Dolls sew along starting September 15. Each week, a new block will be highlighted. Mark your calenders, ladies and please join us in the mix and match fun!

Thanks for stopping by!
-Karen