Quilt Blocks

Saturday Quilting Bring and Share (223)

by

Welcome to Saturday Quilting Bring & Share. Bring along a project or two and relax in the company of other quilters from around the World as they share their latest projects, tips and ideas. Please do use the comments box at the end of this post to share your links and join in the conversations. Thank you!

The weather this weekend has been perfect for getting outdoor jobs done. My husband has given the garden shed two coats of wood preservative and I’ve made a couple of trips to our allotment to cut the grass and continue the end of season tidy up. All very satisfying.

I’ve spent a bit of time in the sewing room too. I decided to keep the Quilter’s Color Quest Bear Paw blocks on point. I stitched narrow sashing strips to each of the blocks before stitching the blocks into rows. I had a bit of trouble visualising where I was going with this layout. My main problem stemmed from having to turn the blocks on their sides so the rectangular layout would fit onto my design wall.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time trying to get my head around the bottom left hand corner of the layout on the design wall actually being the top left corner of the quilt top. Now the blocks are stitched into rows I’ve got a better handle on where I’m going with this! 😀 I found the ‘Piecing On-Point Quilts’ tutorial on  quiltnotes.com a handy reference guide when my head went into a spin trying to figure out sashing for diagonal rows lying on their sides!

Next step is to add the sashing strips along each row. In measuring the rows I’ve discovered my quarter inch seams are a bit too scant. This row of five 6″ blocks and sashing strips should measure 35″ long not the actual 35¾”!

Ah! Well! I’ll keep all the following seams consistent to this but I’ll be sure to adjust Julie the Juki’s seam guide before piecing another project!

Juki adjustable ‘swing gauge’. There are magnetic seam guides available and I’ve seen a guide that can be attached to Bernina machines.

Lot’s of great posts this week from our Worldwide Quilting Community. Here is just a small selection you might like to click through:

Good to see the new version of Craftsy has been launched following the take over of Bluprint. The Craft Industry Alliance has posted a helpful, short article ‘What to Expect from the New Craftsy‘. The comments are worth a read too as people share their first experiences of the re-jigged platform.

Here’s a stunning ‘leaders, enders’ quilt. It’s maker has decided leaders & enders projects are too distracting – she quickly finds herself abandoning the main project and working on the secondary, leader & ender, project instead!

Sometimes our UFOs can give us a surprise! Elana was caught on the hop when she retrieved a UFO from it’s hiding place, took a photo and saw in the picture a layout design she’d completely forgotten!

Over at Sew Yummy there’s a striking quilt finish to enjoy. I don’t know when I last saw a quilt made just using orange, blue and white fabrics. Of course orange and blue are on opposite sides of the colour wheel making for an attention grabbing quilt. I have a soft spot for this colour combo as in the 1970s our family kitchen had cupboards painted orange with blue tiles on the floor.

Sharon has two finished UFOs to share! Both made with scraps and stash fabrics and both have lovely pieced backings – again all from stash fabrics. Sharon gives links to the patterns she used to make these quilts. I’m especially taken with the ‘Plaidish Quilt’. Another one to add to my list?

Linking with Cynthia for Oh! Scrap. She has already made a start on her red blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge – I’ve yet to take the lid off my reds & pinks scrap box!

Happy Stitching!

Allison

 

(Should have been) Saturday Quilting Bring and Share (222)

by

Saturday is long gone so I won’t even pretend to make this post a regular Saturday Quilting Bring & Share but, never fear, at the end of the post there are some links into the quilty goodness shared by our Worldwide Quilting Community.

My blog posting schedule slipped as we welcomed family guests and enjoyed celebrating birthdays (two of our children have their special day in the same week!). Nothing makes me happier than having all three of our children together with us 🙂 Monday was a Bank Holiday for most of the UK so that made for a relaxing long weekend.

Now I’m trying to get my head round today being Wednesday. I finished converting the guest room back into my sewing room first thing this morning (a video on my Facebook page shows what the room looks like ‘mid-morph’). I haven’t been putting everything back into place though: I’m having a bit of a de-stash following on from the Quilter’s Color Quest stash challenges. I spent yesterday afternoon out in the garden photographing fabric – conditions were ideal, hazy sunshine and hardly any breeze 🙂 Check out my Etsy shop, AllisonsPatchworks for the latest de-stash items.

Back to my sewing room…. First up on the re-hung design wall are the Bear Paw blocks made as I followed the Quilter’s Color Quest QAL.

I’ve put all sixty up in no particular order and will just leave them to settle, waiting to see if any are too dominant or distracting. It’s such a scrappy mix I figure most, if not all, will be fine. I am considering adding sashing between the blocks to give the eye a bit of a rest as it travels over the quilt top. What do you think? Rachel Hauser gives instructions for different layouts including ‘Flower Pod’ and ‘Modular’ which both involve grouping and separating the Bear Paw blocks with additional fabric. But these alternative arrangements are not on-point and I do like the blocks on point… Plenty to ponder.

Here are the promised links into just a little of what has been shared by our Worldwide Quilting Community:

I wonder how many Hoffman Dream Big panels are languishing in ‘must get round to that’ piles? The panels are available in many attractive colourways. Carole has been at work on two of the panels. In this blog post she shares her quilting plan for the second of her panels and shows us, with lots of clear photographs, how she executed the plan. The quilt is now hanging in a local quilt shop and makes a stunning display.

