Category Archives: home dec

Mission Accomplished

by Dawn Posted on September 3, 2026

Behold the bespoke sink skirt!

I’m back home in Portland after an all-too-brief visit with my twin in her home in Atlanta. Diane and I are both very pleased with the sink skirt I made for her “refreshed” powder room. In fact, we agree that it actually exceeded our expectations.

At the beginning of the year Diane updated the petite powder room in her lovely home. The powder room measures 5′ square; fortunately, the 9-foot ceiling makes the small space seem larger than it is. But the original fixtures were rather large for the space. Diane replaced the old pedestal sink with a smaller wall-hung sink and chose a smaller scale toilet as well. Even the light fixture is smaller than the one in the original bathroom. She also had the level of the wainscoting lifted and the walls repainted a very pale sage.

Diane was pleased with the update but didn’t like the look of the hardware visible under the sink:

Enter her sewing sister. While visiting me in Portland a few months ago, Diane and I talked about the desirability of a sink skirt and I was totally on board with making it. She started looking online for fabrics and we both looked online for design inspiration. She soon found the perfect fabric in this lovely toile, purchased from https://www.fabricguru.com:

I knew it would be hard to make the skirt from my home going just on the measurements so I decided to wait till I could be there in person to make adjustments as I went along. The first thing I did was determine there should be four pleats in front with the fifth pleat on each side breaking at the corner. That dictated that the pleats needed to be 4.75″ wide. And I could measure and remeasure to my heart’s content to make sure the back edges of the skirt snuggled right up against the wall.

Here’s a process shot with the indispensable blue painter’s tape holding the sink skirt in place:

I like a deep hem (3″) on most home dec projects so I allowed plenty for a doubled hem and wound up trimming an inch off the bottom.

The hardest thing about this project? Those covered buttons! Here’s a better look at them:

The buttons come in a kit (these are by Dritz). Each button is a curved metal disc with teeth on the inside to grip the decorator fabric, which has been cut in a circle and then wrapped tightly and smoothly around the disc. A second disc with a shank is then pressed firmly against the first one and the two are supposed to snap together. The directions make it look so simple. It wasn’t. I confess I resorted to a hammer to get those discs “snapped” together.

The kits come in multiple sizes; the buttons on Diane’s sink skirt are 7/8″ in diameter. You can see five in this photo; there are two more on the right side of the skirt but none on the left because the skirt is so close to the wall buttons wouldn’t even show. Lucky me not to have to make two more!

We attached the skirt to the sink using a product new to us that we found online: a double-sided mesh tape made for wood or fabric that is supposedly removable without leaving any residue. We applied it to the top of the sink skirt on the back side and carefully wrapped it around the sink. With the two of us working together to guide the skirt around the sink, the application went very smoothly. I guess we can say this project is a wrap!

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, update | 5 Comments

Something’s Happening Here . . .

by Dawn Posted on August 30, 2026

What it is ain’t exactly clear.

Or is it?


A few fun facts (or maybe hints):
— I’ve been in Georgia for a few days visiting my twin, Diane
— I keep a sewing machine at her home
— I love making things for Diane’s home
— I’ve never made one of these before

I’m sure you’ve already figured it out:  a home dec project is in the works.

Care to hazard guess as to what it is?

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, update | 6 Comments

Bonus Years

by Dawn Posted on July 22, 2026

Two months is a long time to go between blog posts. Five days after my last post of May 22, my husband Charlie, known to many of you as the Dear Husband, died. He had been diagnosed in 2022 with congestive heart failure, a condition that was managed very well with medication until his heart simply started to wear out.

Even though I am profoundly sad at losing my husband, I celebrate the fact that we had so many bonus years together. You see, Charlie lived to be 101. When we got married in 1981, he was 56 years old and I was 30. It was the second marriage for both of us, and we are proof that love is indeed lovelier the second time around. The age difference was never an issue; he was active and vigorous in his 50s and remained so well into his 90s. He was also young at heart, which made living with him a joy.

Because of Charlie’s age at the time of our marriage, I had the reasonable expectation that we would have at least 30 years together. That would have taken him to age 86. Every year after that was a bonus year. I never dreamed he would live long enough for us to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary! (I wrote a post in April which includes a photo of Dream Weaver, the quilt I made for him as an anniversary gift; you can read that post here.)

