A Quilter's Pantry - a free block pattern

I'm sharing the task of setting the block of the month at my local quilt guild.  It's really good fun - I'm enjoying coming up with blocks that I think people will enjoy making, and seeing the results the next month.

This time round, I designed a simple jar block to let people use their novelty fabrics.  I know I can be a sucker for a novelty print but sometimes they're hard to use.

I've written this up as a free pattern and you can find it in my Craftsy store now.  If you use it to make something - let me know, I'd love to see it.

Other people's scaled star blocks (and an update to the tutorial)

It's been super exciting to see a few people using my Scaled Stars tutorial to make blocks.

Megan from Jaffa Quilts made these gorgeous 12" blocks using low volume backgrounds and super saturated fabrics for the stars.  She's used a lot of Anna Maria Horner fabrics, which of course, I love.   I'd find it hard to explain why, but these colours remind me of sour lollies - yum!

The lovely Julie from JulieLou made this 6" version, which is fussy cutting perfection.  I love how she kept the block really monochromatic as well.

Deb from Works in Progress shared some 6" blocks she'd made on instagram just this weekend - I love how she switched things up and used a solid for just the star points.  The scrummy Cotton and Steel fabrics she used don't hurt either.

To make life a bit easier for anyone using this tutorial, I decided to write up my own directions, with diagrams, and pop it all into a pdf version of the tutorial.  Click on the link to download it - it's still free, and I've added some extra block sizes (15" and 18" as well).

Hopefully next week I'll have some more scaled star blocks of my own to show you!

Scaled stars (a quilt block tutorial)

 A few weeks ago, I enjoyed making some Scrappy Star blocks using Clover and Violet's awesome tutorial.  I used them in this quilt chunk which now lives with Jess from The Elven Garden.

Anyway, at the time I was doing my block a day July challenge, and I decided to scale down this star block to 6 1/2" so I could use it in my quilt.

This is my 6 1/2" version, liberty on a low volume background.  It's actually a slight variation on Jennie's original block, because it was easier for me to figure out that way.  As a result, my 12" version of this block is slightly different to Jennie's.  (If you're curious, my block is a true nine patch, with all nine patches being squares of the same size.  Jennie's is a variation on a nine patch - there are nine patches which come together to form the block, but they are not all the same size).

Anyway, a couple of people have asked me for my method for making this block and Jennie from Clover and Violet has very kindly agreed to let me link back to her original tutorial, so here are the measurements for a variety of different scaled star block sizes.

12" finished block - cut:

4 - 4 1/2" background fabric squares

1 - 4 1/2" star fabric square

8 - 2 1/2" by 4 1/2" background fabric rectangles

8 - 2 1/2" star fabric squares

9" finished block - cut:

4 - 3 1/2" background fabric squares

1 - 3 1/2" star fabric square

8 - 2" by 3 1/2" background fabric rectangles

8 - 2" star fabric squares

6" finished block - cut:

4 - 2 1/2" background fabric squares

1 - 2 1/2" star fabric square

8 - 1 1/2" by 2 1/2" background fabric rectangles

8 - 1 1/2 star fabric squares

3" finished block (for the truly insane) - cut:

4 - 1 1/2" background fabric squares

1 - 1 1/2" star fabric square

8 - 1" by 1 1/2" background fabric rectangles

8 - 1" star fabric squares

The method for constructing the block is exactly the same as that set out in the original Clover and Violet scrappy stars tutorial.  Once you have made the block it will measure 12 1/2", 9 1/2", 6 1/2" or 3 1/2" as applicable - the finished size above is once the block is stitched into a quilt.

Please let me know if you make a scaled star block using my measurements and Jennie's tutorial - I'd love to know about it (and you're more than welcome to add it to the On the Windy Side Flickr group).

WIP Wednesday

A quick WIP Wednesday today, because although I have lots of WIPs on the go, they mostly aren't at interesting stages.  First up is this block I made a couple of weeks ago for Tracey in the Simply Solids bee.  It's made using the Star pattern from Faith at Fresh Lemon Quilts' Summer Sampler Series.

 

I'm particularly pleased with the hot colours in this block - they really make it for me.

