Zig Zag Big and Small Quilt

Another Quilt that I finished last year, but never blogged about!

This was the April 2017 quilt for the Nurture Circle of do.Good Stitches. I finished it last summer and took it on a photo shoot in White Sands, NM before sending it on to the group to be donated.

This is just a half square triangle quilt that I arranged into squares. Nothing too dramatic, but I was inspired by the scraps from the quilt design the month before.

These are the blocks we made the month before. They were made from a square and a rectangle, using the tutorial from A Bright Corner. You sew the pieces together, then cut off the corners that are left.

As I was making my block and saw the scraps, I quickly let the group know to keep their scraps and we’d be using them the following month! We sewed those together to make mini half square triangles! I have to admit, I realized then that not everyone enjoyed the small piecing phenomena going around! But they played along with me anyway.

After piecing the tiny half square triangles, everyone made these little blocks out of them.  I pieced them using the same way I pieced my Crosses Postage Stamp Quilt, using a super thin fusible interfacing. I also asked everyone to make larger blue and grey HSTs. I then arranged the larger ones the same way as the tiny ones for a play on scale.

I debated between blue or grey or even green binding. Obviously, I went with the grey. It just kinda fades away, where the others would make more of a frame. Either one would have been nice, but I like how the grey turned out.

Nothing too exciting about the back. A little green and black print.

I’m no longer a member of the Nuture Group, but I still have a couple quilts to finish for the group. Slowly but surely, I’ll get them done!

 

Curves Issue of Curated Quilts

I’m so excited to be featured in Curated Quilts!

I’ve been lucky enough to have had a couple mini quilts featured in Curated Quilts, but this issue I have a pattern in the magazine! I made a mini for this one too, but it didn’t get a trip to the photo lab! ha!

A quilt I started with the my do. Good Stitches group, and finished up way too late, was featured in the magazine!

I love this magazine and the talent it features, so you can only imagine how excited I was to see my quilt and name featured amongst some amazing quilters!

Each quarter the magazine puts a call for articles and patterns around a selected theme. When I saw the call for curved quilts, I was super excited to submit my Falling Stars quilt.

The magazine took some really great shots of the quilt, you should really check it out. And of course, there’s the tutorial to make your own! I don’t want to give it all away, so be sure to get the magazine to see more!

I actually had two quilts in this issue! My Raindrops on Wildflowers quilt was featured in the main gallery!

 

 

Nurture Circle Quilts of do.Good Stitches

I haven’t been around for a while and I’ve missed the ‘ole blog! It’s also been even longer since I’ve shown the quilts I’ve taken part in with the Nurture Circle of do. Good Stitches group! As you may or may not know, I have been a part of this online quilting bee for years! I’ve shared the quilts I’ve made with the awesome women in my group. But it’s been ages since I’ve shown off what they have done!

As a reminder, this is an online bee with 10 members. 5 of us design and make the quilts. All 10 of us make a least 1 block per month, usually 2 or more, for the quilts. Then once they are done, they are donated to one of our group members who runs the quilt Charity in Texas, Covered in Love.

This quilt was the August 2016 (see, it’s been a while!) group quilt designed by Briawna at Purple Poppy Quilts. We were asked to make 8 paper piecing kaleidoscope blocks  with solids and low volume fabrics. The block we used were from The Quilter’s Cache website. And then she took our blocks and made this awesome rainbow quilt!

Next up, the 2016 September quilt…

This one was designed by Carla from the Modern Bias blog.  We actually used the Crosscut Block from one of my best quilty buddies, Debbie, over at A Quilters Table. Carla just changed the size of the blocks.

photo via Carla’s Flickr

Not only did we send her our blocks, but we also sent her our left over pieces. We ended up having two quilts that month!

photo via kat and cat quilts

The one on the right is one of them. The one on the left is one I sent that i had done earlier, the Modern Sampler Quilt.

photo via Kat’s Flickr

The second on we got from our extra blocks was a group effort with Carla piecing it and Gabrielle quilting it!

Next up, January 2017!

This one was design by our Texas friend, Kat, from Kat and Cat Quilts. And yes, the one who runs our quilt charity! This one is a stitch and flip block and we made a mini strip and flip block. Instead of ROY-G-BIV our rainbow was only a OY-G-B rainbow! You can find the tutorial on our group Flickr page.

photo via Kat’s Flickr

And it came together beautifully!

And in February, Dhia, from Peach Patch Quilts, chose hearts!

You can find the directions to the big heart, based on Michael Miller’s Cupid’s arrows quilt, on Dhia’s blog here. The little ones are from a Cluck Cluck Sew tutorial.

photo via Dhia’s Flickr

This one reminds me of warm Nordic sweater (I think they are called something else, but I’m blanking on it!)! I love it!

And our last one for today is the March 2017 block.

