Would You Like Me To Sew You A Word? Because I Have Alphabet Quilt Block Patterns Now and I Am Unstoppable.

Spelling Bee by Lori Holt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have long wanted a good alphabet quilt block pattern, mostly for monogramming and personalizing things, but I don’t want to learn foundation paper piecing (yet! I’m sure the day is coming!), and the online patterns that I’ve tried work, but they’re usually sort of blocky and/or the sizing is uneven, etc.

This book is genuinely exactly what I wanted.

The letter blocks in two sizes, 6” and 12”, are perfect--although, fine, I would also like them in 20” so that I can monogram giant pillows, but I understand the scale of that would quickly become maniacal. And I’m just saying that if the author also handed patterns for 4” blocks to me I wouldn’t say no, but on the whole I can do pretty much anything I want to do with 6 inches and 12 inches.

I had no issue piecing this percent sign block and assembling my table runner, but for some reason last night I became absolutely consumed with the idea that I'd put it in sideways, so the diagonal went the wrong way and the circles were on the wrong sides. They are NOT, the block is perfect, but I will absolutely check 14 more times and then Google it to double-check and then worry that Google is wrong and I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that but just give up, I guess. 

This is the direction a percent sign goes, right?

RIGHT?!?

I sometimes have a hard time paying attention to pattern instructions, because I’d rather just get the gist and then go off on my own and likely as not mess stuff up, but fortunately the instructions for each letter block are actually quite short, so even I could generally manage to follow them. I only had to seam rip a couple of things in my most recent project, and that was only because I was paying attention to hockey on TV and not what I was doing. The Boston Fleet are having an AWESOME season!

Seriously, though--this IS how a percent sign goes, right?

I would have liked some guidance on sashing widths that would make proper spacing between letters and words (although honestly, it’s probably in there and I just wasn’t paying attention), and on good border widths, but with a little trial and error I figured out that a 1” piece (.5” finished) is perfect between letters--

and I used 2.5” (2” finished) between words. I want to make multiple lines of text in my next project, so I’m thinking 2.5” again just to make the cutting more efficient. But maybe I should do 2”?

I’ll probably double-check the book before I decide, ahem.

Moveable alphabets are things, like Base 10 blocks, number patterns, and rainbow order, that please me greatly--they're just so organized and satisfying!--and I always like finding new ways to manipulate them. I still dream fondly of that wool felt moveable alphabet that I sewed for my young niece one Christmas--all the letters! All the colors! You could spell words with the letters! And the words would be different colors! So you will understand completely when I tell you that I am VERY excited to make a wall quilt that has my favorite Wilbur Wright quote on it. 

And then maybe a set of couch pillows with all the family's monograms.

Oh, and would the younger kid and her roommates next year like to have matching monogrammed throw pillows for their beds? The kid actually LOATHES it when I craft for her friends, because apparently nobody's else's parents put random hand-sewn gifts for strangers in their child's care packages and being unlike others is apparently something that we are meant to care about now and also a sign that I "do too much," but surely she'd come around for matching monogrammed throw pillows! And maybe just one singular bunting with their college name on it for their common room? And then maybe little quilted hangings with each of their names on it for their bedroom doors?

Okay, fine, yes, I DO hear myself here, and I do see where possibly just very potentially that "doing too much" accusation is perhaps coming from.

Sooo... just the throw pillows and the bunting, then?

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The Spring and Summer of the Puff Quilt

Tbh, I'm not sure if the kid really even wanted a puff quilt that much, ahem, or if she was just expressing admiration for them and then I jumped on it because it looked like a cool thing to make.

Oh, well, because she's got one now!

This puff quilt has been THE project of half the spring and most of the summer. In and around getting the kids settled back home and enjoying them as hard as I can, taking little trips here and there, dealing with the never-ending brokenness of the lawnmower (first it was the drive belt, which cost so much and took so long to have repaired that when the mower immediately broke again I spent another full week messing with it myself and busting all my knuckles in the process before realizing the solenoid ground wire had corroded, and then as soon as my really shitty fix for that worked the mower belt fell off, and when my partner was trying to put that back in place he realized that actually the entire mower deck was rusted through so badly that one of the mowing blades was literally just falling off of it, and we messed around on Facebook Marketplace for a while trying to find another 42" mower deck but everyone else's is also rusted to hell and back, so now we've found a local shop that claims it'll weld a repair for us so wish us luck that maybe next week we'll get to mow our lawn for the second time this summer!), and doing all my regular work and leisure, I have been sewing puffs.

