The Quilt Keeper - A Place for Finished Quilts

So recently, I was contacted by Azera, the marketing genius behind The Quilt Keeper, which was invented/patented by her mother, Ellen Taurins. We have been in our house for two years now, and the first solution to storing my family quilts was…well, okay, the first solution was to pile them on the couch. The second solution was to roll them up and store them in the top of the closet.

It’s a bit…haphazard. (Yeah, my closet needs work.)

So when Azera asked if I wanted to give The Quilt Keeper a try, I was definitely willing to disturb the rolls and get a quilt out on display!

The Quilt Keeper went together super easy. The included foam strip goes on the short side, but my husband also made me put some of the remaining foam strips to the bottom of the long side to protect the door. If you want it to dangle as the designer intended, you would leave these off. The slight added angle makes a difference! (But I don’t argue with protective husbands.)

Because this post ended up falling on Veteran’s Day, and I’m a Quilts of Valor group leader, I spent the last two weeks prepping for some big presentations this weekend. Tonight, I’m presenting to three veterans from the WWII era in Coosa County, and tomorrow, I’m helping the West Alabama Quilters Guild present 97(!!) quilts to the Tuscaloosa VA Home’s long term care residents.

The awesome WAQG made 85 of their quilts, and the wonderful woman coordinating the Coosa County event made two of her three, so I just had to prep an extra fifteen or so from the Birmingham Quilters Guild and my friend’s mother. Which is mainly to wash them (with so many Color Catchers!), fold them with the label side out for quick name writing, and store them where someone can’t get fur on them.

(The block on the wall is a test for next year’s scrappy block of the month - it’s my 10 year anniversary with Quilts of Valor and the blocks are all going to be big, scrappy, RWB stars! Wanna get on the newsletter list to get each month’s blocks before anyone else?)

So The Quilt Keeper came in super handy as a holding place as quilts moved from the dryer to prep. Because the hanging bar comes off the hooks effortlessly, and hangs out further than, say, a towel bar, it was easy peasy to stack several quilts over it before I had a chance to fold them properly. (There’s three on there and room for more!)

And once this weekend’s prep is over, I’m definitely ready to use it as intended and swooping a Christmas quilt up on it!

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You can snag The Quilt Keeper through my (affiliate) link - and bonus! The three pack is on sale right now for $10 off! But wait - there’s more! You can use the code KMQUILTS to save 10%! Okay that’s it. Go get you some and hang up allllllllllll the Christmas quilts.

Scrapamath Blocks > %

Y’all, we made it! It’s the last math symbol blocks of the Scrapamath Block of the Month quilt! Next month is the scrappy filler blocks! (I can not believe it’s November. How did we get here?? I need to start Christmas sewing. Like three months ago.) Anyway, I saved the hardest ones for last. I’m really sorry. There’s, like, a lot of HRTs in these two.

So, yeah. Pretty much all HRTs. If it makes you feel any better, I wrote this block pattern at the same time I planned next year’s scrappy BOM, and I decided…you know what, there’s no HRTs next year. Just HSTs and alllllllllll the single squares. And, bonus, we’re doing eight-at-a-time HSTs! What, that makes you think there will be excessive amounts of HSTs? No, never! (Wait yes.)

Also, I have the light blue block listed as a greater than symbol, but ssssh, secret math fact - if you face it to the left instead of the right, it’s a less than symbol. Quilter’s choice!

THE DEETS

• The pattern is here - the blocks will be free the first month, and go to $2 once the next one is posted. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Hopatong Community Garden.

• approximately 1.5 yards of print scraps (Don’t have enough scraps yet? Try Serendipity Woods’ Bit by Bit Scrappy Bundles! That’s not even an affiliate link, I just really love her bundles. A 30-piece bundle should be plenty, or mix and match a couple 20s.)

• 2.75 yards of background fabric (I’m using a white-on-white from Connecting Threads)

• the Quilt in a Day triangle ruler to trim half and quarter square triangles (not necessary but highly beneficial!)

• the Tri-Recs ruler to cut half rectangle and triangle-in-a-square blocks (templates are also included in those patterns)

  • Okay, this is not an affiliate link and I haven’t actually tried it, but my fellow quilt pattern designers are raving about it and if it makes HRTs less painful….the HuRTy Ruler

• The layout option guide for a coloring sheet and alternative layouts (I’m doing a diagonal rainbow)

If you’re joining me in these blocks, please use #ScrapamathQuilt on Instagram or comment here so I can find your blog!

BOMS AWAY - AN ANNOUNCEMENT

Lyn and I decided to take BOMs Away to Facebook! The group will allow us (and everyone else!) to like and comment on your projects easier! If you’re on Facebook….come join the group! I hope you do - I know I wouldn’t get much BOM work done without the motivation of liking pretty pictures.

Noteworthy - A Finished Quilt

Ahhh, this quilt. Like many of my old unfinished personal quilts, it has a long history of neglect. But then Leanne started the WIPs B Gone on Instagram and I decided it was well past time for these Noteworthy charms to see the light of day (not really, there’s no windows in my sewing room.)

So the last time I remember working on these blocks was at my last InMod Quilt Guild meeting before we moved from Spokane in the summer of 2017. I made nine patch blocks with a plain Grunge square in the middle, and I specifically remember that it wasn’t destined to be a Disappearing Nine Patch, and I wanted to seam rip some(??) of the blocks to do something(??) with the extra yardage of pink that I had.

However, Past Kate left no notes with the blocks - no pattern, nothing partially seam ripped, nada! So I played around with possible designs for a bit before finally deciding, well, if Past Kate had a plan, she should have written it down. And so the blocks became Disappearing Nine Patches, and I used some of the remaining charm squares (not that pink yardage) to make the missing few blocks.

And you know what? It’s lovely. And it’s done. Which is better than Past Kate can say!

Plus, this is definitely one of those fabric lines that you just want to SHOW OFF, not have a complicated pattern. There’s all those bucket lists to read!

(The fabric, Noteworthy by Sweetwater for Moda, is obviously slightly out of print after a decade. But! Sweetwater’s Renew is actually pretty close in color and concept!)

Past Kate did do an awesome job of including all the additional yardage in the box - plenty of Grunge for a stop border, a nice (directional) gray border, and a perfect light blue (directional) backing. Oh, yeah, and that pink yardage was clearly the (directional) binding. Obviously.

For the quilting, I debated numerous designs based on the motifs in the fabrics - paisley, floral, hearts, circles, giant pebbles, birds…and then decided that like the quilt pattern, the quilting pattern should be simple. So it’s a big loopy Ragtime. And it’s perfect!

59x72”