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

Lily - A Layer Cake Quilt

Fat Quarter Shop is releasing a new short cut quilt pattern today for this fun Lily quilt. (Download your free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop and check out the video tutorial!) I was very excited  when asked by FQS if I'd be interested in sewing up a quilt sample.

The hardest part of the whole quilt was decided what color I wanted to use and then the final layout of those pretty colors. The pattern is written for layer cake. I used yardage and went for a less scrappy look. Fat Quarter Shop has a kit available now!

The quilting is a wavy walking foot which has added some nice textured. The beautiful fabric is Speckled from Ruby Star with a gold print for binding. I pieced together the backing with blue and a bit of red solid fabric from stash. 

. The quilt finished 60" x 60". It will be donated to my guild's community giving project - we collect quilts for kids in the foster care system.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

HRT and HST Donation Quilt

A fun and quick finish! 

Blocks were created way back in January 2023 as part of the Modern HST BOM and then they were misplaced and forgotten about! I was happy to get a small quilt top assembled and quilted with a simple meander. I had just enough fabric leftover for the binding.

Quilt is 36" square and was donated through my LQS be a incubator quilt. (The quilts are draped over the incubators for those babies in the NICU and then go with them when they are ready to go home.)

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Elliott the Elephant

I've got three large quilt tops underway and enjoyed putting those aside to create this elephant mini quilt. It was gifted to my youngest who has a love for elephants.

The pattern came from Tartankiwi. I've made several of Juliette's patterns before and she has quite the wonderful collection of animals.

I (somewhat crudely) mounted the mini quilt on wrapped canvas so it could be propped up on a bookcase. 

Now back to the bigger quilts!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

My Bag of Many Colors

In late September, I started a project to deal with my scraps. From all my solid small scraps, I created square-in-a-square blocks and then assembled them together into 4 panels. The process of composing these panels was truly enjoyable. I used By Annie's foam batting and then quilted straight lines using red thread. As the quilting began, I was a bit concerned about my choice until the quilting lines got closer together and suddenly the texture felt just right!

The bag construction itself was made up as I went, including the pockets I added to the lining. One side has a large zippered mesh pocket, divided in half. The other side is an open pocket with a slot for pens and pencils.

There is a removable inset that brings color and some stability to the interior of the bag. I went with leather handles and I really like the look of the handle. I do wish they didn't have pre-drilled holes because sewing them on by machine would have been more secure.

This bag was my last finish for 2023!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Deck the Halls

Deck the Halls! I made stockings! Hanging by our chimney will still be the stockings the kids have had since they were babies. But everyone needs a stocking in their home so I'm sending my son one! (Colors are true in the photos below.)

No pattern - I just traced an existing stocking and added about 1/2" all the way around. I had a 1/2 yard of this wonderful plaid in my stash for quite some time - it was a print from Moda Sweetwater - and was happy to put it to good use to create two stockings.

The lining was set inside the outer piece. When sewing them together, I added a binding which I would fold around to cover the raw edge and add a bit of color too.

I found a fun (free) alphabet on Shiny Happy World. The letters were applied with fusible and then stitched with a straight stitch along the edge.

Some more secret sewing going on here in my sewing space that I don't plan to share until after gifted.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Pickle Bird

Pickle Bird was my entry for this years QuiltCon fabric challenge. 

The design for Pickle Bird evolved in a improvisational process when playing around with half-rectangle triangles and drunkard path blocks with an initial intent of creating a version of a pickle block. When the final layout looked like a group of tropical birds sitting around chatting with each other somewhere on an island paradise (once you see it you can’t un-see it!), the name Pickle Bird was born.

The quilting is a combination of walking foot and big stitch quilting using a series of cardboard templates to mark the curve quilting lines.

I tried something new this year for capturing quilt photos and it worked really well. I hung a white table cloth from my quilting rack and then pined the quilt to the table cloth. Duck tape was used to get the table cloth reasonably taut and the setup meant I didn't need to worry about the background.

Creating a quilt with the fabric challenge fabrics is something I look forward to every year! Sadly, Pickle Bird won't be hanging at QuiltCon 2024 - 3 of my other quilts will though! - so I'm glad I snapped a photo of me in during my 'front yard' quilt show.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

My Cork Firefly Tote

Some friends might say I've got an obsession for making bags and they would be right! I really enjoy the process and I like the variety to choose the bag I need for the occasion. My latest finish is the Firefly Bag in cork with modifications for size. (See my prior bags with this pattern in the project size and tote size.)

There were more than one bump in the creation process - read about the beginning of my bumpy journey here. I used some new to me interfacing for the bag and ended up with too much bulk in some areas which means my top stitching isn't as pretty as I'd like. I've debated a disassemble and trying again but have decided to embrace the bag just the way it is.  I never did try the rivets - too chicken about putting a hole in my new bag. And while I do like the using the white as my topstitching thread color, all my little bobbles are too visible so I will certainly go with a complementary thread color the next time.