When I saw people showing off their puff quilts online, I thought it looked like an easy make, and it was pretty easy: cut 616 4" backing squares, cut 616 4.5" front squares, sew them together on three sides with a scant 1/4" seam, piece them row by row with a proper 1/4" seam, stuffing them as you go, back the quilt top and tie it with 566 knots, then double-fold the backing around the edges to make a binding and edge stitch that all the way around. 

But DUDE. It is TEDIOUS! You definitely need yourself a good show with lots of seasons that you can burn through while you work!

Even only partially complete, though, it always looked so pretty, and I loved laying it out every day to see my progress:

I also accidentally discovered a terrific trick to keep wrinkles out of my backing: after pinning across the center of the quilt+backing, I draped it across our big family room table so I could tie it, and the weight of the quilt hanging down from each side kept that backing the smoothest that I've ever gotten it!

Or maybe it's just because there was constantly a cat holding it down...

It turns out that all the pets go CRAZY for a puff quilt!

It took another nearly full week to get the quilt tied, and that's with me teaching the technique to everyone in the family and forcing them to spend part of every evening helping me. We'd play a podcast or set up a movie, and then we'd just sit around the table and tie our puffs!

At one point, with all of us sitting around the table with our embroidery floss and needles, working away, one of the kids grinned at me and said, "Look at us all sitting around the table doing something together. This is your dream come true!"

And of course she's right, lol. I spend half our time together martialing everyone into some kind of family activity or other, like one of those Australian cattle dogs incorporated into a family, not a farm, who keeps trying to herd the kids and follow the parents to the bathroom. I'm constantly the one saying, "Let's have a movie night," "Let's all pick a theme and cook a themed dinner together," "Let's go see how many ice cream places there are in town," "Let's go hike down the creek and fill Dad's backpack with geodes," etc. I know it must get old, especially during these between-college summers when I'm always thinking about how my time with them is so precious, but I will never be sorry that my children are so confident about my desire to spend time with them that they can turn it into a family joke. 

I will also never be sorry that my children know that I will happily spend most of the summer sewing them the on-trend novelty quilt that they expressed a desire for, and that when it's done we'll all laugh that it accidentally turned out WAY larger and WAY heavier than I thought it would and what on earth is the kid actually going to do with it, but also it's about a thousand times comfier than we thought it would be and currently it lives on the couch and everyone is obsessed with it.

I still think the pets love it the most, though!

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I Sewed a Quilt for a Foster Kid. I Hope They Like Flannel!

Y'all might remember when oh, so long ago, I discovered that the kid that I never could keep pants on really liked the feel of flannel, so I bought allllllll the flannel on clearance at Joann's and sewed her soooooooo many pairs of flannel pants. 

Girl wore those flannel jammies in every wild print and pattern for YEARS, and honestly I don't remember if she, herself, eventually got tired of them or if it was me that eventually got tired enough of them to sneak them out of her wardrobe. But to this day, my fabric stash contains the odd bits and bobs of that long-ago flannel: there's a horse print in there somewhere, a dinosaur print (of course!), and, until very recently, a cute print of cars and trucks on a white background. 

But no more do I have any cute--but babyish!--cars and trucks flannel in my stash, for now every single scrap exists in this equally cute--and appropriately babyish!--flannel quilt that I'm donating to Comfort Cases through sewist Stacey Lee's 2025 Quilt Donation Drive.

I wanted a simple pattern, so I decided to make it all 6" triangles. I cut every triangle I could out of the cars and trucks flannel, and then went looking for any other flannel I had that would match it, and I cut all that up, too.

I almost made it!

I'd already planned to buy new flannel for the back of the quilt, so I cut the final six triangles from that, and one of the better things about having a graphic designer in the family is that I could give him all my triangles and the dimensions I wanted, and he was the one who fussed them all around until he achieved a pleasingly symmetrical design:

Without the kids at home I've gotten into the habit of using the family room floorspace to lay out my quilts. But of course, it was never the kids who messed up my quilts when I was laying them out. Look, for instance, at this charming gentleman:

Such a sweet and innocent little guy. Clearly butter would not melt in his mouth. And yet how, then, do you suppose that this--

--becomes this?