My twin sister Diane arrived in early May for a month-long visit and postponed her departure when it became clear Charlie’s life was coming to an end. She’s back home now but her presence before he died and for the six weeks following his passing was a great source of comfort, and I’m so grateful she was here.

Now you know why my posts have been few and far between. It wasn’t just the extra gardening chores I took on for Charlie. It was because caring for him was my number one priority. I will miss him every day for the rest of my life but I have many happy memories of our time together to sustain me.

He would be happy to know I’ll be returning to my sewing room — but I won’t neglect the garden! My promise to him was to keep our urban vegetable garden going. As a matter of fact, I picked our second tomato today, the bush beans are coming along nicely, and the herb garden is doing splendidly. The Dear Husband would be delighted.

 

 

 

Posted in bed runners, family, home dec, Ribbon Box quilt, update | 17 Comments

Ribbon Box #4 Back from the Quilter

by Dawn Posted on March 26, 2026

My fourth version of the free pattern Ribbon Box by Cloud 9 Designs is back from the quilter, and I am so pleased. If you saw my previous post, you know that I converted the pattern from a lap size to a bed runner by tweaking the number of vertical ribbons. Not only is #4 quilted now, it’s also bound, and I am almost finished hand-stitching the binding to the back of the quilt. Here’s a peek at the bottom half of the quilt:

The quilt motif by Quilts Complete is “Embellish,” one of my favorites. It’s especially appropriate for Ribbon Box because the swirls in the quilting look like ribbons.

I decided on single-fold binding that finishes at ⅜”. If you look at the left side of the photo above, you can see the binding strip attached to the edge of the quilt has not been folded in half. The binding strips were cut 1¾” wide according to the measurements in my tutorial on single-fold binding. The mitered corners turn out so nice and crisp! Here’s a look at one of the corners from the front . . .

. . . and from the back:

Here’s my fourth and final corner pinned and ready to tack down:

The only thing left to do after the binding is finished is make the label, and I’ve gotten a head start on that. The perfect name for this quilt popped into my head the other day but I’m going to wait until I’m ready to show off the finished quilt to reveal the name. I hope you’ll come back for that.

 

 

 

Posted in bed runners, home dec, Ribbon Box quilt, update | 6 Comments

“Make Your Bed”

by Dawn Posted on March 11, 2026

Fifteen years ago I bought a quilt book called Make Your Bed, written by Leslee Evans and published by That Patchwork Place, an imprint of Martingale & Company. The book contains nine designs for quilted bed runners and also includes instructions for decorative pillows and shams. I never made a single thing from the book but the idea of making a bed runner has been percolating in my mind all these years.

In my post of January 25 titled “The Joy of Petting Fabric,” I mentioned I was planning to make a bed runner by transforming the free Ribbon Box pattern from Cloud 9 Fabrics from a quilt into a bed runner. I tested my idea by simply folding the cover page of the pattern to create a quilt with two vertical ribbons and four horizontal ones. As a reminder, here’s a photo showing the quilt as designed and what a bed runner would look like:

Here’s what my bed runner looks like:

I love how this turned out! I added 3″ to the top and bottom. It now measures 29½ x 65½” — the perfect size to drape across the foot of a twin or double bed. The quilt is intended as a surprise gift for a family member. Next up is a simple pieced back and then it’s off to my longarm quilter for her special touch.

Waiting to be made are the second 10 of 20 blocks needed for the other quilt I’ve been working on based on the pattern Dandelions at Dusk.

 

 

 

Posted in bed runners, family, home dec, update | 6 Comments

The Joy of Petting Fabric

by Dawn Posted on January 25, 2026

Petting fabric? If you’re not a quiltmaker, “petting fabric” may be a foreign concept but I can assure you it’s a real thing — for me, at least. Earliest this month while thinking ahead to the projects I want to undertake in 2026, I decided to pull some of my most beloved fabrics from my stash to see what I wanted to use and what I needed to add to the pull to get the right mix for the designs I have in mind.

