Here are my first 9 blocks in from Cheryl Arkison’s Rainbow Quilter’s Playcation Adventure Sew Along. Having fun with improv for a third year! #qpadventuresewalong2024. Join us at @cheryl_arkison on Instagram and follow the hashtag above.
"Boy's Playmate" block
Did I mention I have a puppy? What’s a sewing machine, she asks? This is the February block in the Washington Whirlwind Quilt Along.
Until I sat down to write this post, I didn’t know what the block was named “Boy’s Playmate”. Seems very appropriate for a puppy-themed block. That, and the fact that my adolescent male dog really does think the puppy is his new playmate! For now they are playing on opposite sides of her fenced play yard.
If you make this block using the cutting instructions on the blog, it’s really important to use scant 1/4 inch seams if you want a 12 1/2 inch unfinished block. There’s no wriggle room for error! But it does work if you’re careful!
My Version of the Brown Bag Mystery Quilt 2024, "Piece of Cake"
Every winter, Karen Montgomery offers a Brown Bag Mystery Quilt. This year the title is “Piece of Cake.” The participating shops know what the finished quilt looks like and they pick the fabrics for the bag. They might just show paint chips of the colors or one possible fabric for the bag. But this project is essentially an unknown to the quilters participating.
I looked at a couple shops and the one fabric I saw that appealed to me is out of my comfort zone. But I really liked it. It was “Cranberry” from Kim Diehl’s “Quiet Grace” line printed by Henry Glass & Co., Inc.
I didn’t know Karen Deihl’s fabrics so I did a quick search to have a look. To my eye it looks a bit retro/prairie. But I loved the rich red in this fabric so decided to take a chance on this bag.
Here’s what I got.
Wow. These are really dark fabrics…and no sign of the “Cranberry” design I liked. Oops. Now what? The background cream is great and I like the red berries on black and the tiny floral on green. I really don’t like either of the red fabrics…especially the red and cream one.
So I went back online to look for other Karen Diehl fabrics I could possibly substitute. Mind you, I have no idea what this quilt pattern looks like! I only have yardage amounts and I heard that a lot of the pieces are small so large prints aren’t a good choice unless you just want the colors and don’t mind the designs disappearing.
The photo at the top shows the fabrics I am going to use. I took photos of them and put them in grey scale with the 2 fabrics I am jettisoning.
In the left hand photo, the cream and red origin fabric is paired with the yellow green floral fabric. They have virtually the same color density, so I’m fairly confident that is a good swap. In the right hand photo is the dark red fabric paired with the brown and cream floral. The background of the brown floral is almost as dark as the red fabric, but the flowers are much brighter than the paisley pattern in the original. So this choice is a risk. But I really like my modified selection of prints, so I’m going to see what happens!
And so begins yet another adventure.
Speaking of adventures, I just adopted an 8 week old puppy last week. With every 2 hour potty breaks, and not as many naps as my last puppy, I’m not getting much done. So don’t be surprised if you don’t get an email announcing a new blog post every Thursday. But I’ll try my best to keep the posts coming!
January Blocks from Cheryl Arkison's 2024 Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along
Here are the four improv blocks Cheryl Arkison designed for this year’s Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along #qpadventuresewalong. She is posting live lessons on Instagram (@cheryl_Arkison) each Tuesday at 2 PM Mountain Time (4 PM Eastern). She is also posting them on her YouTube channel as she has time to do that.
This year’s theme is rainbows. Or more accurately, fabrics in a rainbow order. I’ve decided just to use greens, greys, yellows and an occasional pop of a bright color. My blocks are around 9 inches square…but none of them are exactly 9 inches on all 4 sides! I’m going to wait til the end and decide what to do. I’m thinking about adding pieces of this Kaffe Fassett floral, Asian Circles, to fill in the gaps or possibly as extra blocks. I’ll need to add some pinks and lavenders to the blocks to make this floral work!
We’ll see what happens. After all, this is an adventure sew along!
Starting a Ribbon Quilt
One of the January classes on Creativebug was a Ribbon Quilt taught by Sarah Bond.
