Tula Pink's "Lil' Stinker" in my "Dodging the Skunk" quilt

Whew! I hustled and got my quilt, “Dodging the Skunk” OR “Skunks and Wild Roses” lap quilt done this past weekend. It was a perfect weekend for finishing up quilts…so cold here, that it broke the old record for the low temperature set back in 1917!

There is straight line quilting along the grid lines created by the big blocks. And free motion quilting inside both the skunk blocks and the chaining alternate blocks.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to quilt all that negative space in the alternate blocks, but when I started out on the first one, I realized I could quilt in a circle around the block without needing to stop. I was so delighted to see I had created a wreath of floppy wild roses. What could be better for a skunk quilt??

The skunks are outlined in their blocks, and there are swirls quilted around the skunks. Think whatever you will about that!!

For more info about my quilt pattern, look back at my last post.

I wasn’t sure if I was really going to like this skunky quilt. But now, because of the free motion quilting, I think it’s one of my favorites!

Tula Pink's "Lil' Stinker" in my Design "Dodging the Skunk"

Here it is! I’ve come up with a design to use my half yard of Tula Pink’s “Lil’ Stinker” in her Line Work Collection from Free Spirit fabrics, and a fat quarter bundle of her Pom Poms and Tent Stripes.

I wanted a chain for the alternating blocks and this one is fun, especially when I switch the direction of the chain every two rows to create a zig-zag.

The orange color I added is the complement of the turquoise and aqua and is also on the color wheel next to the red orange that Tula Pink favors. The dulled yellow green isn’t my favorite, but it was in my stack of fat quarters so I decided to be brave and use it.

The skunk fussy cut easily at 6 inches square. I tried cutting them at 6 !/2 inches but it meant wasting a lot of fabric and I only had a half yard. 6 inches lets me use almost all the skunks in the fabric. The finished blocks will be 8 inch square. The small squares cut at 2 1/2 inches which is great.

I really wanted another color as my background but white just seemed to play best. If I’d had just the right aqua, I think that would have worked too. But the skunks are printed on a white-white so the white background is really perfect.

I’m looking forward to seeing this quilt come together!

Quilt Project featuring Tula Pink's fabric "Lil' Stinker"

What??? Skunk fabric? Only a dog owner, who’d lived through a number of unfortunate dog-skunk encounters, would even think about making a quilt feature skunks! And only a dog owner would design one! Yes, Tula Pink does have dogs which occasionally photo bomb her Tuesday Tula Talking videos on Facebook.

So far I have 20 skunk blocks cut out of Tula’s “Lil’ Stinker” from her Linework collection from Free Spirit Fabrics and a stack of her cool colors Tent Strip and Pom Pom fat quarters to use in some creative way. Still pondering that one. I know I want to frame the skunk blocks. But I haven’t figured out what I am going to do for the alternate blocks between the skunks.

I’m itching to get started on this project, so I need to decide soon!

Not to worry—I won’t be gifting you this quilt! I’m pretty certain that even some dog lovers wouldn’t want a quilt made with this fabric! Especially those who have had a dog with particularly unfortunate encounter. Been there, done those late night hydrogen peroxide/baking soda/Dawn dish soap baths. Not fun!

Sneak Peak at Mary Mayhem's Mystery Quilt "Regatta" Blocks

Back in my post on February 11, 2021 I told you that our guild purchased a license from Mary Mayhem so that we could all make her mystery quilt pattern “Regatta.” I know I told you that you wouldn’t see anything until the quilt was done, but it’s happy and colorful, I just couldn’t resist posting a sneak peak.

Shown above are 3 identical strips from one step of the quilt. I sure they won’t be sewn together the way they are in the photo but it does give you an idea about how my various blue backgrounds and my stack of colorful 5 inch squares are coming together.

If you are making this quilt yourself and wondering why my blocks don’t look like yours, it because my sails are facing in the opposite direction. I needed to do that so at the seagulls aren’t flying vertically! Note to self: directional fabrics don’t play well in half square triangle blocks!

My guess is that our guild’s release of the next step in mid-May will be the “big reveal” of the finished quilt pattern. So I’m hoping it won’t be too long before I’ll be able to show the finished quilt.

