Thursday, February 13, 2025

Blocks for both panels with SAHRR

Hi and welcome. I've been spending as much time as possible in my studio. There's still just enough space to work in and that's what matters! I've been enjoying piecing my blocks. Now that I've stopped playing with 8 HSTs (half square triangles) in one block, it's all good😊 

Block with inserts for the cowboy panel


This week is week 4 in the SAHRR (Stay At Home Round Robin) challenge. We were asked to make blocks with inserts. That's a pretty wide open brief and I may have pushed the limit, but here are my blocks!

I just had to put some of this lovely horsey love fabric in the quilt. I think that the radiating circles make a nice contrast. 

Horsey love fabric and radial inserts

These next blocks have a little more than inserted lines but I did want to add these two farm animals to the mix - a horse and a cow. I looked in a bag for scraps that I thought were in it. I didn't find the ones I wanted but I found a lot of very nice fabric to use. I even tried to make a flying geese. It's not a great attempt but the fabric plays nice with the others, so it's in!

Horse and cow fabric with many inserts.

So far, I have 10 blocks for the cowboy panel. I do want to add some friendship stars to it since they are so easy to make! We have two rounds left in the challenge so I'll see what else I might add.

Oh yes, I also added a pocket block to the mix. The plaid shirt that I used had a pocket - that's so perfect for a child's quilt. 😃 You can see it near the bottom of the panel.

Blocks so far for the cowboy panel


Stars and inserts for the Christmas panel

Monday evening I put aside my cowboy fabric and spent most of Tuesday making blocks for the Christmas panel. I made 2 insert blocks. One looks like a present - I didn't think that through but I love it! The other one is more of a V shape - sort of like the tree. You can see these blocks on the photos below. 

Present block at the top
V shape block at bottom



















I then made 2 different sets of HST - this time with the fabric right side up!😉 These friendship star blocks went together easily. I love them!

Here is a photo of my blocks so far. I'm looking forward to rearranging them once all of the blocks are done. For the next two weeks, it's going to be about choosing the fabric and colours to make the whole thing cohesive.

The Christmas panel so far...

What I learned
  • I'm really liking the process of making different blocks, choosing fabrics and colours that work. 
  • I know that a couple of my blocks in the Christmas panel don't really work yet but I'm hoping that adding some of that same colour elsewhere and possibly moving the blocks will help. 
  • I do want to add more green and yellow to the mix in the next two weeks.
  • This is the perfect opportunity to try new things - if the blocks or colours don't play well with the others, I don't have to use them.
  • I'm feeling more confident about the cowboy panel. I'll just add more green.
  • Overall, I'm really enjoying working with traditional quilt blocks and I love the fact that I don't have to make tons of the same thing 😊.
  • It's really weird but I feel at a loss, not having to work on either a Project Quilting piece or SAHRR. I know that I have other stuff to do but....
Related links
Linking parties

Free Motion Mavericks


Welcome to week 519 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was another great week - thanks for linking up! Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Kat at Scrapbox Quilts made a cute blue quilt for Bear Hug Missions. 

Blue quilt by Kat for Bear Hugs Mission

She quilted it using a large arc ruler. It's the perfect small project for practicing various quilting skills!

Ruler quilted by Kat using a large arc ruler

Isn't this bear adorable? Quilt made by Kat

Donnalee was procrastinating binding her King size quilt and made pillows, pillow shams and runners to go with her quilt. They are so lovely...and it turns out that putting in the binding wasn't as bad as she expected! I'm sure that we're all looking forward to seeing her quilt on the bed with all of its accessories!

Pillow sham made by Donnalee

The matching runner to go with Donnalee's king size bed quilt

This is Quilting Gail's pink quilt for the January Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Aren't those Island Batik scraps gorgeous? She quilted this one with a walking foot. Someone is going to be very happy to receive this quilt!

Gail's lovely scrappy pink quilt

Sally at Painted Thread made a Common Block Postcard for PQ 16.3. It wasn't as straight forward as she would have liked - but the positive side is that she learned a lot 😊! If you don't recognize the blocks, check out her post.

