A patchwork pillow is the perfect way to use up lots of scraps or favorite leftover quilt blocks. And with this tutorial, you can make your own scrappy plush decor! Simply start with a 12″ x 12″ finished quilt center, add a border and you’re left with a beautiful 16″ x 16″ finished pillow!
Perhaps you have a leftover quilt block that is the perfect size for a pillow top. Or, maybe you have a few smaller blocks to set together for the front of your pillow. Regardless of whether you are using one block or piecing a few different blocks together for the pillow front, consider adding coordinating borders to make the pillow front bigger. Half square triangles and quarter square triangles set together also make fun pillow fronts. If you don’t have a block to start with there are several options for easy patchwork blocks that can be used for pillow fronts. A simple four-patch or nine-patch block is perfect for a simple pillow front. Star blocks are another fun block to use for a pillow front.
For the examples in this tutorial, we will begin with a 12″ x 12″ finished block size with a 2″ finished border added to all four sides. This results in a 16″ x 16″ finished pillow.
Next add the top and bottom borders. Cut two pieces 2 1/2″ x 16 1/2″ for these sections. Add these pieces using a 1/4″ seam and also press the seams toward the border sections.
You should now have a completed pillow front measuring 16 1/2″ x 16 1/2″. You can machine or hand quilt the pillow front by making a quilt sandwich with a 20″ x 20″ piece of muslin on the bottom, a piece of 20″ x 20″ piece of batting in the middle and the pillow front centered on top. Machine or hand quilt as desired, trimming the batting and muslin even with the pillow front after the quilting is completed. You don’t have to quilt your pillow front, but it does give an extra element of texture to your finished pillow.
The easiest way to finish your patchwork pillow is to make an “envelope” style pillow back. With this style of pillow back, a pillow form can be inserted in the back of the pillow to give the pillow shape and body. This way, the pillow form can be removed, so the pillow cover can be washed.
For an envelope style pillow back for a 16″ x 16″ finished pillow you will need two pieces of backing fabric: one should measure 16 1/2″ x 16 1/2″ and the other should measure 16 1/2″ x 14″. These pillow back sections can be out of the same fabric or from coordinating fabrics for a fun look.
Fold in and press 1/4″ on one 16 1/2″ edge of each pillow back section. Fold again, press, and sew to create a finished edge.
Turn the hemmed edges under 2″, wrong sides of the fabric together, and press. Stitch in place along the hemmed edges.
Sew the pillow front and back sections together, right sides together using a 1/4″ seam. The pillow back sections should overlap each other. Pin the larger pillow back section to the pillow front first and then add the smaller pillow back section. It helps to use a lot of pins for this step, and use of a walking foot is also recommended. By using a walking foot, the top and bottom layers of the pillow will move together through your machine which helps to prevent puckers as you join the layers together.
Clip the corners and turn your pillow right side out through the opening in the envelope back. Give the pillow a good pressing and then add the pillow insert to finish your pillow.
The pillow front and back can also be joined by stitching with the pillow front and back wrong sides together (pin the smaller pillow back section to the pillow front first, then add the larger pillow back section). After the pillow back sections are sewn to the pillow front the binding can be used to enclose the edges for a professionally finished look.
You can purchase a ready-made pillow insert from your local craft store, or you can make your own by sewing two 16 1/2″ x 16 1/2″ pieces of muslin right sides together with a 1/4″ seam. Be sure to leave a 3-4″ opening to turn the pillow form right side out. Stuff with fiber fill or any ready-made polyester or cotton stuffing and then close the opening.
Never throw away another inch of scrap fabric! Discover more fun and creative uses for quilting with scraps by downloading our totally FREE eGuide, “Save Those Scraps! A Scrap Quilting Handbook.”
The first will get you thinking abut the financial side of things, the second explains how to find news sources and content ideas to ensure you have plenty to write about.
If you can find 50 minutes to watch this video of a presentation by Christian Payne, aka @Documentally, covering how he records stories using mobile tools please do.
And he has put together a collection of links highlighting some of the online destinations featured in the talk.
NEWSROOMS in the US have been using the new Twitter Lists feature to cover the recent shootings in Fort Hood and draw together news sources.