My cork color choice of Ocean Blue was influenced by this print I wanted to use for the lining.

I didn't start out to make this specific bag pattern but I am glad that this is where I ended up. The bag is the right size for what I like to carry. In addition to making an entire bag from cork, I also tried some new techniques including adding purse feet.

I am confident I will make another new bag next year for no other reasons as to use up the supplies I purchased and didn't use for this bag!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Rainbow Spools - the Finish

In the summer of 2022, I created a quilt top using a free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop using their Rainbow Spools pattern. (See that post.)

I created the quilt with the intent of making it a donation quilt. My guild - Triangle MQG - donates quilts to children in the foster care system in a nearby county. Recently several LAQs have said they would volunteer some of their time to quilt member quilt tops and I took advantage of that offer! Meghan from @apieceofquietquilts did a wonderful job on my quilt. (Meghan was also the quilter on my Loves Me, Loves Me Not quilt.) 

The quilt measures measures 45" x 60" and used the fabric - Ruby Star Society Hole Punch Dot. (You can download the free pattern here and checkout the tutorial video.)

Island in the Sky

I figured out which way was up! Don't know what I'm talking about - see my prior post!

My quilt Island in the Sky is all quilted. Such fun to walking foot quilt and then go back and add some big stitch details. A totally delightful creative journey from beginning to end.

Finding spots to add some big stitch embellishments was quite fun.

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.  I started this quilt about 6 months ago - you can watch the progress through these post -getting started (mid-May) to making block (mid July) to combining block (early August) to Which Way is Up? (mid-September).

Island in the Sky measures 22" x 23" and used Painters Palette solids - colonial blue and white.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

The Joyful Summer of '23

Summer is by far my favorite season of the year. I love to swim and hit the pool early every morning. I love sitting on the back porch in the afternoon to read or stitch. And I love the long days of daylight. 

Joining the #summerlovinseaglassal hosted by Kitty @nightquilter and Allie @exhaustedoctupus was an easy decision and I just put the finishing touches into my quilt.

I am in love with my celebration of joy quilt for the months June through August! (In my last post, I considered extending my joy tracking until the first day of fall - September 23 - but I ended up getting lazy in my tracking so went with just the 3 months the SAL covered.)

I've posted about this SAL a few times - May kick-off,  June update, July update, and September update.

Besides making a fun quilt, my goal for participating was to be intentional about making time for things that I enjoy during my favorite season summer. It included things I usually do frequently - swimming and reading - and also things like seeking new adventures. I hoped it would get me out of the house more frequently that a typical summer.

Did it? Yes! 

What did I learn by participating? Actively seeking and recognizing joy makes me feel good. Earning a piece of seaglass was a more of a motivator than I had expected - when I saw a category was low in the overall count, I worked to plan more time with friends or playing pickleball than I would have likely done otherwise. A friend was participating as well so when we met for coffee - we were each tracking friend time! - we each earned seaglass!

Here is where my final count ended up:

• 13 days working on smaller creative works where improv and trying something were the goals. I spent the rest of the days working on larger quilts that were well planned out in advance.
• 19 days where some handwork project was worked on. I had hoped for more.
• 30 books read. I read daily in the early afternoon and most nights before sleep.
• 30 pieces earned for swimming. I earned a piece for every 3 miles swam which means I swam 90 miles!
• 9 sessions of playing pickleball. Early in the summer, my friends played early in the day while I was swimming. When we switched to evenings, I had the change to play often.
• 20 days which include time with family or friends. This could be my favorite category!
• 6 date nights. Spending time going out to dinner or a show was certainly a highlight
• 20 days with adventure. This category included all kinds of fun as simple as going out to ice cream as well as a trip to NJ.

Somewhere in the middle of the SAL I started earning seaglass for unexpected spontaneous moments of joy. There were 7 of those tracked. Should I do this SAL again, this would most definitely be a seaglass category.

The final quilt measures 14" x 25". The seaglass pieces were FMQ once fused down and then I added some big stitch x's in spots plus a '2023'.

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

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

Scrappy Finish

My scrappy quilt is finished!

This was a fun one and a great way to use up leftover mini-charms and scraps - the more variety, the better! The design is NOT original - I've seen many quilts like this over the years. You can find a tutorial of sorts for the blocks here.

This quilt was such a fun scrap buster and used up plenty of leftover charm squares and smaller scraps. Even the batting was assembled from scraps!

For the quilting, I did a basic meander with a few loops thrown in for fun. This quilt will be donated to my local guild's charity.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

New Pool Bag!

