Design Wall - Teamwork

My local quilt guild hosted a mystery project to encourage us to keep sewing during the summer. The project was called 'Teamwork', and I got a kit of coordinated fabric from the Community Outreach committee. I changed out the brown as I didn't have enough of it, but used all the other fabrics (except not the backing and binding... yet!)

Here is my quilt top on the design wall.

I love the effect that having 2 background fabrics created (the white and the pink). This was fun to stitch, and due to the pressing instructions, the seams met perfectly when sewing the rows together. Thanks to all involved in this wonderful project!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Design Wall Monday

It's a holiday Monday here for me and I plan to sew for the entire day! I'm so excited! I will be working on my local quilt guild summer mystery called "Teamwork".  Here is the recycled bedding container that I use to store my mystery quilt parts. All the blocks are  counted and labelled, and either in a baggie or pinned together in sets of 10.

The trimming of the square in a square blocks gave me a chance to try out my new Gypsy Quilter cutting mat cleaner. It's a cute heart shaped scrubber that you put your fingers into and you give your mat a good massage to clean off the fibres. I was surprised what a good job it did - I give this new tool a big thumbs up! 👍

Clue #5 had us make 20 Aunt Dinah blocks. There is always at least one oopsie block when concentration declines late at night!

These are the finished blocks on the design wall from clue #5. 

I love the look of all these blocks on the wall!

And now it's time to sew them into a mystery layout. Mystery clue #6 arrived in my email on Saturday, so that will be my focus for sewing today. 

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Teamwork

Most of my quilting time recently has been focused on sewing blocks for a guild summer mystery called 'Teamwork". Our amazing Community Outreach team coordinates fabric kits for those willing to make a comfort quilt to donate. This is the gorgeous kit they gave me to make into a quilt. 

One of the mystery steps had us making these "Mary's blocks" which I know as "shaded 4 patch blocks". We were given the link to an inspiration video by Karen Brown to learn how to sew 8 blocks at the same time. Yes - 8! One of the steps was drawing angle lines and this was fun for me to play with my Olfa angle "Advantage" ruler. This is one of my most frequently used rulers.

This photo shows the lines sewn and the block ready to magically cut into 8 perfect blocks. But you have to read and follow the instructions to get the steps in the correct order. If you do, everything is perfect! If you don't, you will have problems!

Here are my blocks organized in piles of 10.  Using this technique every single block is exactly the right size. No trimming required... that blew my mind.

And here are some blocks on the design wall. I was having fun laying out some arrangements, while I enjoyed how the fabrics look in these blocks.

This week we will be sewing some 9 patch blocks.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

A finished quilt top!

On the design wall today is a finished quilt top! This is the summer mystery project my local guild offered it's members.

Here is the quilt top before borders. Because the chain is the lightest fabric, it became dominant in my version of the design and you don't see the circular effect that can be seen in other quilts using the  "peaky and spike" blocks (as coined by Doreen Speckmann for those of you who are long time quilters).

I auditioned a lot of fabrics for borders, but nothing made me happy. Then the idea came to me to extend the diagonal white squares into one more border. I don't know why the idea appealed to me so much, but I happily sewed these strips to add. Even though each one is a different length, they were correct the way I sewed it together. I really was in my happy place sewing these border strips. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but didn't seem to care!

And here is the finished product. It's the perfect size to finish as a donation quilt and I'm already getting ideas for machine quilting.

It was great fun to sew along on a  summer mystery with my quilting friends!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday

Design Wall Monday

Covid took away my last 2 weeks of July, so I have fallen behind on everything. I didn't work on my July UFO project, or make a mini quilt this month. I have been slowly recovering and thankfully have felt much better this past weekend. I'm sure August will be better!

We had a guild zoom sewalong on Saturday and I have almost caught up with my quilt guild's summer mystery. We are making a 2 block quilt pattern and this is block A. I made a few of block B but haven't pressed them yet. The next step is posted on Friday and I intend to be ready!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Finished Quilt!

On the design wall today is pinned a finished quilt!

This quilt was a mystery offered by my local quilt guild in the summer of 2021. The fabrics were curated by Trish from donations to the guild. I used extra blocks (aka mistakes!) to add a final border that was not in the original design. This quilt is called Milady and was designed by Judy Eckhardt. The pattern can still be found here.