Court House Steps Complementary Tints Color Study Quilt

Court House Step Complementary Tints Quilt. 40.5 x 48.5 inches (Photo bombed by Waldorf doll Molly Mae)!

Here’s my Court House Steps color study quilt from my previous post.

I’ve done a number of quilts this year which I have quilted by echoing the blocks. It’s easy enough to quilt around the blocks on a small quilt with a walking foot, but I decided to do free motion quilting on this one.

I thought about putting a spiral or a loopy daisy flower in the green center block, both free-motion quilting designs I do a lot. But what else would work well? I took two books by Angela Walters off my shelf to see what inspiration I could find.

I found the four-petal leaf motif in Shape by Shape: Free-motion Quilting with Angela Walters in the chapter on Squares (and Rectangles). It’s Square 7 in the book. I don’t do well with free-motion straight lines and this design requires the quilter to “travel” along the edge of the block to get to the second side of the X. There is nothing precious about this quilt, so I decided to go for it! My traveling lines did improve as I quilted more of the blocks, but none of them are perfect. But you know what? This leaf design has a really organic feel and I like the the fact that all the quilting in that central block is slightly irregular. And I love that you can tell it was sewn by a person and wasn’t a computer driven design.

Still puzzled about how to quilt the bars around the central square I took a look at another of Angela Walter’s books, Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters. i haven’t looked at the book in years (published 2012) so I was pleasantly surprised to see a has a chapter on quilting Square-in-a-Square and Log Cabin quilts. And most of the log cabin quilts in the chapter have Court House Steps blocks. Perfect! She offered a number of suggestions but then I noticed one quilt with a bar that had a lazy cruved line with an occasional loop. I like loopy lines. And with swirls in Tula Pink’s “Measure Twice” fabric in my border, that struck the right cord. Angela only had an occasional loop in her quilted curve so mine is different because it is mostly loops!

Angela is well known for quilting every square inch in a quilt, but I like to leave open areas to let the quilt puff up a bit after it has been washed. So quilted all the hot pink bars and left the light pin bars open. There is straight line walking foot quilting around each of the Court House Step blocks, so everything really is tacked down adequately!

This was fun. And Molly Mae says she likes it!

Color Study: Complemetary Tints in a Courthouse Steps Quilt Top

As promised in my last post, here’s what I did with that Courthouse Steps Pattern that wasn’t right for the fox fabric. However, this design is perfect for a color study!

It’s been a long time since my series of 4 color studies. (Click to see the first color study. The next 3 follow with a gap of one post right after the first). But it’s been on my mind to do another color study and I have had this stack of two pinks and the light slightly yellow green in my do-to-queue since last summer.

Red and green are complimentary colors—exactly opposite each other on the color wheel. Pink and light green are tints of red and green so they are compliments. A tint is a hue (color) that has had white added to it. Complimentary colors tend to be visually a bit eye-popping, and this quilt is definitely that!

Fortunately, Tula Pink was thinking along the same color lines when she designed the “Measure Twice” fabric for Free Spirit Fabrics which is my outer border. It’s also the backing for this quilt. Her fabric really helps to make sense of my color choices.

So how does that light baby blue inner border fit into this color scheme? It doesn’t! I auditioned the green and the hot pink as the inner border, but neither made me happy. The light blue fabric was sitting in a stack nearby and I just picked it up, tried it out, and loved it! In this vibrant quilt, that light blue border is the only place the eye can rest! So that’s why I added to the quilt.

The fox and gnome fabrics from my last post are stewing on a back burner. I haven’t figured out how best to use them! They will reappear eventually!

Using Electric Quilt 8 to Look at Fabrics in a Quilt Design

This new quilt for new quilt I’m planning is totally outside my comfort zone! It’s orange and it has large loud flowers! I don’t know what got into me. I clearly fell down the proverbial rabbit hole looking a fabrics online!

Here are the 3 fabrics I chose: Left to Right

• “Magic Forest” by Sarah Watts, Cotton + Steel, a division of RJR Fabrics

• “Front Yard” from Home Sweet Gnome line by Sarah Watts, Cotton + Steel, a division of RJR Fabrics

• “Enchanted” Kaffe Fassett Collective for Free Spirit Fabrics

I designed the quilt at top in Electric Quilt 8, using a Courthouse Steps version of a Log Cabin block. It’s such a traditional block, that I really can’t say that I actually did any designing.

