Purple Half Square Triangles!

I’m seeing purple! Which is odd, because I don’t really like purple! This new quilt will be comprised entirely of half square triangle (HST) blocks. You can see a sample of them in the photo above.

The HST blocks are all made and trimmed. That is as far as I’ve gotten as because I feel like August really is kick back and be lazy time! And I’m okay with that!!

Spring Violets Quilt

It’s happened again! I fell in love with a pattern I saw in print and only when I’d purchased it and really looked at the directions did I realize that it called for a lot of 1 inch finished squares. The first time this happened was years ago, and I really struggled to make what turned to to be a really small quilt. A bit more experienced this time, and because I really liked the pattern, I just got on with it!

I found the pattern, Flirty Floral by Louanna Mary Quilt Design, in the Connecting Threads catalog. The pattern didn’t call for scrappy fabrics but added the scrappy greens. I really like them.

This also has turned out to be the year of free motion quilted flowers in the alternate blocks in my quilts. This time I tried to echo one of the floral designs in the fabric in the center of each of the violets. Free motion flowers are actually one of my favorite quilting designs. I find them easy to do, and really like how they look on a quilt.

I also quilted a free motion design with hearts over the floral blocks. You can see it better on the back of the quilt in the photo below. I really liked the idea of that design I created for the block. It works well to quilt the block, but it didn’t turn out looking as good on the quilt as it did when I drew it on paper.

Free Motion Quilted Flower design

For the binding I used the medium sized floral fabric in the center of the blocks. I usually make solid color bindings or stripes, with the occasional tiny floral, polka dot or geometric. I think this is the first time I’ve ever used a mid-sized floral and I think that it works well. It also looks great with the variegated thread used with a decorative stitch on my outer border.

The back is straight out of my stash…a really bright pop on the back of a rather subdued quilt front!

More Blocks for the Treasure Map Quilt

I’ve taken off on a bit of an adventure of my own in the Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along hosted by Cheryl Arkison.

I’ve been worried for months that Cheryl might add a compass block. Makes sense to have a compass if you are hunting for buried treasure on an island. I’m thinking circles and tricky triangles placed around it. Doable? Yes, indeed. But I was dreading it. So, while Cheryl is taking August off from designing this monthly project, I decided to design a compass on my own. I chose a raw edge appliqué technique used by Carolyn Friedlander for her “Dino Patch” quilt that is in Cheryl Arkison’s book, You Inspire Me to Quilt.

I had used Caroline’s technique in 2015 to make patches of dog friends & family for one of my all-time favorite quilt projects! So I knew I could use it to design a compass block. And while I was doing that, I decided to also add a block with message-in-a-bottle…just in case a misadventure occurred while searching for the pirate’s treasure. At least maybe someone would find the bottle and get my side of the story about the treasure hunt!

Message in the bottle block

These two blocks were so much fun to make. And now have a third block in this online project that is my own creation. (The other one is the booby trap. The block design is my own but it is based on Cheryl’s prompt for that month).

Check out the hashtag #qpadventuresewalong2023 on Instagram if you want to see what other quilters have been doing!

Improv Jolly Roger strip quilt block

Since February, I’ve been working on the 2023 Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along—a Treasure map. I’ve designed both of the last two blocks. This month Cheryl Arkison’s prompt was a skull warning of danger. She demonstrated a skull for the large version she’s designing but hasn’t designed one yet for the small abstract version which is the quilt I’m making. So I took her ideas and ran with it.

I decided that rather than make just a skull, I’d make an improv Jolly Roger flag. My strips are narrow so I knew I’d need to place the crossed bones beside the skull rather than below it. Looking at images for inspiration, I kept seeing Jolly Rogers with the skull wearing a bandana. Not only does that add a pop of color, it adds some humor. Humor is definitely something I want to include in my Pirate Treasure Map.

Here is my little sketch planning out the structure of the block. In the end, I improvised on the sketch. But it was good to have a plan of construction.

Last month the prompt was a Booby Trap. Cheryl designed two traps that were based on Hollywood blockbusters and were full of knives. I decided to go with a low tech booby trap you could dig on a desert island with little or no tools. My block is a hole in the ground covered with greens. If an intruder fell in, it might break a leg. But more likely an animal would fall in and might provide a couple dinners! A win no make how you look at it!