Christa Watson shares her method for creating wavy line quilting patterns in a video tutorial. She is also offering a free download of her patchwork pattern, Puzzle Box.

Re. The Quilter’s Color Quest, JanineMarie has written a lovely post describing what she has learned about her stash through the final couple of Challenges. Her Bear Paw blocks look great – she has given a lot of thought to her fabric choices.

Often times ‘simple is best’. Patty has used a Charm Pack and some background fabric to make a lovely quilt to welcome her neighbour’s new baby. It’s a great gift and can be made in double quick time… It makes me want to rummage through my stash for a charm pack!

Linking with Susan for Midweek Makers and Jennifer for Wednesday Wait Loss. Both blogs have quilts and projects made by their hosts and contributors to the link ups – more inspiration!

Allison

 

Saturday Quilting Bring and Share (221)

by

Welcome to Saturday Quilting Bring & Share (even though it’s Sunday!). Bring along your project(s) and share in the inspiration generated by our Worldwide Quilting Community. Please do use the comments box at the end of this post to leave your thoughts and links. Thank you!

Well! For me this week has been all about creating a quilt from scraps. I’m so happy to have another Scrap Vortex quilt finished – see how it all came together in my Friday blog post. Continuing the scrap quilt theme I’ve also been stitching my blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. August is the month for purple. Not my favourite colour so it’s been a surprise to find myself enjoying sorting through my (small) collection of purple scraps and putting these simple blocks together.

Area ringed in red has hardly any cotton fibres.

Having finished the diverting Scrap Vortex Quilt I am now determined to turn my attention back to the little quilt tops I made from one big UFO. This morning before Church…. (by ‘Church’ I mean: sitting in an elderly friend’s living room, listening to the service via the loudspeaker on my phone – weird how many new ways there are to join in Christian worship these days!) …. As I was saying, before Church I decided to get one of the little quilt tops ready for quilting. I’d already pieced quilt backings and cut out some wadding. When I came to lay the wadding onto the quilt back I was disappointed to see how unevenly the cotton fibres were spread through the wadding.

When I looked more closely I found one area had virtually no cotton at all, it was just held together by the near transparent scrim layer. That wouldn’t make for much of a quilt! I had to discard that piece and thankfully found the second square I had cut from the same roll of wadding didn’t have any bald patches. So, basting is my sewing room project for what’s left of the the weekend.

Here are just a few of the quilty blog posts that caught my attention this week. I hope you find plenty of interest as you click through the links:

Do you save selvage strips? Cynthia has used all her saved strips to make a rainbow quilt. She explains her process, is pleased with her quilt but won’t be saving any more selvage strips!

How about finding a bit of motivation by joining in with ‘We Sew Together 2020’? The sew along starts on 26th August and runs for just one month. The objective is to produce a quilt top using any pattern you choose. Then, once the quilt is completed, donate it to one or other of the charities listed in Suzy’s blog post or add your own favourite charity to the list. Suzy has also written a blog post with some helpful suggestions re. donating quilts to charities.

Another QAL: This is the Modern Logs Quilt Along being organised by Christa Watson. If you’ve wanted to tackle this sort of project but been a hesitant to go it alone then I’m sure following Christa’s pattern and all the tips and tutorials she’ll be posting on her blog will provide all that’s needed to produce a quilt to be proud of 🙂

Over the course of a month or two Sharon has been sharing her progress with her ‘Village Quilt’ top. In this post she shares the finished top – all those little house blocks made from scrap fabrics make for a very attractive quilt 🙂

Dione’s latest post is full of interest – from her latest applique quilt block to photos and descriptions of a recent trip into the Australian outback as well as the quilts and projects that are inspiring her.

Linking with Cynthia for Oh! Scrap. Cynthia is enjoying using her scraps to make curved log cabin blocks – the rainbow collection on her design wall promise a beautiful and interesting quilt.

Happy Stitching!

Allison

Patchwork Project Hopping!

by

I know! I know! I should be concentrating on the UFO ‘one quilt into four’ project BUT somehow my mind has wandered and I’m wanting to throw the blocks of one of my scrappy ‘back-burner’ quilts onto the design wall…

A few of the blocks on the design wall, plenty more in the storage boxes!

This is my, never-ending, use-up-the-scraps ‘leader-ender’ project a la Amanda Jean Nyberg’s ‘Scrap Vortex Quilt‘. I’ve made several quilts by slightly adapting Amanda Jean’s method and see no reason to stop making them! It’s a way of keeping my little scraps of fabric under control whilst producing a fun quilt. What’s not to like? 😀

Well! When I say the scraps are ‘under control’…..

I keep this bin next to my sewing machine, pairing up scraps as leaders & enders whilst piecing blocks for other projects.

…. A few hours later….

The blocks are bigger but the scrap containers aren’t empty yet!

I’ve had a productive afternoon sewing little scraps into bigger and bigger blocks. Still a way to go. By the end of the week I should have a finished quilt top to share in a blog post. In the meantime I’ll be posting progress on Instagram @allisonreid.neweverymorning and Facebook, NewEveryMorningPQ.

Linking with Beth for Monday Making. Beth has used home furnishing fabric samples to make a pair of patchwork cushion covers.

Allison