The most challenging part of the design was importing the fabrics into EQ8. I hadn’t imported any fabrics for a long time and so I was basically starting from scratch. First I imported my fabric photos into the Image Worktable of the project I was working on. The photos come in HUGE— at the width of yardage. So each fabric photo needs to be “scaled” to match the actual fabric design using the icon in the Edit Options Box. Finally the fabric can be added to the fabric library for the quilt worktable you are working on by using the “Add as fabric” icon in the Worktable Tools Box located just below the Edit Options Box (NOT just clicking the add to sketchbook icon in the left margin). Once I understood the process and the sequence, it was easy to do. But it took me a while to figure out how to do that.

Inputting the fabric was definitely worth doing. The fabrics lined up next to each other look like they play very well together. in real life, they look like thy are light/medium/dark and should have ample contrast. But once I added the fabrics to my quilt design, I’m really not seeing that contrast. The quilt just look muddy. This is clearly not the right pattern for these three fabrics.

Here’s what the quilt design looked like with using colors/fabrics build into EQ8. This design really dances using fabrics with better contrast.

The good news is, I do have another fabric collection that will work with this courthouse steps pattern.

As to the fox/flower/gnome fabrics, I need to add some more colors to that set to give more contrast. I’m currently thinking it might be a good improv quilt….maybe with some portholes. Time will tell.

While I’m mulling that over, I’m going to go cut out the other fabric I’m using for this pattern.

"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)!

Peg Doll Chicks and Rabbits

Time for some Spring Friends! Chicks and rabbits!

These are tiny friends. The chicks are 1 3/8 inch peg boys and the rabbits are 1 3/4 inch peg boys. The design is my own and they are easy to make.

First paint the pegs the colors you want them to be and seal them with beeswax polish.

Using wool felt, cut out yellow wings for the chicks and brown ears and pink centers for the rabbits. I felted the pink centers to the ears but they could be glued onto the ears as well. (Gluing is probably the way to go if a child is making these pegs as these pieces are tiny and the felting needles are oh so sharp)!

I made the rabbit tails from tiny balls of wool roving but a tail cut from white felt would work just as well.

Using a craft glue, attach the wings to the chicks and the tail and ears to the rabbits. I found the rabbit ears look best when glued to the back of the head, rather than on each side.

Finally I used markers to draw eyes, beak and feet on the chicks and eyes, nose and mouth on the rabbits.

Happy Spring!

DYI Easter Basket Made From Recycled Shipping Supplies: A Tutorial

Last week I received a package from Target with some fragile items which were wrapped protectively with honeycomb shipping material. And the next day I got a package with crinkle cut paper used to keep the items from shifting around in the box. I’d saved the honeycomb paper because it intrigued me. Now I had two items which looked like they would play well together. The wheels in my grey matter started to spin!

Shipping supplies

The honeycomb packing reminded me of a bird’s nest. I thought about cutting it in strips and braiding it. Doable, but seriously, way too complicated. When I picked up the paper and starting handling it, I realized that simple folding would get me what I wanted.

Here’s how you can make your own basket.

Making a Paper Bird’s Nest

1. Cut a strip of honeycomb shipping material about 2 1/2 wide and about 12 inches long. It’s better to be generous in the length, as you can easily cut it down if it’s too long.

2. Crimp one edge of the honeycomb paper strip.

3. Start to work into a circle. Once you have part of the circle formed, anchor it with a staple.

4. Continue folding until you have created a full circle. You will need to add about 2 more staples to create the basket.

5. Trim the strip of honeycomb paper so that it is about 1 1/2 inches longer than the diameter of the basket. Fold the end of the paper. Tuck the leading edge of your basket behind the paper you ended with.

6. Apply a couple dabs of craft glue to the inside edge of the front edge fold and a bit to both papers where they overlap. Hold tight until the glue sets.

7. Gently mold the paper to form a nice round nest. It’s fine to slightly stretch and pull up the sides of the nest to even out the depth.

8. Add the crinkle cut paper and your eggs. I used painted wooden eggs (these are tiny and NOT safe for a small child) but candy eggs would be perfect too.

