Quilting is in my Blood

I originally wrote this post on 2/21/24, the day before I left for QuiltCon. It’s now 2/2724, and I will write a post soon about my QuiltCon experience, but I’ve also decided to share this post as my Favorite February 2024 Finish.

I was so excited to see the Project Quilting 15.4 Hourglass Challenge. It is such a classic design, and in the past couple years, I’ve developed quite a fondness for quarter-square triangle blocks. I knew right away that my project needed to be small as I will be on an airplane on my way to QuiltCon tomorrow. I drafted a simple paper-pieced hourglass in EQ8 and pulled out some turquoise ombre Fairy Dust fabric. I cut a six inch strip of fabric and then subcut sections of it from dark, medium dark, medium, medium light and light. I chose to use a grey Fairy Dust ombre fabric for the background. It went together fairly quickly, and then the quilting gods were smiling on me as I didn’t have any trouble lining up the left and right sections. That tends to be my Achilles’s heel when it comes to paper piecing. It confounds my mind how two sections sewn together being off just 1/32″ can look SO terrible!

I quilted it with diagonal straight lines in variegated turquoise thread (Aurafil 4663 Baby Blue Eyes) and a favorite grey thread (Aurafil 2620 Stainless Steel). Then I machine bound it using another strip of the turquoise Fairy Dust fabric. My Brother sewing machine with the walking foot was acting up, so I used my Brother sewing machine with a regular piecing foot, and the machine binding is a little rough, but hey, I got it done! I can’t tell you all how often I have to remind myself that “Done is better than perfect!”

This finished mini quilt measures 6″ square, and I have to say that I really like it (as my sister would say “warts and all”).

Linking up to Project Quilting 15.4 Hourglass Challenge. I am also linking up to Favorite Finish February 2024 Linky Party hosted by Quilting Jetgirl.

Gail with Quilting Gail gave us our fifth border assignment. Gail gave us a lot of leeway with this border. She wrote:

“My choice for this round is “4.” You can do whatever you want – but it needs to have an element of “4” in it. You can choose 4 colours, 4 different blocks, 4 of one block … it’s YOUR choice.”

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to interpret this prompt, but when I read Kathleen McMusing’s 2024 Round 5 post, I decided that I wanted to make Two by Two blocks, and only added them to the left and right sides. I made 32 blocks of these blocks fairly quickly as I was able to chain piece the units and then I interspersed pieces of the same Maywood Studio Christmas Night fabric as I used in the center block to make the border long enough. My SAHRR 2024 project now measures 30″ x 37.5″.

Kathleen McMusing will be giving us our final border assignment next Monday! Once again, I have loved being a part of Stay at Home Round Robin.

Linking up to Quilting Gail: SAHRR2024 Border 5 Linky Party.

Brenda with Songbird Designs gave us the fourth border assignment which was a square-in-a-square. I drafted a 5″ finished economy block in EQ8 to paper piece that had a 2.5″ finished center that could accommodate the 3″ fussy cut larger snowflakes from my Maywood Studio Christmas Night Green Patchwork Snowflake fabric. The economy blocks are separated by 1.75″ unfinished strips of fabric cut from the same generic white-on-white snowflake fabric that I used in the third border. This project now measures almost 30″ square.

I look forward to seeing what Gail of Quilting Gail has chosen for our fifth border.

Linking up to Songbird Designs: SAHRR 2024 Border 4.

When I read the Project Quilting 15.3 Inside Out Challenge I thought it would be a good opportunity to play with raw edge applique. I’ve paid for and have wanted to start the Seaglass Quilting Class by Allie of Exhausted Octopus, but I’ve prioritized other projects. On Wednesday I pulled out my turquoise and teal scraps and started freehand cutting some petals in blue turquoise, green turquoise, and teal fabrics. In the interest of spontaneity, I opted not to use fusible and instead used white glue straight from the bottle to adhere the petals to a piece of white-on-white shell fabric. I still don’t feel comfortable free motion quilting, so I used my walking foot to quilt around the edges of the petals which worked okay but not so well with the inner circles of the flowers. I also quilted a couple of white curvy lines to add a little movement to the piece. I machine bound it using a pretty teal blender fabric from my stash.

This was a fun little experiment. I will have an opportunity to practice raw edge applique in a much more planned manner when I take Kitty Wilkin’s Watercolor-to-Quilt class at Quilt Con in a couple weeks.

Linking up to Project Quilting 15.3 Inside Out Challenge.

Emily with The Darling Dogwood gave us the third border assignment which was to use any kind of triangle we wanted to use. I chose to make isosceles triangles (2 sides of equal length) drafting a 2.5″ finished block in EQ8 to paper piece. This project measures about 19.5″ square now.

I look forward to seeing what Brenda of Songbird Designs has chosen for our fourth border.

Linking up to The Darling Dogwood: SAHRR 2024 Border 3.

I’ve had a busy January working on several quilting projects. My favorite finish of January (and my ONLY finish!) was the Kite in Purple Sky mini that I made for the Project Quilting 15.2 Sky Color challenge.

I also made two 6.5″ squares for Geeky Bobbin’s Fussy Fuel 2024 Block of the Month. I am using Alison Glass fabrics for this BOM that is focused on learning new fussy cutting techniques.

I’m also participating this year again in the Stay at Home Round Robin 2024 hosted by Quilting Gail. I’ve written three posts so far about this project: SAHRR 2024 Center, SAHRR 2024 Border 1, and SAHRR 2024 Border 2.

I have been busy cutting up a lot of scraps for future projects including two of Erica at Kitchen Table Quilting’s patterns (The Cleo Quilt-Rainbow Version and Rainbow Modern Postage Stamp Quilt). I was definitely inspired by her Are You Ready for a Scrap Challenge post. I’ll share some pics of these scraps next month.