Mashable takes a look at some of the early examples, and it is good to see that other news operations have been placed on the Twitter Lists of other newsrooms.
Twitter Lists have only been available for a short time and I, like many, put together a list (see @thisfrenchlife/france) but wondered what more could be done.
This example of using a list for breaking news is a great use of the service, but I could also see lists being created for other reasons:
As an added extra it would be a simple task to run the list through the Twitter widget that lets people display their own and others' tweets elsewhere on the web.
It would require someone to gather together the Twitter accounts to place on a list, but it could also help people cut through some of the hashtag mayhem that can occur when people gather round a subject.
I HAVE helped freelance journalist William Knight get up and running with a.typepad based site called This New Zealand Life.
William recently headed off to the other side of the earth with his partner and two children after having spent time on and off in New Zealand in the past.
The site will be offering news and advice for people looking to move to New Zealand as well as feature interviews with those who have made the move, as well as articles by William about his own experiences of life overseas.
As for making it pay, at the moment it is just via Google Adsense but as readership grows then Addiply is likely to come into play and I hope that William begins to gain in other ways from This New Zealand Life being recognised within its field.
I had an annoying problem on Windows 7 x64 with Helios x64 where I had pinned Eclipse to the taskbar but would see two icons whenever Eclipse was running. I found that the following workaround works with the option “Always combine, hide labels” for taskbar buttons. You must specify a -vm argument in your “eclipse.ini” file (in your Eclipse directory). The -vm argument in your “eclipse.ini” must point to the bin directory of your JDK or JRE (and not to javaw. [Read More]
When I first started working at Intelliware I was amazed at how efficient the developers were while working in Eclipse. Most of this efficiency and speed came from a deep knowledge of Eclipse’s keyboard shortcuts. Here is my list of Eclipse keyboard shortcuts that every developer should know. Ctrl-Shift-L: Show list of shortcuts Ctrl-K: Find next Ctrl-Shift-R: Open a file in your workspace. It supports CamelCase shorthand too, so “SBFil” will find “SomeBigFile. [Read More]
I had a problem recently where Eclipse couldn’t find my source files when remote debugging a particular application. It would stop and the breakpoint and show the class file with a “attach source” button, but pointing it to the source directory didn’t do anything. It turns out that the solution was to add the project to the remote debug configuration. This is done by “Run -> Debug configurations…” Choose the remote config from the tree on the left [Read More]
A recent presentation by attorney Jon Pinney has rekindled a community discussion about pressing issues that continue to threaten the competitiveness of Northeast Ohio in the national market. Vibrant NEO 2040 identified 41 specific Initiatives that our communities can undertake to make themselves more livable and competitive, its board of directors writes.
A recent presentation to the City Club of Cleveland on the subject of regional viability by attorney Jon Pinney has rekindled a community discussion about pressing issues that continue to threaten the competitiveness of Northeast Ohio in the national market.
Pinney argued that Northeast Ohio is falling behind and, in the minds of many, is dead last as a place to live, work and invest. Despite ample fresh water, a wealth of amenities, and a low cost of living, our region too often fails to compete successfully against peer regions — including Columbus and Cincinnati — for the capital and talent it needs to truly prosper.
Pinney's message is not new and is no longer limited to our central cities. Going back to the Plain Dealer's Quiet Crisis series from more than a decade ago, we have heard the sobering message that Northeast Ohio and each of our four metropolitan areas (Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Youngstown) underperforms comparable regions, both at the state level and nationally.
Six years ago, the intergovernmental planning agencies representing each of our metropolitan areas came together to explore ways that Northeast Ohio communities can collaborate to change our region's trajectory. Led by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA) and with the support and encouragement of the Fund for Our Economic Future, these organizations established the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC) and competed successfully for a federal Sustainable Communities grant. Over a three-year period, NEOSCC engaged local government officials, citizens and subject matter experts across our region to develop a long-term civic vision for our region: Vibrant NEO 2040.
More a framework for action than a "plan" in the traditional sense, Vibrant NEO 2040 identifies the region's challenges in the areas of population, housing, transportation, environment and intergovernmental collaboration and makes specific recommendations for how Northeast Ohio – with 12 counties and more than 400 local governments — can become a more competitive region. Vibrant NEO 2040 was recognized in 2015 as "best in class" by the American Planning Association which presented NEOSCC its highest honor, the Daniel Burnham Award.