Booby Trap block

Here are all the strips together. I’m need to make another one or two ocean blocks. They were the first blocks and the quilt strips have gotten longer as this project has progressed.

I’m thinking about designing a compass for my next strip. Cheryl is taking August off, so it’s good time to try a prompt of my own!

Quilted Doll Dinghy

Well, I’ve quilted quilts and doing piecing for clothing but this was my first ever boat! This fun pattern for a Quilted Doll Dinghy and Life Jacket is a pattern from Modern-Textiles.com. It’s intended for an 18 inch doll, but my smaller Waldorf type doll is just as happy sailing off his blue towel stream! (Though he’s bit too close to the waterfall for my comfort)!!

I’ve had this pattern for several years and picked out the fabric for this dinghy a year ago. I kept thinking that this was going to be a challenging project. Not so, as it turns out! The hardest thing, which isn’t hard at all but takes quite a bit of time, is doing the 1/4 inch walking foot quilting on a layer of fabric and batting—not a three layer sandwich—to create the fabric for the boat’s exterior. Once the fabric had been quilted, the boat goes together quickly.

The life jacket called for fiber-fill stuffing, but real life jackets these days have a slim profiles, so I simple sewed one layer of cotton quilt batting on one half of the long strip of fabric used to make the life jacket.

Must be a breezy day…can’t image why else he’s wearing his woolly cap!

Modern Textiles has a number of patterns of their webpage. Some of them, like this pattern, were created when Modern Textiles was brick and mortar quilt shop in Fargo, North Dakota. These days it’s only on-line and located in Alexandria, Minnesota.

Their other pattern I’ve long been tempted to make is Ruby the Bear Rug, made with faux fur. That pattern is now a digital download. I think about making him every time I look at Modern Textile’s online shop, but no plans to do that at the moment!

My Design Your Own Quilt Sampler Quilt Completed

This is the finished sampler quilt with all the sample blocks I made for our guild’s Design Your Own Quilt project. To read more about the blocks, click on my post from April 27, 2023.

The background fabric for this quilt is a low volume grey on white print which is reminiscent of a topographic map. I struggled with how to quilt this quilt for a long time. I finally settled on a free-motion stipple pattern. I almost never use stippling as an all-over quilting pattern. I think there is usually something that can be done that is more interesting.

I did think about quilting each of the blocks differently. But the designs and the scale of the patches in each block are so different, I thought that wasn’t a good choice. I ended up with the stipple because in a way it echoed the design in background fabric. I think it was the right choice.

And I love the striped binding. I think it really helps to connect all the blocks. Making all the blocks for this quilt was a really fun project.

My "Timeshare" 2023 Brown Bag Mystery Quilt

Every year Karen Montgomery creates a Brown Bag Mystery quilt for the shops that attend her Sewposium business retreat for quilt shop owners. The shops then choose fabrics and assemble bags with everything needed for the quilt top, with the option of also purchasing a border fabric to make the quilt a bit larger.

The shops all handle the bags a bit differently but basically they either show paint chips of the fabric colors in each bag, or may show one fabric in the bag with information about the coordinating fabrics. Basically both the fabrics and the pattern are a mystery, so this project is not for someone who needs to have total control!

This year Karen created a quilt that is lap size, with the option of buying two bags to make an 84 inch square quilt.

I opted for the lap size quilt and I did purchase the optional fabric for the border, but I ended up not using it as an outer border…more about that in a minute.

I knew that the fabric would have daisies or sunflowers—it actually has both. I was really happy with the fabrics that arrived, but as I started to do the cutting, I realized I was missing a fabric. I contacted the shop and they told me that I didn’t get the background fabric, which they promptly sent along, with apologies. That turned out to be a white on white fabric. Hmmm. It just didn’t do it for me. I just seemed too white. So off I went to my local quilt shop where I purchased the brown fabric, with tiny, scattered white dots, it use as my background fabric. (The white on white has been shifted to another project!)