Because it is a medallion quilt, I machine quilted it on my domestic machine in a medallion fashion by starting at the centre block and quilting each successive border.

There was a lot of yellow in the centre so I filled in that space with some feathers. The rest of the quilting was mostly straight lines following the design of the borders, and on each side of the sashings.

The last binding stitches were put in yesterday and now the quilt is ready for donation. Thank you to everyone who had a part in bringing this quilt to life - the fabric donators, the fabric curator, and the pattern designer, and to the quilt guild for offering us this fun summer project! This quilt has been loving donated to my guild's community outreach efforts.

Linking up to One Monthly Goal and Design Wall Monday

UFO Update

I've been deep into sewing mystery quilts this month, so my January UFO was a little delayed. But I still have a few days to finish it up. 

backing, batting and quilt top

I had this pile ready to proceed for a while - the backing pieced (only 5 pieces to sew together), the batting cut, the quilt top pressed, and the threads chosen. That's a lot accomplished already, but it's not a finished quilt yet!

Pin basting has started with my handy dandy Kwik Clip tool (to close the safety pins easily). While I'm basting, I talk to the quilt and come up with some possible quilting designs. Since this is a medallion quilt, I've decided to quilt it from the centre out, making the decisions as I come to each round.

Design Wall Monday

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I have been working away on my local guild's summer mystery quilt. This is the result of sewing the steps for week #5 and measures 42.5" square. The next step will turn it into a rectangular quilt and I'm excited to get sewing!

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Design Wall Monday

Today is a "Civic holiday" here and I plan to spend the whole day in the quilt studio. I'm sorting, "cleaning"/rearranging, cutting fabric and sewing. I'm just letting my creative attention go wherever it wants to. 

So far I have put a couple of borders on the summer mystery that my local quilt guild is hosting. It is a lot of yellow in the centre. Maybe I'll fill that space with some feather quilting.

Now I'm onto step #5 and I'm liking this border addition. Next I will cut some "stop border" strips and piece border #5.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday over at Judy's

Design Wall Monday

We are into step #3 of the summer mystery that my local guild is running. Here is my recycled spinach container full of parts and blocks, all counted and labelled, and ready for the next step.

It has been a fun project and I have learned a few new things. For example, we learned how to magically turn the two blocks at the top into the two "birds in the air" blocks at the bottom.

I have been playing with these "combination units" on the design wall and am intrigued by what we will be making with these blocks.  Maybe they will become a border? Or maybe some kind of pinwheel units? 

Who knows? Not me! It's a mystery!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's 

Summer Mystery Sewing

My local quilt guild is providing the members with a mystery project to keep up our sewing skills over the summer. Here are some friendship stars that are part of the design. And of course there is always one or two blocks that want to be unique!

Then we made some QST blocks which might become blocks or perhaps border units? You just never know with a mystery quilt!

It is a refreshing project to sew in small windows of time and I am enjoying it!

Are you sewing any summer projects?

New Project

Happy Canada Day!

It's our second year under covid restrictions with no public celebrations. So again we will celebrate safely at home and enjoy having a day off work.

And you know what that means... it's a day to sew!

My local quilt guild is offering a new mystery adventure for the members to encourage them to keep them sewing over the summer. It is designed by one of our members (Judy Eckhardt) so that is doubly exciting! It starts today, so I will be spending my Canada Day sewing a new mystery project and that is also something to celebrate!

The fabrics I am using were coordinated by one of our members using fabric that was donated to the guild.  I will be sewing with yardage (versus sewing with scraps) which is something I haven't done in a long time.

I have my bobbins filled, a new rotary blade ready to go, and I plan to relax and sew all day! 

The perfect way to celebrate Canada Day!

February UFO Goal

After not meeting my January UFO goal, I think I should pick a sure thing for February! I hope to finish my guild covid mystery quilt and donate it to the comfort quilt collection at the hospital.

The quilt top is ready, I just need to collect a batting, backing, and binding (and some quilting ideas!) to turn this into a finished quilt by the end of February. It's a short month, so I hope it's doable! Two months of failure would be hard to take! LOL

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

Design Wall Monday

On the design wall today is a finished quilt top! This is a mystery project that my local quilt guild hosted to encourage the members to keep sewing over the summer. One of the best things about this quilt is that it is completely made from stash scraps. I am so delighted with it! 

