Ornament Collection Quilt / Beauties Pageant 303

When I learned that one of my sisters-in-law likes Rifle Paper Co’s designs, I took it as an opportunity to—ahem!—buy some fabric. I chose selections from multiple lines to curate a collection of wintery scenes, Nutcracker motifs, and Christmas decorations. 



The oversize baubles and balls in my Ornament Collection quilt pattern were the perfect venue for these prints. I loved using big swaths of the fabrics to feature the sweet designs instead of cutting them into tiny bits. 

And I am smitten with the palette. There were so many colors in the fabrics to choose from. I homed in on grayish blue, orangey red, apple green, and forest green. I am a sucker for nontraditional holiday palettes!

My friend Ophelia gave this project her special panto treatment with a swirly holly-and-berry design, and I found the perfect striped fabric for the binding, one that plays off the grayish blue in the ornament frames. I hope I can get my hands on more of it because I have a bunch of fabric leftover, and naturally, I’m planning on a near-identical Ornament Collection for my other sister-in-law, who is also a fan of Rifle Paper. : )

We’re less than five months out from Christmas ... Is anyone else sewing now for the holidays?!
 

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Pattern Hack! Pixelated Herringbone / Beauties Pageant 298

It was just a matter of time before I hacked one of the patterns from Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts ...

Ever since I made the original Pixelated Herringbone, I wanted to make a version from my scrap bin.  Early this spring my sewing schedule was finally clear. It was time!

The Piecing and Fabric Pull

I let my stash and scraps dictate the palette for this version. I found two blues in my stash that worked well together, and I took them to my big bin of 2.5-inch squares. A bunch of Art Gallery scraps in blues, teals, mauves, and grays set the palette. When my scrap bin didn’t provide enough of a particular color or value, I cut a 2.5-inch strip from stash. 

The beauty of the Pixelated Herringbone design lies in the strip sets used in its construction. (It’s a pixelated quilt that takes much less time than you’d imagine!) Once I decided to make the design scrappy, however, I had to veer from my own instructions. 

The chunks of solid fabrics were still constructed with strip sets, but because I was using 2.5-inch squares from my scrap bin, the sections with prints had to be assembled individually. If I were a leader-and-ender kind of gal, I would have gone that route and sewn the prints together slowly over time. I do not sew any leader-and-ender projects, though, and instead sewed all the print units at once. This approach took longer than the original Pixelated Herringbone I made for the book, but the finished quilt top was worth the extra time. I foresee making more scrappy beauties like this one!

The Quilting and Binding

Pixelated Herringbone is a big quilt, measuring in at 64.5 inches by 80.5 inches, so instead of quilting it myself, I passed the torch to Lilo Whitener-Fey of Trace Creek Quilting to do her magic. She quilted the project with an edge-to-edge panto called Hexi Flower. 

I’ve been doing more quilting myself lately—mainly because I’ve been making smaller quilts and have had the time to quilt projects on my domestic—but my straight-line quilting would have fallen flat here. Working with a longarmer as skilled as Lilo was the way to go! 

To finish off the project, I used a stripe from Denyse Schmidt’s 2009 collection, Hope Valley. I tried multiple solids to tone down the scrappiness of the project, but the stripe really drives the idea home that this is a scrappy quilt.

Do you, too, have a giant bin of 2.5-inch squares? A scrappy Pixelated Herringbone requires 480 of them. I wish I could say this made a discernible dent in my bin, but it didn’t!

 

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Ridiculously Easy YouTube Video / Beauties Pageant 296

The short version of the story I am about to tell is this: Eep! I made a YouTube video about my Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt pattern. You can access it below ...

The longer version is that 10 years ago I posted a tutorial for my Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt. Then 5 years ago, I converted that tutorial into a full-fledged pattern. This pattern has consistently been my most popular design, and its success is what propelled me into writing Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts.

It was time for a little sprucing, however. I added some more illustrations to the pattern, outfitted it with my new logo, and developed some bonus resources that anyone can access.

