Which Way is Up?

Inspired by Irene Roderick's quilts displayed at QuiltCon, I purchased her book Dancing With The Wall by Irene Roderick. I find Irene's work to be fascinating and while I hope to take a class from her one day, this book was the next best thing.

The process of creating this quilt has been so very interesting for me. Besides using her book for some starting points for improv blocks, I followed her concept about leaving the piece on an otherwise empty design wall. It sat there for 4 months and I captured progress shots along the way - from getting started (mid-May) to making block (mid July) to combining block (early August) to almost done (mid-September). It is quite interesting to see all the places it has been!

The quilt is now basted and I plan a combination of dense walking foot quilting plus some big stitch. I can't wait to get started!

All four of these photos are an audition of which version I like better. The first orientation shared is the way the quilt has displayed on my design wall for months. But I'm leaning towards the third one. The uncertainty is where the quilt name Which Way is Up? originates from!

Which one do you like best?

Have a wonderful day! Patty

September One Monthly Goal Finish

Ready to link up your finishes?

Don't panic - this link-up is open until September 30 at 11:55 pm ET.

This is the 93rd and final month that I've hosted One Monthly Goal! Next month (October),  Anne-Marie from Stories From the Sewing Room will be the host. (Anne-Marie and I have been co-hosting since January.) For today, you can link up at either of our blogs and your OMG project will show up in the same link party!  Anne-Marie will be taking over as the sole host of OMG in October.

Thanks for everyone that has joined OMG since November 2016. I greatly enjoyed seeing your work progress from goal to finish. I'll be joining future OMG at Anne-Marie's blog so I'll see you there!

My goal for September was to turn my scrappy HRTs into a quilt. I am excited to share my latest finish called The Twist. Read more about my quilt The Twist!

Now it's your turn to link up!  Please add a link to this OMG post so others can follow where you are linking.   Let's make that easy -  just paste this into your post:  

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - September Finish Link-up

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a wonderful day! Patty

The Twist

Ta da! Introducing my latest quilt, The Twist!

I shared all about the process of piecing the quilt on this post. Each of the HRTs were paper pieced and other than the black (which all came from scraps) there are no repeated fabrics.

I wanted lots of texture with the quilting without the interference of thread color so I used the mono-poly thread by Superior. Other than lowering the tension a bit, my Janome machine handled the thread just fine.

A dense grid was quilting inside the circle and a series of concentric circles followed out to the border. The spacing between the quilting lines is 1/4" or less.

I've done another quilt using HRTs to create an illusion - that quilt is called Illusions!. It is really fun to play with block placement to create something new.

The quilt measures 22" x 22". It was faced using the tutorial from @cottonandburbon.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Pincushion

Sometimes you need step aside from making big quilts and do a simple project. 

My pincushion is filled with crushed walnuts. Our guild had a pincushion exchange - which I didn't sign up for - but there were some extra crushed walnuts left over. Filling a pincushion with crushed walnuts is quite tedious but I am happy with the result.

This pincushion is about 4.5" wide and sits right next to my machine. The inspiration came from this tutorial. 

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Improv Update - Almost Done

This is what my improv quilt looked like on September 1 after not touching the project for the entire month of August. I looked at it every day since it was the only thing pinned to my design wall but other projects caught my interest. 

When I met a friend for coffee recently, she commented how much she loved the piece and wanted to buy it from me. I was so incredibly flattered! I am not currently planning to sell the piece but it certainly left me with a nice feeling.

Here is where it stands now after my first September sewing session. I think all the blue bits are done and the next step is to assemble together and fill in the white bits.

I am in love with the process of working on this over a longer period of time. More soon. Until then, you can see more of the progress photos as the quilt developed on my last post. The inspiration comes from the book Dancing With The Wall by Irene Roderick.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Scraps and HRTs - an update

Remember when I started playing with HRTs and scraps a few weeks ago? (see that post) Everything is all sewn together, twisted around and now is a new quilt top that I've tentatively named "The Twist"!

I am so very excited about how well this entire quilt top came together - exactly as I had planned and hoped! I started with two semi-identical pieces. The one of the left used some scrap leftover fabric since it was never going to show. From the piece in the middle, I cut out a circle.

Then with the use of many many pins, I appliqued down my circle. (I'd briefly thought about machine piecing but went the applique route for more control and, hopefully, accuracy.)

Once it was appliqued down, I cut away the bottom bit and pressed those seams open and flat.

Much to my delight, the whole quilt top lays flat! Before pressing the seams open, the circle was raised and I was trying to decide if I would embrace this with a bit of trapunto or not.

Now the quilt is pinned very densely and the quilting can begin!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Colorful Baby Quilt

Every Friday evening, my daughter and I watch a movie and I sit with a glass of wine and sew. She likes to watch her favorites over and over (and over) again but really enjoys herself which means I do too. I like to have a project of simple sewing for these wine events.

I started working on a baby quilt using a pattern and fabric supplied by Fat Quarter Shop in support of their upcoming pattern launch.

I am using two lines from Ruby Star Society - Hole Punch Dot (left over from my Spools quilt)

 and Jolly Basics. The bits of gold sparkle in these fabrics is quite fun!