We had lots of practice with adding borders in constructing this medallion quilt. It's basically a star block with 9 borders! I always measure my quilt top through the middle and at the edges before attaching the next border. If you're lucky (and cutting and sewing accurately!) all measurements will be the same. I measure the strip and mark it with a pin, cut the edge straight with a rotary cutter and ruler, and then attach the border strip to the quilt top using a lot of pins. The more variance there is in the measurements between the border strip and the quilt top, the more pins I use!

I had fun taking photos of the quilt top outside on a lovely fall day. AND do you see the dandelion? One brave, lonely, yellow spring flower has somehow survived to the fall!

I love the border fabrics I used up on this project. There are 13 pieces in the green border and 15 pieces in the last black border. Some of the black strips were leftovers from the backing of Angel Solstice finished in 2014... these scraps have been waiting a long time to jump into a quilt!

Can you see that most of the pretty leaves have fallen from the backyard tree? Now it's time for raking leaves and machine quilting!

At the end of the mystery project we were told that this is a pattern by Robert Kaufmann and if you want to make one, the free pattern is called Gazebo Medallion (click on the link to get the pattern).

Linking to Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Oh Scrap!

Design Wall Monday

The guild mystery project is on the design wall today. I have been sewing the side flying geese blocks. 

I'm not sure about the yellow geese. I wanted to bring the yellow from the centre of the quilt to use it again in this border, but maybe not? According to the pattern one line of geese goes up and the other goes down, but I think I might change that. I have just a few more geese blocks to make and then there are 2 plain borders to add to finish the quilt top.
Linking up to Small Quilts

Design Wall Monday

step #5

On the design wall is the summer mystery quilt that my local quilt guild is doing online. It's a project to encourage quilters to keep sewing through the long covid summer. I am using up some older, less loved stash to make a donation quilt.




The blue/purple border and most of the star points were from a bag of block trimmings from a quilt my friend Marj was making back in February. This was the perfect project to use up these colourful scraps.

step #6

This is the most recent step of the mystery. I used up every bit of that black border fabric with about 1/4" to spare! There are 2 more steps in this mystery project and I'm intrigued about what we will be adding next.

Linking up to Small Quilts

Design Wall Monday

fabrics for guild mystery quilt

My local quilt guild is offering a summer mystery to encourage our members to continue quilting through COVID times. I gave myself the challenge to use up some older, "less loved" stash, while still creating a funky and fun quilt that a teenager might like. This was the original fabric pile. I thought the white was too stark, and substituted some black on white fabric for the background.


Here is the first part which was a medallion centre and 2 borders. I cut the centre pieces to give a radiating effect and am really happy with how that turned out.

Then came the piecing of 36 square-in-a-square blocks. I culled a lot of small scraps for this step and used up many different greens. That's a lot of green but can I tell you how satisfying it was to use up all those little bits?!?

Well, except for a few  moments of sadness when using up the very last of an older favourite fabric... like this classic Jan Mullen fabric. Just cut it up for heaven's sake, and stop saving the last bit!

This is how it looks today with border #3 attached. 

I have an idea of what fabric to use for the next border but I'm going to wait until I see what the next step is before I add it.

Linking up to Small Quilts and Oh Scrap!

New mysteries

Are you looking for something new to start? I discovered that the Fat Quarter Shop is offering a new summer mystery called the Jelly Snowflake mystery. It looks like lots of no-pressure fun with the fist block posted on July 2nd.

I am starting a new mystery quilt being offered on line through my quilt guild. I am using scraps. These are some of my starting fabrics.. dark is black background with bright designs, medium is bright greens, and background is white scraps.

New quilt

On Saturday I celebrated Worldwide Quilting Day by sewing all day with my quilt guild friends. You can read more about it here. 
I enjoyed using my 1964 white featherweight Singer 221K sewing machine that I call "Sweet Baby Jayne". So tiny, stitches perfectly and looks so adorable!
I'm using all Tula Pink Zuma fabrics for this project, with the light/background fabric being "glitter litter glowfish".

Here are the first 12 blocks on the design wall. I have 8 more blocks to sew. I'm not sure I like the big white spaces that appear with this layout. 



Let's try another one... I think I like this layout better. And I have some quilting ideas popping into my head already, so now I'm motivated to sew the rest of the blocks!
Linking up to Small Quilts design wall Monday part.