The Little Mushroom Cap: A Quilting Blog

In Quilt

5 reasons why you should bring your handmade quilt when you travel

February 21, 2017 9 Comments

It may sound a little weird to some people as to why we should bring one possibly heavy quilt to travel! But, as a quilter – I think it is necessary! ….unless you want to spare room for fabrics, of course 😛

Here are 5 reasons why you should always bring a handmade quilt to travel:

If you are looking for a retreat, try airbnb and search for farmstay. I booked mine through airbnb and totally recommend it. If you have never used airbnb before, use my links to get $40 off your first booking. That is a lot of saving!!

#1 Bringing the feel of home and coziness

The minute you reach the hotel room, laying down those quilt on the white hotel bed suddenly looks much cozier and feels much more like home. Your quilt might even look better in the hotel setting too. I take the opportunity to enjoy the quilt on hotel beds as there is less clutter in the hotel room as compared to our room back at home.

#2 Conversation starter

Someone might be interested in your quilt and it can be a great conversation starter.

#3 Warmth inside car / plane

The standard reason and need for a quilt. I don’t normally bring big quilts. Only lap size ones – perfect for putting on laps on those long car journey or plane.

#4 They double duty as picnic mats

I use my quilts for sitting/relaxing on, when on the beach – or the park. They wash easily in the washing machine so I don’t worry much. They are so much beautiful than those regular picnic mats. There are many times that I forgot to bring any quilts or mat to travel that I simply regret not having a quilt in the car boot somehow.

#5 Great opportunity for amazing photos

This is the main reason why I bring my quilt! I love taking photo of them in the wild – in the beautiful nature. The perfect lighting. The perfect background. I love outdoor quilt photos, so whenever we travel, I almost always bring a quilt!

This quilt is the rainbow wash Medallion Quilt I made sometimes ago, and I had the most wonderful farm stay at Kangaroo Valley, NSW and was so pleased to have some photo of the quilt there!

Have you brought your quilt travelling before? Let me know and share a photo if you have – tag me on instagram!

If you are looking for a retreat, try airbnb and search for farmstay. I booked mine through airbnb and totally recommend it. If you have never used airbnb before, use my links to get $40 off your first booking. That is a lot of saving!!

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In Quilt

5 important tips to a better free-motion quilting experience

February 16, 2017 3 Comments

I have always quilted my own quilt ever since my first quilt. The reason is because I fell in love in free-motion quilting the minute I got the hang of it. It is therapeutic, and a lot fun at the same time. Well, let’s save that story for later, as I know you come here for the tips – not the “why I free-motion quilt story” – so.. we’ll save that for later.

In this post, I list down 5 very important tips before you even start to free-motion quilt in order for you to experience a better go at free-motion quilting on your own domestic machine. Well, let’s get strapped and right to it:

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In Quilt

How to Make a Double Wedding Ring Quilt

January 26, 2016 23 Comments

In this post, I am sharing with you the progress of my double wedding ring quilt in this post plus……. a video too!

I have been posting the progress of my double wedding ring quilt on Instagram and have been asked a lot about what template I use, what pattern I use and etc, so I decided to make a video to just quickly answer that.

In the video, I sew a couple of pieces together too and hopefully you will get some points if you plan to sew your own double wedding ring quilt too!

There are affiliate link within this post that I may earn commission from. You can read my full disclosure HERE>

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In Free Printable

Quilting Tutorial: How to make lots of half square triangles quickly, easy and accurate

July 17, 2015 19 Comments

I love making HST and I know there are a lot of ways to make them, but if a block pattern calls for repeated ones like the example above, I love making the half square triangle with triangle rolls or printable sheets. Triangles on a roll, are rolls of ready printed template similar to the one you can print today but in a form of a continuous roll, which means you can make as many as you want without getting it off your machine. If you have never tried this method before, you might want to give it a try especially if you have to make lots of small HSTs.

You can get the ready printed template – the triangle rolls here if you wish to. I tend to be savvy whenever I can, so I normally would print off printable template on a 60gsm paper or any recycled paper.

So, for today, I am going to show you how to make 16 2.5″ HST the quick way using a printable template that you can download here :

Free Printable Half Square Triangles (HST) Templates and How to use them:

You can watch the following video for the tutorial, though I am still figuring out video recording – and was really frustrated with the quality of the video – but I will for surely try to improve from time to time. Bear with me. I would just love to share so, here it is :

Now, you want to pin this image so you can come back to this post whenever you need to make HST!

Quilty hugs,

Amira

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In Book Review

Book Review |The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

July 8, 2015 1 Comment

I am reviewing one of my recent read today, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up : The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo.

So let’s begin with how I got into choosing the book really :

For one, I love tidying up. Though I must admit I have a very messy home at time, I do enjoy tidying up and love the feel of satisfaction when I do them.

Number 2 : This book has literally been everywhere in the social media – so I really do want to check out what the rave is “al ’bout”!

