Quilty Fun Friday - Spools

Okay, these are probably my favorite blocks in the entire book so far! They’re easy, they’re adorable, and they’re sewing notions! Pretty much the exact definition of Quilty Fun!

SEE? Adorbs. And just four seams with no stitch-and-flip corners! It took me longer to pick the fabrics than it did to sew it all together. I would definitely make these again in a sewing themed mini-quilt!

Since my layer cakes have no gray, I used a strip of random gray from my scrap bins for the tops and bottoms of the spools. I thought I had my precious Quilt Kisses in gray - two shades, actually - but I couldn’t find them. Boooo! But instead of dwelling on that (or tearing apart the sewing room to find them), I just used a scrap that fit. And it works!

MY DEETS

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Jolly Bar Jumble - A Finished Quilt

It’s a finish and it’s not Friday! You can pretend it’s Friday, though, if that makes you feel better. The Fat Quarter Shop is releasing a video tutorial for this Shortcut Quilt, and therefore we are showing off our pretty quilts made from the pattern!

So this is the Fat Quarter Shop’s Jolly Bar Jumble! Isn’t it pretty? And as the name implies, it takes one Jolly Bar and background fabric to make the (small lap size) quilt. Or you can use a layer cake to make a large lap size. OR you can mix two Jolly Bars! My favorite thing is to pick two different lines by the same designer, or a fabric line and a basics line.

For mine, I picked a Laguna Sunrise Jolly Bar. The yardage wasn’t in yet (I don’t think) so my FQS quilt-along coordinator sent a cut of Moda Grunge in White Paper and a cut of Favorite Things white on white for the background. Favorite Things was a previous Sherri & Chelsi line - actually, it was a Christmas line! The stripe bias binding is also from Favorite Things, and you can see how well it blends with the new line.

I also used the one white-on-white Laguna Sunrise Jolly Bar rectangle in the four patch background squares, so there’s just the tiniest hint of extra scrappiness in there.

The backing is a gingham from the Fabric & Fiber Stable. Even though it’s well over 20 years old, it’s still a perfect match for the purples! Bias stripe binding on gingham was probably a bit too much pattern, but…whatevs.

The quilting is Pansies by Patricia Ritter/Urban Elementz - I wanted a little looser than my usual overall floral pantographs.

A hint if you’re okay with a bit less overall variety - I cut half my Jolly bars into long strips to strip piece my four patch squares a tiny bit faster. (Because a shortcut quilt isn’t fast enough!) The other half were cut into the larger squares. So there’s less variety in the large squares and the four patches, but still the same amount of overall scrappiness.

Also, with the two different background fabrics - I made sure each four patch got one of each, then I made sure the white in the four patch that touched the larger white square wasn’t the same one. Then when the blocks were joined, I made sure the main colors/patterns were different - so in some spots the same backgrounds are touching. And that’s okay!

Gosh I just love a faux bias stripe binding. Please keep including these in every fabric line, all fabric designers everywhere.

56x64”

(In between large and small lap size, made to fit the backing fabric.)

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BOMs Away - Eternal Bloom Border Rosebuds Part 1

How’s that for an extra long blog title? I figure there will be a Part 2…and possibly 3…but at least there’s progress, no matter how incremental! We don’t want the Eternal Bloom to actually be eternal, right? QuiltFest 2026 or bust!

So these are for the small rosebuds in the border, as the blog title implies! I started cutting with the pink and purple in the middle of the top row, thinking it would be funny to use the same fabrics in different colors. And then eventually I realized I could cut the rosebud pieces from every fabric used in the blocks…so I did that.

I think there’s one pink and one red that didn’t get used, and one duplicate blue. (Which makes sense because I bought two of the same blue packets (Block 7) as the shop had already sold out of the blue Block 1 packet.)

Obviously I didn’t get to the piecing stage…or even cutting the leaves/stems/background. But it takes a long time to cut all those little pieces! One of the “squares” is actually 1/8” longer on one side. Someone should remind me of that next month.

The deets

Pattern: Pam Bono’s Out of the Darkness / Eternal Bloom / A New Beginning - out of print and extremely hard to find (believe me, I tried)

Fabric: Block of the Month kits from a quilt shop that closed in 2015

BOMS AWAY FOR EVERYONE

BOMs Away Monday is currently being hosted on Facebook - please join and post your block of the months in the group!

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Interlace - A Finished Quilt of Valor

It’s November and if you’ve been following my Instagram (or really, my blog for the last…eleven years?) you know that November is my “busy season” for Quilts of Valor. Between my various local partners and guilds and that one lady in Coosa County, the Birmingham area awarded 44 Quilts of Valor since November 1. Which, of course, means it’s time to restock my supply!

Along with that, I recently became an ambassador for Connecting Threads, and they’re pretty open to me picking my own projects, so I decided to use my ambassador-ship-ness to test out their Quilts of Valor kits. So here we go! Kit Number One - Interlace by Needle in a Hayes Stack.

This kit is done up in Connecting Threads basics, which is perfect for the pattern. It looks like it would be a mess of partial seams, but it’s actually pieced within the weave-y parts. This wouldn’t work with a heavily printed or plaid type fabric - you would definitely be able to see the seam - but in basics? Nah, as long as you’re a (mostly) precise piecer, you can’t tell where it’s sewn.

See? Some of the seaming is visible here, since I am a (mostly) precise piecer, but for the most part it just flows. And I figure the few spots that aren’t perfect will crinkle up in the wash and be (mostly) unnoticeable.

The pattern is for a 56x72” quilt, but I like my Quilts of Valor closer to 60x80”, so I added a row and a column. The kit was generous enough to make it work, although a few of my final sets had to be pieced from a single strip rather than strip pieced.

The quilting is Stars Spangled Allover, a free pantograph from Urban Elementz. It’s one of my favorites for Quilts of Valor - it has just the right amount of swishy-ness. And of course, with a straight line quilt such as this, swishy is the optimal design! It looks very good in RWB variegated thread, but I decided on the ever popular Pearl for this one.

The backing is my favoritest print from Connecting Threads, the Trail of Stars. It’s out of stock right now and I hope that’s not permanent, because it’s GORGEOUS. You can see it in a variety of colors in my Oh My Stars QOVF. (And by variety, I mean, red white and blue.)

So did you know that November is Military Family Appreciation Month and Hospice/Palliative Care Month? Several of the 44 Quilts of Valor we presented were through my local hospice partner, ExpectCare, and at a local nursing home. These included two WWII veterans! It’s such an honor to still be able to present to them.

And then with military families - I presented to a family in Anniston who had two presented last year as well. I told them they needed to go find more of their family so that I didn’t have to spend Veteran’s Day 2025 without them. (Don’t worry, they assured me. Their older brother’s son and grandson were next year’s nominees.)

So obviously I would recommend the Interlace quilt kit for Quilts of Valor! Connecting Threads is QOVF partner, so 10% of the kit sales goes to QOVF. So you’re helping a good cause and sewing a good cause!

I have another kit on its way already for December’s sewing/sharing, but I’m taking votes on January’s project! Which of the Connecting Threads/Quilts of Valor kits do you want to see me tackle?

64x80”

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