No rush for this one but I expect I'll be done next month. The quilt will be baby sized so I'll be ready for the next time I need a gift!

#RibbonBorderQuilt #ClassicandVintageSeries

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Summer isn't Over Until Fall Begins!

Summer!

Despite the heat and humidity, summer is by far my favorite season of the year. I like long days of daylight and I really like to swim. To help me find more joy in my day and create more joy for me and family, I joined the Summer Lovin Seaglass SAL hosted by Kitty @nightquilter and Allie @exhaustedoctupus.

When the Summer Lovin Seaglass SAL started - see my Kick-off post - I was thinking I would earn about 100 seaglass pieces. Now through the end of August, I am at 156!

Things were off to a slow start in June - earned 43 pieces. Photo is where I was mid-June.

It was really helpful to lay things out because it challenged me to really think about recognizing joy and to seek out more opportunity. By the end of July, I earned 104 pieces.

And now, as I reached the official end to the SAL on August 31, I've earned 156 pieces. A quick layout of pieces shows it overflowing off the piece of linen fabric I wanted to use. All those red bits coming down the left side are there simply because I ran out of room. But that can easily be fixed by trimming some of the larger pieces of seaglass.

But I'm not ready to acknowledge that summer is over so I've decided to keep tracking joy and collecting seaglass until September 23 which is the first day of fall!

Regardless of when the SAL ends, I do hope to keep the practice of seeking joy as part of my mindset.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

September One Monthly Goal

New to One Monthly Goal?  Welcome!  To join, share a photo of your project plus, some words about what you want to accomplish in a blog post or  and add that photo to the link-up.  Return at the end of the month and share your results.  (Results link-up opens for the last 7 days of the month.)

This is the 93rd month that I've hosted One Monthly Goal! It is also my final month. Starting in October,  Anne-Marie from Stories From the Sewing Room will be the host. (Anne-Marie and I have been co-hosting since January.)

My very first blog post as host was in November 2016 (see that post) when I picked up the hosting role from Heidi @ Red Letter Quilts. For many years, I ran the monthly link-up with sponsors and highlighted designers each month. In 2022, I stopped having sponsors (it is a lot of work to line them up) and no one seemed to mind. Turns out, joining the OMG link-up and sharing your goal is enough incentive to get something done!

I want to thank everyone who has linked up over the last 7 years. It has been great fun to see your projects and celebrate your successes with you. Now I look forward to seeing you link up with Anne-Marie.

Enough said - let's get September's One Monthly Goal started!

My goal for September is to finish quilt top assembly and quilting on my scrappy HRT quilt. I am a bit further along than this picture shows.

Now it is your turn to link up - what is your goal for this month?   The One Monthly Goal accomplishment linkup will be available on September 24.  Make sure you add a link to this OMG post so others can find the OMG link-up from your blog.  Let's make that easy -  just paste this into your post:  

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal September Link-up

Take a few minutes to visit others and make new friends!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a wonderful day! Patty

August One Monthly Goal

Ready to link up your finishes?

Don't panic - this link-up is open until August 31 at 11:55 pm ET.

I'm pleased to be sharing hosting duties with Anne-Marie from Stories From the Sewing Room.  You can link up at either of our blogs and your OMG project will show up in the same link party!  Anne-Marie will be taking over as the sole host of OMG in October.

My goal for August was to finish all the quilting on my QuiltCon fabric challenge quilt. I am happy to say that the quilting is done - only sharing sneak peaks right now.

Now it's your turn to link up!  Please add a link to this OMG post so others can follow where you are linking.   Let's make that easy -  just paste this into your post:  

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - August Finish Link-up

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Covered Notebook Tutorial

One of my favorite thank you or birthday gift is to make a covered notebook. (Photo from November 2020.) They go together quickly and it is a nice way to use some fun fabric from your stash.

I use these moleskin notebooks - (affiliate link) you can get them with lines, blank pages or dots - and are available in several sizes. The 5" x 8 1/4" size was used for this project. In addition to the notebook, you'll need:

• outer cover : fabric and fusible fleece ~ 9 1/2" x 12" (larger for dense quilting)
• flaps: (2) fabrics 9 1/4" x 4"
• lining: 9 1/4" x ~8"

Fuse fusible fleece to wrong side of outer fabric and quilt. (I did some simple straight line quilting). Trim quilted piece to be  9 1/4" tall x 11 3/4" wide.

Fold one edge of a flap ~ 1/4" and fold over again and top stitch. Repeat for second flap.

Place the notebook cover, right side up, on your cutting mat. Layer the flaps, right sides down, aligning the outer edges and making sure the top stitch edge is toward the center. Layer the lining on top, right side down. Sew 1/4" around the entire unit. (photo below, top row)

Clip corners and turn the cover inside out. (photo above, bottom row). 

Press. Top stitch around the entire edge of notebook .

Enjoy!

I sent this notebook off to Amanda who responded to my ask for scraps from Alison Glass fabric for my Summer Lovin' Seaglass SAL quilt. Thanks Amanda!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Playing with Scraps and HRTs

New project!

