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....

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 😀.