Sally's Common Block Postcard

I hope that you don't mind some self promotion - but here is my "Snow Happens" wall hanging. I managed to forget to link up! It had quite a bit of FMQ on both sides of the border diamonds, mostly loops and snowflakes. I showed restraint by only outlining the embroidery 😀.

"Snow Happens", in the snow, by yours truly

It's now your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
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Monday, February 10, 2025

Snow Happens Finish, SAHRR & Mom's Mat

Bonjour and welcome 😎. It may be a tad cold but the sun is shining brightly! I'm happy for those who do winter sports. Downtown the Rideau Canal is open and busy with skaters. I'm happy to be cosy in my studio. There is just enough space for me to write this blog or sit at my sewing machine! If you guessed that the cleanup is not going well, you would be correct. At this point, it's easier to ignore the piles, until I need something in them. 😁 

"Snow Happens" wall hanging


I'm so happy to tell you that my son and his fiancé came over for supper and then left with their new wall hanging. I've made few quilted projects that include embroidery and I'm very happy with it.

"Snow Happens" wall hanging - finished and in the snow!

The last time you saw this project was at the end of January. I had quilted some of it with my walking foot. Shortly after, I finished the straight quilting and then FMQ the rest. I forgot to take more pictures, but here is a closeup of some of the quilting. There are snowflakes on both sides of the blue diamonds and then loops in the white space that links them together. 

FMQ snowflakes on the border.

For the embroidery, I just went around each part of it. I was thinking of going back to add more FMQ once I had done the binding, but it doesn't need it. I took these photos on the snow last night, just as the sun was setting. I'm glad that I did because the photo taken inside has a very yellow tone.

Photo taken inside the house - the white has yellow tones.

I was very lucky to have enough of the blue fabric to finish the binding. It would have been a shame to have to make it a scrappy binding. It helps that the binding didn't need to be doubled. 😊

"Snow Happens".... in the snow!

Star blocks for the cowboy panel

Last week I only had time to make two blocks for the cowboy panel. I was hoping to join the linking party for week 3 but if it's ok, I'll be joining a couple of posts for week 4.


Nine patch star

I have some red plaid fabric from a shirt that I pulled apart as well as some lighter jean fabric. I cut two squares of 6½" of each fabric and made 8 HST at a time. I then trimmed them to 2½". That made 18 HSTs! 😁 Then I had to figure out how to put these together to make two star blocks. In the book, Quilter's Mix and Match Blocks, I found a nine patch star. The pattern was made up of three different fabric colours but I decided to make my own version with only the two. 

Nine patch star in two colours

Second nine patch star....sort of 😕

I just noticed as I'm writing this post that my second block is different! Does anyone else have problems getting their HST in the correct position? I undid many of the HST even though I thought that they were OK...and I still misplaced one! The image is quite dark but you might notice that the denim on each block is different - the first one has the back facing out. I noticed only after slicing through all of the HSTs. I was not going to start over!

I still have to make a star block for the Christmas panel - but I think that I'll stick with flying geese blocks.

Mom's Kawandi style mat completed

I also completed my fourth Kawandi style mat. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the backing is on one of my mother's quilted placemats. It's a bit different from the traditional Kawandi style pieces since the placemat's binding underneath it is showing, and I machine stitched all of the top scrappy fabric. I just loved stitching it, mostly while chatting with my daughter. 😊 

Kawandi style mat, made on top of my mother's placemat

Here's my mother's placemat, cut to size.

I love its wonkiness 😃 - it's very much my style! If you're wondering about the small windmill on the back, you'll have to check out my previous post.

What I learned
  • I learned a lot working on all of these projects, such as:
    • There is such a thing a keeping the FMQ to a minimum and it turned out great in the embroidered part of my wall hanging.
    • I have a note on my bulletin board that says that I should try 1¾" wide binding when it doesn't need to be folder. I have now changed that to 1½". 
    • HST are easy to make 8 at a time but can be difficult to place correctly in a block!
    • When I concentrate, my blocks are sewn pretty well but you just can't trust HSTs to be facing the correct way!
    • I still prefer wonkiness over precise!
    • I love that I was able to repurpose my mother's placemat. She was very much with me when I worked on the mat!
Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to these fun linking parties, including Free Motion Mavericks and the latest SAHRR linking party. Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Beauties Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap!, Slow Sunday Stitching, Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell,

