easypatchwork with Karen Ackva

Friday, January 31, 2020

welcome 2020

Hi everyone! Thank you for joining us today. I would like to welcome everyone into the new year 2020! May you all be safe, happy, healthy and prosper in your endeavours in the new year and the new decade.

We rounded off 2019 with a second sew along - The Enchanted Paper Doll Fall Sew Along. I hope you were able to follow along and soak in the beautiful angels, fairies and princesses made by all of the participants in our sew along on Instagram. A great big, wonderful thank you to all who did. I enjoy seeing your creations. Please keep sending them to me.

The winners were:
Dagmar @mamamoose for her radiating Eva for the cutest ever and Jenny @jennymakesstuff for her best use of mix and match templates. Anna @annakroche won honorable mention for her beautiful creations. Thank you so, sew much ladies for participating!

I worked on another fairy quilt block shortly before the holiday. I wanted to show my appreciation to all who participated in the sew along. Each received the free block pattern below. The pattern is now available on Etsy for purchase if you wish to make this fun 16" block for a pillow, quilt or other small design.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/752200512/16-fairy-of-good-fortune-foundation

Here are the quick stats:

Block Size: 16" Finished
Method of Piecing: Foundation Paper Piecing
Skill Level: Experienced
Pattern Document: PDF Instant Digital Download
Page Size: DIN A4
Number of Pages: 8 Instructions, 8 Templates
Templates: Full Size, 100%, No Scaling
Mix and Match Options: One figure with two outfits
Hashtags: #eppaperdollsmarissa, #enchantedpaperdolls

Your personal fairy of good fortune is here to help you celebrate the new year. Pattern contains templates for one 16" fairy, Marissa. Designed as a stand alone quilt block with segments that can be mixed and matched. 16-pages of instructions including 8 pages of foundation (FPP) templates to print at home for one 16" x 16" FPP quilt block. Use your favorite foundation piecing method. Instructions for foundation piecing method is not included. Instructions for segment construction, pressing directions, inserting the y-seam and coloring sketches are included. Skill level: Experienced

Copyright © 2020 Karen Ackva | All designs, sketches and templates are protected under copyright laws and may NOT be photocopied, duplicated, digitalized or reproduced in any form other than by the original purchaser for personal, private use. May NOT be used as teaching material nor used in sellable items. Please respect the laws to allow small businesses to survive and thrive.

You can make an oversized pillow for the angel in your life.This design uses the Sunkissed Cross blocks (found in the hardcopy only pattern) in the corners. Can you still recognize them with the change up in fabrics? The finished size of the pillow is ~ 22" x 22". Fabrics from Mystical Land by Maureen Cracknell for Art Gallery Fabrics.

When I originally designed the 16", Marissa fairy, I thought about how you could integrate her into an arrangement with the 12 other 12" angels, fairies and princesses from the sew along. This design layout appealed to me the most. (Designed in EQ8, of course). I removed the Sunkissed Cross blocks in this design which brought Marissa into the forefront. Marissa is framed with a three finished borders of 1", 2" and 1". This would be a ~63" x 63" quilt.

Today, I was feeling a little creative, so I whipped up a virtual quilt with Marissa. The fabrics I chose for the mock up quilt are from the Midsommer collection from Pippa Shaw for Figo fabrics available now.

I used up the original layout with the 3" Sunkissed Cross blocks found in the original Enchanted Paper Dolls Pattern. Instead of a 3 x 4 grid and 12" blocks, I used a 3 x 3 grid with 16" blocks. This would have a 5" print border and 3/8" binding. The finished quilt size would be about 70" x 70".

For a 4 x 4 grid you would have a large sized quilt measuring ~ 92" x 92".

With a 2 x 3 grid you would get a large throw quilt measuring 54" x 73" (138 x 185cm). This would be a great size for a single bed. You can always add a little more to the border (10" cut borders) as shown below for a 63" x 82" (160 x 208 cm) quilt.

Thank you for joining today. I hope I have sparked your creative interest to sew something beautiful. Please share you makes with us.

DISCLAIMER

I have not been compensated by any company to promote their products in this post. Company names have been mentioned to properly identify the use of their information, products, and/or services. All of the designs shown within this blogpost are my own designs and may not be copied, downloaded, reposted, digitalized or used for any purpose of promoting your business or any other commercial intent. By doing so, you infringe upon international copyright laws. This includes but is not limited to social media.

Sunday, December 22, 2019

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.

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.

Sunday, December 15, 2019

enchanted sal - katharina

Hi and thanks for joining us today on another edition of the Enchanted Paper Dolls Fall Sew Along. I am happy you could stop by. Grab a cup of coffee and read a little bit about the next figure in the sew along.

We are looking at Katharina today. This name is the mother of all names for me just like Catherine or Katherine. Why? Both my name and my sister's name is a derivative of this name.

On Sunday, December 29th, two winners will be picked to win two identical prizes.

one for the cutest ever and
one for the best use of the mix and match templates.

Contest Rules:

Make one figure from the pattern booklet or from the PDFs with individual figures. Sew the figure as shown in the instructions or mix and match to make your own figure. Upload the photo to Instagram or send me a copy of the photo. Enter as many times as you would like for more chances to win. We will have a social media voting on Instagram starting December 26th. Hurry up, because there are just two weeks left. Open to quilters at least 18 years of age. Void where prohibited.

Here is what you can win thanks to our great sponsors!

One set of quilting thread and three 1/2 yards of premium quality fabric sponsored by Gutermann.

AND one 28 mm rotary cutter, 1" x 6" ruler and mini cutting mat sponsored by einfach bunt Quilts.

That's worth a shot, don't you think?

Now on to our enchanting princess, Katharina. She was inspired by Cleopatra. Do you see the resemblance? I gave her a bit of a yellow tinted skin color. All of my figures in this quilt have different hair colors and skin colors. I wanted to have an international variety of princesses, angels and fairies. I also removed the inner stone in her crown and fussy cut the light blue print.

The one of the really cool features on this figure is that you can shorten her hair length by omitting or skipping the sewing line on the templates. This is explained in further detail in the instructions. The below examples are created in EQ8 - my quilt designing software which I also teach if you are interesting in learning.

That's all for today. Thanks for joining us. If you would like to purchase the individual PDF or paper book with all 12 figures, you can find all of them in my Etsy shop or at your local quilt store such as einfach bunt quilts or Niemanns-Land.