Category Archives: home dec

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

“Season To Taste” Update

by Dawn Posted on September 15, 2025

The latest version of my kaleidoscope pattern Season to Taste is coming along, albeit at a snail’s pace. Carving out time to spend in my sewing room when the garden is in full swing is a tough row to hoe. How’s that for mixing metaphors?

Here’s a shot of the first block, with my pattern shown for reference:

Finally I got the second and third blocks put together. It took an inordinate amount of time (i.e. a ridiculously long time) to settle on the final placement of the triangles in each block, especially the triangles containing the reindeer. Even though I envision this as a wall hanging with a definite layout from top to bottom, I couldn’t help but consider what the blocks would look like in a table runner. I wanted the reindeer to be well placed no matter whether the quilt was viewed as vertical (as in a wall hanging) or horizontal (as in a table runner). Crazy, I know!

So this is where we are:

No turning back now. I’ve sewn the white corner triangles on the blocks. They’re slightly oversized so I can trim them to exact size before sewing the strips between the blocks.

Here are close-ups of the other two blocks, first the middle one . . .

. . . and then the bottom one:

So close now! Let’s hope you won’t have to wait too long for the next blog post showing the completed quilt top.

Posted in home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, snowball blocks, stitch-and-flip corners, table runner, update, wall hanging | 2 Comments

A Near Finish and a Fresh Start

by Dawn Posted on August 20, 2025

My fractured image quilt, now officially named Fractured Ferns and Flowers, is all done (except for the label, that is):

I’m in a hurry to show it to you because I’ve already jumped to the next project (more on that below). Here’s a closer look at the quilting on my fractured image — random wavy lines stitched diagonally from corner to corner with a walking foot:

A close-up of one corner:

Can you tell I used two threads, a pale green and a medium blue? That wasn’t intentional. I started with the light green and quilted two curved lines. Then I tried a green variegated thread that I really liked but took out because it was a heavier weight thread and showed up on the fabric more than I wanted. I decided to test the blue thread after removing the variegated thread. I really liked the look of that and probably would have quilted the entire top in blue if I’d started with it. That’s when it occurred to me to use two different colors. Why not? Every third curve is stitched with blue. Not exactly random but the effect is random. By the way, Fractured Ferns and Flowers measures 31½” x 36½”.

I vowed to finish this project before starting another but . . . my resolve slipped and over the last several days I have been stealing up to my sewing room, cutting 45 degree triangles from the holiday fabrics I showed you in my last post . . .

. . . and playing around with their positions in kaleidoscope blocks:

There is one change from my original fabric pull: I replaced a dark green print with a medium light green print after discovering that three dark green triangles overpowered the block. Sometimes you just have to play around with color, scale, and value to get the right balance. That’s part of the fun — and for me, the challenge — of quiltmaking.

I’m still playing around with placement possibilities but I couldn’t resist going the next step: adding the sashing strips and sewing the the triangles together:

How festive is that??

Posted in fractured image, home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, single-fold binding, table runner, update, wall hanging | 4 Comments

Christmas in July

by Dawn Posted on July 30, 2025

If you’re a quilter who subscribes to quilt shop websites or has been in a quilt shop recently, you probably know that July is the month that holiday and Christmas-themed fabric lines hit the quilt shops. It may seem funny to be thinking about such things at the height of summer but when dazzling arrays of holiday prints start appearing in shops and flooding your phone and tablet screens — well, let’s just say some of those fabrics can be mighty hard to resist any time of year.

I’ve been tempted by several new collections but it’s a line of fabric from 2024 that caught my eye: “Enchanted Christmas” by Makower UK Fabrics. The Dear Husband and I took a little road trip to Walla Walla, Washington in June, which is where I came across these lovely fabrics at a quilt shop called Stash:

I could visualize these prints in a kaleidoscope quilt with the reindeer fussy-cut to show them off to best advantage. But I needed a few more fabrics. Back home in Portland I raided my stash and added these to the mix:

And then just a few days ago I found the perfect background fabric at the quilt shop where I teach, the Lake Oswego branch of Montavilla Sewing Centers:

That’s a creamy white Grunge from BasicGrey for Moda Fabrics — and it has gold sparkles in it!

And the kaleidoscope quilt pattern? It just happens to be one of my own:

I’ve already made a version of Season to Taste with holiday fabrics . . .

. . . but I wound up giving it as a Christmas gift to my twin sister Diane in 2021. Funny, I didn’t remember until pulling up the photo just now that it also has reindeer in it.

By the way, the name of my quilt pattern is a reference to making wall hangings or table runners that reflect the four seasons. Here are my four:

You can probably tell the order of seasons in the photo above is spring, summer, fall, and winter.