One of the ways I can earn seaglass pieces in the Summer Lovin' Seaglass SAL is with mini quilts and small projects. After spending weeks quilting my Magenta Fractal , a quick finish was called for!

Using some lightweight canvas I had in my stash, I made a bag using Noodlehead's Wide Open Pouch tutorial in the large size. I really love this bright fun print. I swim each morning in the summer and needed something to keep stuff organized in my swim bag. 

I've made dozens of bags with this tutorial in the past so this was a fun, fast finish!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Bear in The Woods Through a Window

Cary Quilting - my wonderful local quilt store - had a free applique pattern for the bear and racoons peaking around the tree which was designed by the owner back in 2015/2016. I made my own version back in 2016 - read more about the quilt - and never got beyond the quilt top. 

The applique pieces were done raw edge applique. I surrounded them with pieced pine trees made from flying geese in several colors of green and then added a narrow border around the whole edge to finish off the "window".

When I picked the project back up to quilt, I briefly debating changing out the outer border but at 37" x 37" decided it was a reasonable size for a baby quilt. 

As part of the quilting process, I zig-zagged over the raw edges - baby quilt means it needs to be ready to be washed a bit - and did a loopy meander through all the blue. The trees were left unquilted.

The backing and binding are Moda Sweetwater Pure line from my stash. (Same fabric used here!)

I intend to gift this quilt to a new baby due any day now! (Digital pattern available here and here.)

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Table Runners

Back when my kids were in elementary school, they did a fund raiser where you could purchase a piece of their artwork on all kinds of things. (A very smart idea because what parent wouldn't buy something?) They also offered just squares of fabric with the artwork on them.

I finally - twenty years later - turned that artwork into a mini-quilt / placemat! (And, yes, I am impressed with myself that I still had it stored away in a place where I could find it stumble across it by accident.)

Just in case you didn't recognize her, this is Maria from the Sound of Music. It was drawn my middle daughter and was one of the best piece of elementary school artwork she ever did. It will now serve as a placemat under her laptop when she sits at our brand new kitchen table!

Next up is a placemat/ trivet made using Insul-Bright and a layer of bating. Insul-Bright has a reflective shiny bit sandwiched between batting like stuff to reflect the heat.

In my recent sewing room declutter, I came across several bags of scraps including some from the Moda Sweetwater Pure fabric line. (This fabric line is in my top 10 of all time favorites and when it came out, I remember purchasing  pre-cuts and yardage.) I tend to store like-scraps (i.e. those from the same designer or the same fabric line) together.   

I made many projects  with this fabric line including this queen-sized quilt made in 2012 which still sits on my bed over ten years later. Perhaps it is time to make a new quilt for our bed....

Have a wonderful day! Patty

A Quilted Mobius

I love a good foundation paper piecing project and am a major fan of Audrey @cottonandburbon. She has several patterns available and this one - the Mobius Radial pattern - is my favorite.

The pattern instructions are very clear - complex but clear. I spread the construction out over several days and used lots of pins during the assembly process. (Read more about my experiences when piecing.)

For the quilting, I had originally planned straight line quilting running top to bottom, regardless of the piecing. But once two lines were sewn, I decided that I wanted quilting that would encourage the white bits to pop which meant just quilting the blue.

Fabrics used are both Painters Palette solids and the blue is Colonial Blue. I had Aurifil  1310 Medium Blue Gray matched nicely. The quilt finished 30" x 30".

Have a wonderful day! Patty

My New Haralson Bag

Anna @noodlehead released a new pattern last month for a belt bag called Haralson Belt Bag. I've made other of her patterns and love each of those bags so I was ready to jump right in. It was perfect timing since I wanted a new bag for QuiltCon - it was sized perfectly to carry my wallet and phone so they were always within reach.

The pocket on the back was just perfect for my phone.

The canvas used is a Ruby Star fabric. The fabric took the looonnnngggg route through the mail and didn't actually arrive until early afternoon Tuesday, the day before I was leaving for QuiltCon.

There are some wonderful videos out there to support the making of the bag and the only struggle was installing the turn lock primarily due to not having sharp enough scissors to cut out the hole in the fabric! (Turn lock was purchased from Noodlehead.)

The lining and inside pocket use a fun print from Zen Chick. Substituting cork for the flap instead of canvas was a very easy change.

I got many complements on my bag (plus some amazement that I'd made it so quickly given the pattern was brand new). People also really liked my Range Backpack, another Noodlehead pattern. I had people ask to take a photo and others wanted to look at the bag up close. (Never before was I such a fashion 'icon'.)

During QuiltCon, I mainly wore the bag crossbody style. However, when I was volunteering, I wore it as an actual waist belt and it worked fine.

This was such a fun pattern that I am certain I will make another one someday!

Have a wonderful day! Patty