And by “the right mix” I mean that magical combination of color and value and texture that printed designs on fabric bring to a finished quilt. The combination that makes this quilter’s heart sing. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as running your hands over crisp quilter’s cotton (otherwise known as petting fabric) and imagining what beautiful things you can create from it.

I may be waxing philosophically but this past November was a milestone for me. I turned 75 – three quarters of a century! — and I got to wondering how many quilts I have left in me. I have accumulated a virtual (I won’t say literal even though it’s true, ha ha) mountain of fabric, and there’s no way I can use all of it in my lifetime.

So I asked myself: what are some of the fabrics I love so much I want to make something with them before I die? I’m not being morbid here; I simply want to acknowledge the desire to prioritize my quilt projects according to the fabrics I adore the most while taking into account the fact that I am not immortal.

So here’s a short list of projects I want to embark on in 2026. (You just have to promise not to hold me to this list because who’s to say a fabric line won’t debut in the next few months that totally takes my fancy, turns my head, and causes some of the quilts I have in mind to drop down on the list? This is the eternal dilemma for quilters, no?)

At the very top of my list is a quilt showcasing a gorgeous floral print from the “Jolie Jardin” line by Lakehouse Dry Goods:

I’ve paired it with fabrics that I think will go well with the pattern shown, Dandelions at Dusk by Blue Bear Fabrics. That Lakehouse focus fabric has been in my stash for at least 16 years. I know this because I used some of it in a quilt I made in 2010 called Dianthus, which you can see right here:

The pattern is 4-Patch Stacked Posies by HD Designs. Back then I had recently discovered the four-patch kaleidoscope block and was having great fun investigating the possibilities with other fabrics and other settings. At this point I haven’t decided whether I will make four-patch kaleido blocks for this next quilt or cut squares directly from the fabric. My plan is to make a test block or two tomorrow.

I have two quilts in mind for this next group of fabrics:

The first is a true winter version (as opposed to a holiday version) of my pattern Season to Taste. Here you see my spring, summer, fall, and winter versions:

The winter version (far right) was given to my twin Diane as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago so I made a second holiday version for myself this past year:

I’ve been rotating my Season to Taste quilts on a wall in the master bath but I don’t necessarily want to keep the winter version you see above on display during January and February. That’s why I need a true winter version, and I am totally in love with the fabrics in the grouping I have put together that speak “winter” to me. I have already cut out more than enough 45˚ triangles for the three blocks needed for a wall hanging:

The background fabric is a light gray “Grunge” from BasicGray for Moda. Very appropriate for a typical rainy winter in Portland, Oregon but the prints are lively enough to dispel the winter blahs (or is that winter blues?).

And what about the second version with these fabrics? Well . . . regular readers will recall my obsession with the free Ribbon Box pattern from Cloud 9 Fabrics. I made three versions in 2024. (You can see them here in my Quilt Gallery.)

In the photo below you can see the front page of the Cloud 9 pattern. My plan is to transform it into a bed runner. I tested my idea by simply folding the paper to create a quilt with two vertical ribbons and four horizontal ones. By reducing the width of the ribbons from 5″ to 4″, I’ll wind up with a bed runner that measures 28½” wide.

I have a length of very pale aqua fabric with just a hint of texture and sparkle for the background of this quilt. I think it will be lovely!

I hardly know where to start but as Scarlett O’Hara famously said, “Tomorrow is another day.” There is nothing on the agenda tomorrow so I hope to have a test block to show you very soon.

Thank you for stopping by. And by the way, Happy New Year!

 

 

 

Posted in 4-Patch Wonder, bed runners, faux-kaleido quilts, home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, picnic quilt, Ribbon Box quilt, table runner, update, wall hanging | 6 Comments

We Need a Little Christmas

by Dawn Posted on December 24, 2025

“We Need a Little Christmas” was my older sister Reigh’s favorite Christmas song — and it had to be the version recorded by Johnny Mathis that you can hear right here. The song was written by Jerry Herman for the Broadway musical Mame starring Angela Lansbury. The cast recording was made in 1966 with the Mathis rendition coming two years later.