I also made a deeper basket using a 3 inch wide strip which has a 4 inch diameter. It will hold a hen’s egg easily, maybe two. The one in the photo below is a hen-size painted wooden egg. it works but the nest isn’t very sturdy and I think using it for jelly beans is a better idea!

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.

Waldorf Doll, 18 inch "Molly Mae"

This is a good story. I took a few days off from quilting at the end of February to make myself a new Waldorf Doll.

For a while I owned a Bamboletta Forever Friend. She was a lovely doll, but that particular style of Waldorf Doll is just too gangly for me. Seems like they are all arms and legs. That’s just me. However, I had made that doll a wardrobe of beautiful dresses. When I re-homed her, I kept the clothes, even though I no longer had a doll they fit.

So the task at hand was to make a new Waldorf doll who could wear the clothes! Sort of backwards, but there it is. I knew the pattern for the classic Waldorf doll in Maricristin Sealey’s Book Making Waldorf Dolls had the right size torso for the dresses. It that doll just wasn’t long/tall enough and it’s legs are forward facing and don’t have feet. So I altered that pattern taking some ideas from the Olga/Ollie Doll in Karin Neuschütz’s book, Sewing Dolls and drafted a new pattern for a lean 18 inch doll with actual feet.

This doll is definitely not gangly!! In fact, I had to go back and resew both her arms and legs to make them a bit leaner. If I ever make another doll using this pattern, I’ll shorten the arms a bit and lengthen the legs about half an inch.

The pupil in each eye, a French knot, is a new feature for me. I think I like the pupils, but still not positive about them!.

Anyway, designing a new pattern for this doll was a really fun challenge I’m really happy with this new doll.

"Gnomes Spring Laundry Day" Quilt, continued

Here are the basic blocks in my “Gnomes Spring Laundry Day” quilt. The Square in a Square block and the Tree with 2 Bars both finish at 8 inches square. The laundry on the line strip is the width of fabric x and will finish at 4 inches wide.

I used Electric Quilt 8 to design the quilt. (See my previous post). The tree in the right hand block looked like it was going to be easy…except it wasn’t! EQ8 provides 3 directions for 3 ways to make blocks—rotary cutting, cutting templates and foundation piecing. This is the first time I have used all three to make a block.

I usually pick the rotary cutting option. But this time it asked me to cut the tree with 66 degree angles at the base. Right. 60 degrees would be a piece of cake. In fact I have a stack of rulers which can do that easily. My next idea was try altering the block so I could cut it with the Tri Recs rulers. It was a great idea. I found the Tri Rec instruction sheet in my box of specialty rulers but the rulers themselves were not to be found in any of the usual places. So that wasn’t going to work.

It was down to printing the foundation patterns or cutting a template for the tree. I did print the pattern but it looked like I would be wasting a lot of fabric with the foundation piecing.

So here’s what I did. I cut a template for the tree using template plastic and used the rotary cutting instructions for the tree trunk, the light blue patches in the block and the yellow and orange bars.

I’ve learned that it is a good idea to make a single block to check the instructions before cutting all the pieces. Unfortunately, I have found math errors in the EQ8 cutting instructions twice recently. In the tree block it said to cut the trunk 1 7/8 inches. It should have read 1 5/8 inches. Since I had printed the foundation piecing pattern used that to check the measurements of all the pieces using that block. It can easily be done in the computer program or you can also just the print block option in the EQ8 program (See below).

I never had any problems with the measurements in the cutting instruction in EQ8 in the past. The first time it happened a few weeks ago, I thought it was just a fluke. Both times the instructions were 1/4 inch too large. Having had had it happen twice, I recommend using the print block option and checking the finished measurements carefully before you cut all your fabric.

This is the quilt block I modified, printed from EQ8. (It’s not to scale, so you won’t be able to use it).

So, the tree was a challenge. But doable with a variety of cutting methods. Off now to cut all the fabric for the quilt.

"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!

"Summer Nights" Firefly Quilt

Here is my finished “Summer Nights” firefly quilt! (Clearly it isn’t summer here at the moment)!! The firefly fabric is from the “Let Your Light Shine” line by Blank Fabric Corporation. The information about how to make this quilt is in my previous post.