First off is the YouTube video. Every so often someone contacts me because they work better with videos than written patterns. This video does not tell you how to sew the pattern—to cut the fabric and sew the columns, you need to have the pattern in hand. It does, however, give a broad overview and discusses the issues of selecting fabric and sewing long columns together.  (Ridiculously Easy is a column-based pattern, not a block-based one.)

 

 

(Not going to lie ... It’s painful for me to watch that video! Please ignore the glare from my glasses and every instance of “um”!)

Forthcoming is a digital coloring page on PreQuilt. I already have some designs up on PreQuilt, and you can play with coloring them without having a PreQuilt subscription. Check them out here.

To celebrate this new-and-improved version, the PDF version of Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt is just $10 through Thursday, June 19. Pick up the Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt pattern in the From Bolt to Beauty store or Etsy shop!

 

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My Love of Hearts / Beauties Pageant 281

Picture by Melanie Zacek. Copyright 2025 C&T Publishing.

I don’t know what it is about hearts, but I love them. Perhaps they remind me of being a kid and collecting heart stickers or doodling hearts on my schoolwork? Whatever the reason, decades later hearts still make me smile.

It follows, of course, that I love heart quilts. And in a household where the only other females are Golden Retrievers, I know that any heart quilt I make is specifically for my own enjoyment. (Turns out, teenage boys aren’t big fans of heart quilts. Who knew?!)

I didn’t have the bandwidth to design or sew a new heart design for Valentine’s Day this year, but when I sat down and thought about it, I’ve designed a bunch of heart quilts already ...

There’s my Love Boldly quilt pattern, which I sewed for a QuiltCon 2020 stripes challenge ...

Then there’s the Folk Heart project I wrote about in December. This is a one-time sew for me (I won’t be writing the pattern), and I’m keeping this beauty for myself.

And remember the talk of my upcoming book release, Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts? When I first mentioned it last September, the April 2025 release date seemed so far away. Now that we’re almost in February, April is just around the corner. I’ll be launching a series of blog posts to talk about the 14 quilts in the book, but I wanted to give you a sneak peek of two heart quilts in the collection.

Buoyant Hearts, a project with rows of hearts that bob up and down on a background of jelly roll strips, is pictured at the top of the post, and I Heart Rainbows, seen folded up below, adorns each easy-to-sew rainbow with a heart ...

Picture by Melanie Zacek. Copyright 2025 C&T Publishing.

See? Those pictures have you smiling, too, right? Are you sewing any hearts for this Valentine’s Day? I’d love to see your Valentine’s projects past and present in this week’s linky!

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Ornament Collection Pattern Release / Beauties Pageant 273

Ornament Collection, the design I’ve been talking about the past few weeks, is done, and I’ve released the pattern out into the world!

Instructions include two projects that are appropriate for confident beginners and above: a large throw-size quilt and a table runner. If your weekend sewing plans are open, you can start your project today and have a quilt top finished before the turkey is on the table next Thursday. (If you don’t celebrate American Thanksgiving, the turkey is optional but recommended.)

This pattern is especially suited to those of you who want to ...

* Sew a big quilt fast—the throw finishes at 70" x 73.5"



* Use leftover squares from a layer cake—the runner requires just five squares 10" x 10"



* Maximize your precuts—you can sew two throws and two runners with a single layer cake (although fat quarters work, too!)



* Celebrate the holidays by making big, bold blocks—the ball blocks finish at 13.5" x 14.5", and the bauble blocks finish at 8.5" x 14.5"

For my first Ornament Collection project, pictured at the top of the post, I opened up a layer cake of Twas by Jill Howarth for Riley Blake. The red, green, and pink palette is the perfect complement to the vintage vibe of Twas.

My next version, which I am in the process of piecing now, incorporates prints from Rifle Paper Co.’s holiday lines for Cotton and Steel. I’m using another light background with this second quilt because it’s more in line with my personal aesthetic .... and a cream or a white doesn’t show the Golden Retriever hair the way a dark background would! I love nontraditional Christmas palettes, and the pale blue and orangey-red I am using will change things up nicely ...

