Owls and Bunnies, Quilted and Bound / Beauties Pageant 76

Not all fabric designs are conducive to being cut into little bits and sewn back together. Some are better off cut into big chunks and showcased. Such is the case with Maureen Cracknell’s Nightfall line, a collection I won in fat quarters ages ago that features beautiful oversize owls and sweet bunnies.

It took a long time to find the right pattern for Maureen’s designs, but when Alison Vermilya posted her Garden Plots pattern to Moda Bake Shop, I knew Garden Plots and Nightfall were a great match.

Alison’s pattern calls for a jelly roll and yardage, so I had to get creative, supplementing my Nightfall fat quarters with solids from my stash and trimming down the size of the project. In the end, I made it work, although there was more unsewing than I would have liked as I refined my plan for the quilt.

The back was an opportunity to use up gold and teal yardage, and my friend Lisa Teichmann quilted the project on her longarm.

I still have a stack of Nightfall fat quarters from the Moonset colorway—all in eggplant and salmon and teal. Do you have any recommendations for other quilt patterns that will allow me to keep the critters in this line intact? If so, I’m all ears (big, floppy bunny ears, that is).

Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday ...

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Progress! / Beauties Pageant 65

So we’re 17 days into this new year, and I am happy to report that I’m making some good headway on projects. I’ve been alternating between things I prefer to do, like picking fabrics for new blocks, and things I have to do, like hand-sewing a hanging sleeve. The progress is slow but steady—I’m determined to make the most of this quiet, cold New England winter!

Projects that I plan on finishing this first quarter include ...

Scrappy Granny Squares

I just trimmed 15 blocks for this top and sewed 5 new ones. All I need is 10 more blocks and some skinny sashing, and I’ll have a quilt top!

Farmhouse Chic

Back in November, I wrote about my plan to tear through my Denyse Schmidt and Amy Butler stash. This project, then just a handful of blocks, is now a full-fledged flimsy.

Rainbow Strip-and-Flip #1

With no imminent need for a baby quilt, this project has been on the back burner for months. Heaven help me, I need to wrap this project up sooner rather than later—if not to gift to a newborn, then for my own peace of mind!

All three of these are my Q1 Finish-A-Long goals. A three-project to-do list is completely doable, right? (If you’re participating in the FAL this year, the posts that count are exclusively on Instagram. For more information, read the rules here.)

How is 2020 treating you? Share your recent triumphs in the comments below on in this week’s Beauties Pageant link-up!

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Little Farmer Quilt / Beauties Pageant 44

My philosophy these days is I can sew anything I want as long as I already own the fabric to make it. I do make an occasional exception—like, if I need background fabric or if a few print additions would flesh out a fabric pull—but for the most part, this strategy is helping me prune my stash, fat quarter by fat quarter.

Most baby quilt patterns work within these parameters, and as a friend’s due date approached earlier this summer, I started cutting for another Little Man Quilt. This pattern, from Camille Roskelley’s Simplify, is one I’ve made before (here and here). I knew that with some scraps of Stacy Iest Hsu’s Farm Fun in hand, I could transform this pattern into a quilt for a little farmer.

First, I added the Kona Parchment solid and the sweet green sprouts to the fabric pull. Then I wasn’t sure where to take the palette. Because of my stash-busting philosophy, my supply of prints that read as one color is dwindling, and I had limited options for supporting prints. The yellows and blues I had on hand didn’t work, so I decided to incorporate red and green, resorting to using some 10-inch squares I had set aside for my in-process Bonnie and Camille Gypsy Wife Quilt. (Let’s hope stealing from Peter to sew for Paul doesn’t get me in trouble later on!)

Honestly, I was somewhat nervous with my selections as I pieced the blocks—after all, there are many more pretty strawberries and wildflowers on this quilt top than there are manly tractors!—but I’m hoping my friend and her baby will like it. And I’m proud that there are only splashes of white in the finished piece. My inclination with quilt tops in general is to go with tons of white, and that’s just not practical for a baby.

My Little Farmer Quilts is the first one I’m checking off my Q3 Finish-A-Long list!