And it's a mystery how this, left safely there on the floor overnight when I decided I was too tired to finish pinning it--

--by the next morning had become this?

We must have ghosts!

Binding is usually my least favorite part of the process, but one of my Facebook quilting groups has turned me onto the technique of glue basting. You literally get out your Elmer's school glue--make sure it says that it's washable!!!--and glue your binding exactly the way you want it, then iron it to set it:

Doesn't the binding look perfect? It's literally just glued! 

The glue basting is so sturdy that I was able to fold this quilt up, glued binding and all, and stuff it into my backpack to take to my mending group's monthly Mending Day at the public library. In between trimming the raveled edge of a vintage counterpane and then rehemming it, helping a novice quilter sandwich her very first quilt, and altering a pair of capris, I finished machine stitching the binding. 

And then I climbed on top of a rickety chair while menders and guests alike watched nervously to take my very first photo of my finished quilt:

And then I went home and took a slightly nicer photo:

I don't normally like a lot of quilting on my quilts, and I get paid back for that when my kids' quilts, which they use constantly, also constantly threaten to fall apart. So there I am during every college break, mending quilts until they have as much quilting on them as they would if I'd quilted them properly the first time.

I obviously can't have a stranger's quilt falling apart on them without me there to constantly mend it, so I had to quilt this one properly the first time. And ugh, fine, the quilting looked nice and added to the overall pattern in a lovely way:

I could have quilted a LOT straighter, but oh, well. That's how you know it was made by a human!

Fortunately, I did have some help with the photography, so that's why these photos turned out as cute as they did. Behold my helper:

Is there anyone who loves the first truly sunny and mild Spring day more than a housecat?

The last step before packing it up to send off was washing and drying it a couple of times to wash out the glue and get the quilting nice and scrunchy. It came out of the dryer scrunchy and adorable, and I hope whoever receives it SUPER loves it.

I want to use up every last bit of horsey flannel and dino flannel in baby quilts of their own, but making and donating those will have to wait until the 2026 Quilt Drive, because I am already in high gear making the puff quilt that my younger kid said she wanted. I want to surprise her with it for her birthday, but I'm still at the stage of cutting out 4" squares for the back of each puff and 4.5" squares for the front, stopping occasionally to re-work my math because SURELY this quilt cannot require 616 of EACH of those?!? Surely I have instead forgotten how to multiply?

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March 2025 Pumpkin+Bear Updates: Now You, Too, Can Have a Quilted Flyers Logo Hoodie!

I really like making things in multiples--it's a great way to perfect techniques, and I enjoy the process of working out a best practice as I go.

The problem is that often, I'm the only one in the family who wants the thing I've just made, ahem. Why everybody else does not want their very own eclipse bunting or witch hat or quilted Flyers logo hoodie, I do not know, but it definitely hinders my preferred process.

Thank goodness, then, for my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop!

I burned with desire to make a second quilted Flyers logo hoodie (as I was making mine, I had an idea for a better way to do the interfacing that I OBVIOUSLY needed to test out), so I bought a second thrift store hoodie, quilted a new Flyers logo to it--my newly improved process worked perfectly!--and you can now find it listed in my shop:

I used the exact same quilting cottons for this one as I did for my own quilted logo hoodie, but you can see that with this one, I got much less fraying on the edges, thanks to my improved interfacing technique: I interfaced the fabric BEFORE I put it through the Cricut, which had no problem cutting through the extra layer:

I really lucked out with this hoodie, too. I'm hoping that hoodies will be easier to find off-season in the thrift shops, but this was a winter find, and it's a terrific score! It's a thrifted, like-new GapFit XL with no visible wear or damage. It feels like a thick cotton sweatshirt fabric, but I'd be happily shocked if it was actually 100% cotton. The hoodie's measurements are as follows:

*Chest Circumference: 49"
*Circumference at Hem: 49"
*Top of the Shoulder to the Hem: 28"
*Armpit to the Hem: 18.5"
*Armpit to the Cuff: 20.5"


I washed the hoodie before I sewed onto it, but I didn't wash it afterwards, so the quilted Flyers logo is still super crisp and not yet fluffy and crinkly. I'm second-guessing myself a little about not washing it before I listed it, since the soft quilting-ness won't be visible until it's washed and so maybe that will surprise the buyer, but I DID mention it in the listing, and we all know how good buyers are about thoroughly reading the listings, right?