I was hoping to use my bag of scraps for this project, but the scrap bag turned out to be very scrappy and mostly prints. So I turned to my bin of solids and found lots of options. Because of the sampler quilts I’ve made in the past 2 years, I have lots of solids with a 2 or 3 inch divot cut out of one side of new yardage. That chopped up yardage is a perfect starting point for this quilt.
I pulled a stack of pinks on the peachy side, pinks on the bluer side, blues, yellows, greens, greys and lavender and started cutting cutting narrow strips of fabric.
I also pulled a couple black and white fabrics with stripes and geometric designs but needed to buy a half yard of strong black and white stripes. That fabric is the Mini Awning Stripe KimBell Basics Classic fabric from Maywood Studio. It’s a perfect choice for black and white strips.
I really don’t have a plan for this quilt. I’m not sure how I’ll use the colors I picked or if I’ll choose more. And I haven’t decided if this will be a wall hanging or a bigger quilt. It’s boldly bright so I am thinking more about just keeping it small. Maybe something to hang in a hallway to brighten it up during the winter! In the meantime, it’s just fun sewing.
Peg Doll Corp de Ballet
When friend recently used strips of tulle to wrap up some presents for me, I just couldn’t bear to throw it away. I thought about making a tutu for one of the Waldorf dolls, but then realized the strips were just about the right width to make some peg doll ballerinas.
I folded the strips lengthwise to get the layers. The two outer dolls have 8 layers of tulle. I think that is really too much. The middle doll with the polka dot ribbon has 4 layers of tulle in her tutu. It is just lighter and seems to float a bit compared to the thicker ones. But really, they are all fine.
I made the first tutu hand basting the folded edge to gather the tulle. It slipped and slid a bit and I needed to baste it twice before I caught all the layers. I basted the other two tutus on the sewing machine, using the longest stitch length, and that worked much better. I had to use a 1/4 wide ribbon to hide the gathered edge of the tutu. Once I had the ribbon attached, I cut the lower folded edge of tulle to create the right length for the tutu. Yes, they are almost floor length, but any shorter, there would hardly be any tutu at all! So, a little artist liberty was taken!
These are standard boy size 2 3/8 inch wood peg dolls. I used the boys because girl pegs have sloping sides and the tutu would never have stayed on. I sanded off any roughness in the wood and painted them with Lyra opaque watercolor paint, mixing the tube of white paint with some of the red and magenta watercolor to create this pink.
I painted the hair down from the midline doll’s head to create a center part. Then I added buns on the backs of the the ballerina’s heads by using a slightly darker color to paint a small circle.
After the paint dried, I polished the peg dolls with Three BEEautiful Bees beewax polish. I allowed the polish to soak into the wood, and then buffed it with a scrap of flannel.
Finally I added the facial features with felt tip makers.
It’s been a while since I last made any peg dolls, so this was lots of fun. And it was the perfect way to repurpose those tulle “ribbons”!
Notice: This blog is not monetized: I do not use affiliate links. When there are links in a post, they are to give credit to another creative person, because I like or have used a product, or to help the reader easily find supplies for a project.
Washington Whirlwind Block of the Month Project
For several years, one of my good friends has been participating in a block of the month on the blog Civil War Quilts. She has made some amazing quilts with this group.
I don’t really like the traditional reproduction civil war era fabrics. While they have some interesting designs they tend to be dull and lean heavily toward shades of a color. But participants in this block of the month use all sorts of fabrics. There is no obligation to use period fabrics if authenticity isn’t your goal.
This year’s theme is whirlwind, based on the lively activities of President Lincoln’s two sons, Willie and Tad, who were living in the White House in the early 1860s.
The first block is indeed titled “Whirlwind”. I decided to dive into my bin of 1930’s reproduction fabrics which I haven’t touched for a long time. I’m hoping that the blocks in this project will all have some sort of spinning element which would be really fun. We’ll see what happens!
Rainbow Quilt Blocks with Quilters Playcation 2024
This year on the Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along, Cheryl Arkison is designing 49 rainbow blocks! This is a free block of the week and you can play along every Tuesday at 2 PM Mountain Time on Cheryl’s Instagram @cheryl_arkison.