This is actually a beautiful pattern, which can look quite dainty with some colorways. There is a central four patch with arrows arms inside a star, inside a circular motif. Unfortunately, because the two dark blue fabrics have essentially the same depth of color, the star in my quilt isn’t visible unless you squint or are looking at the quilt at a distance in real life. I’m disappointed that the star isn’t more prominent in my quilt, but looking at quilts getting posted in the closed Facebook group for the project, that seems to be the case with a number of quilts. In others, the star is a prominent feature!

I quilted the quilt on my trusty older domestic Bernina 440. I did straight line stitching using orange thread and then put yellow loopy daisies or a blue forget-me-not in the larger brown patches. There is a green decorative stitch in the border of the quilt. I think this the first time I’ve ever used four colors of thread in a quilt…5 if you count the cream thread I used for the binding!

So what happened to the border fabric I purchased? It was actually the fabric I saw when my bag was shown. It’s way bolder than what I’d typically pick but I fell in love with it. I had no idea at the time that it was the border fabric and not a fabric in the quilt. I think I expected it would get cut up.

When I finished the quilt top and laid the border fabric down next to it was a definite NO GO! I decided to skip the extra border and the large border print became my quilt backing. So it has been included in the quilt. Below is a photo of the fabric next to the top and a picture of the quilt’s back. I know some of you will love the border. I just found it a bit too intense.

And the binding? I actually made double the amount of binding I needed for the “Fairy Lane Quilt” which I recently completed. The turkey red and white stripes and brown and white stripes are perfect with this quilt. The aqua and white stripes are a bit of a stretch, but they do coordinate with the dark bluish green leaves in the fabric so I think it works.

I plan to make another “Timeshare” quilt with fabric from my stash to see if I can get a quilt with all three elements in the design clearly visible. I’ve pulled the fabrics but I think I’m going to upload them into the Electric Quilt 8 quilt program to make sure that what I think will work, actually does! Stay tuned for that quilt round about September!

My particular Brown Bag had some disappointing fabrics in it this year, but I still do like the completed quilt. And Karen Montgomery’s pattern is, once again, brilliant!

If you are interested, click this link to see my version of Karen’s 2022 Brown Bag Mystery Quilt, “To the Point”.

"Puss in the Corner" quilt

This is a quilt I made for a quilt guild project. The pattern is called “Puss in the Corner” but in my quilt, it’s Tula Pink’s Ladybugs in the corners! I love how bright and cheery this quilt is.

I quilted the blocks with straight stitches but then had a lot of fun doing a continuous free-motion floral pattern going from solid block to solid block. This double stitched flower is one of my favorite designs and I’ve used it on several quilts. I actually got the idea for the design from a pattern on the fabric backing one of my quilts! You never know where you’ll find inspiration for your projects!

Free-motion quilted flower design

"Nine Patch Challenge" Quilt

This “Nine Patch Challenge” quilt is another pattern from the book, Just One Charm Pack Quilts. You can read about the making of this quilt in my April 6, 2023 post.

I really enjoyed quilting this lap size quilt. I stitch just outside the ditch around the square patches but then put flowers and leaves in the alternate blocks. I started out thinking I would try to stitch the flowers in a continuous line from block to block, but after doing that once, I decided I liked them better as separate flowers. Can you spot the one place where I stitched from one block into the adjacent one?

I decided that the nine patch blocks needed to be anchored centrally. I initially thought I’d try to make a petal pattern but in my first attempt the petals were very subtle and I discovered I’d actually stitched out a loose, free-motion circle! I loved it. So I did that in all the blocks.

Free-motion free-form circle around the central patch in the nine patch block

The wavy line of stitching in the #4 stitch on my Bernina 440, set at stitch length 25. It’s one of my favorite stitches for borders.

I love the striped binding fabric chosen by O’Sewpersonal Sewing Center who kitted the fabrics for this pattern.

"Fairy Tale Lane" Quilt in Reproduction Fabrics

Here is my completed “Fairy Tale Lane” quilt, a pattern from Tula Pink’s book, Quilts from the House of Tula Pink. I used a stack of reproduction fabric fat quarters for the quilt so only the pattern is from Tula Pink.