Project details

"Snow Happens" wall hanging
Designed by Bird Brain Designs
Size: 17" by 29"
Materials: embroidery floss, commercial fabric, batting
Techniques: hand-embroidery, piecing, quilted with walking foot and FMQ
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Thursday, February 06, 2025

PQ 16-3 Common Blocks & Free Motion Mavericks

Hi and welcome! I hope that you're hibernating in your studios and playing with fabric 😊. It's a great way to cope. I've also read books and listened to many audio books - my way of coping when fabric isn't enough. 😉 Let's talk about lovely stuff and fuel our creativity.

Common Blocks


This week's theme for Project Quilting is Common Blocks. I might have been disappointed in the theme if I hadn't been totally immersed in block construction for SAHRR. Since I'm on a roll, I might as well keep going.

Common Quilt Blocks wall hanging 

I used the beautiful hand-dyed fabrics that were gifted to me a while back by now-retired textile artist, Elaine Quehl. I was lucky to inherit bags of the fabric she took to workshops when she was teaching. Elaine was surprised that I was still playing with these. I think that I'm probably good for a couple more years. 😍

Three common blocks - friendship star, nine patch and pinwheel

I chose these blocks because I made 8 half-square triangles at a time and then figured out how I could use them! I also wanted something that was very common and also easy. I find that if I can make the HST then sewing them together is not too difficult.

Quilting the blocks that were to be turned into a journal cover

My blocks are pretty good but unfortunately I wasn't as careful with adding strips as I was piecing the blocks. In my quilting universe, wonky is more than fine! I was going to turn these blocks into a journal cover but last night, after quilting the piece, I just had no patience to keep going. I ended up using the pillowcase method to add a backing, even after quilting it with its own backing. 

Quilting on the envelope/pillowcase back

Stitching the edge of the whole piece and then going back to add a few quilt lines to the blue fabric in the front made the new backing more than secure. 

You can see on the photo that I used many easy FMQ designs, from squiggly lines, loops and twists (I call them fj because that's what you're writing in cursive!) to feathers. 

When I showed my daughter the placemat, she was thrilled and asked if she could hang it on her wall. I agree with her that the fabrics look so great together. I'm glad when my colour instincts work! 

February's One Monthly Goal (OMG)

I'm working on many projects. Some will be finished very soon (like my "Snow Happens" wall hanging) and others are scheduled to be finished at the end of March (the two SAHRRs). There is a quilt that doesn't need much work finish, but unless it's elevated in priority, it could languish for months. Therefore, my February's OMG is my Floral Fusion wall hanging, the quilt a-long hosted by Denise at The Quiltery.

Floral Fusion just needs a little more FMQ and a binding!













What I learned
  • I enjoyed making these blocks based on the 8 HST that I had made.
  • Since I was going to make a journal cover, I needed the piece with the three blocks to finish at 14" x 10". Since my friendship star block was 6", I added a few borders. For my 4" nine patch and pinwheel blocks, I ended up adding strips of fabric between and around them. Unfortunately, I didn't trim both blocks to the same size - that's why they are slightly wonky! I don't know why I thought that this would work... I would say it was the fatigue talking.
  • No wonder I wasn't up to making a journal cover. I could have waited a day or two, but I want to make more blocks for the SAHRR, so I really didn't want to spend more time on this piece.
  • Did you notice that the photos of the piece are taken both as a placemat and in a different direction as a wall hanging? It's my daughter who turned the placemat around and frankly, it looks much better in that direction.
  • I'm so glad that my daughter wants this on her wall. It'll look great over her new desk!
Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including Project Quilting, Challenge 16.3 and February's OMG. You may want to check some of them out, as well as those linking up to Free Motion Mavericks below! Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Beauties Pageant, TGIFF, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025, Oh Scrap!,

Project details

Made for Project Quilting's 16.3 Challenge - Common Blocks
Size: 14¼" x 10½"
Materials: hand-dyed fabric
Techniques: piecing, free motion quilting, walking foot quilting and envelope/pillowcase finish.




