Thursday, August 14, 2025

Cowboy Panel Quilt Coming Along

Hi and welcome 😎. It's been so hot and muggy that the studio is a nice cool haven! I had an incredibly productive weekend working on BB quilts. They are partially FMQ and I'll share them with you soon. Today it's all about the two sides of the Cowboy panel quilt that I started during the SAHRR 2025 this winter.

Cowboy Panel Quilt with two side borders!

For my July One Monthly Goal (OMG) I added a first narrow border around the Cowboy Panel. August is not even half over and I've managed to piece together the two side borders with eight of the blocks I created during the SAHRR (Stay At Home Round Robin).

Cowboy Panel quilt with 2 side completed borders

I'm not sure which day I worked on this but it went so well, especially the first side panel (to the right in the photo). The only tricky part of putting the second border together was the second (jean and red plaid) block. It was just a little smaller than all of the 6½" blocks. I added coping strips but they were too narrow so I ended up removing them and just adding the block as is. I used a scant ¼" seam and in the end it worked out well. I'll ensure to stitch around that block when I quilt it, to make sure that it stays put!

This is the image I took of the first border - it barely fit on my design wall.

First border done!

I've started getting ready for the top and bottom borders. I'll be putting 5 blocks on each of them. Since I was missing one block, I took out the small box of scraps that were left over and made this improv block. It's got fabric from some of the other blocks, so hopefully will work.

Last block - improv

Now I need to work on the math so that the top and bottom blocks on each side will match up with the side borders.

What I learned

Once I measured and wrote everything down, it was fairly simple to make the borders. I drew it out like a pattern, including both the finished and unfinished sizes of each part.
I guess that my initial procrastination was knowing that I would have to make some design decisions at the beginning of making the borders - things such as the number of blocks in each border.
It's amazing how understanding the basic principles of quilt making helps me make up my own "pattern".
Learning about coping strips really helped me. Now I'm not as nervous fitting everything in.
The top and bottom blocks are pretty much the correct 6½" so that helps.
I'm looking forward to finishing the top and bottom borders - in theory it should go well 😁
I've already achieved my August OMG so if there's not more progress, I'll be able to link this post at the end of the month.
I've also been working on FMQ a new turquoise BB quilt that I put together on the weekend. I'm looking forward to sharing this one with you, as well of a couple of others in progress.

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 544 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, from Melva Loves Scraps finished up a lovely Madam Butterfly quilt. Melva quilted this with an all-over medium stippling. She also learned that her machine wants her to FMQ using Aurifil 50wt thread😉

Melva's lovely Madam Butterfly quilt

Frédérique of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué wrote a post about how she made her Baby Bear Quilt. It's so cute and must be soft with those fleece sections!

Frédérique's Baby Bear Quilt

Vicki of Vicki's Crafts and Quilting finished up two fall themed Rising Star table toppers. Check out her post to see how Vicki quilted them - on lovely backing fabric!

Vicki's Sunflower table topper

Vicki's Fall Leaves table topper

Vicki also quilted this UFO - Beatrice, with all over hook swirl design.

Vicki's UFO, Beatrice is all finished!

Close up of Beatrice with the all over hook swirls

Margo from MY Quilts and Crafts finished this lovely Jagged X baby girl quilt 2.

Margo's latest baby quilt

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts used iron-on stabilizer to attach each section of her stitched iron case cover. That is very cute and ingenious.

Preeti's landscaped iron case cover

Gwyned Trefethen will be speaking at an area guild. Since I don't believe that her works were featured here, here is one of the quilts, "Out of the Ashes" in her series. Check out her post for other quilts from that series.