Stepping Stones

The theme for my 2024 guild challenge was to reimagine a traditional quilt block and create a quilt with the theme of Community. Stepping Stones is my entry. (Earlier this week I shared an entry to my guild's challenge for the year that I was a contributed to.)

I had several different designs in mind as I approached the project, each focused on a single community in my life. At the end, I decided to design a quilt to celebrate all of them. Each of these group of people - my Pickleball group, my neighbors, the other early morning swimmers, and, of course, my family - bring joy, laughter, and friendship into my day. Some are larger than others, but they are all important.

Stepping Stones is 27" x 36". I used Ruby & Bee solids in colorways rain cloud, stormy, unicorn, turmeric, and poppy. The walking foot quilting was done on the diagonal and is roughly 1/4" spacing.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Six Hours

In late September, I shared a beach house with 5 friends for a long weekend of sewing. (See my retreat post.) The theme of our guild challenge for the year is Community so we decided to make a quilt together.

The rules were simple. First, each quilter got 1 hour to add their bit to the quilt top. Second, you were allowed to cut apart what others before you had done but you had to add it back onto the piece. Finally, we drew numbers to determine the order.

Here are the 6 progress photos. I was #3 so my bit shows up in the top row, right photo.

The next morning, we all agreed to narrow that green strip and offset things.

Clearly, we also decided to let the shape develop organically and did no work to square things up. I measured it as 28" x 42" by estimating what it would be if we added fabric to make it a rectangle

The beautiful custom quilting was done by Sara Young. I added the faced binding.

The piece was incredibly fun to work on together and there were so many laughs through the whole process. We've entered it into our guild challenge - fingers crossed for Viewer's Choice!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Vote Mini Quilt

Early voting opens in North Carolina today! This mini was made with the free pattern from Carolyn Friedlander. I've been very interested in trying out her alphabet pattern and now that I've made a mini, I am certain I will purchase the full pattern. Just need to figure out what I want to say....

I've been busy finishing up my final quilt for submission to QuiltCon which has pushed other projects to the side. This mini was a fun quick finish.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Granny Square Adventures continue

A few weeks ago, I purchased a 32 pack of beautiful cotton yarn from Purl Soho. Each is 25 g and will make at least 5 granny squares. (There is yarn leftover of each color from which I might be able to squeak out another square or maybe combine them together into a single square for each colorway.)

I have been crocheting about one square a day and working my way through a specific 4 skein colorway. Just a few more to go from the blue package and then I'll move on to the greens.

There is no true plan here other than it will be a blanket of some size. I may by more of this mini bundles ... too soon to decide!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Sunny Blocks

One of the projects I brought to my recent retreat were blocks from Tara's Sunny pattern. I gathered together a stack of blue FQs with the intent of auditioning this pattern as a potential for a bed sized quilt.

I choose to print the fan blocks on FPP paper instead of using freezer paper just for the ease of sewing in a small space at retreat. After a few mishaps, I found that sewing the fan blocks was quite fun.

Adding that small quarter circle is another story. The curves in the block don't map to have of my drunkards path templates so I need to use paper templates which may be contributing to some slight cutting issues. I've had to resew each of these several times - glue basting helped tremendously but there are still issues to deal with. For my next batch, I will cut that quarter circle slightly larger and then trim.

This project will take a back burner for while as I've two others I want to finish first!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Retreat Sewing

I returned from a fun long weekend of sewing and friendship at the NC beach - it was a mini retreat for 6 friends. We all exchanged gifts. I made small notebook covers and also gave them mini magnetic pin bowls.

Gifts in return included several homemade items like this cork basket and awesome needlebook. The favorite for anyone was a two finger chopstick perfect for snacking while sewing!

I packed 6 projects and worked on 4 of the 6. I did get all my economy blocks done. There are 60 of each size - 3" and 3.75" finished size. (A few aren't in the photograph.) I had these all kitted up ahead of time and it was fun to see the sweet image as I sewed.

I've got a layout in mind but will be putting this project aside for a bit to get to work on some higher priority projects.

I also sewed up some blocks as part of the Sunny pattern plus made a small mini that needs to be quilted. I'll share more about those projects soon.

3 of the 6 projects I brought along were handwork. I managed to crochet 2 mini granny squares but that was it!

We had lovely weather, great food, so many laughs, daily walks on the beach... it really filled me up with joy.

Have a wonderful day! Patty