Blue and Yellow Quilt with Circles

Here’s another blue and yellow quilt I just completed which will probably go to a refugee from Ukraine at some point in the fall. Like the Hachi Quilt made using Ukrainian blue and yellow fabric which I made this spring, this quilt includes sunflower flowers and storks. The sunflowers are reverse circles peeking through to the top of the quilt and the storks are in the center of both the big Economy Quilt Blocks.

I took the template from one of favorite quilts, “Flying Economy” quilt and adapted it to add reverse circles, circles made using quarter circles blocks and semi-circles. The “Flying Economy” quilt I made in 2018 was inspired by a quilt designed by Sam Hunter called “Fourteen on Point”.

Most of the quilting in this quilt is straight line quilting done with a walking foot. But I know that I’m not any good doing free motion echo quilting around circles, so I hand quilted the circles using perle cotton #12 and a bit of #8 since I only had the bright yellow in the thicker thread.

This rectangular quilt is a nice size to wrap up in, hang on the back of a sofa, or to fold and place at the foot of a bed.

"Nicole's Challenge" 20 Fabric Quilt from Bits 'n Pieces Quilt Shoppe

Every couple weeks, Bits ‘n Pieces Quilt Shoppe in Pelham, New Hampshire, does a live Comment Sold sales event on Facebook. 6 weeks ago they were selling stacks of twenty 7 inch wide fabric strips. I think they had originally be cut and sold to be used to make face masks. Anyway, it was time to move them along, so they were on sale.

Off the cuff, someone suggested that the bundles could be used to create a quilt challenge. Nicole, one of the shop’s staff members, took up the challenge and on the spot, ans off the cuff, came up with “Nicole’s Challenge” 20 Fabric Quilt.

Here are the rules.

• Each of the 20 fabrics in the bundle you purchased had to be used in the quilt. You didn’t need to use up every bit of the fabrics they sent, but at least a patch of each fabric had to be in the completed quilt top. (The bundles weren’t all the same, but they chose the bundle for you).

• Supplemental fabrics could be added. (I added 10 extra fabrics).

• It quilt could be any size and any pattern.

• The top, with a brief description, had to be completed and submitted via e-mail by April 11. That gave the entrants 6 weeks to sew. The quilt did NOT have be finished.

• Voting for the winners is open to anyone visiting the Bits ‘ Pieces their Facebook page from the time the entries are uploaded until the winning quilts are announced on April 25th, 2021. Nicole promises there will be prizes!

For the most part, I really liked the 20 fabrics in my bundle. But I did find the fluorescent pixel fabric and it’s coordinating palm tree fabric to be rather challenging—especially the pixel fabric! I did use the pixel fabric twice, but there isn’t much of it! Still, that met the brief.

I used the pattern “Autumn Flight” by Beth Vassalo from the Lucky Spool book Scraps, Inc., Vol. 1 as my inspiration. (This 2014 book is available as a digital download from Lucky Spool or still can be found as a paperback from Amazon.

I used Beth Vassalo’s idea of flying geese and plain blocks in strips. Beth used an alternative method to make her flying geese blocks and staggered them so they aren’t flying exactly in a straight line, while I used a couple quilting flying geese rulers to make traditional flying geese blocks. I also added 3 square-in-a-square economy blocks in 2 of the block strips in the quilt. So, this quilt is my own variation, but it is definitely styled on the quilt design in the book.

All 20 fabrics, plus a number of added coordinating fabrics, were incorporated into the quilt top. And just for good measure, I made the binding with all 20 fabrics too! (The eagle eye will note that that pesky pixel fabric got short shrift in the binding as well as in the quilt!! I used the pixel fabric as the last fabric in my binding. I didn’t need the full 9 inch length of that section when I came to the end of the binding and I’ll admit, I was happy to cut it short!)

I did all the quilting with my walking foot. There is echo quilting around the flying geese and the economy blocks, and lines of quilting spaced in a variety of distances, from 1/2 to 1/8 inch, across the vertical width of the longer plain blocks.

I loved the open-ended nature of this challenge. With the only constraints being needing to use a bit of all the fabrics and completing in time, that allowed lot of freedom for the quilt’s design and execution.

If you are reading this post before April 25th, 2021, Head over to the Bits ‘n Pieces Facebook page to see all the other entries for “Nicole’s Challenge'‘ and vote for your favorite!

Below are 19 of the 20 fabrics in my bundle. The one that is missing from the photo is the fabric with the yellow sloths in row 2 of the quilt photo above.

"Gnomes Spring Laundry Day" Quilt completed

“Gnomes Spring Laundry Day” quilt is done! This was a fun project! (You can click back on my posts on March 4, 2021 and March 11, 2021 for more information about how I designed and pieced the quilt).

Here’s how I quilted it. I did echo quilting around the square-in-a-square Economy blocks and around the trees. There is linear stitching in the yellow and orange bars. I used the #4 lingerie stitch on my Bernina 440 across the strips with the hanging laundry. Stretched out, the #4 stitch creates a wavy line that reminds me of a spring breeze.

