Quilting is in my Blood

I am joining the quarterly check-in hosted by Quilting JetGirl. See my second quarter check-in Here.

I had hoped to experiment with some ruler quilting this past quarter but didn’t progress beyond a bit of practice. My quilting go-to is definitely walking foot quilting, and to be honest, switching my sewing machine feet is generally a pain in the butt. Taking the walking foot off is easy and attaching the ruler (or FMQ) foot isn’t too bad, but putting the walking foot back on can make me cra-cra! So if I know I need to get some binding done in the near future, that walking foot is staying firmly attached!

I should make clear that I am using my new Janome for quilting and binding, and I’m still using my old Brother machine for piecing.

In September I used my walking foot to quilt some potholders made with 2.5” squares using a tutorial by Sherri at A Quilting Life. She has a You Tube video on Bias Binding which I found really useful to bind my potholders with rounded corners which finished at 8.5” and shrank about a half inch after washing and drying. Here’s a photo of one:

Also in September, I finished my Frightful Fun quilt. Read the details Here.

Here is the Virgo block I sewed for my Starry Signs BOM:

For the September monthly color challenge for the Alison Glass Bee, we were asked to sew a block with a light, medium, and dark value of the same color. I made a simple Economy block.

To see what I accomplished in July and August, please read the recaps below:

July 2025 Recap

August 2025 Recap

Fourth Quarter Plans

The focus is to finish up some small Halloween projects and hopefully get my Starry Signs quilt top sewn together. I have a couple other small projects in mind as well, but the last two and a half months of the year promises to be busy, so we’ll see what I get accomplished.

Linking up to #2025QuiltingQ3CheckIn Linky Party.

I have quite the history of signing up for sew-alongs and Block-of-the-Month (BOM) programs and either losing interest or wanting to spend my time on projects that are more joy-producing for me. But I never lost interest in the Halloween BOM designed by Sam Hunter, Leila Gardunia, and Kristy Lea. See the post announcing the BOM Here. The blocks were all well-designed using my favorite piecing method: Foundation Paper Piecing also known as FPP. I was able to personally drop the quilt top and backing off to Cara at Sew Colorado Quilting in Denver as I took a quick trip to Colorado with a friend in early September. It was so wonderful to finally meet Cara in person. Here is a photo she took of Frightful Fun after quilting but before she returned it to me for trimming and binding. The Haunted House was the final block of the BOM, and I had fun fussy cutting small Halloween images to fit in the windows.

The photo below shows the quilt top before I delivered it to Cara. I added two extra blocks not included in the BOM (to be made into pillows) and some Halloween fabric for a runner to also have quilted with the cobweb motif. I cut those extras off before binding it with a favorite Halloween print, Double, Double, Toil and Trouble, available at this Etsy shop.

The finished quilt is good size—68” x 79”. My bestie, Mary, is going to put it on her bed in early October. Below are a couple close-ups that show the cobweb quilting done with medium grey thread.

I will be linking up YvonneQuilting Jetgirl when she opens the linky party for Favorite Finish September 2025.

August has been a productive month. Let’s start with my smallest finish. I’ve been blogging recently about participating in the AG Bee hosted by Alison Glass. This month we had the opportunity to sign up for a mug rug swap. My assigned partner shared that she likes blue and purple colors. A tutorial was provided for a 6.5” x 9.5” mug rug. I really liked the FPP bee hovering above a flower pattern that was provided (but not required), so I decided to make it for the right side of the mug rug. For the left side of the mug rug, I used the bonus ribbon block from Alison Glass’ Trinket pattern. Here’s a pic of the front of the mug rug. I attempted to make the photo somewhat artistic, but the darn grasshoppers have been chomping on my cosmos flowers. The second pic shows a less obscured shot of the front.

And a boring pic of the back:

I made two doll quilts for a couple of girls who are important to my bestie, Mary, and me. I actually call them “Teeny Quilts” because maybe these little girls have some stuffed animals that need to be covered by a quilt. Mary designed both quilts from my bin of 2.5” squares, and the finished teeny quilts measure 16” x 19.5”.

I also finished my On-Point Halloween quilt, blogged Here.

I paper-pieced the second-to-the-last block for the Frightful Fun BOM that I am participating in.