The next block is part of my newest WIP, one that I am very excited about.  My local guild, Capital Quilters, is holding an exhibition of members' quilts next year.  Each time there is an exhibition, a raffle is held, with a quilt as the main prize.  I am on the exhibition committee and am making the raffle quilt (although it will get sent out for long arm quilting - phew!).

This is block number one of thirty for the raffle quilt.  I am using a bundle of Tula Pink's Acacia collection with co-ordinating solids from Westwood Acres (you can also find Acacia at Stitchbird and Fat Quarter Shop).

The pattern is super simple and based on a Kaffe Fasset design - just eight pointed stars like this with a border.  I won't be fussy cutting for every block, but I just could not resist featuring the raccoon in this way - isn't he soooo cute?!  I am rather concerned that I won't be able to let this quilt go when it's done...  Also, between this quilt and a couple of others, I have a lot of HSTs to trim, so I bought a couple of Bloc Loc rulers to help.  I haven't done much trimming with them yet, and will do more of a review when I have, but so far I like.

Have you found any new gadgets lately?  I'm not hugely into gadgets, but I'm definitely willing to invest in things that will make the quilting experience better.  A good example is the little wee rotary cutter with a 28mm blade that I bought recently.  I never thought I would need more than one size of rotary cutter, but it is great for all that HST trimming - I feel like the smaller blade gives me much more control.  I'd love to know what makes your quilting experience better.

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced:

Granny squares are go

I put the top for my granny squares quilt together last weekend, and put the backing together and basted it at the same time.  I really wanted to do a quilting pattern that would bring the sashing and borders together so that they appear to be a single solid piece of fabric, while making the granny squares really stand out.  Time for some free-motion quilting.

I had done a bit of free-motion quilting practice on scrap sandwiches before, with limited success.  This was my first "proper" FMQ project and I was quite nervous to start.  The quilting is definitely not perfect, but once I got my sewing machine set up on the dining room table and my quilting (aka light weight gardening) gloves on, it went quite well.  The fact that I used white thread on white fabric helps hide the wonky bits.

I used a large meander type pattern to fill in the negative space but didn't do any quilting on the coloured parts of the quilt (that is why there are still basting pins there).  I will stitch these in the ditch to give the quilt a bit more structural integrity.  I never realised how quick FMQ would be - it only took me a couple of hours to do the whole quilt.  I expect that the straight-line quilting will take me at least as long.

This is the backing fabric - I wanted to use something bright and cheerful that generally went with the fabrics on the front, but that wouldn't show through in the white negative space (for example, I have found that when backing a light coloured quilt with bright red backing fabric, the colour can make it look a bit pink on the front).  This is a large rose print fabric from Lecien's Flower Sugar range.

It has the Ivy seal of approval.

Blue and cream checkerboard

Finally, an update to the man quilt post I put up a while ago.  This is the finished quilt in its entirety.

When I first started quilting, my Mum recommended that I read a few chapters of The Art of Classic Quiltmaking by Harriet Hargrave and Sharyn Craig.  When my boyfriend T said he wanted to make a quilt, I made him read the same few chapters.  His quilt is based on a pattern in the book, which I scaled up so that he could make a full sized quilt without too many tiny pieces.

All fabrics were sourced from local quilting shops.  The dark fabrics are japanese indigo quilting cottons.  The medium blues are random quilting cottons, and the cream is actually quite an interesting slightly textured fabric with light brown and blue stitches in it.

The backing fabric is rather lovely, and reflects T's love of chillies.  The quilt is bound in the same fabric.  The quilting was again done by Sue Burnett on her long-arm machine, in T's design.

My contribution (other than the teaching) is a matching pillow in the same fabrics and pattern, scaled down.

This was a good way to use up some of the scraps and "reject" blocks that didn't make it into the final quilt.

The quilt and pillow together.  Teaching someone totally new to quilting was quite an interesting experience.  T did very well on the cutting and sewing side of things, and put the quilt together well and very quickly.  The part he found most difficult was choosing the fabrics - I think it was a bit of an exercise in frustration for him.  He obviously enjoyed the experience overall though, because this is not the last quilt he has made.

Nearly finished and some favourite fabrics

I am hand-stitching the binding to the back of this quilt, and it is very nearly finished.  You can catch a glimpse of the binding clip in this photo below.

This quilt is made from scraps and left-over blocks from a quilt that I made as a wedding present.  The fabric above (from Valori Wells' Nest line) was the inspiration for all the other fabrics and colours in the original quilt.

The wedding quilt was only the second quilt I made, but I ended up with some fabrics that I think will be long-term favourites - like the blue fabric from Anna Maria Horner's Good Folks line above.  If I could easily get more of this, I would.  As it is, I do still have some scraps left but mostly binding strips (2.25 inches wide) and squares for the nine patches used in the original quilt.

I also love this herringbone print from Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow line.  I have it in a couple of other colours for other projects but I am tempted just to buy some in each colour just in case.  Will post pictures of the entire quilt when it is finished.

Fandango quilt

A follow up to the sneak peek a couple of weeks ago.  I bought a number of fat quarters of Kate Spain's Fandango line for Moda off TradeMe last year, and started putting them together into a quilt early this year.  The white sashing is a white on white print from Spotlight - I was not quite ready to go the whole hog and use a true solid.  You can tell by the granny squares that I have moved on...

Because there are quite a few different colours in the various print fabrics, I wanted to keep both the block design and sashing nice and simple.  Chunky squares surrounded by a (mostly) contrasting border keeps things pretty simple.

Initially, I wanted to quilt this myself, even though it is quite large, at approximately 82 inches square.  I even got as far as basting the whole thing.  However, I really wanted denser quilting in the white areas and minimal quilting in the blocks.  I have done a tiny bit of free-motion quilting, but really need more practise and this was not the quilt for that.

In the end, I had the quilt long-arm quilted by Sue Burnett with a light feather design in the sashing and a heavier feather design in the border.  The inner square of the block is stitched in the ditch to keep everything stable.  I have used Sue's long-arm quilting services before - she lives very locally to me and is fantastic.  I will definitely go back if I have other projects that I think would benefit from long-arm quilting.

The quilt is backed with a striped fabric I picked up at Spotlight.  I think it works really well with the colours in the Fandango line.  It is bound with all those fat quarter strips I cut up.  Because this quilt is so large, and I have other projects on the go, I decided to finish the binding by machine rather than by hand, using this tutorial from Red Pepper Quilts.

Overall, I am really happy with how this quilt turned out.  I am particularly happy that I decided to go with the feather pattern for the quilting - I think it really brings the quilt together.

Linking up with the Kate Spain Blog Hop at Blossom Heart Quilts:

 

A sneak peek

I have a finished quilt but no photos yet.  I had it long-arm quilted and got it back this weekend. So I was forced into a task I was not much looking forward to.

I used Fandango by Kate Spain for Moda to make this quilt.  However, I didn't have any yardage - only fat quarters.  Therefore, since I wanted the binding to match, I had to make the binding out of fat quarters as well.  SO. MANY. BIAS. SEAMS. By some miracle, none of them ended up on a corner when I bound the quilt.

You can see another shot of the binding pieces all stacked up behind Ralph,

Ralph and his sister Ivy love "helping" me quilt.  They usually like to test fabric by rolling all over it, to make sure it is nice and soft.

Binding is sooo tempting for little cats.

All the Grannies

I was sick last week and had several days off work.  I cranked up the heater and camped out in the lounge with the Olympic Games and my sewing machine.

I had a quilt to bind, but was feeling too low on energy to try and wrangle binding onto it.  So, instead, I worked on my granny squares.

There are a lot of small pieces in each granny square, and a lot of seams.  Because I was working with charm packs, and wanted to keep these scrappy, I didn't really have the option of strip piecing these (although, if I made them again, I would be tempted to follow this method).  In other circumstances, the time consuming nature of this project might have driven me a bit batty.

I have cut quite a few of the sashing strips I will need to put this quilt together.  I have made them quite wide so the coloured granny squares will look like they're floating.  Now to trim all 25...

Grannying along

Made a few more granny squares. Would have liked to do more but I have been busy at work lately. Never mind, grannies aren't usually known for their speed.

Granny squares

Made some granny squares following this tutorial from Blue Elephant Stitches.

I am using a couple of charm packs of Moda's Rose Parade and trying to keep it a bit scrappy by using different prints in the same colour for each ring.

Not thrilled with how the bottom one turned out, but maybe it will add to the scrappiness of the final quilt.  Two down, 23 to go.