Origami Animal Embroidery Patterns

I don't know what it is, but I've been really into "origami" style embroidery patterns lately. Confession: I was WAY too good at geometry when I was in school. I think I got 106% in that class (yeah, I did extra credit when I already had 100%--NERD). I sketched up some patterns from origami animal photos (you can find about any animal you want when searching images online--just sketch the fold lines to make it 2 dimensional). I modified them slightly, mostly leaving out any very tiny "fold" lines that I felt would detract from a final embroidered project.

I really liked this squirrel, so I made it into a wall hanging by gluing the embroidered fabric to the hoop once I was finished stitching and covering the back with a piece of trimmed card stock so you can't see the stitches from the back anymore. To cover the back, just trace around the embroidery hoop onto card stock and cut out the circle just inside the traced lines. I tied a piece of ribbon at the top and voila! Now I can hang it on my wall and smile at his geometric squirreliness.

Feel free to snag the .jpg of the squirrel pattern here and resize it to your needs, or you can download the .pdf of all 4 patterns I made here (it's free).

If embroidery isn't quite your style, I found these necklaces on Etsy! I got the squirrel (of course!).

Mod Chevron Baby Quilt

Quilts are something that I don't usually attempt. They definitely take more time and effort than my average craft project, but the results generally garner many more "ooohs" "aaahs" and "wows" than something you can stitch together in an hour or two. As one of my super Besties from college announced she and her husband were expecting, I decided to go for the gusto and try this super cute quilt from Generation Q Magazine. Naturally I found the pattern on Pinterest, but modified it slightly to include fewer total fabrics. I ended up using 4 total fabrics:

1.5 yards of the grey/red elephant fabric for the backing
1.25 yards solid grey
3/4 yard off white with pandas
3/4 yard red with monkeys


If you are making one of these yourself you will also need a coordinating thread (or 2), batting, lots of pins, ruler and scissors or a rotary cutter and cutting mat. If you plan on trying out quilting, I highly recommend investing in a cutting mat and rotary cutter as well as several sizes of rulers, otherwise you up your chances of failure considerably.

I chose the colors based on Brook's registry (she chose lots of grey sheets, elephants and other zoo animals). So I wanted to find some zoo animal themed fabrics that tied in with the grey things she had picked out. This also shaped my decision to use fewer fabrics. I don't know if you've ever tried, but it is hard to find many coordinating fabrics for baby that use grey as the main colorway (also, I super loved the grey elephants with red ears and once you set your heart on that, the choices get even fewer).


This is the kind of project that I usually start and then half way through I get into something else and it never gets finished, but having the added motivation of making something really special for a great friend helped me to finish the whole thing in about 2 weeks! Unheard of for me considering I didn't take any vacation days from work to finish this up :)




This is only the 3rd quilt I have ever done start to finish, and I would highly recommend it for beginners. First, it is a baby quilt so the smaller scale keeps you from getting too overwhelmed. Mostly though, I think its a great, on trend pattern that isn't too complicated for pretty much anyone to follow.

Do any of you have a favorite quilt pattern you've seen or used lately? I'm thinking about tackling some quilts for my nieces/nephew for Christmas this year and I'd love to see some more ideas!