I quilted this on my faithful Bernina 440. But because I was stitching free-motion houses which are quite large, it was a struggle. Each large block in the quilt includes a patch of fabric with dogs. I quilted a white picket fence on all dog blocks. Every dog deserved a fenced in yard if possible! I also quilted some trees, doghouses, flowers and one set of bushes. All the smaller motifs were very doable—even fun! Only the houses gave me trouble.

In hindsight, it would have been a lot easier to have rented a long-arm quilting machine to do that free-motion quilting. Then it would have been easy to stitch out those large houses. But I’m never sure how quickly I can finish a quilt, and I’d need to be done in a single day, so I’ve never done that.

While I was quilting, I was sure I wasn’t going to like the houses, but they are fairy houses, so I figured some quirkiness is allowable. Clearly the fairy builders didn’t own a level!! When I finally finished and looked at the quilt, it was much better than I’d thought.

Here are some close-ups of the quilting.

house

house

row houses

dog house

flowers

tree

house

picket fence

I’ll call this free-motion quilting “whimiscal!” But this quilt will definitely be a one-off! Though I do really like the “roads” in the quilt pattern!

"Bowtie" Completed Quilt

Here is the completed “Bowtie” quilt from the book, Just One Charm Pack Quilts. The quilting is really simple. I quilted the grid of squares and then quilted the diagonal lines of the triangular pieces in the blocks. It has a polyester batting so this modest amount of quilting will allow the quilt to be light and a bit puffy.

What’s on the back? That’s were this story gets interesting. Years ago…and I mean years, maybe 10-15!, I purchased a cheater*quilt fabric. The problem was, the blocks in the cheater print are only one inch square! That is way too small to use as blocks to practice quilting. Might have made a quilt for a tiny doll. But I had two yards of it. So, despite the fact that I liked the bold colors and the design, it languished in the bottom of a bin of stash fabrics.

Hunting around for a backing for this quilt, I saw this fabric in the bin and realized it echoed the colors and character of this quilt. This old friend was suddenly the perfect backing for my new quilt. What do you think?

*The design of quilt fabrics is a completed quilt top printed on the fabric.

Here is “Field Puzzle”, a cheater quilt fabric to which I added blocks, making it more of my own. And “Storybook Houses”, a panel I designed, which makes a fun which that would have been really challenging to piece.

"Cut, Sew, Repeat" Quilts

I made these two quilts after taking Cheryl Arkison’s online Quilters Playcation class, “Cut, Sew, Repeat.” Well, actually I made the orange quilt during the class! Both quilts were made with bundles of fabric which were gifts, plus some additional fabric from my stash.

The quilt at top with made with the “Cat Bundle” from the quilt shop, Gather Here, in Cambridge, MA. When I posted the quilt top on Instagram, the store commented that this was the first quilt they’d seen using the bundle in one quilt. And they loved it! It’s an eclectic feline collection, including big wild cats and whimsical domestic cats. But definitely all cats!

The quilt below was made with another bundle. The prints on the quilt front were from the bundle and the solids were from the stash.

These quilts were both experiments, made just for fun. Both backings were made from leftovers from other quilts. And both quilts have “franken-batting”. What is that?? It’s pieces of leftover batting, cobbled together to make a batting the size needed for the project. I used both zig-zag stitching and fusible quilt batting tape to attach the batting bits. Both do work. The cat quilt has a cotton batting and the orange quilt has a polyester batting as it’s going to be a dog quilt (see my previous post)!

You can get some really interesting patterns using Cheryl’s technique. And you can make a quilt top in record time. It’s definitely worth taking the class at some point when it’s offered again. You can find out when Cheryl is offering classes on her Quilter’s Playcation website.

Finishes Coming Soon!

Just finishing up a small stack of quilt tops…more about that to come, just not quite ready yet! It’s great to be getting some quilting done. The pup is nine months old now, and he’s figured out that if I’m at a sewing machine, it’s not “Dog Time”!

Knitting Chickens!

Not every project is a big one! I was out shopping at a local(ish) quilt shop last week and saw this fabric which features chickens working on knitting projects. It was designed by Gail Cadden for Timeless Treasures.

I have a friend who just added an annex to her hen house and now has 25 chickens (or more accurately 15 hens and 10 still indeterminate chicks which will either grow up to be laying hens or roosters who will be destined to become Sunday dinner at some point). In her spare time from her full time job, she knits and bakes to relax.