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

2019 Finish-A-Long: Q3 Goals

The fabulous hosts of this year’s Finish-A-Long are at it again, encouraging us quilters to set some goals for the upcoming quarter.

My list of WIPs is getting longer by the day. Here are the ones that I will admit to starting in the past few months and that I hope to finish by the October 9 deadline ...

Little Farmer Quilt

This baby quilt is my priority right now. The top is almost finished—so just basting, quilting, and binding to go. (Do you like my use of “just” there, as if basting, quilting, and binding happen in a day or two?) Update: The finished quilt is posted here!

Lapsize Ship’s Ladder Quilt

I have no recollection of buying a bundle of Denyse Schmidt’s New Bedford line, but one has been aging in my stash for a few years now. I finally started cutting into it, to make a lapsize Ship’s Ladder Quilt, which Denyse designed for the collection.

Baby Ship’s Ladder Quilt

Do I know a baby who needs a quilt? No, but I am determined to bust through my New Bedford bundle, and that lapsize one won’t cut it. A second Ship’s Ladder Quilt, sized for a little person, should polish it off.

Granny Squares

I shared my granny square blocks earlier this month. Right now, I have 11 blocks done. That means I have 19 more blocks—or 779 2.5-inch squares—more to go.

Rainbow Strip-and-Flip #1

My first-ever strip-and-flip project is pieced and waiting to be quilted. The plan is to free-motion quilt it. (Say a little prayer for me on that front.)

Rainbow Strip-and-Flip #2

This project looks suspiciously like the one above, right? I hope to sew this heap of fabric into an identical strip-and-flip quilt.

Garden Plots in Nightfall

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... You’ve seen this quilt before on my FAL lists, which is maddening because the top was 90 percent completed back in November.

You know there are other WIPs here at From Bolt to Beauty world headquarters, and it would take a minor act of God for me to finish the seven listed here, let alone entertain the notion of finishing the others. Regardless of the success or failure I am setting myself up for(!), thank you, in advance, for accompanying me on the journey!

Finally, a Finish / Beauties Pageant 30

It has been a long time since I’ve unveiled a fully finished quilt! I’m happy to introduce you today to my latest foray into scrapping quilting: Valentine.

My version of this pattern, found in Elizabeth Hartman’s Practical Guide to Patchwork, was dictated by a fabric I used on the back. The recipient of this quilt is a librarian, and I could not resist splurging on some of Heather Givans’ Overdue print ...

The shades of periwinkle, aqua, teal, and berry that I pulled from the back were not my usual palette, but I had a surprising amount in my scraps and stash. It felt great to put those jewel tones to good use. The fabric deficits that remained were made up by friends who dug into their own scraps for me.

I quilted this project using the Prostitcher at my local quilt shop. It was my second time using a pantograph on the longarm, and everything went OK, although the quilting design I chose at this density required me to change the bobbin a dozen times. (Bleck.)

There are so many great fabrics in this quilt, including long-cherished prints from Catnap by Lizzy House and Botanics by Carolyn Friedlander.

I’m thrilled to add that this is one of my Q2 Finish-A-Long goals. : )

Linking up to Oh Scrap! ...

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My apologies to those of you who visited last week only to realize that the Beauties Pageant wasn’t happening. I was attending a local Special Olympics event instead of bragging about my own scrappy finish. (For the record, the games were a big, wet bust. My athlete would have nothing to do with the rain!) But the pageant is back today, and we’re all waiting to see this week’s participants!

The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

2019 Finish-A-Long: Q2 Goals

My Finish-A-Long Q1 list was humble, composed of a mere four projects, and I managed to finish only one of the four before the deadline. (Lame!) But every finish counts as an entry to the prize drawings, and I won! I linked up my Jane Market Bags in the finish linky and scored a fat gift certificate to Sew Sweetness.

I have higher expectations for the next quarter—it’s my attempt to wrap up as much as I can before summer is in full swing. I’ll start with the new-to-you projects because the holdovers from Q1 aren’t nearly as fun to talk about ...

Neighborhood

I probably would have completed more of my Q1 goals if I weren’t sewing up this quilt top and pieced back. This pattern is called Neighborhood. It’s an older one from Elizabeth Hartman, before she started designing critter quilts, found in her Modern Patchwork. I haven’t decided on my plan of attack for the quilting yet.