As much as I like a good full spectrum rainbow, I decided to do something calmer as there are 49 blocks in this project. That’s a lot of rainbows. So I decided to use green and yellow analogous colors with shades of grey.
I also purchased a pastel rainbow stack of fat quarters so that I can add the occasion unexpected pop of a different color.
My background is white. I cut my initial background block at 10 inches, smaller than what Cheryl did, because my fabrics are all fat quarters and I wanted to stretch them out as long as I can. I think it’s likely I’ll run out of fabric at some point and will need to decide to purchase more, or stop and add alternate blocks. I think a floral block might look great with all these rainbows.
It’s all play and definitely an adventure. We’ll see what happens over the course of the year! @qpadventuresewalong @quiltersplaycation
Birthday Quilt Top
With the days a bit quieter now that the holidays are over, I finally got a chance to sew the blocks for the birthday quilt together. The pattern is “Windows” from the book, Just One Charm Pack Quilts by Cheryl Brickey.
While it looks like it was set on the diagonal, the strips of blocks in this quilt actually run straight across, making it really easy to assemble!
I have a yellow green and aqua fabric with a diamond pattern for the backing, so it echoes with front in a slightly different colorway.
I was thinking about quilting it in the ditch in a square grid, but maybe I’ll quilt the diagonal…
Waldorf Birthday Ring as a Christmas Decoration
Wishing you a Merry Christmas if you celebrate, and a Happy, Healthy 2024!
If you’d like to knit caps for your own peg dolls, here’s my knit gnome hat pattern in blog post from May 2, 2019. They are fun to make and work up quickly from scraps of yarn.
Here is a link to my tutorial about how I make my peg dolls. These are pea pod peg dolls but the technique is the same for all my peg dolls.
Another great source for making peg dolls is Margaret Bloom’s excellent book Making Peg Dolls.
This book includes instructions and patterns for her peg dolls.
If you want a Waldorf Birthday Ring of your own, they can be found at a variety of shops that carry Waldorf supplies and toys.
Birthday Quilt In Progress
This year I participated in O’Sewpersonal’s charm square club. I have to say, I wasn’t at all sure what I would do when Mara Penny’s “Soirée” charm pack from Moda Fabrics dropped into my mailbox. I was really puzzled about why they choose this fabric line. It was the last pack in the series, and it was definitely different from almost all the prior choices.
I think it came with a mottled grey and mottled black fabric for the background fabrics. Those choices made this collection even less appealing to me. Still not sure what I was going to do, I kept the grey but put the mottled black fabric in the stash. I went shopping and found Sarah Watts’ super cheery bright pink “Sugar” from her Ruby Star Society line to replace the mottled black fabric. That totally changed the character of this set of fabrics!
This is now going to be a very happy birthday quilt. Hopefully it will have many happy returns from the quilt closet when it’s time to celebrate the birthdays of two little girls!
All I have to do now is make it!!
A Little Upcycled Gnome Christmas Quilt
This is the little quilt that I made using the fabric left from sewing up some table napkins that I talked about in my November 9, 2023 post. I ended up deleting the dark mushroom fabric. I really liked the design, but those couple block dominated the quilt. So I substituted the grey deer fabric from my stash.
I added the brightly colored strips, that which mostly aren’t colors in the blocks, to add an unexpected color pop as well as design interest.
The batting was created from leftover strips of an 80/20 mix batting used in other projects. I fused 3 strips together with quilt batting fusible tape to make a piece large enough for this quilt.
The back of the quilt is a dark green flannel with white snowflakes that has been in my stash forever. The candy cane strip binding is just the icing on the cake!
Because of its small size, I think this one is destined to be a throw for the dogs to sleep on! Lucky dogs!
Quilters Playcation Pirate Treasure Map Quilt
For this year’s Quilter’s Playcation Adventure Sew Along, Cheryl Arkison has created 2 versions of an improv pieced Treasure Map. One version is on a bigger scale and more representational and the other, the one I chose, is smaller and more abstract. (Click the link to see what she’s been doing with her two quilts) My quilt is less abstract that Cheryl’s. It is a mix of both abstract and representational designs. And there are neither boat nor pirate fabrics in Cheryl’s. I just couldn’t resist when I found them in my stash!