There was no way I could leave the store without a half yard of this fabric! All the other components of this project came out of my stash. And the best thing of all, the binding for the potholder was already made, a remnant from another quilting project!

A fun afternoon project!

My Design Your Own Quilt Sampler Quilt Top...in Progress

I think I might have mentioned that I am running a “Design Your Own Quilt” project for the quilt guild I belong to. I came up with the idea for this project…it’s the Mystery Quilt with NO mystery! And the Block of the Month with no waiting…I distributed half of the blocks at the first meeting and the rest at the following meeting. It hopefully has something for everyone.

The quilters can choose to make a whole quilt from a single block, use two or more blocks, make a quilt using one or more block with a chaining alternate block, take a block apart and make it improv, make a sampler quilt using all the blocks, or make whatever else they want to do. It can be any size from a table runner to a king size quilt. It really is a design your own quilt using a set of 11 blocks with one which can be made 2 ways, giving a total of 12 blocks.

10 of these blocks are from The Early Women Masters website, and they are royalty free. The site just has the blocks designs. I used Electric Quilt 8 to make instructions for each block.

The improv log cabin block, second row center, is courtesy of Cheryl Arkison and was one of the blocks in her 2022 Quilters Adventure Playcation Sew Along. She generously gave her permission for our guild to use this block.

The Road to Oklahoma block, bottom row center, is from the Electric Quilt 8 Block Library and is the alternate block I chose to offer.

This quilt top is almost finished, but not quite. I’m planning on adding some borders, but the finished quilt isn’t due until sometime in the fall, so I still have lots of time get it done.

"Bowtie": Two Different Diagonal Chains Make This Quilt Top

This lap sized quilt pattern is called “Bowtie” in the Just One Charm Pack Quilts book by Cheryl Brickey. This isn’t a traditional bowtie pattern, which has a small block between the two triangles and really looks like a bowtie a gentleman might wear. This pattern is a modern variation of the bowtie.

If you squint at this pattern, you’ll realized it is actually 2 parallel sets of chaining blocks. One chain has the navy blue squares and the other has larger off-white squares. It’s a fun design and I love this quilt!

There were a lot of ways that assembling this quilt could go awry, so I tediously sewed it together removing 2 blocks at a time from my design wall. When I had all the strips of blocks assembled, I put it on the floor to check it. Wise decision! Do you see what I saw?

Can you spot the layout error?

Whew! One four patch block rotated a quarter turn. I’d have been one sorry camper if I’d merrily assumed everything was just fine and sewed all the strips together. That error would have been “buried” near the center of the quilt. But, happily, I was able to unpick the two seams holding that block, rotate it to it’s correct position, and sew in back in place.

I once made a similar error that was in a very complex queen sized quilt. I didn’t even notice it when the quilt was all done….but a friend who is has an eye that picks out variations in patterns noticed it right away. Undoing it was unthinkable, and because it doesn’t stand out to my eyes, I happily left that error in place.

If I hadn’t picked up the rotated block in this quilt before I sewed all the strips together, I’d either have been really annoyed, or thought it was a worth a good chuckle. Since that didn’t happen, I can tell you which reaction I’d have had!

I’m trying to decide if I’m done, or if I’m going to add one or more borders. As is, it will fit on a 42 inch wide fabric backing without the need for any piecing. That makes stopping at this size a very viable option! And I think it will look really crisp with just the addition of a navy blue binding.

I wonder if I have anything in my stash that will do for a backing….

Treasure Map - 2023 Quilters Playcation Adventure Sewalong at 3 month

I’m in for another year of fun sewing along with Cheryl Arkison’s 2023 Quilters Playcation Adventure Sewalong which she is offering free on YouTube. Last year Cheryl gave us an improv block once a week. This year it’s a block a month with a theme: A treasure map. I’m thinking along the lines of a pirate treasure map, but it might just be a map to find a treasure. Cheryl is offering two versions, a more realistic version and a smaller abstract one. I chose the smaller abstract option.