I find myself humming the tune as I write this post about the holiday decorating my twin Diane and I did during her recent visit to Portland. I promised an update in my last post so let’s bring it on. I don’t decorate as extensively as I did in my younger days but the decorating does feature quite a few “soft furnishings” I’ve made over the years, items made with fabric (including quilts, of course). Let’s take a look.

We’ll start with the sideboard across from the front door. On display again is our little Christmas tree and my “Holliberry Circle” quilt made from the pattern Dresden Neighborhood by Persimon Dreams featuring fabrics from the “Holliberry” line by Coriander Quilts. In previous years I have put one of two placemats I made years ago under the tiny tree. This year I used the companion napkins and just scrunched them around the base of the tree. I rather like the effect:

I hung a Christmas ball on the outside doorknob and love how the colors are repeated in the vignette on the sideboard inside:

One thing I added after those two photos were taken was my set of candles spelling out XMAS, a gift from my dear friend Miriam who knows how much I love Scrabble:

The candles even show how much each letter is worth in a Scrabble game!

I replaced the table runner that usually goes on the side table between the couch and loveseat with the two placemats, butting them up next to each other for an almost seamless look:

Since the Dear Husband and I no longer bring a live tree into the house to decorate, I mounded some of my favorite Christmas tree ornaments in a white bowl. In the background on the back of the couch you can see ‘Tis the Season, my Christmas quilt from 2021 made from the Missouri Star Company’s pattern Quatrefoil.

And what of Enchanted Forest, the wall hanging/table runner I finished just a few days ago? I told you in my last post I had found a rather unusual spot for it. And here it is, hanging on the door of the coat closet:

I hung it with 3M Command Strips, which will be easily removed when the holidays are over. (In case you don’t know about hanging quilts with 3M strips, check out my two tutorials — #22 and #23 — here.)

My vintage Fostoria candleholders are on display year round in the living room — sometimes on the coffee table and sometimes on the mantel. Recently I found some vintage tulip-shaped peg votive cups that reflect candlelight beautifully:

Here’s a look at the entire living room:

The stockings have been hung by the chimney with care and now it’s time to wrap the gifts the DH and I gave each other. He asked me today, “What did I get you?” I replied, “You’ll find out tomorrow!”

It’s a quiet and cozy Christmas Eve at the Portland White House. I wish you all Happy Holidays!

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, Quatrefoil, Scrabble, single-fold binding, table runner, tutorial, update, wall hanging, wonky Dresden neighborhood | 4 Comments

My Very Own Scullery Maid

by Dawn Posted on December 20, 2025

I’m smiling as I write the title of this post but I was down in the dumps earlier this week after taking my twin Diane to the airport for her trip home to Georgia. She had just spent six weeks with the Dear Husband and me, and during those six weeks she had devoted herself to helping me with some long deferred spring cleaning as well as various and sundry other domestic chores such as cooking, cleaning up the kitchen after meals, and doing laundry. I laughingly — and lovingly — dubbed her “my very own scullery maid.”

We also had fun working together every single morning on the New York Times Spelling Bee as we sat on the couch in our jammies with our first cup of coffee. We are still both Scrabble aficionados but on this visit we concentrated on achieving “Queen Bee” status on the Spelling Bee. That was high priority but getting to some cleaning projects and preparing the Portland White House for Thanksgiving and the holidays were at the top of Diane’s “to do” list.

Diane is one of those exceedingly rare creatures who actually enjoys cleaning. (I may have gotten the sewing gene in our family but she definitely got the cleaning gene.) I’ve been very focused this past year on taking care of the Dear Husband, working with him in the yard and garden, and trying to keep the household running smoothly, often at the expense of carving out time to read and sew and make quilts, three things I dearly love to do. Diane’s goal for this visit was to lighten my load and at that she succeeded admirably.

The biggest transformation was in the living room. One day when I was away teaching a quilt class, Diane took every item out of the china cabinet, which was jammed to the gills with vintage pieces and antiques accumulated over four decades. She washed and dried each item and then wiped down all the shelves of the cabinet. When I got home we worked together to edit the contents, creating a pleasing arrangement consisting mostly of my Spode china (the pattern is “Camilla” in blue) and Waterford crystal:

She also took all of the books out of the two bookcases flanking the fireplace and not only wiped down all of the shelves but also washed the leaded glass windows inside and out. Here’s a close-up of one of the bookcases:

We washed the curtains (made by moi many years ago) and all the remaining living room windows inside and out and then dusted all of the woodwork. There may have been a cobweb or two . . .