Vibrant NEO 2040 employed a disciplined, data-driven process to identify Northeast Ohio's current land development trajectory — "no growth sprawl" — between 2010 and 2040 and to analyze in detail the long-term environmental and fiscal implications that this trend scenario presents the region and its communities.
The results of the fiscal analysis are, in many ways, the most sobering: Continuing to grow our region's footprint without growing our job base and population will result in serious chronic fiscal stress for each of our region's counties, municipalities and townships and other tax-supported agencies. For the foreseeable future each is likely to face a recurrent structural imbalance between their costs and revenues as a result of our region's current development patterns.
All of our region's counties will suffer from Northeast Ohio's lackluster job and population growth. Those hardest hit are likely to be the counties that have seen the greatest losses. Even those now experiencing significant growth are likely to be fiscally worse off in 2040 than the worst counties are today.
Vibrant NEO 2040 examined three other scenarios, each of which suggest ways in which our region can avoid the fate projected in the trend scenario. Based on these scenarios Vibrant NEO 2040 identified four overarching themes — strengthen established communities, increase transportation choices, preserve and protect our natural resources, and promote collaboration and efficiency — and made nine policy recommendations. To implement these recommendations, Vibrant 2040 identified 41 specific Initiatives that our communities can undertake to make themselves more livable and competitive.
The Vibrant NEO board of directors, our regional consortium, documents and celebrates these initiatives and encourages additional efforts, large and small, that will "move the needle" on the indicators of success that Pinney identified. We invite you to join us in putting Vibrant NEO 2040 to work in your community or organization. Together we can make Northeast Ohio a more equitable, sustainable and economically successful region.
Source URL: https://www.crainscleveland.com/custom-content-private-school-planner-2018/hathaway-brown-school
Brian Richard (left), business manager of IBEW Local 58, and Mayor Mike Duggan finalized an agreement Thursday to triple the number of Detroit residents in IBEW's apprenticeship program over the next decade.
The main union representing electrical workers in Detroit signed an agreement with the city that strives to triple the number of Detroiters it trains in the field over the next decade.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 58 is participating in Mayor Mike Duggan's Skilled Trades Employment Program (STEP), launched in 2016 to bring skilled trade opportunities to city residents by pairing them with training providers. The city and Detroit-based union signed the nonbinding, nonfinancial partnership deal Thursday, according to a city news release.
Under the agreement, Local 58 is tasked with increasing the percentage of Detroiters in apprenticeship programs each year, achieving 25 percent by 2022 and continuing to hit that target going forward. It aims to train 500 Detroiters in the next 10 years.
It is unclear what percentage of workers in the union's electrician training program now are Detroit residents. The union could not be reached Thursday evening.
Local 58 joins Plumbers Local 98 and local units of Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights in the commitment. Those two unions struck similar agreements with the city in 2016 and 2017, respectively. The city says both have so far exceeded their commitments, with 29 percent of Detroit residents making up the plumbers training program and 26 percent in carpenters training.
The STEP program engages Joint Apprentice Training Committees and sets annual goals for training and employing Detroit residents. It is also designed to make it easier for developers to meet the requirement that 51 percent of workers must be from Detroit for projects inside city lines. Developers are largely coming up short, with Little Caesars Arena being one of the most recent prominent examples. Noncomplying projects are fined, and that money is invested in workforce training efforts. So far, $6 million has been raised for the fund.
Contractors who hire workers from unions participating in STEP are considered in compliance with the Detroit-resident workforce requirements, as long as the unions meet the requirements of their deals with the city.
"This is a continuation of IBEW Local 58's efforts to recruit and communicate our opportunities in Detroit, including our efforts at Randolph Career Tech Center, to career days and job fairs at Detroit schools, as well as community service efforts. Through STEP, we are formalizing these efforts," Brian Richard, business manager for Local 58, said in a written statement.
Pledges from the three unions put them on pace to train at least 1,500 Detroiters to become electricians, carpenters and plumbers over the next decade.
"Construction work in Detroit is growing with no signs of slowing down and the most important question to me is whether Detroiters are participating in these opportunities," Duggan said in the release.