Free Motion Mavericks


Welcome to week 518 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a productive week! Thanks so much for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Melva of Melva loves scraps has been using her pink scraps. She made these two lovely pink baby quilts...but the scrap bin doesn't seem to be getting any emptier!

Melva's two pink baby quilts

Gail used a mini charm pack to make a lovely bag. The fabric and supplies got moved around a lot on her quilting table, so when she got tired of moving it, it got done! 

Gail's lovely quilted bag

It's now your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
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Thursday, January 30, 2025

Lots of Updates and Free Motion Mavericks

Hello and welcome 😊. I've had another busy week keeping up with SAHRR (Stay at Home Round Robin), January's OMG (One Monthly Goal) and TSC (Table Scraps Challenge) - so many acronyms, I feel like I'm back at work....oh yes, I have been putting some hours in my very part-time contract. Phew - that does sound busy 😁!

Getting caught up with making blocks


Last week I made 4 lovely Art Square blocks for week 1 of SAHRR, for the Christmas panel. On the weekend, I made 2 Art Square blocks for the Cowboy panel. In the first block, I used a print of wild horses galloping in the mountains. I'm going to be using a lot of that one!

Art Block for the Cowboy panel

The next block has two of the same fabrics but with denim squares for a totally different look.

Cowboy panel with the 2 Art Square blocks

For week 2 of the SAHRR, we are making blocks with half-square triangles (HST). This time, before tacking any blocks, I looked online and found the make-2 and make-8 HST at a time. I used the make-8 HST and made a Friendship Star block from the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt book by Pam Lintott and Nicky Lintott. In the image below, it's the block on the left with the lamas. 

I also made another block with fabric that I wanted to showcase. The bison is perfect, so I just added borders to make it 6½". Speaking of borders, I did the same thing with the Friendship Star block. In a moment of inattention, I trimmed the block to 6" and then realised that I had no seam allowance - thus the addition of a border. Necessity is the mother of invention! 😉

Cowboy panel with 4 blocks

The Christmas panel got two more blocks with HST except that I made them using the stitch and flip technique - where you pin a square onto your base, sew diagonally across the square and Voilà! a triangle made in another technique. 

Two week 2 blocks with one of the Art Square blocks

For the Christmas panel, I found a block called Fairy Floss block (#755 designed by Helen Stubbings in the Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, vol. 8.)  The original block is 12" with embroidery around the hexies. I reduced it to 6½" and had a great time playing with hexies. For the second block, I just used a lovely fabric and made the same type of border using the stitch and flip method to add the triangles.

Hexies in the middle of my block

"Snow Happens" - January's OMG

I finished the border on "Snow Happens" last week and today I started quilting it. I used a white cotton fabric for the back since it's a wall hanging that won't get dirty. I used my walking foot with a slightly larger stitch than my machine's default. I stitched on both sides of the blue border and then on the white background where the diamond border starts. I stitched around the bottom row of the diamonds in the border. It went well. It won't take me long to finish the quilting. I will probably FMQ around the snow people. I'm not sure if I'll have to do more. Less might be better in this instance (I can't believe that I just said that!)

Quilting around the borders and diamonds with a walking foot

From the back - walking foot quilting in progress

Table Scraps Challenge - January 

The colour for January's TSC is pink. I've been wanting to make another Kawandi style mat for a while since I gave away the three that I've done so far. This one is very special to me and will remain in my home. The base is made from a placemat that my mother made when she first started quilting. 

I forgot to take pictures before I cut up the placemat. It was much larger than I needed so I cut it and used a QAYG (quilt as you go) technique to put it back together. I had binding left from the part that I cut off, so I attached it to both pieces. 

If you're wondering about the piece of pinwheel fabric at the back, well, when I was sewing the fabric down (on the other side), I managed to sew a strip of fabric that got stuck to the back. It was very difficult to remove, so I added a bit of the fabric to the back, since it obviously wanted to be there. 😁

The back of my Kawandi style mat - a repurposed placemat made by my mother.

I used mostly pink, purple and blue fabric scraps. Like the last Kawandi style piece I last made, I stitched the pieces by machine to the back. It's just so much easier to handle while stitching. This time I decided to leave the binding showing on the sides.

Scraps stitched down, ready to quilt.

This is the progress that I've done. It's slow going but so pleasant and peaceful to stitch. Isn't it amazing how the look of the fabric changes after it's been stitched? 

Kawandi Style mat - in progress

Kawandi Style mat - progress from the back

What I learned
  • I haven't made quilt blocks in a long time but I'm pretty happy with my results. When I concentrate, I seem to be doing well. I do pull seams apart if they are too wonky but for the most part, they are presentable. 
  • It really does show that practice makes better. My blocks are better this week than last week's.
  • I've had fun looking in the few magazines and books of blocks that I have. I'm always looking for very simple blocks 😊.
  • Making blocks for two panels is a lot but as long as I make at least one block for each panel each week, I'm happy. When I get closer to the end, I'll probably repeat a few blocks to give it cohesion.
  • After getting some good suggestions on my "Snow Happens" diamonds, I briefly considered fixing the two sides but when I thought about it, it was just too complicated and really not worth the frustration. Besides the recipient of the wall hanging is quite OK with it as it is.
  • I changed the photo of "Snow Happens" above since it was really bad in the evening light. 
  • I really love working on the Kawandi Style mat and I've taken out scraps to make another one - this time for my niece. It'll be in more neutral pallet....just because I love her!😍
Related links
Linking parties

Free Motion Mavericks


Welcome to week 517 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Melva linked up her finished flimsy of Red Skies as well as her finish! What a gorgeous quilt.😊

Melva's Red Skies - a real scrappy beauty!

Melva even dreamt about how to finish quilting it! Read more about it here.

Melva's Red Skies - lovely FMQ

Donnalee bought fabric and made two winter runners. They are really lovely.

Donnalee's new winter runner

Another winter runner by Donnalee

It's now your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
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Sunday, January 26, 2025

Project Quilting 16-2 Ombre Challenge

Hi and welcome 😊 I'm up late Sunday morning to finish my Project Quilting (PQ) challenge - creating something with ombre fabric. Here is a short post on what I made.

Ombre fabric


I had no idea what to make with ombre fabric. I have a few fat quarters of the Snippets collection by Chelsea DesignWorks for StudioE fabrics. A year ago I made a student agenda cover for my niece in the black fabric. This time I decided to use the bright to dark blue but I didn't know what to make.

Finally on Friday I realised that I've been wanting to make something to carry my reading glasses and phone around the house. I started searching bags, cellphone bags and finally found what I wanted under small pouch patterns. I wanted it easy to make with no zipper. I also needed it to expand. I thought that I would have to box the bottom but finally the tutorial I found had pleats - even better!

Ombre pouch to carry my glasses and phone

If you read my post in early January, you'll know that I cut up a favourite pair of PJ bottoms and used the lovely fabric to line my agenda/journal. I had some left (the other leg 😁) and used it as lining for this pouch. When I see that fabric, it makes me smile.
 
Ombre pouch with pleats 

I didn't take any process pictures but it was simple enough to make and I'm really happy that it came out because I had no idea what size to make it. I was hoping to put the glasses and phone at the bottom  of the pouch, one on top of the other, but it's not quite wide enough. It does hold them well side by side.

Phone and glasses in the ombre case

Ombre case ready to go!

It's not really obvious that the fabric on the case is ombre, but you can see it underneath the case. It's quite lovely.

What I learned
  • The most difficult part of this challenge was figuring out what I wanted to make, and then finding the correct words to search.
  • I found a great tutorial by sewingtimes (see link below)
  • I'm really happy that it worked out because I had difficulty figuring out what size to make it.
  • Adding the pleat on the sides of the bottom part of the pouch is very useful, but I should have made it just a little larger.
  • Now that I know what I'm doing, I might make more of these. They might also be cool to FMQ.
  • Did you notice my new Oliso iron and wool pad? I got them for Christmas. They are really great.
Related links
Linking parties

Project details

Ombre pouch for my glasses and phone
made for Project Quilting, challenge 16.2 - Ombre
size: closed 7" x 7"; open 11½" x 7"
Material: Ombre commercial fabric, recycled fabric from PJs, fusible interfacing
Technique: pillowcase style pouch with Velcro





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