For the first time, I’m also going to participate in So Scrappy’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2024, but in a very small and doable way. The color designated for January is bright and dark green. On the last day of January I made one green Modern Postage Stamp block (I need 7 more) and a small 6″ x 8.5″ strip-pieced block. When I went to a recent quilt guild meeting, I saw a lovely rainbow quilt made using old dryer sheets for the foundation for strip-pieced blocks, and I thought it would be very doable to make one a month, and maybe I’ll make a table runner with the blocks at the end of the year.

What’s Up for February?

• Make seven more of the green postage stamp blocks
• Start sewing some HSTs for the Star Pulse Quilt Along hosted by Quilting Jetgirl.
• Make a red strip-pieced block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2024
• Make the February Fussy Fuel block
• Make more borders for my SAHRR 2024 project
• Cut a lot more scraps for my rainbow Cleo and Modern Postage Stamp quilt projects
• Possibly participate in another Project Quilting challenge
• Attend QuiltCon in Raleigh, NC and take a Watercolor-to-Quilt class from Kitty Wilkin
• Some secret sewing

Linking up to:

Quilting Jetgirl: Favorite Finish January 2024

Scrap Happy Saturday

Quilt Schmilt: To-Do Tuesday

As a side note, I want to apologize for my lack of commenting on posts for many of you who use the Blogger platform. I read quilting blog posts almost everyday, and I do like to give positive feedback to quilt bloggers who share so freely about their amazing projects. But I’ve had a heck of a time being able to comment on Blogger posts. My comments either seem to go into cyberspace or show up as anonymous. I’m still trying to make this work, so please bare with me.

Anja with Anja Quilts gave us the second border prompt. We can do whatever we want, but we were limited to just using two colors. I chose to fussy cut some snowflakes on green background and framed them using Kona Chinese Red fabric. The corners are from our first border assignment from Wendy at Pieceful Thoughts. My project measures almost 15″ square now.

I’m mainly using fabrics from the Maywood Studio Christmas Night Collection. I cut all the 1.5″ squares used in my border above using the green fabric pictured below. I ended up having to sew with a 1/8″ seam allowance because of how the motifs were placed on the fabric. With as popular as fussy cutting is with many quilters, I really don’t understand why this fabric wasn’t designed so the motifs could be cut out with the normal quarter inch seam allowance. But as my friend, Roseanne with Home Sewn By Us, would say, that’s a first world problem!

Linking up to Anja Quilts: SAHRR 2024 Border 2.

Wendy with  Pieceful Thoughts gave us our first border assignment for our Stay at Home Round Robin 2024 which was to make signature blocks. I decided to just make four of these blocks and will use these signature blocks for the corners of the third border. Many thanks to Kathleen at Kathleen McMusing for providing signature block paper pieced foundations for these blocks in three different sizes. I chose to use the 2″ finished template.

Let’s see what Anja at Anja Quilts  has planned for us on Monday.

Linking up to Pieceful Thoughts: SAHRR 2024 Border 1.

A few of my online quilting friends have participated in Project Quilting challenges (hosted by Kim Lapacek) over the last several years. I’ve never participated before either from being too busy with other projects or not being confident enough in my quilting/design skills. Now that I’m in my tenth year of quilting (how did that happen!?!), I still struggle with enough time to do all the projects I want to do even though I retired from full-time work in June, but I’ve decided that I need to add more creative play into my life these days. When I saw the Project Quilting 15.2 Sky Color challenge with the rule of taking inspiration from the colors of the sky but excluding or using less than 10 percent of the usual blue, I knew this was right time for me jump right in. I have always loved seeing photos of purple skies. When I did a Google Search on Purple Skies, I found out that the purple skies are most likely due to a phenomenon called airglow which is caused by the interaction of the Sun and ultraviolet radiation. I wasn’t sure how I was going to hang my finished Kite with Purple Sky Mini Quilt, but I found these hanging clips on Amazon which worked wonderfully.

To get my project started, I went to my purple solid fabrics bin and decided to focus on the fabrics that are more red violet than purple. Many of these fabrics aren’t labeled, but I believe I pulled Kona fabrics in the following colors: Berry, Magenta, Geranium, and Dark Violet. Initially I wanted to do a paper-pieced project and designed a basic equilateral triangle divided into four equal pieces. I pieced two of these triangles, trimmed them up, and decided to sew them together forming a kite shape. I then decided to frame the kite center with 1.5″ strip borders and ended with a larger Kona purple border. I quilted the kite in several red violet colors in 25 intersecting lines which reminded me of how kite strings can get tangled.

I then made a scrappy binding referring to the helpful post by Quilting Jetgirl on Tips for Making/Planning a Scrappy Binding.

The angles of my kite mini were a little tricky as far as mitering the corners, but they turned out decently.

I look forward to seeing what the third Project Quilting challenge will be for Season 15.

Linking up to Project Quilting 15.2 Sky Color.

I have participated in the Stay at Home Round Robin organized by Quilting Gail for the last two years. See my Blue Dog quilt here made in 2022 and a similar one I made for my stepson, Drew, here. And last year I made a wall hanging with Alison Glass fabrics which can be viewed here.

For this year, I have decided to make a Christmas runner for my pressing table. In December, I made Christmas Placemats for my friend, Kristen that I liked so much that I decided that I wanted a runner with fabrics from the Maywood Studio Christmas Night Collection to use in my future Christmas decorating. The center of the placemats had a star that was 12.5″ square. For my Christmas runner, the star below is 10.5″ square.

I’m really looking forward to see what border prompt Wendy at Pieceful Thoughts has in store for us this coming Monday.

Linking up to Quilting Gail: SAHRR2024 Center Block Linky Party.