NEW! A Weird Warthog!

Plus - free wallpaper with a grinning alligator 😁

Happy July!

A new month means a new pattern in the Funny Faces Quilt Block of the Month Club. I wanted to have another W option for the ABC quilt, and I’ve been wanting to do a warthog ever since I finished the Madison Meerkat pattern.

Now you can make Timon and Pumbaa!

This would be a great addition to the Safari Bundle, which is 10 African animal patterns for just $29.99 - a great deal!

Man - warthogs are super weird looking. 😂 That makes them hard to draw because everything just looks wrong, but they really do have those knobs coming out of the sides of their heads!

Now comes the big decision. Which color version to put on the cover? I made three samples.

Right now the pattern is exclusive to members of the Funny Faces Club, which costs just $4 a month. You can join here - and use the code SILLY to get your first month free!

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A new month also means a new free wallpaper for everyone!

I’m close enough to having animals for all the letters of the alphabet that I’m starting to make samples. Naturally, I’m starting with A so I had alligators on my mind. 😁

It’s available in wide and tall formats (so you can use it for all your devices), and with or without the July calendar (so you can use it other months as well). Get your free downloads here.

As a little thank you, paid subscribers to this newsletter get to download free printable versions of this guy. You get JPGs in four different sizes, plus a PNG with a transparent background so you can drop it onto any background you like. There’s getting to be quite a nice little library of these goodies 🥰 and when you become a paid subscriber you get access to all of them - plus a special discount code to get 20% off everything in the shop all month long.

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For the curious, here’s my working sketch for the main part of the ABC quilt.

I’m using these printed quilt blocks for all the background blocks, in Farmers Market Light and Medium palettes. For the animals I’m using blenders from the Animal Kingdom collection wherever possible. If I need a color that’s not a neutral (like the green alligator I’m making) I’m using blenders from the Farmers Market collection so they’ll fit really well with the background shades.

Of course, you’ll be able to choose your own animals and work with patterns you already have. These are just the ones I’m using in my sample. :-)

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Summer reading is in full swing! Now that I have some functional reading lamps I’m making up for lost time. 😂

My most recent read is Happy Place. It was good, but I didn’t like it as much as Book Lovers (which is probably my favorite romance novel ever, so that’s maybe not fair).

This one works in my Book Bingo card for Set at the Beach (it’s in Maine) and Has Love in It.

That bright pink cover is so much fun! I picked this up at Powells when I went with my daughter to hear Paul Tremblay speak. He’s a horror writer she really likes, so naturally we ended up picking up some scary horror for her, a couple of thrillers for me - and Happy Place. The bookseller who rang up our books laughed out loud as she rang them up, saying, “One of these things is not like the others.” It definitely stood out among all the black covers. 😂

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Awesomeness from the Shiny Happy People group!

Chris made a beautiful quilt with the Arctic Chill pattern! What a gorgeous color palette!

Alexandra made this beauty with several individual block patterns - plus one of her own design! I love that she added sashing (tutorial here) and embroidered each animal’s name in the sashing. So pretty!

Head over to the Shiny Happy People group on Facebook to see lots more wonderfulness people are making with my patterns—and to ask questions and share photos of your own projects. It’s my favorite place on the internet!

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The archives and sale now have their own newsletter every Friday. Last week these tips and this pattern were tied for the most clicks. Hmmm. . . will lots of kids be appliqueing bees this summer? 😁

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If you know someone who’d like to read this newsletter, please share! 🥰

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Happy stitching!

I hope you have a fabulous week!

Best,
Wendi
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PS - This was just super cute. 🥰 Enjoy!