I wanted to play with all of my low volume scraps and decided to pair them with scraps of black(there are several shades of black here!) with the occasional burst of a color print. The blocks are foundation paper pieced and really fun to make.

I have fabric put aside for a few more blocks and then I will attempt to execute my quilt top layout!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Summer of Joy Check-in July

At the beginning of June, I joined the 

Summer Lovin Seaglass SAL hosted by Kitty @nightquilter and Allie @exhaustedoctupus. 

The idea is to purposely spend time on things that bring you joy this summer and reward yourself with a piece of fabric seaglass. (You can read the details behind what I am tracking on my kick-off post.)

At the end of June, there were 42 pieces. In my last blog check-in (read it here), I wanted to focus more on small projects and creativity - red - and really increase the seaglass volume around adventure - Navy - and friend time - Purple.

The photo right shows how the 42 pieces of seaglass earned by the end of June.

To celebrate the end of July and the earning of 59 pieces, all the seaglass was laid out.

You can see there is much more navy and purple and our adventures have included hanging out at the pool and a picnic in a park not visited since the kids (now in their 20s) were kids! Such fun!

A new category was added to celebrate 'spontaneous' joy. There is unexpected joy to be found and I want to help myself focus to try and find it.

August, let's go!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Echo

My quilt Echo is done!

Echo is inspired by a flowsnake fractal design and was created initially for the Pantone challenge using the color magenta. A ruler foot was used for the quilting and if you look carefully, the angle of the straight lines is different in the magenta colorway versus the light pink. See a close up of the quilting.

The quilt is faced and I used the tutorial from @cottonandburbon and was very pleased with the results.

A sunflower field in Raleigh is an annual event. There were a lot of people taking photos in this field of sunflowers but I was the only one there taking a quilt photo!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Improv Update - Combining

Spent more sew time recently on my improv quilt, shifting my focus from creating new units to rearranging and adding space to the units I've already sewn. (See May and July update.)

I work on this quilt once every week or so and it lives on my design wall in between sessions.  Here were the first set of evolutions of the piece as units were created and added. When I posted about the quilt in mid-July, several people commented that they saw a cat in the collection of blocks (last photo). 

My favorite part about that last arrangement was the upper left corner and the plan was to leave that in place and rearrange the rest. Here are a bunch of different layouts from the exact same set of blocks, all retaining that upper left corner that I really liked.

After letting the blocks sit on my design wall, I was back playing in late July. As I combined parts, the drastic rearranging was underway! My goal here was to add white space into the design and to play around with really different arrangements.

And now I'm here....

The top two-thirds is all attached together and the bottom third is in three pieces. There is a random block pinned in the upper right corner that isn't (yet) part of the piece.

I think the right side is essentially done but I'm thinking about adding some little bits to the left side.

Snapping and sharing pictures of progress has been great fun for me!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

August OMG Link-up

New to One Monthly Goal?  Welcome!  To join, share a photo of your project plus, some words about what you want to accomplish in a blog post or  and add that photo to the link-up.  Return at the end of the month and share your results.  (Results link-up opens for the last 7 days of the month.)

I'm pleased to be sharing hosting duties with Anne-Marie from Stories From the Sewing Room.  You can link up at either of our blogs and your OMG project will show up in the same link party!  

My goal for August is to finish the hand quilting on my QuiltCon fabric challenge entry - read more.

Now it is your turn to link up - what is your goal for this month?   The One Monthly Goal accomplishment linkup will be available on August 25.  Make sure you add a link to this OMG post so others can find the OMG link-up from your blog.  Let's make that easy -  just paste this into your post:  

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal August Link-up

Take a few minutes to visit others and make new friends!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Fabric Challenge Update

I've finished the machine quilting on my entry for the QuiltCon fabric challenge! I chose the Windham Artisan Cotton in Aqua/Blue, Red/Royal, and Apple Green/Chartreuse and think they look really amazing together. Started back in June (see that post), the piecing went together quite quickly. After much debate, I settled on a quilting plan that complimented the quilt design instead of just straight lines.

This meant making templates and burying lots and lots of threads but I am really pleased with how it is looking! This is the first time I've attempted something this complex and it has been quite fun.

With the machine quilting done, I've moved on to the hand-quilting and am greatly enjoying the process.

For thread colors, I choose colors that were available in both the 50 and 12 weights. The colors are  1231 (chartreuse), 2545 (purple), and 2815 (blue). The chartreuse is the best match. (And it is really hard to photograph these colors accurately.)

Have a wonderful day! Patty

July OMG Finish Link-up

Ready to link up your finishes?

Don't panic - this link-up is open until July 31 at 11:55 pm ET.

I'm pleased to be sharing hosting duties with Anne-Marie from Stories From the Sewing Room.  You can link up at either of our blogs and your OMG project will show up in the same link party!  

My goal for July was bind my scrappy quilt - it is done and ready to be donated! Read more.

Now it's your turn to link up!  Please add a link to this OMG post so others can follow where you are linking.   Let's make that easy -  just paste this into your post:  

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - July Finish Link-up

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a wonderful day! Patty