It’s a small lap quilt, 38 1/2 x 48 inches. The quilting is straight line, 1/8 inch, just to the right of the blocks, following the grid of the quilt. There is one yellow “light” block with a free-motion quilted initial of the child to whom this quilt will belong.

Here is the quilt’s label. I incorporated the fabric’s name from selvedge in the label.

Quilt label, with a message of encouragement!

The bright-lights-in-the-night theme is carried on in the backing fabric.

Starry backing fabric

This was a fun project which I especially enjoyed making. And it comes with a little secret which won’t be evident until the light are out—the fireflies fabrics are glow-in-the-dark! Best surprise ever!!

"Summer Nights" Firefly Quilt Design

This is the quilt fabric I am so excited to show you. The two feature firefly fabrics are from the “Let Your Light Shine” line from Blank Quilting Corporation. Fireflies! They remind me so much of summer nights.

I wanted to make an easy quilt so I designed this Four Patch variation. There is a little light shining in The corner of one of the firefly-in-the-bushes blocks.

The 4 patch blocks are cut 5 1/2 inches square. The variation block has an inset cut at 1 1/2 inch square with a 4 1/2 x 1 1/2 inch strip. These two patches are sewn together and then f set into a block which is cut 4 1/2 inches x 5 1/2 inches. It’s that simple!

Here is the quilt design I created in Electric Quilt 8.

“Summer Nights” Firefly Quilt Design

In my next post I’ll show you the finished quilt.

"Regatta" Mystery Quilt Project by Merry Mayhem

Our quilt guild purchased a license for Mary Mayhem’s “Regatta” Mystery quilt. So while we aren’t having meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic, members of our group are stitching up this mystery quilt at home. (You can also purchase a digital copy for your own personal use).

It calls for light blue and bright 5 inch squares of fabric. I sometimes cut 5 inch squares from scraps of fabric after a project and save them in a bin with with other pre-cuts. So some of my 5 inch squares are from this stash and others are commerical pre-cuts which I had in my stash. I had to purchase the light blues because my bin of stashed blue fabrics has been pretty much depleted.

“Shoreline Stories” by Hoffman

With a quilt named “Regatta”, I decided it was very likely that the finished quilt will look like a harbor on race day! So when I saw this digitally printed fabric, “Sea-Breeze”, Part of the Shoreline Stories fabric line by Hoffman I just went ahead and ordered the fabric. This print of a watercolor is much more stunning in real-life. I will need to piece the back, but I expect to have left over light blue fabric so that won’t be a problem. (Unlike many of the stashed fabrics I use, this line of fabric is new and is currently available in shops).

This is the first time I’ve ever made a mystery quilt which has been made before. It’s not a brand new pattern. Typically I’ve signed up to make mysteries which truly are a mystery. You can’t cheat and google anything, so you really don’t know what you are making until the final steps. It turns out one of my guild friends has made this quilt once before. Without asking her to give the completed quilt design away, she did confirm that the finished quilt has what do look like sailboats.

So far so good! This is going to be fun! I hope I like the riot of colors I’ve assembled!

Because this is a licensed mystery quilt, I’m not going to post the steps as I sew them. So the next time you’ll see it, it will be the completed quilt. Since the steps are being distributed once a month, that will probably be sometime late spring or early summer.

In the meantime, I have another quilt project that I can’t wait to show you!

"Breezy Day" Star & Half-Square Triangle Quilt

Here it is—my “Breezy Day” lap quilt. The name was inspired by the fabric in the quilt, rather than the quilt’s design. IF I’d gone with the quilt design, it might have been “Stars on the Stairs”. At least, that what it looks like to me!

There is straight line quilting along the long white diagonals—just under the “stairs” as it were! The quilting starts at 1/2 inch between the lines of stitching, decreases to 1/4 inch and then 1/8 inch “match stick” over 6 rows of stitching. It will create great texture to the quilt once it has been washed.

I had a hard time deciding what to do with the large half square triangle blocks. The diagonal stitches run through the light side of the half square triangle block, but there was still a large section of the block without any quilting. The floral fabric design is so organic, that I didn’t want all the quilting be be straight line.

If finally decided to go with a free-motion quilted large spiral in the dark green block and echo that with a 1 inch spiral in the light half of the block. I love it!