Here are the components of the Treasure Map, in the order on my quilt, but not in the order Cheryl posted them:
Ocean waves
A palm tree
Footprints in the sand
A compass (I added a note in a bottle on the compass strip because it’s always good to let someone know where you are, just in case!)
A cave (a bat cave in my quilt)
A Jolly Roger flag
A hidden trap in the trail
X marks the spot (an arrow in my quilt because the cross bones of my Jolly Roger is an X)
The actual hidden treasure
A volcano
So were is the hidden treasure? I’ve actually given you two clues! Can you find it?
Or…are you ready for the big reveal?
Cheryl hasn’t revealed her treasure yet…That will happen the first Tuesday in December, 2023 on her YouTube channel. I jumped ahead because I wanted to get this quilt on the calendar I make every year.
I was feeling kind of done with curves! But this is a Cheryl Arkison project so the curves insisted on being included in the treasure chest! And they are definitely the correct design choice. I wasn’t sure what to use for the treasure. But then I saw some Mardi Gras necklaces in a drawer. There is glue between each of the beads so it was safe to cut it apart. It’s perfect…gold, not gold!
I posted the treasure chest strip on Instagram #qpadventuresewlong and #quiltersplaycation so Cheryl has seen it…and her comment was “Love it!” So happy she approves!
This has been so much fun! This quilt is now hanging in my hallway, opposite a castle full of Vikings. Hmmm. What does that say about me?
"The Tree Quilt" also known as "Diamond in the Forest Quilt"
Since I referenced this quilt in my previous post, I thought I’d show it again. (The completed quilt was first post in September 2014). It was fun to note that I renamed the quilt once it was complete, something I used to do frequently with quilts I designed myself. While under construction, I called it the “Diamond in the Forest” quilt but when it was done, it became “The Tree Quilt”.
It’s a half square triangle quilt, with one block that has a inset reverse circle patch. I quilted that block to look like it was a hole in a tree trunk. It was a lot of fun doing that free motion quilting. The quilt has a wool batting so it is light and lofty, and really shows off the quilting.
On the back there is a forest fabric. I looked to see the date on the label and … oops. No label. That’s a bit embarrassing! This is one of those times that I’m grateful for the blog and can look back to see the date on posts I wrote while making the quilt, so I can “post-label” this quilt I made in 2014!
Gnome Theme Christmas Quilt from Scrapsd
I needed to make some items for our guilds boutique table. I found a set of 6 half yard cuts which was perfect for making table napkins. That left about 9 inches of yardage in the center of each of the fabrics.
As all the cuts weren’t cut exactly true, I measured all of them and found I could cut 8 1/2 inch squares. There was enough to make a small quilt! I wasn’t planning on making a Christmas quilt this year, but there it was, almost already done!
Once the squares were on the design wall, I found the dark blocks really looked out of place. So I replaced them with other fabrics. And I cut a few more blocks from my stash to make it a bit bigger.
One of my fall quilts has random brightly colored half square triangles that are so completely different from the browns and yellows of the quilt blocks. Click here to see the post about creating my “Diamond in the Forest” quilt. I call them surprise blocks! I was enjoying that quilt so much that I decided to add surprise blocks to this gnome quilt too!
Table linens and a gnome Christmas quilt from a set of half yard cuts. Who knew?
Child's Christmas Doll Quilt or Wall Hanging
Halloween is over, so is it fair game to post a Christmas project? I’m running with it since this was what I was working on this week!
Last week our quilt guild had one of its UFO meetings (Un-Finished Objects). We bring in unfinished projects, fabric or tools which we no longer want or plan to use. And we sell the items to each other! (You do have to take your stuff home again if it doesn’t sell!) The sale helps support the guild’s budget. I didn’t make it to the meeting but I had pulled out things to take.
In my perusing of the fabric bins, I found this child’s Christmas pageant fabric. I had made the strip blocks and cut fabric for the binding, but never assembled it. So it was an easy project to sew together and quilt.
This is a very sweet vintage-feeling fabric, but I do wish the children were ethnically diverse.
Dreamlines 2023 Quilt!