I also made the Leo block for the Starry Signs BOM:

And lastly I made a 8.5” unfinished block for AG Bee Monthly Challenge where we were challenged to use a favorite color in a new or different way. I decided to use a pretty red violet Alison Glass fabric as the background of a white star.

My other August activity was to sell some fabric from my stash at the Fiber Flea Market in Santa Fe on August 23rd. I did quite well with over $750 in sales!

What’s Up in September?

My main focus in September is to finish my Frightful Fun Halloween quilt. The Haunted Mansion block drops on September 1st. I also plan to make the next Starry Signs block and the AG September Color Challenge block. Anything else will be gravy!

I am making two Halloween quilts this year. They are both for my bestie, Mary. Earlier this month I finished the one for her couch which is 54” square. I used the same pattern as the Flora & Fauna quilt I made for my niece last month, blogged Here. I took a couple quick pics this morning. The first one was photobombed by my cat, Weebles. She really wanted to get on it but thankfully couldn’t figure out how. If you enlarge the second photo, you can see the orange Cobweb quilting done by Cara of Sew Colorado Quilting.

I hope to finish my Frightful Fun Halloween quilt top in early September. The pattern for the last block, the Haunted House, will be available on September 1st. Cara will do the long-arm quilting using the same Cobweb quilting pattern in a silvery grey.

Linking up to Quilting Jetgirl: August 2025 Favorite Finish .

I have continued to make progress on both of my Block of the Month quilt projects. Here’s the scaredy cat for the Frightful Fun Halloween BOM:

Here’s Block 7: Cancer for Starry Signs BOM:

I also worked on one of the mountains for the Add-on Mountain Range border for the Starry Signs BOM. See the pattern Here. I’m making the twin size quilt, and this mountain is 46” across.

For the Alison Glass Bee, I have made two 8” Sawtooth blocks for different color prompts. The first one was using the colors in the AG Bee:

The second prompt was to choose a color that we’re generally not drawn to and pair it with a color we like. The color I’m not that drawn to is Avocado Green (I’m still traumatized by Avocado Green kitchen appliances in the 1960s!), and purple is definitely a color I like:

I finished the quilt for my niece, Mary Frances, blogged Here.

I also made the same quilt in Halloween fabrics. I’ve received it back from Cara at Sew Colorado Quilting. I plan to trim and bind it next month.

The other thing I’ve been doing is pulling fabrics from my stash to sell at my quilt guild’s Fiber Flea Market on August 23rd. Believe me I will have plenty of fabric to sell! It’s been fun to see fabric from many of my older projects.

So that’s about it for now. I hope everyone is keeping cool. I love the longer days, but Pumpkin Spice Everything is starting to sound pretty good!

My favorite finish for July (and once again my only finish) is a quilt that I made for my niece, Mary Frances, who lives in Michigan. We both visited my brother and his family in California earlier this month, so I had the opportunity to give her the quilt in person.

I used a Free pattern by Giuseppe Ribaudo on the Bernina We All Sew Website. It was my first time making an on-point quilt. I enjoyed making it so much that I made a Halloween version for my bestie that I plan to finish in August. I added 2” borders, so the quilt finished at 54” square. I named the quilt Flora & Fauna.

Here’s a photo of the quilt top before I sent it off to Cara at Sew Colorado Quilting for longarm quilting.

And here’s a pic that Mary Frances took of it folded on a pink chair. I love how nice it looks on the chair:

Linking up to Quilting Jetgirl: Favorite Finish July 2025.

I’m joining Quilting Jetgirl’s quarterly check-in linky party to recap what I’ve accomplished this past quarter and to reflect on/reprioritize what I want to accomplish in the third quarter of 2025. Although life has been on the crazy side, I’m happy with my few finishes and progress on two Block of the Month projects.

In early Spring, I joined Alison Glass’ Color Camp which helped me feel even more comfortable in making color choices for all sorts of quilting projects. In May I joined the year-round AG Bee (see info Here). The first mini workshop was a tutorial for journal cover. Below is the front of my journal that used a fussy-cut block that I made last year. I’m also designating this project as my June favorite finish (and once again my only finish for the month).

And here is the back of the journal that used a different fussy cut block:

I was able to get two quilts finished this quarter. The first one was my Tree of Life quilt (read about it Here).

The second was a baby donation quilt (blogged Here). It was a great Free Motion Quilting practice.