Number 3 : I have recently caught another addiction : AUDIO BOOK!!! OMG, really, why didn’t I try it sooner! I downloaded the Audible apps onto my phone and I am listening to it like crazy ! While I do not read a lot of novel, I do love motivational books and have been going through two -three books in a month – which is very rare for me as sometimes I feel like it is so hard to find my sit down time to read. With audible, I can listen to books while I do houseworks , while I sew and while in the bath which is awesome!!! I also find that I rarely read book twice and after listening to this book I am about to review here – it was definitely a great choice to go Audible instead!

So, here is my honest review :

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In English Paper Piecing

Free Printable Hexagon English Paper Piecing Template

July 3, 2015 9 Comments

There are affiliate links in this post provided for your convenience. Please find my full disclosure here.

Today I am going to be sharing with you a free printable I made for 7/8″ hexagon. I have been making a couple of grandmother flower blocks out of the the out of print Bonnie and Camille “Simple Abundance”. I am in the process of making something similar to the quilt on the cover of “Handful of Scraps” book by Edyta Sitar.

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In Completed Projects

Mini Quilt | #AussieTulaPinkSwap|Gifted

June 8, 2015 No Comments

I told you before, I kind of got addicted to swapping early this year and got myself into few swaps over at instagram. (I am @amira_littlemushroomcap by the way). This is probably the last swap for this year as I can’t commit myself and pose more due dates. I am writing thesis this year and really…that has been the main focus and energy this year and I must say I will be a little slow in the sewing department. In fact, for this swap, I had to tell my swap host who happen to be my partner too! that I will be late. I am not usually like that, but the travel, moving house, and studies had probably had something to do with that.

Though I’m busy, I will be sure not to be too quiet here or on instagram. I know, my creative outlet is probably one of the reasons that keep me going, keeping me positive and I intend to keep that while I write my thesis.

Anyway,……enough said, for the quilt, I decided to make the mini quilt with a classic block, the Ferris wheel. With Dresden style piecing and a little bit of appliqué, this mini quilt was born!

Make your own mini quilt :

Free Foundation Paper Template

You can also make one with a foundation piece available from TLMC Resource Library. Find Ferris Wheel Mini Quilt. If you haven’t joined the library, go subscribe and get the FREE access code.

I chose some of my favourite Tula Pink fabrics in rainbow of colours and also made a pouch with little hexies on it. I am glad the mini quilt has arrived safely in Emma (@joworimakes) and she had enjoyed the package. I love the joy of giving and maybe that is one of the reasons I joined swaps. Of course, receiving is also fun and a great surprise. Gotta love happy mail right?

Till then,

Quilty Hugs,

Amira

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In Completed Projects

Tutorial : Oakshott Modern Log Cabin

February 23, 2015 4 Comments

Welcome to my turn for the fabulous Oakshott ColourShott Bloghop hosted by Lynne over at lily’s quilt. Hop on there if you haven’t seen the others. If you are new here, I most welcome you to browse around my blog too.

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In Quilt

In Progress: Liberty courthouse steps quilt

February 5, 2015 22 Comments

Hi!

I have been working to finish off this quilt top of liberty patchwork courthouse quilt. It is so divine to work with these fabrics and I can’t wait to start hand-quilting it!

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In Free Printable

Paper pieced 3" Pineapple Log Cabin Block Mini Quilt Progress : Free paper piecing template + A video !

January 5, 2015 22 Comments

Pineapple Log Cabin Paper Foundation Piecing Mini Quilt

I have been working with my mini for the Schnitzel & Boo quilt swap. This time I decide to try a pineapple log cabin block using paper piecing technique. Here are the process photo.

I have been pondering on what mini should I make ever since I got my partner’s detail. Not until recently, I made the decision to go with a mini pineapple log cabin block. This was totally inspired by the scrappy pineapple quilt Amanda was working on. Amanda has finished her 101 Scrappy project — and am thinking of starting mine!!!! This — maybe the first of many scrappy finishes. I am not sure how long I will take but I am currently loving making a dent through my stash with these pineapple blocks!!!! so I see a lot more fun in the future while I finish my 101 scrappy project!

The blocks are very time-consuming, but I love the finish so much!!

I prep all little pieces before sewing them in chain piece 4 at a time.

Fabrics are various scraps from my stash.

If you are looking for fabrics, I would love to recommend online shopping HERE> I love their customer service, cheap capped international shipping (since I am an international) and their fabric bundle comes in such a beautiful package.

Free Pineapple Log Cabin Paper Piece template:

If you are already a subscriber to my newsletter, you can always log in to the free resource library where I compile all the free templates there.

If you are not yet a subscriber: you can get your template here:

How I Chain Paper Piece

If you are interested in watching me as I sew through four of the blocks, I uploaded a video on Youtube. The quality of the video is a bit bad as I just found out I was recording in night mode! O well, lesson learnt for next time. You might be able to pick up some tips there. So, head along and watch me babbling for 18 minutes! There is a fast forward part as well, which I found to be fun to watch!

Here is the link to the tutorial for the portable design boards I use.

You might also be interested in the following:

Organising Fabric Scraps

My instagram : @amira_littlemushroomcap

You can pin the image below to bookmark this page!

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