Update: Neighborhood is finished!

Gypsy Wife

I’ve been chipping away at the blocks for my Gypsy Wife quilt in Bonnie and Camille fabrics. Current home renovations are affecting my sewing space, however, and I really need to jury-rig a design wall once things settle down. As a result, I won’t be finishing my quilt with the rest of the quilt-along participants, but I will finish it.

Valentine Quilt

This quilt, designed by Elizabeth Hartman and published in her Practical Guide to Patchwork, is super close to being done. I could have finished it at the 11th hour for Q1, but I spent time with my husband instead (#goodwifey).

 Update: Valentine is finished!

Garden Plots

I went to make the back for my Garden Plots quilt only to discover that I had forgotten to add a border to the top and didn’t have the necessary fabric to remedy that. Instead of just ordering the fabric already, I bellyached about it. Does that happen to you? Do you let a silly snag derail a project for a disproportionate amount of time? (A friend from guild admitted at this week’s meeting that the purchase of a zipper postponed a bag project of hers for months!)

Apparently, this is a pitfall of mine, because I could make a comparable statement about ...

No Latitude

So I at one time had enough Essex Linen in flax for my No Latitude project, but then I used a chunk of it in a tote. This is Essex Linen from years ago, and the bolts I can get my hands on now don’t match the yardage I already have. Every so often I pull this project out, resolve to make it work with what I have on hand, and then return it to storage, discouraged. Here’s hoping this quarter be the quarter I tackle it once and for all.

Update: No Latitude is finished! 

I have other things in the works; this is the list I’m willing to commit to, though. Wish me luck!

What’s on your to-do list for the next few months? Also: I am planning on buying cork fabric with that Sew Sweetness gift certificate. If you have any experiences with cork fabric, please share them below. Thanks in advance!

2019 Finish-A-Long: Q1 Goals

I started 2019 with a lot of projects on my to-do list, probably enough to get me through the entire year. The sheer number of them convinced me to commit to two goal-setting programs.

I started by choosing my One Monthly Goal for January: to make two Cargo Duffle Bags. Now I am signing up for the Finish-A-Long, hosted by a group of bloggers. This is a quarterly program and the first finishes linky opens in April, so I can dream a little bigger.

This is what I’ll be focusing on for the FAL ...

Jane Market Bags

I need to make 11 Jane Market Bags for my kids’ teachers’ end-of-school gifts, and I don’t want to be scurrying around in June trying to finish them. I have 6 done, 5 more to go. I have made this pattern many, many times before, so it’s really just a matter of finding the time to sew these up. (Type “Jane” into the search box on the right to read more about my past versions, including the one pictured above.)


Garden Plots Quilt

I finished my Garden Plot flimsy back in November. It’s one of those projects that is not urgent; there’s no intended recipient. But for it to get finished, I have to make it a priority at some point. I plan on splurging and buying mint-colored fabric for the back, and then I’ll to rent the longarm at my LQS to quilt an allover pantograph on it.

No LatitudeLongitude Quilt

My No Latitude Longitude Quilt, started at a workshop with Latifah Saafir in November 2017, is my oldest WIP. The main reason this has lingered so long is that I don’t have enough of the background fabric and my attempts to come up with an alternative have fallen flat. But first quarter 2019 is this project’s day in the sun! I’ve even already decided to quilt it with straight lines on my Janome 1600P-QC. (It’s been a few months since “the other man” and I have quilted a big project together.)

Valentine Quilt

A friend recently moved into a new place. I offered to make her a quilt, and she expressed a fondness for blues and greens. I homed in on Elizabeth Hartman’s Valentine pattern, from her book The Practical Guide to Patchwork, and started culling through my scraps and stash. This is another quilt I have decided to longarm with a pantograph, making it more feasible that I’ll meet the April FAL deadline.

Oh, dear. Now that that’s all written and up for public consumption it seems like a lot of goals for a little chunk of time. Thanks, in advance, for rooting me on!

What do the next few months look like for you? Share a goal or two in the comment below.