I’ve continued to make progress on two Block of the Month projects. Below are two June blocks for Frightful Fun and the Taurus block for Starry Signs. The blocks are pinned to felt tiles that surround a wall hanging I made several years ago to cover the ugly fuse box in my quilting space.

I got the All Star Quilt-Along quilt top done for my niece and sent it off for quilting. This is the first time I’ve made an on-point quilt.

I enjoyed making this pattern so much that I started a Halloween version for the couch for my bestie, Mary, who told me when she saw the completed quilt top for Mary Frances, “I wouldn’t mind a quilt with this pattern.” Hint! Hint! Here are seven blocks with large on-point 8” centers:

Third Quarter Plans

I plan to trim and bind Mary France’s All Star quilt by the end of July in order to send it to her for her birthday in August, and I hope to finish up both of my Halloween quilts by the end of September. But mostly I want to focus on smaller projects. I enrolled in HollyAnne Knight’s Ruler Quilting Academy. I’ve just started playing with some straight line quilt-in-the-ditch and echo quilting, but we are also going to learn to ruler quilt some curves as well. I consider that I am auditing the course. I will probably never graduate, but it will be great to have HollyAnne’s videos as a resource whenever needed. So hopefully I’ll have some small projects to share in the next quarter that I have ruler quilted.

My other main focus is to pull fabric that I don’t love or will probably never use to sell at my quilt guild’s Fiber Flea Market in August. And what I don’t sell there, I plan to list on Feel Good Fibers.

I have one flimsy done that is 24” square that will become a wall hanging. I used some half-rectangle triangles from Leila Gardunia’s Website that contrast really well with the Tim Holtz indigo background fabric. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to use a contrasting thread or one that blends well with my background fabric. Obviously contrasting thread will show up, and that makes me nervous.

Here is a pic with three different thread choices. The first is Very Dark Navy (Aurafil 2785) which blends perfectly with indigo background fabric. The second is Medium Purple (Aurafil 2545) which provides a subtle contrast, and the last is Magenta (Aurafil 2535) which is definitely NOT subtle.

I’m wondering about using the Very Dark Navy for Stitch-in-the-Ditch and the Medium Purple for Echo quilting. What would you suggest for this novice ruler quilter?

Linking up to #2025QuiltingQ2CheckIn and Quilting Jetgirl: Favorite Finish June 2025.

Hi everyone. Life has been crazy lately. I’ve been away from home a lot helping out my friends, Sue and John, who are in Albuquerque dealing with John’s serious health issues. I’ve been holding down the fort at their house, taking care of their cat, and sharing “foster custody” of their dog with some other friends. I’ve been lugging my sewing machine and projects around. Another woman took over my duties yesterday, and fingers crossed, it will be a workable situation for her and her anxious kitty. I’ve been enjoying sleeping in my own bed the last couple nights!

One of the ways I’ve been taking care of myself is to focus on projects that bring me joy and being willing to let go of other projects. I’ve signed up for a year long membership to Alison Glass’ Bee (called the AG Bee), which she describes as a year-round creative community that will include some mini workshops, some swaps, presentations, and challenges. My regular blog followers know that I am a huge fan of Alison’s fabrics and patterns. Her saturated colors just make me happy!

I’ve decided that I’m going to continue two Block of the Month programs: the Frightful Fun Halloween BOM, and Starry Signs. I’m going to let go of the Murder Mystery BOM to have more time to participate in AG Bee workshops, swaps, and challenges. I just finished sewing the April and May blocks for Frightful and Starry Signs in the last fews days. Here are my April Frightful Fun Candy Corn and (6″ square)  Pumpkin ( 12″ x 24″) blocks:

Our May Frightful Fun assignments was making two different bat blocks. The first one is 6″ square, and the second is a bat in front of a moon which is 18″ square.

The April Starry Signs block was the Aries constellation which was a very simple and quick block:

The May block for Starry Signs was the constellation Taurus:

The one project I completed was a donation baby quilt. Read about it here.

I also worked on a summit project for the Alison Glass Color Camp. I plan to get it quilted in June, and I’ll share about it next month.

In the coming week I plan to start working on a quilt for my niece using the free All Stars Quilt-Along pattern from Bernina We All Sew designed by Giucy Giuce (see pattern here). I’m using Sharon Holland’s Willow collection along with some coordinating Art Gallery Fabrics solids. Here’s a photo of my fabric pull:

Linking up to Quilt Schmilt: To-Do Tuesday.

