Showing posts with label SAHRR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SAHRR. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Another Border on the Cowboy Panel

Hi and welcome 😎 It's been a good week! On Monday the Out Of The Box (OOTB) Fibre artists group had an outside meeting. It was such a treat to chat and visit with friends, outside in a park. We even had a gaggle of Canada geese wondering over. What a treat! I've also spent time outside in the backyard, ignoring the weeds and feeding and watching the birds, squirrels and chipmunk. They're an entertaining bunch! Their antics always make me smile.😀

Top Border on the Cowboy Panel


I'm so glad that the two side panels were easy to put together. If they hadn't been, I'm not sure that I would have gotten to the top panel so quickly. From the start, my math was a mess, even if I was so sure I was doing well! I don't know where I went wrong but it doesn't really matter since I'll be following the finished top border to make the bottom one!

Top and two side borders attached!

As I mentioned, I did all the math to figure out how large to make the brown rectangles between the blocks. I thought that I had it, but when it was put together, it was at least 2 inches longer than the quilt! 😕 I tried to figure out where my error was, but ended up just un-stitching and making each rectangle a half inch smaller. That should have worked but I still ended up reducing two of them by another half inch! By stretching the panel fabric, I was able to make it more-or-less even.....then I looked at the results and the border was upside-down! That's where I left it last night.

This morning in the backyard, I un-stitched the border and then sewed it together again, this time facing the correct way. It's done. As much as I would love to get the flimsy finished by the end of the month, I think that I need to leave it for at least a few days. I want to keep loving it and not let it frustrate me.


Here are some fun pictures of the Canada geese and the chipmunk squirrel and birds in my backyard.

What a treat! I don't usually get this close 😊

A small part of the gaggle of geese!

The bird was not intimidated by the chipmunk squirrel!

What I learned
  • I've said it before but I guess I haven't learned my lesson yet - STOP before getting too tired!
  • I'm actually getting much better at un-stitching and it doesn't bother me as much as it used to.
  • I have no idea where my math went wrong but at least for my bottom border I'll be measuring each part of the top border and using it as the template.
  • It would be nice to get all four borders done by the end of the month. I want to get this project out of my studio and gifted.
  • I've almost finished my next Table Scraps Challenge. The colour is teal and my BB quilt is almost completed. I attached the binding, clipped the edges and it's ready to be stitched.
Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking to many fun linking parties. Why not check some out after linking below? Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday,
I'm also linking up to the August One Monthly Goal finish!

Free Motion Mavericks


Welcome to week 545 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. 

This week Kat of Scrap Box Quilts finished a child sized quilt with lovely scraps and a fleece backing. She FMQ with an assortment of designs, including a feather! 

Kat's child sized quilt 

Melva finished an aqua Viridian's Chain quilt - what a lovely photo by the morning glories!

Melva's aqua Viridian's Chain quilt and morning glories

Donnalee made a couple of very cute placemats for Zoey. Isn't she cute? Donnalee also made some very scrappy fall placemats. Check out her post to see Zoey's other placemat!

Zoey has new placemats made by Donnalee

Lovely scrappy fall placemat by Donnalee

Vicki of Vicki's Crafts and Quilting made two Happy Jacks wall hangings. Here is one of them with a cute backing. Check out her other Happy Jacks wall hanging.  

Happy Jacks wall hanging made by Vicki

The back of Vicki's Happy Jacks wall hanging

Gail of Quilting Gail finished 2 lovely bags this week. Gail FMQ the loops in the first bag. This smaller bag with the hexie fabric is also gorgeous. Check out Gail's post for a link to the pattern and some options on making them.

Gail's large bag with some FMQ loop-d-loop

Gail's smaller bag with hexie fabric

Sally of Crafts, Cavies and Cooking loves free motion quilting, although she finds it stressful to start. Well she's off to a wonderful start on her Sunny Stars quilt. Check out the design on the back of the quilt. You'll want to read about it on her post. 

