I am thrilled to be part of the Fat Quarter Shop Blog Tour to celebrate the Cozy Cottage 2016 Calendar. I love Lori Holt's sweet patterns and vintage style and the calendar has beautiful images that perfectly capture that cheery and homely feel. The calendar also contains the pattern to make two sizes of the Cozy Cottage block, as well as a mini quilt and a cushion. 

After raiding my scrap bin, I decided to create a Cozy Cottage Café cushion!


I couldn't resist using that happy chef and a giant chocolate cake to entice people into the café! My kids love it and it makes me smile too. There are lots of possibilities for fussy cutting prints and really making the cottage your own.

The pattern is clearly written and it takes hardly any time to cut out all the required pieces for the cottage, it's also easy to play about and audition fabrics before you sew them together. I changed from a darker grey to the pale grey around the door. The colour choices are a bit unusual for me but I like that I made myself use up scraps and do something a bit different.


The café was taking shape but I felt like I want to add even more...


The border in the pattern is so fun and I picked some patterned and bright scraps to give it nice pops of colour. I used a piece of ribbon to create a 'sign' for the café and then hand quilted in the borders and around the window and door to add texture. I finished the cushion with a covered zip back and the lime stripe binding makes the perfect vivid frame for the cushion.


 Surprisingly this did not take very long to make and the cottage in particular comes together so fast!

If you would like to make your own Cozy Cottage and be ready for next year with a charming calendar, the Cozy Cottage 2016 Calendar is available at Fat Quarter Shop.


This is another finish from my FAL list :)