My May 2025 Favorite Finish (and also my only finish 🙂 is the Stacey Lee’s Quilt Donation Drive 2025 baby quilt I sent off early this month to Comfort Cases through Stacey Lee’s Quilt Donation Drive 2025. I used 17 stars from the Sawtooth Star Blocks Swap that I participated in last year. The only star block I made for this baby quilt is the green center star block. I did make all the alternating blocks from three 2.5″ x 6.5″ strips from a variety of prints to pull in colors from the surrounding stars. I then quilted it using a loopy meander. The finished baby quilt measures 30″ x 42″.

Here’s a pic that shows the backing fabric:

And here’s just the quilt top:

Linking up to Quilting Jetgirl: Favorite Finish May 2025.

I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am that we’re already through the first quarter of 2025, but I’m overall I’m pleased with how things are going quilting-wise. Below are the two recap posts I’ve written this quarter that sum up the progress I’ve made on the three Block of the Month programs I’m participating in as well as SAHRR 2025:

• February 2025 Recap
• March 2025 Recap

What’s up for Quarter 2

The biggest thing going on in my quilting world is that in February I treated myself to a new sewing machine: a Janome TravelMate 50. I love that it is portable but also a powerful machine. I’ve had a Juki machine for a number of years that has never been a good fit for me, even though many of the quilters I follow swear by their Juki machines. It’s too heavy for me, and I really don’t like that the bobbin is hidden. So I’ve been sewing on two Brother sewing machines–one for piecing and the other for binding/walking foot quilting. Well, a couple months ago, I was trying to do some simple quilting, and the stitch length was stuck at a really tiny stitch length, and it looked terrible. So I ended up ripping out the quilting and the hand-quilted my Project Quilting 16.4: The Birthstone Challenge. A few days later I drove to Santa Fe for a quilt guild meeting, and after the meeting, I stopped by the Santa Fe Sewing Center and bought my new sewing machine which included a visible bobbin and three classes on learning to use my Janome TravelMate 50. A couple weeks ago I took that last class which focused on using the walking foot and free motion quilting with the darning foot.

Since that class, I’ve been practicing some basic free motion quilting (FMQ). I’m not looking to quilt large projects due to too much wear and tear on my shoulders, but I’d like to quilt some baby quilts including the one I’m currently working on for Stacey Lee’s Quilt Donation Drive 2025. I particularly like doing a loopy meander. I just got a copy of Lori Kennedy’s Free Motion Quilting 1-2-3, and I’ve been having fun with her Flower Power quilting motif. She describes it as the easiest motif every quilter should learn and gives a pictorial tutorial on her website here.

I’ve also been working more with EQ8, the most current version of Electric Quilt, which is a software for quilt designing. I drafted the log cabin triangle template for the birthstone challenge in EQ8, and recently learned how to create a PDF of quilt blocks created in EQ8. The last part of March I gave a paper-piecing demo to my quilt guild and shared the template with them. I demonstrated with a rainbow version of this 6″ block:

Below is a photo I took of the template. I would be happy to email a copy to anyone who wants one. If I’ve corresponded with you via email, I don’t need your address unless you want to me to send it to a different email.

To make it easier, strips can be pre-cut. A1 (2.5″ square, if fussy cut, the motif needs to be less than the size of a quarter), A2 1.5″ x 3.5″, A3 1.5″ x 4″, A4 1.5″ x 5″, A5 1.5″ x 6″, A6 1.5″ x 6.5″, and A7 1.5″ x 8″. Triangles for A8 and A9 can be be cut diagonally from a 4.5″ x 8″ rectangle.

The last thing I have going on is participating in Alison Glass’ Color Camp 2025. She is hands-down my fabric fabric designer, and I have a decent amount of her fabric in my stash. I gravitate toward the saturated colors that are predominant in her fabric, but I’ve been learning more about how lighter values and darker values can give more interest to our projects. This past week, we had the assignment to paint our own color wheel with the inner circle being the hue, the middle circle the tint (the hue color lightened with white), and the outer circle the tone (the hue color darkened with grey). Below is a photo of my rather bottom-heavy color wheel. Not surprisingly, it’s not as pretty as the one that Alison demo’ed 🙂

Linking up to #2025QuiltingQ1CheckIn.