Sunny Stars - FMQ by Sally

Sally's FMQ as seen from the back

It's now your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
Posted by at 11 comments:
Labels: , , , ,

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.
Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Why not check some out? Please feel free to link up below, even if your project isn't ready to quilt or you've used other methods than FMQ to quilt it! Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025, Oh Scrap!, 

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.
"Out of the Ashes" by Gwyned Trefethen

It's now your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
Posted by at 17 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, July 02, 2025

Orange Scraps and a Baby Quilt

Hi and welcome 😀. I've been sewing baby scraps into a cute baby quilt! Since my studio is still a mess and very, very hot, I've laid out the quilt on the dining room table. I found a 40" x 42" piece of yellow fabric that is perfect for the backing. That made designing the quilt easy since I just laid the blocks and fabric on the backing. It's all about keeping it simple 😍

Scrappy Baby Quilt Flimsy


I've called the post Orange Scraps since that's the June colour of the Table Scraps Challenge. The quilt fabrics are beautiful scraps of mostly muted orange, blue, gold and gray.

Scrappy baby quilt flimsy is finished!

This afternoon it was all sewn up except for the two side borders. I used the two longest scraps for the top and bottom, so the side borders are heavily pieced. I waited until our AC was working before ironing the borders. 

Quilt top with just the borders to attach

As I mentioned, I used the dining room table to audition and design the quilt. I started off with the 4 blocks I had prepared a couple of weeks ago. A lot of the design was based on the fabric I had. After placing the blocks where I thought they might go, I added fabric to complete the rows. It's essentially a quilt with three rows. The blocks make up most of each row, with additional fabric strips added to make it look good.

Bottom row sewn together

Bottom border and the two rows sewn together

The side borders had to be pieced because although I had largish fabric pieces, they were going in the wrong direction. I wanted all of the cute animals facing downwards.

I'm really looking forward to FMQ the blocks since I'll be able to use dot-to-dot quilting a la Angela Walters.

Another look at the scrappy orange baby quilt flimsy

July's One Monthly Goal

Since I managed to achieve my June OMG, I'm going to add a goal for July. With the studio now cool (but still messy), and life somewhat normal, I'm going to work on putting together the Cowboy quilt panel that I was doing during the SAHRR this winter. The panel and blocks are still on my design wall so at least it's accessible 😁 I would love to have a flimsy ready by the end of July, but I'll settle for any progress! 

This was the last layout option...we'll see!

What I learned
  • The entire quilt was made from scraps that I received. I'm so glad that I was able to use most of them up. There are now only scraps to be divided among the various scrap bins. 
  • I'll have to find some binding fabric that plays well with these. 
  • The quilt is roughly the same size as my backing - so I may have to add a few scraps to make it slightly larger, or trim the existing quilt. The largest it can be is 40" x 40"
  • These are not my usual colours but I'm so glad that I got to play with them. Maybe quilts don't have to be bright???😉
  • I also played with a few more hexies but I'll keep them for a day when I have nothing else to show.
  • My dining room table will be cleared of quilty things. Once it's cool enough, I'll be bringing my laptop up there also. People will be shocked!
  • I'm so happy to be linking up to June's Table Scraps Challenge. I did the orange but not the beach theme.
Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including the Joyful Quilter's June Table Scraps Challenge, and July's OMG. Why not check some of these out and remember to link up below! Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, TGIFF, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025, Oh Scrap!, 

Free Motion Mavericks


Welcome to week 538 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was another very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Vicki of Vicki's Crafts and Quilting finished a UFO Jelly Roll quilt. We know how good that feels 😊She backed it in fleece and FMQ with large stippling. It's perfect for a lovely quilty hug!

Vicki's most recent UFO finish!

Donnalee made another cute mini - this time it's a pumpkin! We're looking forward to seeing her larger pumpkin wall hanging.

Donnalee's cute pumpkin mini

Quilting Gail finished Canuck Quilter's Mystery Quilt. She made the traditional option. It's really lovely with her ruler and FMQ. You may want to check out Canuck Quilter's post - both the traditional and the modern quilt are really lovely.