Ahem.

I really like the size of the logo compared to the size of the hoodie, but next I sort of want to experiment with making a different-sized quilted hoodie, so I need to come to some sort of percentage calculation of logo size compared to hoodie front:

That can be for another time, though, because during the kids' Spring Break shopping I thrifted another hoodie just for me, so now I can figure out how to make a quilted Blue Jackets logo!

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I Made a Little Quilt That Is a Ghost for The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt

The best thing, for me, about having a small niece, is that I can still make all the cute children's things that I want to make, because I still have someone to give them to!

Honestly, I might actually make more things for my niece than I did for my own kids, if you don't count things like clothes or homeschool materials or collaborative crafts, because when my own kids were this little kid's age, I was too busy parenting little kids to get enough crafty time to actually make them cute things! My younger kid was four years old by the time I made her first quilt, oops!

So when I saw The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt in a local bookstore a few weeks ago, and I was immediately charmed by it, and then immediately after that I wanted to make a little ghost quilt--I did!

Happily, the book's endpapers feature the quilt design of the titular little ghost, making it super easy to see what similar fabrics would look like. And even more happily, I did not have to buy a single thing to make this quilt! To be fair, a couple of the fabrics that I used are remnants that I'd previously bought with no purpose in mind, but everything else was honest-to-goodness scraps and stash, from the fabric for the top to the cotton batting to the cotton sheet I used as the backing.

All of the pieces are 5" squares. I wanted my quilt to be 10 blocks by 12 blocks, so I needed 120 blocks total. I sort of tried to keep the colors even between purple, aqua, and white, but it's a little blue-heavy. There are just a few grey blocks scattered in, because it turns out that I don't actually own very much grey fabric. The little ghost quilt in the book also has tan blocks, but for some reason I don't have ANY tan fabric, and anyway, I wasn't really feeling the tan colorway... which is perhaps one reason for why I don't own any tan fabric, lol!

To make the quilt, you lay out your pieces and rearrange them until you like the way they look as a whole, then stack them by rows, piece each row, then piece the rows themselves together, being quite fussy about lining up the corners:

Then you take up your entire family room floor making your quilt sandwich!

This is why I can never say that my creations come from a pet-free home, ahem. I would NEVER want my creations to come from a pet-free home!

I pinned my quilt quite well to the batting/backing, trimmed it out roughly, then quilted it via stitch in the ditch, earning myself yet another day of having a wonky back in the process. Why must quilting be so ergonomically incorrect?!?

Here's how it looks all nicely quilted and ready to be properly trimmed:

I got through trimming the batting before my supervisor came to check up on me:

I trimmed the backing to 1" wider than the quilt on all sides, then folded it in half twice, clipped it in place using every plastic sewing clip I own, and stitched it down:

Proper quilters use a blind stitch or another invisible stitch, but I'm happy with a plain old zig-zag.

And there's my little ghost quilt!

The lighting was soooo perfect right when I finished, but in the hour it took me to run out and do early voting, it got completely overcast. But I had to take my photos anyway, because Halloween presents are more fun if you can get them in the mail in time for the recipient to receive them before, you know, Halloween!

...and that's a bunch of cat hairs there on the purple block, sigh. I did wash it and dry it, and then go over it with the lint roller, before I put it in the mail.

Because you don't have to follow a pattern, just make sure that the pieces look cute together as a whole, this is actually one of the quickest quilts I've ever sewn:

I'm always especially pleased when I can work any of my favorite meaningful fabrics into a piece. Below, the smocked blue fabric used to be part of the only skirt that my older kid ever willingly wore. The silky white fabric to its right is actually from my wedding dress!

My favorite part, though, is that I used variegated thread to quilt it, and it looks so nice from the back!

Isn't it crazy that you can make something so substantial, and so pretty and perfect, entirely from materials you already have on hand? Historically, that's exactly what quilting should be, including reusing those bits of old clothes, and I LOVE that there's a children's book that encourages children to notice and care for the simple, unassuming gift of a patchwork quilt:

I didn't have any ghosts on hand to put into it, though, so that part's going to have to figure itself out later. 

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