A green background would be equally fabulous, though, and drive home the idea that these are ornaments hanging on the tree. Here is the throw mocked up with Cozy Wonderland by Fancy That Design House for Moda ...

I am very pleased with how my first Ornament Collection came out. I received some expert advice about quilting options for my second version and will share that in a future post! Until then, this is my favorite finish for November, so I am linking up over at Quilting Jet Girl!

All PDF Patterns 25% Off

To celebrate the release of Ornament Collection, all PDF patterns (excluding the Almost Free for Charity patterns) are 25% off through 11/30/2024. No code required. This is my Black Friday sale—snag your good buys now!

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Let's Talk Table Runners / Beauties Pageant 272

In the 10-plus years I’ve been quilting, I have made a total of three table runners. On one hand, I have limited places in my house I’d display a runner. My children (and/or dogs) may do bad things to a table runner (there was an applesauce incident on the kitchen table just this past week!). And putting covers on my pretty table tops doesn’t seem really “me.”

On the other, if I made more runners, I would have more-frequent finishes, and wouldn’t that be nice?

When designing my Ornament Collection pattern (releasing next Tuesday, November 19), I added a runner option. The sample I’ve made so far is the throw, and it’s a generously sized throw at that. But I figured that some people might want a smaller, faster finish. What I didn’t consider until Anne (@batiksbythebay) mentioned it to me on Instagram is that people who live in the southern hemisphere celebrate Christmas in the summer. They have little need for a Christmas-themed throw. Of course! Why didn’t I consider that? Needless to say, all future Christmas designs from me will include the option of a smaller finish for that very reason.

Me with a freshly longarmed Ornament Collection. Picture and quilting by Ophelia Chang.

Because I am a runner newbie, however, I had to ask Anne how she would orient the ornaments in a runner.

Should they all be right side up (as I would prefer on a runner displayed on a console placed against a wall)?

Or should the baubles be upside down (as I would prefer on a runner displayed on a kitchen island)?

Anne said both, and that’s what I’ll do. : )

So, what other runners have I made up to this point?

There was the runner I made for the sideboard in my dining room (and still resides there).

There was the runner I made from Modern Plus Sign Quilts and gifted to a friend.

And then there was the runner I made from a free pattern on Moda Bake Shop and gifted to another friend.

You knew this was coming ... I am soliciting any and all thoughts on quilted runners. Do you sew them? Do you display them? What are your thoughts on the issue of orientation? Thank you in advance!

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New Christmas Pattern on the Horizon! / Beauties Pageant 271

I am always on the lookout for quilt patterns that give especially beautiful prints the spotlight they deserve. It was the reason I designed Pretty in Pluses back in 2021: I loved the large-scale flowers in Anna Maria Horner’s Hindsight line and couldn’t bear to chop them into little pieces, so I created a venue for them to shine. Other versions of the quilt followed, including the pattern’s cover quilt in Heather Ross’s Far, Far Away 2 collection for Windham ...

When it came time to sew with a stashed layer cake of Jill Howarth’s Twas collection for Riley Blake, I knew I wanted to design something special for all those sweet novelty prints. What you see pictured in this post is the beginning of that new pattern. I’m calling it Ornament Collection, a nod to the tradition my mom started with me and my sister (and I’ve continued with my two boys) of marking each holiday season with a new ball or bauble for the Christmas tree.

This quilty collection contains two different ornament designs. You see the ball blocks in this post. There are also bauble blocks. Both block designs were specifically created to work with layer cake squares, but you could just as easily cut the centers of your ornaments from fat quarters (or scraps—but more on that later!).

These blocks are big, friends! And all you need for a generously sized throw quilt is 15 layer cake squares or 8 fat quarters.

This first version isn’t finished, yet I already have a second one—in Rifle Paper Co. prints—in the works. I can’t wait to share more! 

Are you a fan of seasonal sewing? I don’t expect to gift many handmade items this year. If I wrap up a quilt or two in the next six weeks, I’ll be a happy quilter!

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