Gail's finished version of Canuck Quilter's Mystery Quilt

Gail's lovely FMQ and ruler work

Debbie of A Quilter's Table made and quilted a lovely modern scrap quilt based on Carole Lyles Shaw's Stash Jazz pattern to donate through her guild.

Debbie's Stash Jazz quilt, quilted in a grid 

Brenda of Song Bird Designs has been custom quilting her latest quilt, Sedona Starburst. Here are two of the blocks. You may want to check out Brenda's blog to see the lovely quilty details!

Check out Brenda's post for better images - it's worth it!

Frédérique of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué shared with us the lovely BB quilts that quilters in her area made. They will be donated to the hospital. Check out Frédérique's post to see the other cute ones!

The quilt is made in a log cabin style and then cut in ovals

It's now your turn!
 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
Posted by at 11 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, March 04, 2025

Putting together the Cowboy quilt and other updates

Hi and welcome back! I couldn't wait until Thursday to post these updates since I wanted to make the Table Scraps Challenge and my March One Monthly Goal (OMG) deadlines. As well, I'll be out of town for a few days and have extended last week's Free Motion Maverick's party for a week. Please keep linking up there 😍

Planning the Cowboy panel 


This is what the Cowboy panel looks like so far. I have just one block left to make.

Cowboy panel so far

After the kite block, I knew that I wanted to make several appliqué blocks. I found this lovely free children's pattern, Home on the Range (see Related links below). It's got lovely appliqués of a cowboy hat, boot, cactus and horse shoe. Perfect! I dipped into my hand-dyed fabric and found everything I needed. Here are the three blocks I made.

Cowboy hat and boot

Two cacti

Horse shoe with horse and dog

I didn't add any borders around them - I'll wait and see how things look as I put the quilt together. I've decided to add a very narrow medium brown border around the panel and then use a slightly lighter brown around the blocks. This way I can add whatever spacer I need to make the blocks fit. 

Here's what those fabrics look like on my design wall.

Proposed narrow border
and spacer fabric


February's Blue Table Scraps Challenge
and March's One Monthly Goal

I started playing with blue scraps in early February in anticipation of the TSC. I got to a piece about 24" square before it was no longer fun (it's good to know our limits! 😁)  I had no idea what to make - I have enough placemats etc. and didn't want it to be complicated. I settled on a baby quilt (as opposed to a cuddle quilt) since I have a baby quilt to FMQ for our guild. That reasoning doesn't make as much sense to me as it did back then, but oh well....

Here it is. It's coming along well.

Blue baby quilt so far

After doing the stitch-in-the-ditch, I FMQ some wavy water lines at the top of the quilt. I also hid a few fishes in the water.

I then quilted the outside background area of the top part of the quilt. Then I FMQ between the blue scrappy line areas. It was a lot of fun 😊 I'm hoping to add a few hidden images in the FMQ, like the fish. That will make the quilt more interesting for the recipient. 

A closeup of the FMQ area

The back of the quilt - stitched-in-the-ditch and FMQ

What I learned
  • I've had a lot of fun making the blocks for the SAHRR and I don't want to stop - otherwise I'll end up with two more UFOs! 
  • I'll be working on the Cowboy panel first since it's going to a cute little boy who is growing very quickly!
  •  I have no idea how large it'll be - it will be as large as it needs to be!
  • I do want to get the Christmas panel quilt pieced by the end of March. It probably won't be quilted for the final SAHRR party....but you never know! Life could get boring again! 😂
  • I didn't think that I could get bored stitching scraps together so it must be that it was all one colour and one large piece.
  • I cut the scrappy pieces and added the strips between the turquoise background. Since it's scrappy, I was able to add small pieces to the ends of the strips to make them a little longer. 
  • I don't often worry about the size of my scrappy quilts but this is supposed to be 36" x 40" since it's for the guild. That's considered a child's quilt.
Related links
Linking parties


Posted by at 16 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Thursday, February 27, 2025

SAHRR Week 6 and Free Motion Mavericks

Hi and welcome. It's a very short post today - just too many things on the go and not much stitching to share. 
Update: I'll be travelling the first week of March, so I've extended the Free Motion Mavericks linking party by a week. Please link up 😍

Week 6 - Kite block


I didn't really find any methods that I wanted to use to make the kite block so I did a stitch and flip. It mostly worked. Too bad my math wasn't quite right.

