Quilting

I got started on another of my RSC2022 projects this week. It’s called On the Move by Melissa Corry. I’m doing the remix on her blog using the Charming Baby Quilts book. I’m only showing the long red arrow, but I did all the cutting & planning, plus sewed all the HSTs.

Here are the first stars for Dancing Stars by Amy Ellis. They are labor intensive so there are a few more reds to make next week. I think I need to make one every other day of the month going forward so I don’t get bogged down. They’re super cute, though! I saw someone making these last year for RSC & fell in love. The pattern is free for signing up for Amy’s newsletter.

I decided what to do with those four Amy Ellis Scraps blocks I made last week. I made 24 more red blocks this week, then I will set them aside and make 28 Options blocks in gray and low-volumes to alternate in a quilt. The beauty of taking a photo is that you notice the one block you made backwards, so yes, I fixed it!

In other sewing this week, I got back to the Judy Martin log cabin hearts, finishing four blocks. I have 3/4 of a coral heart plus 1/4 of a cream heart. They are stunning on the design wall, but they take a while to piece.

I have one more red project to work on next week and then I will have all my reds done. How is your month going?

This week has been a lot of planning & cutting. I figured out the setting & chose the blocks I want to do for this long-awaited quilt. I allocated my chosen blocks to the various colors & cut the reds.

This low-volume scrappy quilt by Gigi’s Thimble is next on my list of 2022 projects. I got all the low-volumes cut & the various colors of charm squares collected or cut. They need to be sub-cut but I’ll do that month by month.

I’ve been planning to do Catching Rainbows by Bonnie Hunter as soon as I saw her working on it. I got the pattern on release day & set aside for RSC2022. There’s a lot of cutting to do for this quilt, so I’ve got the 7 red blocks all cut & some of the pinks.

Dancing Stars by Amy Ellis is a foundation pieced project that I’m doing with a batik layer cake I’ve had for a long time. I purchased a gray grunge for the background. The gray & whites are cut & most of the colored squares, plus the patterns are copied onto foundation paper. Ready to start sewing!

In other sewing news, I’m making a September Sky by Bonnie Hunter for Christmas 2022, but it’s going to be in scrappy green & yellow. I made all 64 of the green 9-patches so half the blocks for the quilt are done. I’ll set this aside & make the scrappy yellow stars later. But it feels good to have these done.

Project Number One was struck off the list in May when I realized that the fabrics I had chosen for my Nearly LeMoyne Stars by Bonnie Hunter just weren’t going to work for the rest of the year. I stopped work & will finish it up as a WIP next year (or the year after-you know how this goes!)

Project Number Two was these 16 twinkling Friendship Star blocks. I decided the quilt wasn’t going to be big enough, so have decided to make it a continuing project where I make 1 block/month instead of 2 during 2022, then it will be ready to put together next fall. Thanks to Deb A. for the inspiration.

Project Number Three is resized Cozy Stars from the Pat Sloan QAL called Cozy Things. I made 4 each color month except August so I have 8 groups of 4. I have finally decided on a layout & it involves snowballing the center with the color of the stars, (here it would be red), then a sashing I am borrowing from a Bonnie Hunter pattern. It’s going to be more work than I wanted to deal with at the end of this year, so it’s going to be a RSC2022 project to get it together, one color a month.

Now for my 6 finishes or at least the tops are done! Project Number 4 was the biggest: a king-size Irish Chain that received lots of encouraging comments as I worked it through. It was a Christmas gift & they just love it!! I used the free tutorial from Melissa Corry. It has a black binding to finish it off & the background is scrappy.

Project Number Five is “Hip to be Square” from “Splash of Color” by Jackie Kunkel. I absolutely love how this came out. It’s at the quilter now so will be finished & ready to gift for Christmas 2022. I’ve had this book for a long time & wanted to make some of the patterns. So glad I finally got one done!

Project Number Six is the Plus quilt that made it to flimsy stage but hasn’t been quilted yet. It is my own design & began life with another idea in mind where the pluses were more grouped. After a while, I didn’t think it worked, so this year for RSC2021 I started unpicking the partial top, retaining as many sewed plus blocks as possible, & sewing them back together in a more ordered fashion. I offset each row, & the entire quilt is made up of 2.5″ squares with each plus having the same fabric in it, but all the pluses are different & the grays are mostly dark & scrappy.

Project Number Seven is Brickhouse which is also currently at the quilter. I got the idea for this quilt from Sylvia, who was inspired by Jo’s Country Junction, who found the idea originated with Julie of Me and My Quilts. I sewed the columns during each color month & sewed the top together in October for a finish. I used scrappy light gray squares for the low-volume sections.

Project Number Eight is the zig-zag quilt inspired by Diann at Little Penguin Quilts. It hasn’t been quilted yet & doesn’t have a name, but the flimsy is done! I sewed this month by month, but it would be a great L&E project for the future in a different color scheme. I made it with 5″ squares so I cut some from my scraps & used some charm squares. The background came from a layer cake I cut into squares so it’s consistent, but has different patterns.

Project Number Nine is also a flimsy waiting to be quilted. It began life as an RSC2020 project, inspired by a quilt I saw on Making a Lather, who credited Cynthia Brunz with her inspiration. I planned to carry it over to RSC 2021 & in a nice circle of coincidence, Cynthia’s Jan 15 blog post introduced her Scrap Mixology pattern called Chaser, which is this quilt! I’ve purchased her previous modules & immediately got this one. Because I had blocks already done from last year, this one got sewn together in August.

Finally finished this WIP. The jelly roll is from Riley Blake & supported autism research. It was given to me by the hubster for my birthday when I first began quilting & has waited for the “perfect” project. At the beginning of my Covid isolation I decided to pull it out, just pick a pattern, scrounge up background fabric & sew it up. I finally got it quilted last fall in a cute puzzle pattern & got the binding on & hand-sewn. It’s destined to be a 2022 Christmas gift. “Twists & Turns” is from a free tutorial by Melissa Corry and is my 100th quilt.

RSC2021 flimsy done! This is the re-designed Plus quilt I did without a pattern. I had a different original idea but didn’t like how it was going halfway through the year, so unpicked a lot & put it together like this. It’s made exclusively from 2.5″ scrappy squares. It’s hung in the closet with the ever-growing pile of tops to be quilted.

And here’s what my quilting partner & I are doing in our weekly virtual quilting group: Cookie Cutter by Jaybird Quilts. Without knowing it, we both took a class for this quilt (at different quilt shops) in summer 2018. One day a few months later I mentioned something about this quilt & how I was scared to get it back out & do the cutting & sewing. Then she said she had it, too! Hilarious. We’ve been dreading it for years now & after finishing our large hexie quilt, I got it out & started looking through the instructions. I realized that in the time that’s transpired, we’ve done everything in the instructions in other quilts! So we are pounding out a color set each week & they look great. With holidays, we expect to finish sometime in January! Hers is solid, mine is prints by Tula Pink.