Then I switched from using my walking foot and did free-motion zig-zags across the trees to look like branches of a pine tree. The zig-zags are different on all the trees, because no two trees are ever alike!

Around the back is a garden full of busy gnomes!

Note to the knitters out there who might be having a melt down the hand knit mittens hanging on the line in these photos: the mittens are dry (not recently washed and wet) and they are there just there as a prop in my photo because I couldn’t resist echoing the laundry line in the fabric! So not to worry. (And yes to your second question, I did knit the mittens, sometime way back when I was in a knitting-mitten phase)!

"Gnomes Spring Laundry Day" Quilt Project

These two fabrics from the “Winter Gnomes” line by Striped Pear Studio for Windham Fabrics just had to go into my online shopping cart a few months ago. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but they made me giggle. That was justification enough!

Then a few weeks ago, I saw this gnome fabric from Timeless Treasures, “Gnome Worry, Be Happy.” While from a different fabric company, the colors in the three fabrics are all similar and work well together. This fabric suddenly bumped a gnome quilt up to the top of my stack of projects!

So I had fabrics with gnome winter clothes and another with gnomes doing spring planting. Clearly they had washed their woolies, hung them on the line and started to work waking up the garden!

I actually purchased the “Gnome Worry, Be Happy” fabric for the back of the quilt. But those gnomes, you just never know what mischief they might be up to.

Here’s the quilt I designed in Electric Quilt 8. It is the classic Economy Block (a square in a square) and a tree block. I took the “Big and Little Trees” block from the EQ8 block library and modified it, removing the smaller of the trees and replacing it with two narrow strip patches.

“Gnomes Spring Laundry Day” quilt design

Now that I have a plan and a quilt pattern, I need to get busy!

Pincushions

I've been enjoying watching the Crazy Mom Quilts pincushion challenge-- #thepincushionproject on Instagram.  Every day in July, Emma Jean Nyberg set herself a goal to make one pincushion. (If you aren't on Instagram, click the link to see a recent post on her blog with photos of some of her pincushions). 

So, when I needed a birthday present for a Red Sox baseball fan, I decided that a pincushion was the perfect little gift!  I made her pincushion using the quilt block named The Economy Block.  It's a square in a square in a square.  The center block is an old licensed Red Sox (TM) fabric from my stash and the other fabrics have baseball themes too.

I had so much fun making that pincushion that I made 2 more!  One to keep for myself and one for an up-coming pin cushion swap!

Finish It February 2015 Update!

February 26th.  Two more days for Finish it February projects! 

Boston has had record breaking snowfall this winter, most of the snow falling this month.  I'd had visions of sitting in my sewing room, happily quilting while snow gently swirled outside the window.  In reality, I was outside dealing with the snow!  Daily chores included shoveling walks, brushing snow off the roof and working to keep leaks from the attic to a minimum.  The dogs, on the other hand, have been having a great time playing in the mountains of snow in the yard!  As they say, a tired dog is a good dog.  Three sleeping dogs makes concentrating on quilting easier!

All the hours spent dealing with the snow meant there was far less time for quilting than I had expected,  But it looks like I'll still be able to complete 5 of the 6 quilts in my stack!

Here are details of the two twin sized quilts.  The photos show some of the quilting and I've flipped a the edge of the quilts over to show the backing.

I'll post a gallery of all the finished quilts next week!  

Bonnie Hunter "Grand Illusion" Winter 2014 Mystery Quilt

Economy Block Bird Quilt with a Broken Chain--WIP

I've got the body of the Economy Block Bird quilt completed.  That's Tipper, my English Springer Spaniel, in the corner of the photo.  He's from a hunting line of Springers.  Springer Spaniels flush and retriever birds when used in hunting.  He is very "birdie"--it's in his blood.  
Note how he is keeping his eye on this quilt.  Must be all the birds the center of the Economy Blocks!!

The alternating block in the quilt is a chain bock.  Rather than have the chain track in parallel lines across the quilt, I've broken the chain by turning the direction of the chain block in each row.  I think it gives the quilt a lot of motion. 

With one more vertical and horizontal row of blocks, this would be a twin size.  I'm going to use 2 borders instead, the more traditional look in a quilt. Why?  Because one of the border fabrics is the reason why I chose the Economy Block pattern!  

One border is on.  One to go.  I'll post the finished top next week. 

Economy Block Quilt with a Chain--WIP

Here's a quick peek at one of the quilts I should be working on!!  I've gotten distracted doing other things this week--like cleaning the cellar so that dogs have a play area in this super cold weather!

The focus unit in this quilt is the square-in-a-square block, also known as the Economy Block. This was the "hot" block of 2014!   I made 2 wall hangings using this block but this is the first time I'm using it for a bed size quilt. 

As you can see in the apple wall hanging I made last year, putting the Economy blocks next to each other can create a star secondary design.  

Economy Block wall hanging 15 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches square, Economy blocks finish at 4 3/4 inches

I didn't have quite enough of the bird fabric to do a whole quilt of Economy blocks.  So I'm alternating the Economy blocks with a chain block.  

This is all I've done so far!  Hopefully I'll get back to the sewing machine in the next few days!