We have a very large sideboard in the dining room which also got emptied and cleaned, and those contents got edited as well. One of the things Diane found inside the sideboard was a vase containing several dozen marbles. I explained that they were all marbles Charlie had dug up in our yard over the 44 years we have lived here, and a few other marbles he dug up in the community garden plot he tended for well over 40 years.

Diane insisted we display the marbles and found a bottle in the sideboard that probably originally contained balsamic vinegar or olive oil. It was the perfect vessel for the marbles! It’s now on the sideboard opposite the front door:

I can’t remember where that big marble on top came from but it makes a perfect stopper. And by the way, one of those marbles in the jar is one I myself dug up in our backyard this past summer.

Here’s a look at the living room with clean windows, shelves, and cabinets:

Now we were ready to decorate for the holidays. (The green and gold balls surrounding the pillar candle in the foreground were left over from last Christmas. I liked the look so well I left them there year round.)

I hope you’ll come back for my next post when I show you how Diane and I decorated the house for Christmas. I was looking for a place to hang my lastest quilt, Enchanted Forest, shown here . . .

. . . and I found a rather unusual spot for it.

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, Scrabble, table runner, update, wall hanging | 7 Comments

Better Late Than Never

by Dawn Posted on December 16, 2025

I really thought I would have this holiday wall hanging/table runner completed by Thanksgiving. After all, I started it in August. Here it is the week before Christmas and I just finished tacking down the binding this afternoon. That’s cutting it close! Take a look:

Oh dear! I see I am holding it upside down. Oh well. It actually works either way but this block is the one I planned to be at the top:

The quilting was pretty straightforward. Using my walking foot I stitched in the ditch around the borders of the octagons and narrow strips between blocks and then quilted straight lines 1″ apart on the rest of the quilt.

I wish you could see all the sparkle this little quilt has. Most of the fabrics in the octagons have metallic gold in them and the background fabric glints with gold or silver, depending on the light. Here’s a close-up:

Check out the filigreed antlers on the reindeer. They’re metallic, too:

Although I favor pieced backings, the back of this quilt is a single piece of one of the prints used on the front. It’s so pretty I could use the back side for a table runner if I were so inclined.

I’m trying to find just the right place for this quilt, which measures 18¾” x 55″. It still needs a label but I have decided on a name. Most of the prints I used are from the 2024 “Enchanted Christmas” line by Makower UK Fabrics so I am naming this quilt Enchanted Forest in honor of the majestic reindeer inhabiting it.

P.S. You might be interested to know I used single-fold binding on this quilt. My tutorial on single-fold binding is trending on my website right now so if you haven’t checked it out yet, take a look.

 

 

 

Posted in home dec, single-fold binding, snowball blocks, stitch-and-flip corners, table runner, update, wall hanging | 7 Comments

Silver Threads Among the Gold

by Dawn Posted on September 27, 2025

The piecing of my current project, a holiday wall quilt made from my Season to Taste pattern, is complete:

Here’s a close-up of the top block with the accent strips added above and below:

You can probably tell that most of the fabrics in the kaleidoscope triangles have gold metallic accents but what you can’t see is that the background fabric also has a touch of metallic. This particular shade of white “Grunge” by BasicGrey for Moda Fabrics has a slightly yellowish cast in places that looks like gold but there are also silver metallic threads running all through the fabric that add even more sparkle. The effect is subtle but sophisticated.

I’m eager to get a backing made and get this quilted. Inspiration hasn’t yet struck on a name. The fabric line is “Enchanted Christmas” by Makower UK Fabrics so maybe I should name this small quilt Enchanted Forest in honor of the majestic reindeer inhabiting it. Just look at those gold filigreed antlers!

 

 

 

Posted in home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, snowball blocks, stitch-and-flip corners, table runner, update, wall hanging | 3 Comments