March of 2017, Briawna chose to use a tutorial from Andy Knowlton for scrappy flying geese. We made two blocks, one with gray on the right and one with gray on the left. Then I asked them to keep the tiny scraps for an upcoming quilt!

photo via Briawna’s IG

And there we have it! Five Nuture Circle quilts to show! I need to get on quilting the Nurture Circle quilts I have finished in my pile. There are more to show, so stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

Modern Sampler Quilt

You may remember me starting the Modern Sampler Quilt Along with Salty Oat, way back in at the beginning of last year. Then I got most of the blocks done by May and then finished the beginning of this year.

This quilt is pretty much not my style at all! I like it, but the low volume, not me! It was a fun challenge to try to stay low volume for a whole quilt!

And the pattern… Well, how to put it nicely… It was challenging. Maybe it was the difference between being familiar with my own versus a Japanese pattern. Or maybe it was just ‘challenging’. And the blocks weren’t our usual 10.5″ inch type block.

But I couldn’t stop. There were a couple of blocks that had me considering packing it up and calling it done. But I didn’t! And I’m glad I didn’t.

Some of the blocks were more challenging than the others. But what I did get used to was all the mitered corners on each block! The last few look much better than the first few. It just takes practice!

And the back! Although it’s upside down in this picture, I do like the minimalist layout! ha!

And a little bit of color to the binding!

It’s hard to see all the details that went into this quilt in the full frontal pictures. So this quilt is going to my do Good Stitches group They have very kindly agreed that I can keep my do Good quilt from last year that got accepted into the Quiltcon Show if I send in this one! I’ve grown very attached to my other one! I can’t believe it has taken me so long to show this one off!

 

 

 

Left and Right Quilt Tutorial

Remember my do Good Stitches Left and Right quilt that I wrote about last month?

Honestly, It’s pretty easy…. I’ll show you how we did it. You’ll need 3 colors of fabric for the flying geese, white and a pile of grey scraps. Unfortunately, I don’t have a quantity of how much of each fabric you’ll need. You’ll need to do the math on that based on how large of a quilt your looking for.

image via A Quilters Table

First, we’re making a big batch HST. Have you tried my friend Debbie’s tutorial for big batch HST’s? It’s awesome! You can find it here.

To make your big batch HST’s you’ll need (1) 9×9 square of white for every color 9×9 square. (1) set of 9×9 squares will give you 18 HSTs.

You’ll also need to cut:

(9) 2.5×3.5 white rectangles- (1) for each set of HST (which will make 1 flying geese).
And grey scraps

Once you’ve got your HST’s, we need to add the grey bits! Then line up the ruler so that you are cutting off the tip of the colored edge of the HST, 1.25″ away from the center.

Add small scraps of grey to each corner. I suggest chain piecing at this point. I also didn’t trim the grey scraps. I just made sure they were big enough that once they are folded over, they cover the corner.

Trim each HST block to 2.5 inch squares.

Next, let’s make some flying geese! Sew together 2 HST’s to make your flying geese blocks. Chain piece again.

Sew the 2.5×3.5 rectangles on to the left side of each HST block. Make sure they are all pointing in the right direction.

Then do it again and again and again for each of the three colors.

OK, from here on out, I don’t have very good pictures!

Sew the blocks together along line 1, shown above, first. Do this with all the flying geese blocks.

Next take the double flying geese blocks and sew them together along line 2, shown above. Be sure to backstitch at the top and bottom of each!

And do that until you get length you want of the each of the rows of each color. Add strips of white between and you’re done!

There are a lot of little blocks, but they go pretty fast, especially if you chain piece them!

What do you think? Will you make it? If you do, please let me know! Can’t wait to see it!

Left and Right- Do Good Quilt Finish!

It’s long overdue, but I did finish another quilt! Another Nurture Circle do. Good Stitches Quilt!

Remember how I do those Quilt Design a Day projects? I haven’t posted any of those on the blog recently, either… Well, this quilt started as one of those designs! (you can see the group here)

This was the prompt we had! This silly picture of heart shaped sunglasses by design seeds was the inspiration. I took this and came up with this…

I got some great feedback on this design, so I knew I wanted to make it into a quilt. I thought the variation of fabric from a quilt bee would make this quilt fantastic!

And, if I do say so myself, I think it turned out pretty fantastic!

I think it was a pretty easy block for the group to make. Each person made 18 half square triangle blocks, 6 of each color. You can find all the directions here. I’ll post the directions to the blog shortly!

I’m so in love with the colors! And the variations on each color that came from all the members.

For the back I made a play on scale and made the one of each flying geese, but BIG! I always try to avoid these pictures with the wind, but I love how this one shows the little ones on the front juxtaposed next to big ones!

This picture shows the quilting the best. I did my usual straight line quilting, but at an angle with the flying geese. Then did a little stitch in the ditch along the flying geese to get the zigzags.

And of course, my label picture! I had fun photographing this one at the boathouse where we recently had our SMQG retreat with the help of Allison Sews and Snippets of Sweetness!

And I can mark this one off of my 2017 Finish A Long Quarter 1 List! Linking up here.

 

 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope you are having a day full of LOVE!

I thought it only fitting to share a bunch of blocks I recently made for our Do Good Stitches Circle! I don’t think this whole bunch took more than a couple of hours… In hindsight, I wish I’d made more before I put my pink stash away. I would have made myself a pillow!

