It’s the 10th of April, and we are still celebrating being named a Top 10 shop in North America. We’ve been counting down with a free pattern or tutorial each month on the 10th until the official release of our feature in Quilt Sampler magazine on May 8. Just wait till you see the quilt we designed for them. I can’t wait to show you!

But back to the free pattern. One of my favorite classes to teach here at Suppose is hand embroidery.  In planning the first class, I wanted the students to be able to practice a bunch of stitches but also end up with something they didn’t just want to throw away, so I designed this simple sampler of concentric circles.

It reminded me of the mandalas I learned about in high school, so that’s what I named it.  It’s very simple, but we’ve had so many requests for the pattern so I wanted to share it. Just go here to view the full Mandala Embroidery Pattern or to download your own copy.

I’m not joking. That’s how long it look me to make this skirt.  I just HAD to have something  ASAP out of the velveteens from Anna Maria Horner’s new collection, Innocent Crush.  They are just calling out to be made into Wintery party clothes, and at this rate there’s time to make several more.

And as it turns out, these 100% cotton velveteens are a dream to work with. They take a light steam iron very well–we had our doubts but the result was quite pleasing.   Since velveteen is a new texture for many quilters, and we’ve never had it in the shop before, you may have a few wonderments about it.  (Yes you can wash it… expect 5% shrinkage lengthwise…) Thankfully, Anna Maria spells out the basics of working with the velveteen on her blog–pretty  much everything I would have mentioned here so definitely check it out.

If you want to try your hand at this very simple project, visit the 1 hour velveteen skirt project page.