Here it is! My Dreamlines 2023 completed quilt.
I decided to echo the designs of the quilt blocks with my quilting. I thought about stitching flowers in the large yellow diamonds or doing some free motion interlocking rectangles in some of the larger rectangular blocks. This is such an angular quilt that flowers didn’t feel right and it’s already so busy I thought a busy quilting design would end up as a distraction.
The backing came out of my stash. It has so many of the colors of the quilt…and I got flowers included in this quilt after all! I used a scrap of the piecing as the label on this quilt and on another one too. All I had left was a small strip of the blue and yellow peaks!
Thanks to Brenda Gael Smith for this fun year long project!
Where's the Pirate's Treasure?
There is just one more month to go in Cheryl Arkison’s Quilters Adventure Playcation Treasure Map. This has been a free monthly program of prompts and tutorials on Cheryl’s YouTube channel. It’s really the project that I’ve had the most fun working on this year.
I chose the small format abstract improv option so that I can hang it up in my hallway. This month’s prompt was “X marks the spot” but my abstract Jolly Roger flag’s crossed bones is an in-your-face X. So I opted to make a small red arrow.
Each strip is now pieced, but I’m waiting for the final November prompt to decide on the layout of the strips.
Top to bottom:
Ocean, palm tree, volcano, hidden trap, compass (and a message in a bottle that I added), Jolly Roger, location of the buried treasure. In the bottom row I added the schooner, an illegible note, a “bead” curtain at the pirates hangout, the pirates!! and finally the marker for the hidden treasure.
What will November be? A trail of dropped coins? A trunk with the treasure? Time will tell. Cheryl did tell us it’s bit more complicated design…Can’t wait!
Dreamlines 2023 Quilt Top
Brenda Gael Smith is the host and creator of the free online #dreamlinesproject. Each month she has designed an improv linear strip block in two different sizes for folks who registered with her. I chose the larger format.
October’s strip is the last one for the 2023 project. Next month Brenda is going to offer ideas for putting the strips altogether. But I went ahead and created my own layout. I’ve made improv quilts which were a nightmare to sew together, but this wasn’t one of those! The pieces really went together rather well, with very few gaps.
Wherever possible, I used scraps from the pieced blocks to fill in gaps between the strips. There are only 3 filler strips that weren’t part of the original blocks. The quilt is a tad wonky…not entirely a true rectangle. I could probably block it into a true shape by steam pressing the quilt top, but I didn’t make as a show quilt, so I’ll probably leave it as is.
I’m going to shop my stash to see if I can find a back. But I’m not sure that will be successful since I don’t often by multiple yards of a fabric! And I need to decide how I want to quilt it. At the moment I don’t really have an ideas about how to do the quilting. I’m going to think on it for a while, and probably will go to Brenda’s website Serendipity Patchwork and her Instagram @brendagaelsmith to see how she’s done the quilting on other projects.
Hedgerow Quilt
The Hedgerow Quilt from the Makower UK “Hedgerow Panel” and coordinating print is done! I used three different quilting techniques to complete it.
There is big stitch hand quilting using #8 Perle cotton around the animals in the blocks, straight line walking foot stitching in the Returning Birds pieced blocks, and free motion quilting in the sashing and in the animal blocks.
I did free-motion echo stitching around the leaves in the blocks. It gives the block almost a trapunto effect even though there isn’t a 2nd layer of batting and the batting I used isn’t thick and lofty. I really like it. There is a similar effect with the hand quilting around the animals. I also stitched along the stems of the flowers in the animal blocks.
There is a lot you really can’t see on this quilt. It’s almost like the hidden berries and other wonderful plants in a real hedgerow!
On the sashing blocks, there is a running vine pattern. And each of the solid blue blocks has a free motion plant that is similar to the plants printed on the Hedgerow panel blocks.
You can see what I’ve done a bit better on the back of the quilt, but even there, some of it is essentially hidden! But I know it’s there, and that’s what counts!
The royal blue stitching on the deep orange backing fabric really jolts your eye when you flip the quilt over. It reminded me of the color study posts I did in the past. You can see some of the color studies I did by clicking on the Color Studies Tab above or just by clicking this link.