Dhia is this months quilter and chose the blocks. For the large block we could choose between two different blocks, the hearts from Michael Miller’s Cupid’s Arrow quilt or the Be Good To Your Heart block from Diary of a Quilter. I choose the Michael Miller heart and used the direction on Dhia’s blog! You can download the whole quilt pattern by Tamara Kate here.

And then we made 5 small blocks using the pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew. And you can get instructions for different sizes here.

If you are able to sew today, sew up some hearts! Have a great Valentine’s Day!

 

Sunset Dreamin’- April do.Good Stitches Quilt

I’m so excited to show off this one! I’m totally in love with it! And it’s going to Quiltcon!!!

This one is a bit long overdue… I designed the blocks back in April for the do.Good Stitches Nurture Circle to make. You can see the tutorial here. And honestly, I didn’t know what I was going to do with the blocks when I got them back! I knew I wanted a stripey quilt, but not necessarily a striped quilt…. Does that make sense?

I was so impressed how well the blocks went together! It’s hard to make each block match up when you’ve got 10 people making blocks. But I couldn’t have asked for better blocks.

But what was I thinking? And why did I photograph this one at the beach?

Well, did you wear those stripey OP shirts back in the 80’s? Like these? I did… And I had the shorts, too. I remember going to Target as a kid in Houston and being so excited for OP. I can still see the intersection of where Target was. Anyway… The beach was on my mind back in April!

But I got the blocks and was stumped. I really did not know what to do with them! So I thought about it for months. (sorry group! I’m not supposed to take that long to put the quilts together.) Then one day it came to me. Striped angles hitting into each other…

So that’s what I got! The stripes went together perfectly! Then I added the big blocks of white. And when you cut triangles out of fabric, they can distort a bit… I learned that on another quilt I made. So I had to work that center a bit. But it came together quite nicely!

And that’s also why I photographed it at the beach. Ideally it would have been a nice summery day with blue skies and surf boards… But alas, I live in Seattle and we don’t get that weather all that often in the winter…

I did have one block that didn’t quit fit, so it’s on the back and break up the sunset and the water colors.

And a huge thanks to all the lovely ladies that made this quilt come together! And this is the second Nurture Circle do.Good Stitches quilt to be shown at Quiltcon! Yea! I can’t wait to see it hanging with all the others! I don’t know if I’m going yet or not, but I know someone will snap a pic, if I don’t…

I’m in love with this one….

And it’s the one and only on my 4th Quarter Finish Along that I actually finished!

 

 

 

January doGood Stitches Quilt

This is my first doGood Stitches post for the year! WOW!

Have you seen the Forest Quilt Along Quilt hosted by Shape Moth? It’s precious! But A LOT of work! Each block is either an animal or forest plant. For our group, we each got to choose one block. And then Kat from Kat and Cat Quilts pieced them. I choose the fox! I’ve been wanting to make the fox for a long time. So I jumped on it!

I do love how she put all the pieces together. And the triangle piece going through, but tying it all together at the same time.

My block was pretty straight forward. I picked the Maple Fox by Sewing Under the Rainbow. But some of our bee mates blocks were not so straightforward. Some of the blocks the instructions were very confusing on how to actually put the paper pieced sections together. The fox is pretty easy in that sense. From what I hear, all the blocks are time consuming. But don’t they look great!? It’s a great BOM project for sure.

You can see the fun quilting and someone added eyes to the little fox! Smart thinking!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to make the fox, Kat!

 

 

June Blocks for Nurture Circle- Quilts for Fort McMurray

I haven’t posted about any of our do.Good quilts this year, but I’m skipping ahead to the June blocks!

For the June blocks we decided to switch from our regular charity to do the maple blocks that were called for for the Quilts for Fort McMurray. I know with all the devastation in Orlando, the deadline for the Fort McMurray deadline may be getting overlooked! (Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be making blocks for Orlando as soon as I get home from vacation!) But I’m hoping my posting will be a last minute reminder for everyone that wanted to make these blocks but haven’t yet! The deadline to mail is June 30th!

It’s funny (not in a haha kinda way) how fast our news moves from one situation to the next. Once the drama is gone, the news stories move to the next drama. Fort McMurray in Alberta Canada, was devastated by fires earlier this year. Whole neighborhoods burned to the ground. Whole towns evacuated. I know here in Washington there are worries about the wildfires starting early. I can’t imagine what the people of these towns have gone through. But the news has moved on… As a quilter, I want to be able to make a little difference to these people and let them know that just becuase the news has moved on, there are many people who still have the fire victims in their hearts.

The call for blocks from SloStudio lists a couple of different tutorials to make these blocks. I choose to use the tutorial from All Patched Up. It’s such a simple block! I think it took me about an hour to do both blocks, including picking fabric! I did a bit chain piecing that I think helped move it along faster!

Have you made these blocks? There’s still time to make them and get them in the mail! All the info, including where to mail the blocks to, is right here!