What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Whisper
June 2024

I’ve been focusing my quilting this year on using what I have in my scraps and stash, and to avoid (as much as possible) buying new fabric. Between these two sources of fabric, I probably have enough to make a few dozen quilts! This quilt, like All Star and Homecoming that I made earlier this year, was also inspired by an orphan block that I received from Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter. The inspiration block for this quilt is on the left side, immediately below the fold (row 3, column 1). If you look at ...

Donation Blocks for Teal Waters Run Deep
June 2024

Each year, in honor of my sister and her sister-in-law, I make blocks to be included in a quilt donation for the Trudy Crowley Foundation fund-raiser held in Australia. The foundation supports the Trudy Crowley Center, providing a safe space, self-care and advice for those with ovarian cancer and their families. Kate over at Tall Tales from Chiconia is the maestro for the donation quilt, orchestrating the theme, layout and final assembly, and coordinating with the many quilters who provide blocks. Each year, she comes up with clever and fun new ...

Explorers

April 2024

These cute little explorers were among the fabric I received from Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter. I fussy cut them, and then dug into my scraps bins to make the string and four-patch blocks. The backing fabric is a print of boats, telescopes and compasses – everything an explorer needs for a grand adventure.

As a sailor, backpacker and general fan of the great outdoors, this saying speaks to me:

“Not all who wander are lost”
                            — J.R.R. Tolkien

Well in my case, not always. There was one backpacking trip when my husband and I were ...

Betty B
March 2024

My very first blog post over ten years ago included Aunt Betty’s 9 Patch quilt that had been started by my Great Aunt Betty, many, many years ago. I inherited this as a “flimsy” sometime in the last millennia (wow, that’s fun to say), and, based on the fabric, I would guess that she had made it sometime in the 1940’s. It was twin size, and unfortunately, wasn’t very well sewn. At that time, I disassembled down to the block level, selected the best of the 9 patch blocks and reassembled into ...

All Star

February 2024

For the past two years, I’ve been making an effort to use only my stash and scraps for making quilts and quankets, as I have no shortage of either! I do bend this self-imposed restriction when my artistic-self tells me that purchasing that ‘just right’ fabric is necessary.

Last month, my design of Homecoming began with orphan blocks and was then rounded out with scraps. This quilt – All Star – also started with orphan blocks that I had received from Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter. She had given me two blue and two beige/golden ...

Homecoming
January 2024

Since receiving a box stuffed full of various fabrics from Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter back in 2022, I continue to incorporate her scraps where I can. The box she sent was stuffed to overflowing with small scraps, a few orphan blocks and a few larger backing-sized fabrics. I’ve featured two of her orphan pinwheel blocks in the center of this baby quilt and made two more of my own to complement her two. I then used other orphan blocks from past projects of mine, including some from, Onshore Breeze and Palahdee. I think that ...

Walk in the Woods
January 2024

I finally finished my Jacquelynne Steves Secret Garden BOM from Summer 2022! While I had completed the top in 2022, I spent most of 2023 looking for that “just right” backing fabric, but was having no luck. I finally got the push I needed to get this off my UFO rack when a local group was wanting donations for the holiday season for the Good Shepard Shelter, a long-term treatment and education-based shelter for women and their children who are healing from domestic violence. So, I gave up looking for the “just right” backing ...

Humpty’sTulips
December 2023

This year has been a year of many changes. Back in January, my Dad relocated to an assisted living facility that is 200 miles closer to me than where he had previously lived: he’s now about 15 miles away. With him being closer, I now not only get the time to hangout and visit with him more often, but I’m also available to help him with his doctor’s appointments, which are abundant. As such, my time has become much more limited this year for my hobbies — sailing, sewing and gardening.

But, this wasn ...

Seashore Treasures
June 2023

I made this Simply Serene quilt using scraps from my scraps bins and scraps that I had received from Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter. While I missed the cutoff to include this quilt in this year’s Hands2Help Challenge, hosted by Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, I plan to include this with the other three quilts I’ll be sending to Little Lambs Foundation in Utah. Little Lambs Foundation provides backpacks full of comfort items for children from newborn to 17 who are transitioning into foster care, emergency shelters, or hospitalization. This ...

Donation Blocks for This Teal’s on Fire
June 2023

Once again, Kate over at Tall Tales from Chiconia is preparing an Ovarian Cancer charity quilt for the Trudy Crowley Foundation fund-raiser to be held later this year (in Australia). The theme for this year’s donation quilt is This Teal’s on Fire, a play on words of the Bob Dylan song This Wheel’s on Fire. The idea is to create the impression of a flicker of flame on teal ‘wheels’ across the quilt.