This is the first kite block that I made since it was the closest fabric at hand 😁. I made each quarter using the stitch and flip method, starting the stitching line at 1" at the wide part, going down to ¼" from the end. It worked out really well.

Kite block - starting the stitching at 1"

This is the second block I made - starting the stitching at 1½" from the edge. It made it wider. It does waste a lot of fabric but I'm working with scraps so I really don't care. You have to stop clinging to those scraps eventually! 😂


The only issue that I had is my math - my calculations made a 6" block instead of 6½" . I forgot to take into account that each quarter has to have an extra ½" . Darn. I was so proud - but it's not a problem. When I put all the blocks together, I'll just add a border or something. As you can imagine, my blocks are not all 6½" so there will be a lot of setting borders happening. 😉

Kawandi style neutral mat

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm making a Kawandi style mat with neutral colours for my niece. I'm probably about a quarter done. There was stitching done during the hockey game and then as I listened to some training.  I love it!

Kawandi style neutral mat

I'm writing this post at my son's place, while Poppy sitting. Here's our girl!

Poppy 😍

What I learned and updates
  • When I don't have much to share on the learning front, I'll add "updates" to this section.
  • As  I mentioned above, I'm really happy with my stitch and flip version of the kite block. I just wasn't in the mood for foundation paper piecing so this was a great compromise. I figured that if it didn't work out, that it could be a wonky version, but I didn't even have to do that!
  • I've decided to make only one kite block for each panel.
  • Now I'm working on finishing my blocks for both panels. I figure that I have 4 more blocks to make for the Cowboy panel and 6 more blocks for the Christmas panel.
  • I've started making appliqué blocks for the Cowboy panel. I found a free baby quilt pattern that had cool cowboy related appliqué blocks and I'll be using those. I'll link up to the pattern when I'm done.
  • Two of the blocks will include the shape appliqué as well as fussy cut appliqués of animals. That will be very cute!
  • I haven't really thought about the extra blocks for the Christmas panel but it will include at least one bird appliqué block.
  • I started quilting-in-the-ditch the blue scrappy baby quilt that I'm making for the February Table Scraps Challenge. I'm assuming that the linking up party will start on Friday but I'm hoping to have the weekend to finish most of it. I'm really looking forward to FMQ it.
    Sneak peek at
    Blue Scraps
  • I also want to FMQ Poppy's mat but she's probably not visiting for a couple of weeks, so I have time (right, like she'd even notice!)🐶
  • Thanks for your kind words and wishes for hubby and me - we're probably off to the emergency this afternoon since it looks like it's a disk problem.😔
Related links
Linking parties

Free Motion Mavericks


Welcome to week 521 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks so much for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Quilting Gail took part in the Runner Up Blog Hop. This featured a runner made using one of the rulers that they received, as well as Island Batik fabric. I couldn't resist the picture with her grand dog.  Gail quilted the runner using the Silly Moon Rocket ruler and meandering.

Gail's grand-dog guarding the bench...or runner?

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts created a runner called Crystal Pendants. It's also reversable!

Preeti's Crystal Pendants runner

Preeti's Crystal Pendants runner - the other side!

Kat of Scrapbox quilts made a Little Blu Bear Hug - her 4th bear hug quilts. It's so sweet. Kat used her walking foot to quilt it!

Kat's Little Blu Bear Hug

Here is the mini quilt - Little Blu Bear Hug by Kat

Donnalee quilted a very cute placemat, the first of four - fabric chosen by her husband. 

Donnalee's first of 4 placemats

Gwyned quilted this amazing piece, Pond Life, for Project Quilting 16.4. Her densely FMQ is so fun! You'll want to read the post for her inspiration.

Pond Life by Gwyned

It's now your turn! The linking party is open for two weeks. Enjoy!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
Posted by at 18 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)