I’m so looking forward to cutting into my new fabrics but I won’t allow myself to begin until I’ve finished my current project. And just so you know, quilting has commenced!

Posted in family, home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, table runner, update, wall hanging | 4 Comments

A Pillowcase for Jan

by Dawn Posted on July 24, 2025

Today I visited a dear family friend I have known since I was six years old and delivered this sweet pillowcase as a surprise for her:

It was made using my own free tutorial.

Jan is now in her late 80s and living in a residential memory care facility. Fortunately, it’s less than two miles from my home so I’m able to stop by and visit her a couple times a week. When Jan was moved there last December, I gave her a quilt I had recently completed so her new home would have a splash of color:

Perhaps you recognize the Picnic Quilt, the first of three quilts I made last year from a free pattern from Cloud 9 Fabrics called Ribbon Box. I chose the fabrics for Jan’s pillowcase with the Picnic Quilt in mind.

Here’s a close-up of the pillowcase fabrics because the photo at the top of this post doesn’t do them justice:

The main body of the pillowcase is a leaf print from the “Garden Dreams” line by Amber Elliot for Riley Blake Designs. The narrow uneven stripe used for the bottom band is from the Tilda Classic Basics Collection. (The selvage information calls it “Pen Stripe Light Blue” but it definitely reads as aqua to me.) I bought those two fabrics specifically for Jan’s pillowcase — and I liked the fabrics so much I bought enough to make a pair for the Portland White House. The sage green fabric used for the folded flange is an older piece from my stash, designed by Barbara Brackman for one of the “Morris Tapestry” lines for Moda.

I’m delighted to report that 1) the pillowcase looks great with the quilt, and 2) Jan loves them both!

Posted in family, home dec, picnic quilt, pillowcases, Ribbon Box quilt, tutorial, update | 3 Comments

Tutorial: Folded Flap Hot Pads from First Light Designs

by Dawn Posted on January 8, 2025

Here’s an easy and fun tutorial to get your New Year off to a crafty start.

With six squares of fabric plus one square of insulated heat-resistant batting, you can quickly assemble and sew a sturdy and stylish hot pad. You probably wouldn’t guess from looking that the design is created with four folded triangles, each of which creates a flap that is folded back to reveal a contrasting fabric diamond in the center.

My tutorial results in hot pads that finish about 8″ square but you can make them larger or smaller. See my “Notes” at the bottom of the tutorial.

These hot pads make great gifts — but don’t you want to make a couple first for your own kitchen?

Supplies
Sewing machine with walking foot, open-toed if possible
Standard sewing supplies (scissors, thread, seam ripper, etc.)
New needle — 90/14 sharp or jeans needle, as you will be sewing through multiple layers
Rotary cutting equipment – mat, cutter, rulers (4” x 14” comes in handy)
Wonder Clips (small size)
Gently pointed instrument, such as a bone folder, to poke out corners

Fabric
For one hot pad you’ll need six 9″ squares of 100% cotton fabric: one for the “diamond” fabric in the center of the hot pad, four for the triangles (made from folded squares) that go around the center diamond, and one for the back.

You’ll also need one 9-inch square of Insul-bright*, an insulated heat-resistant batting.

(*Insul-bright is made of polyester fibers needled through a reflective metalized polyester film. According to the Warm Company, maker of Insul-bright, the fibers “resist conduction while the reflective metalized polyester film reflects radiant energy, hot and cold, back to its source.” You could use two squares of 100% cotton batting as an alternative to Insul-bright but they wouldn’t have the reflective property.)

Choose at least three fabrics that go well together and offer good contrast. The fabric for the center diamond should be fairly bold, as you don’t see much of it. The fabric for the back can be any of the three that show on top or a completely different fabric. Because these hot pads are meant to be used, I advise steering clear of light-colored fabrics. Choose fabrics that are medium to medium-dark in value. Just being practical!

This design is fat-quarter friendly. One fat quarter yields four 9” squares. A regular or long quarter (9” x width of fabric, usually about 42”) also yields four 9” squares. A fat quarter of three different fabrics yields enough 9” squares for two Folded Flap Hot Pads.

Cutting and pressing the fabric
Cut four 9” squares for the top (two each of two different fabrics. We’ll call them Fabric A and Fabric B.)

Cut one 9” square for the center diamond (Fabric C).

Cut one 9” square for the back (Fabric A, B or C — or another of your choosing).

Cut one 9” square of Insul-bright.

Press the squares of Fabric A and B in half, wrong sides together, to form triangles.