Spiral Free-motion quilting and match stick straight line quilting

I did a stitch-in-the-ditch with my walking foot around each of the stars. I started in one corner of the central square, stitched around the square and then around the star points. This made it possible to quilt the entire star without stopping until it was completed quilted. This works on a small quilt with my domestic sewing machine but would be a struggle with a large quilt. On a large quilt, it would be better done free-motion or on a long-arm machine.

The fabric on the back of the quilt is an irregular linear grid design which I think is a perfect complement to the organic floral design fabric on the front of the quilt.

So that’s it—a lap quilt from design to completion.

Bringing a New Quilt Design to Life

If I were a teacher, and if my post last week was multiple choice test, my students would on a rant today! That post is about a quilt pattern I was designing. I showed 4 variations, and thought the 4th design was the one I was I’d chosen to make. Turns out the final design was not a, b, c, or d, but e—”none of the above”. Uh-oh!! That wasn’t even listed as an option last week—but it has to always be a possibility in the creative process.

When I started sewing the star blocks, I realized that the flowers were facing north, south, east and west. I put my blocks up on my design wall and tried several variations, taking snap shots of each.

After looking at my snap shots, I decided have the flowers in the large half square triangle blocks, face north and south. So now the design doesn’t have a designated top and bottom—it looks the same from both ends of the quilt. This might not work with a fabric design that was bolder, but I think it’s just fine with the dainty little flowers.

I still have borders to add the to quilt top. I was racing to finish sewing the main blocks in the top so I could get a photograph for this post before a snow storm arrived. So you’re seeing what I’ve sewn so far. (And yes, the snow and dusk both arrived just an hour after I took the picture).

Coming Up With A Quilt Design using Electric Quilt 8

I thought I’d show you my work process in designing a quilt pattern in the program Electric Quilt 8 (EQ8).

I have a feature fabric in greens and teals with a fairly large design. Two of the three fabrics for this quilt are directional (blossom at the top, stems at the bottom). So both the size of the print and the direction of the design need to be considered in the quilt’s design.

Left and middle fabrics are directional, the right hand one is not.

I started out thinking I wanted to make a quilt with 9 patches. But hunting through the block library on EQ8 my eye was drawn to the eight pointed star above. It’s called EQ Default Variable Star. That large central square would really be able to feature the large teal, yellow-green, lavender and orange fabric. So I put that block on my design table.

I still wanted to have some a block that would travel linearly through the pattern. So I chose the simple large half square triangle as my second block.

Well, okay. That works. But I still wanted to see if I could design a quilt with a chaining block. So below is trial number number 2.

Quilt Design #2

I kept the 8 pointed star and added the LeMoyne Single Irish Chain. The chaining is interrupted by a larger central square which I thought be be great for my large feature fabric. I like the idea, and the way the chains bring the eye to the star block. But as I sat and looked at the design, I realized it has an irritating flaw. Can you see what it is?

The squares in the center of the star block and the center of the LeMoyne block are different sizes. It just looks wrong. I thought about redesigning one of the blocks, but wasn’t in the mood to fiddle around with it.

So on to design number 3.

Quilt Design #3

I switched out the LeMoyne Single Irish Chain block for a Double Four Patch Block. That creates a chain that flows in one direction across that quilt. This definitely works.

But I was out of time for the day, so I saved my designs in the program’s Project Sketchbook and called it a day.

My folks had a policy of always looking at a piece of artwork on two different days to be sure they really liked it before they bought it. Something that looks good on an initial impression may not be as great looking at it again. I have no idea how many times they walked away and left something on second look. It would have be fun to know.

I tell you this story because my decision about which design to choose was different when I came back to my work table on another day. Number 2 was still out of the running due to the different size squares in the design. When I finished up the first day, Number 3 was my favorite. It’s a good design and I’m keeping it for another time.

But I ended up choosing design Number 1. Of the 3 designs, it is really going to showcase my large feature fabric. However, I needed to change the layout of the half square triangle blocks in order to keep the flowers on the white fabric upright. I didn’t have enough fabric to have all the half square triangles in the same orientation. But one of the awesome things about EQ8 is that you can rotate the blocks anyway you want. So after a few trials, here’s what I think the quilt will look like.

I think it is going be fun to do some diagonal quilting across the entire quilt.

So there you have it! Quilt Design #1 Variation B is going to the cutting table!