April is the third month of the map. So far we have:

• Ocean waves

• Footprints in the sand

• A volcano

I chose to make my volcano strip a bit of a story in itself. It goes from healthy flora, to dead flowers, to the lava spewing volcano, to lava traveling over a scorched landscape and finally lava dropping into the ocean. I might redo the 3rd block from the right, adding another bright orange flow adjacent to the cooling lava. I think that’s a good idea.

And a little while later…Here’s the re-do. I think it’s definitely an improvement. That’s the great thing about improv. You can just make another cut (or several cuts) if there is something you want to change!

What’s coming next? We’ve been told there will be palm trees, and eventually there will be a treasure, or at least the something marking the location of the treasure, but we don’t really know. It’s an adventure after all! It’s not too late to join the fun—check the link above for the three 2023 videos that Cheryl has done.

"Nine Patch Challenge" Completed Quilt Top

The puppy had a sleepy under-the-weather day so I seized the opportunity and assembled the blocks I had made for the the “Nine Patch Challenge” quilt from the book, Just One Charm Patch Quilts.

The blocks in this quilt are set “on point” so they look like diamonds rather than squares. I generally don’t like making on-point quilts because of all the setting triangles needed along the sides of the quilt to make the sides straight. But the instructions and diagrams in this book were excellent and so there was none of the hassles and frustration that often occur with on-point quilts. Whew!

Here’s what it looked liked laying out the blocks before sewing them together. My design wall needs to be replaced, so it was easier just to put everything on the floor this time. You can see I had the book open to follow the layout diagram.

The setting triangles on the sides of the quilt are squares cut in half. That means the free side of all those blocks are fabric cut on the bias. That means they are all s-t-r-e-t-c-h-y and have to be handled gently. (Tip: If you are worried about this stretch, or are new to quilting or haven’t sewed a lot, starching the fabric with a spray starch and ironing it before you cut it will help by limiting some of the stretchiness).

The pattern calls for a border of the background fabric and this is one instance where you really need the border—it stabilizes all those stretchy-sided setting blocks, giving the finished quilt top the stability it needs. I had extra fabric so I cut my borders wider than what the pattern called for. I sort of wish I’d made them even wider, but it’s done now, so I’m calling it good!

This is the first time I’ve used this book and I’m really happy with how this pattern worked. There are some other intriguing patterns in the book so I know I’ll make at least a couple others.

The puppy is back to his bouncy self, so this quilt top is joining a growing stack of tops in need to quilting.

"Nine Patch Challenge" Quilt

My newest work in progress is the “Nine Patch Challenge” quilt from the book, Just One Charm Pack Quilts. The fabric in the pack of 5 inch squares is “Zinnia” by April Rosenthal printed by Moda Fabrics.

The nine patch blocks will be set on point with bright solid peachy pink alternate blocks between them. It’s going to be a very cheerful quilt, 46 x 54 1/2 inches with a multi-color striped fabric from the same line for the binding.

Ordinarily it wouldn’t take me very long to sew this quilt…but the 7 1/2 month old puppy isn’t keen on having me spend time at the sewing machine, and his naps are fewer, farther apart and shorter! But, nevertheless, all in good time!

"Fairy Tale Lane" Quilt Top in Reproduction Prints, with Dogs!

The puppy is 7 months old this week so sewing time is limited. On Saturday I gave him his first raw meaty marrow bone and he gave me 2 1/2 hours of unbroken silence (except for chewing sounds) which allowed me to finally put this quilt top together. Whew!!

The pattern, “Fairy Tale Lane” was designed by Tula Pink and is in her book, Books from the House of Tula Pink: 20 Projects to Make, Use, and Love.

The fabric is a reproduction print. I’m thinking it imitates fabrics that are post-Civil War, but pre-1900, but that’s only my guess. I was gifted a very big stack of fat quarters from this line and other than the solids used for the “lanes”, the whole quilt is cobbled together from these fat quarters. There is a piece of fabric printed with little dogs in each of the quilt’s blocks which adds an extra element fun. (Look for the lightest patches in each block and you’ll find the dogs).

The actual puppy is going to look stunning on this quilt when I finally get it done. But it might be a long while at this rate! I already have quite a stack of UFOs from this year, all waiting to get quilted.