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at making New York Beauty blocks ...

Raggedy Ann
May 2023

I made this quilt for this year’s Hands2Help Challenge, hosted by Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. During last year’s Hands2Help Challenge, Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter suffered a shoulder injury and asked if I would finish some baby quilts on her behalf. When she sent the baby quilt tops that I finished into Polka Party 1-4, she also sent a box stuffed full of scrap fabrics and remnant pieces. One of the remnant pieces was some Raggedy Ann and Andy fabric, which I’ve incorporated here.

Raggedy Ann (and Andy ...

Shark!
September 2022

Back in July, when Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter sent the baby quilt tops that I finished into Polka Party 1-4, she also sent a box stuffed full of scrap fabrics and remnant pieces. One of the remnant pieces was the shark fabric, which I thought was too cute to fussy cut, so I used it as bands at the top and bottom. I also used some blue scrap fabrics she had sent, and pulled a bunch of scappy blues from my scraps box to create the center section. The pieces to create the rows were ...

Where Pink Happens
September 2022

Did you know that scientists question the existence of the color pink? I hadn’t really been looking for information on the topic of the color pink’s existence, but the internet seems to have many rabbit holes for one to fall into! It is actually quite a fascinating topic – one to tuck away for a potential conversation starter. My take away from the Scientific American article is that I’m quite happy that our brains provide us with the sensation of color, as pink has always been a favorite of mine. When my sisters ...

Polka Party 1
August 2022

Polka Party 2
August 2022

Polka Party 3
August 2022

Polka Party 4
August 2022

Here are four baby quilts that were designed and pieced by Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter. She had made these as part of this year’s Hands to Help Challenge, but had sustained a shoulder injury before she was able to quilt and bind them. She reached out to me to ask if I would like to finish them, which I did! I really enjoy quilting baby quilts, as they are a great way to practice and improve my ...

Love Hugs Back
June 2022

First a disclaimer: I did not make this quilt, my daughters made it as a surprise birthday gift for me! They began earlier this year, working in tandem, using my husband as a courier to pass cut fabric pieces and finished blocks between their two homes. All the while, I never knew that anything was going on — yeap, totally oblivious — which is quite amazing considering we are at each of their homes to hang out and play with our grandkids every week. Also, as a quilter who often tracks random threads from my sewing room ...

24.5554° N
June 2022

The inspiration for this recently finished quanket came from Kate Spain’s block #8 which was part of Moda Block Heads 4. The center of each of the four 22″ blocks was fabric given to me many year’s ago by a family friend. I had been waiting for just the right block design to use these very special pieces, as I did not want to lose the beautiful floral designs by cutting them. While the block design was intended with a white center, these sample pieces from the iconic fashion brand, Key West Hand ...

Donation Blocks for Can You Teal the Love
May 2022

When Kate over at Tall Tales from Chiconia announced that she is making an Ovarian Cancer charity quilt this year – after a two year pandemic hiatus – I knew right away that I wanted to contribute to this quilt project. The last one I had participated in was Go Teal it on the Mountain, back in 2018. The theme this year is love, with hearts being the feature element in the blocks’ design. To keep things interesting, she expanded the colorway from teal (predominant) and ivory, to include pink (in small ...

Bubblegum
May 2022

Here’s another quilt I made as part of this year’s Hands2Help Challenge that I will be sending to The Little Lambs Foundation in Utah. The challenge is being hosted by Mari over at The Academic Quilter.

This quilt incorporates a lot of “pieces of the past”. The fussy cut zoo animal centers were from my 2014 quilt, Balancing Hippopotami. The pink polka dot fabric is some from my Granny that has been in my stash and has made numerous appearances in my quankets for several years now. Another blast-from-the-past fabric is the backing fabric. I ...

Play Ball
May 2022

I used this printed panel to make a quanket (quilt + blanket = quanket). It will be donated as part of this year’s Hands2Help Challenge. The challenge is being hosted by Mari over at The Academic Quilter.

While I typically tie the fleece-backed quankets I make, I decided to try something different with this one, and quilted it on my machine. I had tried quilting on a fleece-backed quilt years ago, but became frustrated when the fleece bunched, and looked a mess no matter how many pins I used to hold it in place. However, between then ...

Sisterhood
April 2022

For this recently completed jeans quilt, I used my and my sister Cathi’s old worn jeans. I had been wanting to make a jeans quilt for some time, but hadn’t found any designs that interested me. I had seen one that was made similar to this, except the folded over piece had been radiused, resembling a cathedral block. I wanted a more modern look so left the folded piece squared off, and mitered the corners. Since the back, or inside, of used jeans can be quite plain looking, I used Annie’s Craft Store’s ...