Putting it together
1. On a flat surface start layering the fabrics in this order:

Fabric C (center diamond fabric), right side down
Insul-bright (it does not have a right or wrong side)
Back fabric, right side up:

2. Next come two triangles of Fabric A, with folded edges meeting in the middle, forming a diagonal line across the square from upper right to lower left. These are Triangles 1 and 2, with Triangle 1 being the one in the upper left side:

3. Now layer the two triangles of Fabric B, with folded edges meeting in the middle, forming a diagonal line in the opposite direction:

Make sure raw edges are aligned all around. These are Triangles 3 and 4, with Triangle 3 being the one on the upper right side. With all your layers in place, Triangles 3 and 4 are the only ones you see.

4. Pull back the upper top left corner of Triangle 3 to expose the two pieces of Fabric A underneath:

5. Pull back the upper right corner of Triangle 1 (Fabric A) and tuck Triangle 3 underneath it. It should look like this:

6. Pull back the lower bottom right corner of Triangle 4 to expose the two pieces of Fabric A underneath:

7. Pull back the lower left corner of Triangle 2 and tuck Triangle 4 underneath it.

You now have an X design, with two triangles of Fabric A opposite each other and two triangles of Fabric B opposite each other:

It may seem a little vague as you’re reading it for the first time but when you are actually arranging the triangles, it should become very clear.

8. Use Wonder Clips around all four sides to hold the layers in place:

Check the back to make sure the fabric is smooth with no puckers:

9. Using a walking foot, start in the middle of any side and stitch a 3/8” seam around the entire square. Stop just before the corner where the folded edges meet, pivot, and take two stitches diagonally across the corner, pivoting again to stitch the next straight side. Sew a few stitches beyond the original starting point:

Clip the threads.

Here’s a close-up of one corner showing the two diagonal stitches:

10. Using a rotary cutter or sharp scissors, trim 1/8” from the stitched edge. Clip across corners. I trimmed from the back for the simple reason that I could see my stitching lines more easily:

11. Insert fingers through folded edges of the center and turn hot pad right side out. Carefully poke the corners with a bone folder or other gently pointed instrument. Because of the bulk, you’ll get softly rounded corners:

Press the hot pad.

12. Turn back the folded edge of each triangle in the center to form a flap, with the widest part of the flap at the center (about ¾”), tapering to almost nothing at the outer edges. Press all four flaps down, exposing the center diamond shape of Fabric C:

Optional: Stitch around the flaps through all thicknesses, using a straight or decorative machine stitch, to permanently anchor the flaps:

I strongly recommend this extra step, as it helps keep the shape of the hot pad if it is machine washed and dried.

Here’s a look at the back:

It looks good enough from the back to be reversible!

This hot pad looks right at home in my kitchen:

The only thing it’s missing is a mate.

Notes
1. Use the same fabric for all four sides of the top – or four different ones for a scrappy look. It’s up to you!

2. The hot pads can be made larger or smaller. For example, if you have a stack of pre-cut 10″ squares from a single line of fabric, you can make Folded Flap Hot Pads that finish at 9″ — or cut the squares down to 9″ so they finish like mine at about 8″ square. Just remember that the finished hot pad will be 1″ smaller than the starting size of your cut squares.

3. The center “diamond,” cut from a square, is the focal point of the hot pad. Think about the possibilities for fussy-cut centers! Perhaps you are wondering if the bright yellow blossom in the center of my sample hot pad was fussy-cut. Why yes, as a matter of fact it was.

4. For a look at a pair of Folded Flap Hot Pads I made years ago and finished just last month, see this post.

Posted in folded flap hot pads, home dec, hot pads, tutorial, update | 1 Comment

“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”

by Dawn Posted on December 31, 2024

Do you know that lovely song written in 1947 by Frank Loesser? If not, you owe it to yourself to listen to the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald’s lush rendition. You can do that right here. This New Year’s Eve I’ll be putting the finishing touches on my final quilt finish of the year, Wonderful World. It will be the subject of my first post of 2025.

In the meantime, here are a few images of our decorating at the Portland White House to keep the holiday vibe going. I love seeing the elaborate decorations some of my fellow quilters have posted on their blogs and Instagram pages, especially because my decorating seems to get more minimal every year. We do keep our decorations up until Twelfth Night (January 6) so we have a few more days to enjoy them.

I bought this lovely wreath at Trader Joe’s in early December and added the clusters of red bells:

We had the exterior of our house painted this year. The door and mailbox were painted a lovely shade of green. The lights you see reflected in the door and windows are icicle lights on the curved arch on the front porch. From the sidewalk you can see our tiny tree and my little round quilt, Holliberry Circle: