Thursday, February 26, 2026

Quilting a Scrappy Quilt and I Quilted This!

Hello and welcome 😊. I'm glad that you've dropped by for a visit. I've got lots of projects on the go, but today I'm going to share with you the beginning of a scrappy quilt getting quilted. I finally finished piecing the backing - it just needed an extra strip of fabric, which luckily I had. If you're interested in reading about the construction of this scrappy orange quilt, see Related links below.

Stitching-in-the-ditch a scrappy quilt


I almost always start my quilting by stitching-in-the-ditch. This time, because I hadn't sandwiched the quilt as well as I usually do, I stitched starting only on one side of the quilt, as opposed to all around it. This way, if there is any puckering in the quilt, I'll be able to adjust it when I get to the middle or the other side (in theory anyways). I stitched about a third of the quilt and so far, everything is fine.

Stitching-in-the-ditch before FMQ

For those of you who are not quilters, stitching-in-the-ditch is often done to stabilize a quilt before doing more extensive quilting. With my sewing machine's walking foot, I sew between pieced blocks. The trick is to stitch exactly in the seams between each block (in the ditch). If you do this correctly, the quilting is invisible. Unfortunately, for me it's more hit and miss - most of the stitching is invisible but some can be seen next to the seam. However, when a quilt is finished, you can't see any of this unless you're looking for it.

The lines indicate where you would stitch-in-the ditch,
 i.e. in the seams between blocks

From the back, you can see where I've stitched so far. As I mentioned, I'm making my way across the quilt, to ensure that the fabric is nice and flat.

You can see the stitching from the back of the quilt

I'm going to keep this post short since I'll be publishing another post on Saturday for A Quilter's Cove QAL linking party. Our March houses are green. I'm having a great time putting together some lovely colourful houses based on the Nyhavn (New Harhour) neighbourhood in Copenhagen.

What I learned
  • I've just re-read my original post about this quilt. It seems that I wanted to FMQ using dot-to-dot quilting à la Angela Walters. Sounds like a good plan😁
  • I had mentioned last week that I wanted to do more FMQ - so that's what I'm doing. This is the first step to starting.
  • Instead of using my dining table to sandwich the quilt, I used my bed. I placed a cardboard cover on it (the ones you use for sewing clothing on to save your table). It's not as stable as the dining table so that's why I've decided to stitch from one side of the quilt to the other - so that I can get rid of any puckers that come up. So far it's working out well. 
Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. You might want to check some out, after you've linked up below. Monday Musings, Sew & Tell, Put your foot down,


I Quilted This!


Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it! Here are the posts from last week that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting. Thanks for linking up 😊 and feel free to grab the button. 

Gwyned Trefethen made a lovely runner for the Project Quilting 17.4 Challenge, An other era. Here is her psychedelic and Op Art table runner which she called "Peace, Man". It sure has the right vibes!

"Peace, Man" by Gwyned

Sally from Crafts, Cavies and Cooking also participated in the Project Quilting 17.4 Challenge, An other era. She chose the Art Deco era and made this lovely rug mug using foundation paper piecing. This also has vibes from that era!

Art Deco mug rug by Sally

I also participated in the Project Quilting 17.4 Challenge, An other era but forgot to link up to my own party 😕 I chose to play with the Victorians by making a crazy quilt. I used lovely fabrics and then embroidered between the seams. 
 
Crazy Quilt from the Victorian era by Andrée

It's now your turn 😍

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
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Sunday, February 22, 2026

Project Quilting 17.4 and SAHRR, Round 5

Hi and welcome 😊After finishing the Cowboy Panel quilt, it was good to start a new small project and make another block for this year's SAHRR. Here is the link to this week's I Quilted This! party.

Project Quilting 17.4 - Another Era


This week's challenge is to explore another era - either through color and fabric choices or by style. After considering a few options, I decided to go play with the Victorians with a small crazy quilt. My crazy quilt is more subtle than some but I used lovely lush fabric like hand-dyed velvet and cotton by artist Elaine Quehl, vintage silk from Japan, upholstery fabric and other shiny scraps 😍.

Victorian era crazy quilt

I used 12 different fabrics for this piece. I started with the blue velvet and the Japanese silk fabric. From there I went through a basket of non-cotton scraps as well as another of hand-dyed scraps. After piecing the fabric, I added a fusible interfacing and used a pillow-case style finishing. I meant to stitch the piece on the outside, just at the edge, but ended up stitching it at a ¼" - a habit that's obviously hard-wired in me 😉.

Crazy Quilt created for Project Quilting 17.4

Once the piece was put together, it was time to do the crazy part, which is the embroidery 😍 I used Sharon Boggon's Creative Stitches for Contemporary Embroidery to figure out what stitches to use. However, since I had less than a week to complete this project, I didn't have the time or the energy to get very fancy. I mostly used my tried and true stitches. The threads used were almost all perle cottons. 

In the photo below, i used a chain stitch - threaded with pink. The one below that, in a rusty colour, is a Chevron stitch - that I threaded in white (mostly to hide my poor chevron stitch). At the bottom is a stepped running stitch - in blue, threaded with a variegated pink and blue thread. Threading a chain or running stitch adds complexity to simple stitches.

Threaded stitches

In the photo below, an alternating buttonhole (or blanket) stitch adds interest. They are joined by small flowers in chain stitch (or lazy daisies).

Alternating blanket stitches with lazy daisies

On the left , the vertical line is a cable chain stitch. Unfortunately it's difficult to see the cable part because it's in the same ivory thread. 

Cable and regular chain stitches 

Finally, there are two types of feather stitches. The first light green one is a knotted feather stitch while the rusty one is a regular feather stitch. 

Feather stitches


SAHRR - Round 5 - Two Colours


Gail of Quilting Gail is hosting this week's round of the Stay At Home Round Robin. We get to choose any block, as long as it's two colours, or two colours and a neutral. Since I had no idea what to choose, I turned to a few books that were close at hand. One was Granny Quilt Decor. I was intrigued by a doll quilt in the book. I have no idea what the name of the block is, but it consisted of half-square triangles and four patch. That fit my idea of simple. I made two blocks. You can see the different layouts below.

2 colours, 2 blocks, layout 1

2 colours, 2 blocks, layout 2

 Here are my SAHRR blocks so far.

SAHRR so far - centre blocks and rounds 1 to 5


What I learned
  • When I play with scraps it seems that I'm too engrossed to take process pictures.
  • I should have used more contrasting perle cotton colours for my stitches. I sometimes forget that not everything needs to or should blend in.
  • Although my piece is finished, I reserve the right to keep adding stitching to it 😊The embroidery stitching doesn't all have to be at the seams, as shown by the lazy daisies.
  • As I mentioned, I chose the block for Round 5 based on a doll quilt in the book. Unfortunately the quilt layout is on point - so unless I put my blocks on point- it doesn't look like the picture. Maybe I'll figure out how to put them on point when I incorporate them in the quilt.
  • Do you know if you can put a couple of blocks on point while the other blocks in the quilt are not on point? I know that I would have to add fabric to the blocks to make them on point, but could that look good?
Related links
SAHRR so far
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, particularly Project Quilting 17.4 and SAHRR Round 5, hosted by Gail. Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Beauties Pageant, TGIFF, Patchwork & Quilts, Slow Sunday Stitching, Sew & Tell, Monday Musings, 


Note: Here is the link to this week's I Quilted This! linking party.

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Thursday, February 19, 2026

A Cowboy Finish and I Quilted This!

Hi and welcome - I'm so happy that you can share my happy place with me 😊It's mid-February, the days are getting longer and this week it feels like Spring may eventually happen 😎. We all know that there will be more cold days ahead but there is hope. 🌞

A Cowboy Panel Finish


This quilt has been about 13 months in the making - not full time but in chunks of time. 

Cowboy Panel Quilt 😊 finished!

Here is a quick recap. I finished most of the blocks by the end of last year's SAHRR (Stay At Home Round Robin). You can read all about the piecing process in my November 27th post (see Related links below). FMQ the quilt was my January One Monthly Goal (OMG) but I didn't quite make it. You can check out the links below but essentially I quilted-in-the-ditch, FMQ the blocks, FMQ the panel, and then FMQ the borders between the blocks. 

In my last post about FMQ this quilt, I mentioned that I just had the inner dark brown border to stitch. I kept it simple with two straight lines quilted with my walking foot and just closed the line with a triangle shape in each corner. This is one of Angela Walter's ideas.

Quilting the inner border

Here are a couple for photos since the weather was perfect outside!

A quick picture at the entrance of our home

Another glamour shot 

I'm keeping it short and sweet today. This evening I'll be dropping of the quilt to Alek. I really hope he'll like it! - He did, for about 2 minutes and then was off to other things.😂

What I learned
  • I had no idea that the panel I purchased was so large - that made for a big quilt. If possible, I'll try to keep my baby quilts smaller.
  • I really did have fun putting this quilt together. It was challenging to make some of those blocks but given my accuracy challenge, even simple 9 patch blocks are a challenge!
  • I had fun FMQ the Christmas panel quilt in December, so I was eager to start on this one. It was enjoyable and I'm going to try to do some FMQ every few weeks. I do have a number of smaller quilts to FMQ so that should keep me happy 😁
  • I don't want my SAHRR 2026 to take me 13 months to finish - so I'm really going to try to make it for the parade at the end of March. At least I don't have two quilts to make this year!
Related links
Linking parties


Project details

Cowboy Pane Quilt
Made during the SAHRR 2025
Size: 45" x 52"
Materials: cowboy panel, Kona solids, flannel backing, scraps
Techniques: piecing, appliqué, FMQ






I Quilted This!


Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it! Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and feel free to grab the button. 

Kat of Scrapbox Quilts has made some lovely placemats. The first is a scrappy spiral blue placemat, the colour of the January RSC. 

Scrappy spiral blue placemat by Kat

Kat also made placemats as a refresher on making mountains block. They are in red since it's the colour of Connie at Freemotion By The River's monthly color challenge. They were made to give as a hostess gift - lucky hostess!

Mountains block placemats made by Kat

It's now your turn!
Hi! I'm so sorry - I prepared everything ahead of time and then forgot to copy and paste the linking party. Have fun :-)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
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Wednesday, February 11, 2026

SAHRR Round 4 and I Quilted This!

Allô and welcome 😊 It's a lovely day out - not too cold, cloudy some new snow, but not as much as yesterday! The snow made for a lousy driving day but we did what needed done, including a visit to our Poppy 🐕That means that today I'm hibernating in my studio. Yay!

Easy curves for SAHRR Round 4


Today it's Wendy, from Pieceful Wendy who is hosting and deciding on our theme. Yes, it was curves. Not my idea of fun, so I read a few posts and found Brenda's choice of block excellent. It's a faux Cathedral Window. I made 4 of them based on the tutorial Brenda mentioned. I now have another 8" block.

Faux Cathedral Windows

Here is the SAHRR so far.

Four round of blocks and the centre block

Another look at some of the blocks

What I learned
  • I'm not used to watching videos to learn to make a new block. Now I know why I prefer a written tutorial with images. The video was fine but there were important details that if you didn't pick up while watching, made life a little harder. For instance: 
    • The folded fabric needed to be folded right sides out (or wrong sides together). Since the author was using batiks, that didn't come up.
    • Then, when the block was put together, it was sewn on the side, not the bottom.
  • I'm just including these notes so that I'll have a guide if I ever want to make more of these blocks.
  • I have no idea where I'm going with these blocks so far. I think that I'd like to make more of the round 3 Chicago geese blocks, although possibly smaller.
  • I'm just going to let it percolate - maybe inspiration will hit! 
  • I made this block and linked up quickly, to avoid my error of last week of forgetting to link up! If you didn't see it, here's the link.
  • I'm in the process of sewing on the binding to the Cowboy panel quilt. I didn't post about is since I want to have only one final post, including the washed version. That's next6 week's post!
Related links
Round 4

SAHRR so far
Linking parties

Thanks so much Denise for featuring my block on Put your foot down!

I Quilted This!


Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it! Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and feel free to grab the button. 

Gwyned Trefethen made a wonderful art piece for last week's Project Quilting. Channeling Andy Warhol is machine embroidered and the background is FMQ using the McTavish design. You'll want to check out Gwyned's post for more details! 

Channeling Andy Warhol by Gwyned

A close-up of Channeling Andy Warhol  by Gwyned

Gail of Quilting Gail finished and quilted a quilt for a very special friend. You'll want to read the story of this special quilt on Gail's post.

The friend's finished quilt by Gail

Details of the ruler quilting by Gail

Sally of Crafts, Cavies and Cooking made a cute seahorse postcard for the latest Project Quilting challenge. 

Sally's Seahorse Postcard

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts made an amazing Rock & Roll t-shirt quilt. You'll want to read her post to find out how she did it. I love the checkerboard coping strips that are also made of t-shirt fabric.
 
An amazing Rock & Roll t-shirt quilt by Preeti

Details from Preeti's t-shirt quilt

If you missed it, I made a small quilt for Project Quilting last week. It's based on my quilting goals for 2026 - scrappy, small, playful and experimental.

Goals for 2026 by Andrée

It's now your turn 😍

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
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Saturday, February 07, 2026

Project Quilting & SAHRR Round 3

Hi and welcome. It's incredibly cold here so I hope that you're keeping warm wherever you are! I'm dreaming of tropical beaches - no plans, just dreaming 😊 Project Quilting's third challenge is the Year of the Horse while SAHRR's round 3 is inspired by the Animal Kingdom. Ready or not, here they are! Here's the link to this week's I Quilted This!

PQ - 17.3: Year of the Horse


This week's theme: "find your inspiration from the turn of the year, in the animal, in our hopes and desires for the near future." In this piece, I have included my hopes for my art for the upcoming year. I wrote these goals in my Plans, Goals, and Dreams for 2026 post.


This project was inspired by a quick picture that I created for that post. I really want  need to remember this, which is why I made the poster and now a quilted version.

PPT creation
Here are the details.

Scrappy

Small

Playful

Experimental

There is a nod to the Year of the Horse. Let's hope that the horse will find lovely pastures to rest at some point, and not just race ahead with blinders on.

SAHRR Round 3: Animal Kingdom


This week's Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR) is a block from the animal kingdom. Thanks Emily! I did a quick search and was lucky enough to find the Chicago Geese Quilt Block. It's a lovely block and includes my favourite technique - stitch and flip!

Here is my 9" block.

Chicago Geese Quilt Block

Here they are ....could be a challenge pulling them all together

The instructions I followed were for a 12" Chicago Geese block. I made this one a little smaller but I miscalculated. No surprise there! 😮 If I can't manage to make all of these blocks play nicely, I can always re-make some of them smaller....and use this year's extra blocks as next year's centre 😁

What I learned
  • I had a great time stitching up the scrappy background for my 2026 Goals piece. 
  • I really wanted to do something different and just before I started FMQ the word "scrappy", I remembered how words can be written from letters cut up from the newspaper (remember those?)
  • I'm really happy with how it came out, but I need to be more careful with my super sharp scissors - I'll be repairing the little hole I made 😔
  • For my Chicago Geese block, I really should have reviewed my calculations before starting.
  • I'm becoming quite proficient at half-square triangles and stitch and flip. It's nice to be playing with simple traditional blocks.
Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including SAHRR's Round 3 party with Emily at the Darling Dogwood. TGIFF, Beauties Pageant, Off The Wall Friday, 7.3: Year of the Horse  Monday Musings, Sew & Tell, Patchwork & Quilts,

Note: Darn, it would seem that I forgot to link up to Emily's Round 3 party! 😕


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Thursday, February 05, 2026

Updates and I Quilted This!

Hi and welcome 😎 The 🌞sun is shining here -  what a difference it makes to see it. I've been very busy FMQ the Cowboy panel quilt - I can see the end. Yay!  I've also managed to play with scraps - they are so addictive. They just want to be sewn together 😊. If you're looking for A Quilter's Cover QAL linking party, it's here)

FMQ the Cowboy panel quilt


All the blocks except one have been completely FMQ. I then FMQ the actual panel. I used various cotton and polyester thread to quilt the cowboy and parts of the background. When I was finished, I needed to FMQ the white background but didn't want it to stand out, so I used a beige bottom line thread in the bobbin and a white InvisaFil. It worked really well. 

FMQ Cowboy panel

It was then time to tackle the light brown borders around the blocks. I wanted this to be interesting but not too difficult. I also needed it to not distract from the blocks.

I tried a few designs and chose "Spurs" from the book, Get Addicted to Free-Motion Quilting by Sheila Sinclair Snyder. Here is the back of my practice piece.

Practicing the "Spurs" FMQ design

I did have a few skipped stitches so I changed my needle. I helped a little, but the biggest help was slowing down, which I did when it came to actually FMQ on the quilt. Here are a few pictures. I also added loops in the smaller areas.

FMQ the "Spurs" and loops designs

A close-up of "Spurs"

The FMQ went relatively fast. In two separate sessions I was able to quilt about half of the light brown borders. The design is a lot like one of the flower FMQ designs that I use, so it was a matter of getting used to adding sun type angles around the centre, and then stitching a bit away to then echo the sun angles.  I'm hoping to get a few more hours in today to finish those up. 

For the dark brown inner border, I'm thinking of using my walking foot to add a couple of straight lines but with interesting corners (like a frame). I need to figure those out, but it will be simple!

Sewing up 3½" Scraps

My SIL lives in a community with lots of seniors. One of her neighbour's wife died. She was a quilter and of course had lots of books, scraps, and small UFOs. I told my SIL that I would go through everything, keep some and pass on the rest. It was a big job. 

Here is a scrappy quilt that she had started. The rest of the cut blocks were included in the bag, so I'm slowly sewing them together. She had sewn up the bottom 5 rows, so I'm going to keep adding to it. I'll eventually figure out the size required for a baby or youth charity quilt.

Scrappy quilt so far

What I learned
  • I always start FMQ a larger piece with stitch-in-the-ditch to stabilize the quilt. From there, I quilt what ever I feel like.
  • Leaving the large panel for last meant that there was more chances of puckering. I worked pretty hard to keep it taut and it mostly worked. I'm hoping that washing the quilt will help, otherwise I can always add a stitching line or two afterwards. 
  • It took me a while to find a FMQ design what I could do relatively easily and that wasn't a flower for the border. I really loved FMQ "spurs" and it seemed appropriate for a cowboy and ranch.
  • I should have the Cowboy panel quilt finished by next week. I'm looking forward to working on other projects without feeling guilty that this one isn't finished!
  • There was some confusion last week since I had two linking parties going. Sorry about that, I'll have to be careful about identifying the different linking parties, 
Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Consider linking up below and then checking out some of those linked up. Monday Musings, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Sew & Tell, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, 


I Quilted This!


Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it! Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and feel free to grab the button. 

Kat at Scrapbox Quilts joined Connie at Freemotion By The River in her Colour of the Month Challenge. Kat made a lovely placemat, in anticipation of the summer (I suspect). 

Placemat Challenge by Kat

Melva at Melva Loves Scraps is starting a new Sew Along - here is her Little House quilt. 

Melva's quilt for the Little House Sew Along

Sally from Crafts, Cavies and Cooking created two lovely mug rugs from left-over blocks. It's a great way to practice FMQ.
Sally's cute mug rugs

It's now your turn 😍

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
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