Saturday, February 08, 2025

SAHRR - Round 3 - Stars!

 My second finish of the day was getting my SAHRR round 3 finished.  The cold I had this week slowed me down a bit, but I had a happy discovery that enabled me to get to this goal much faster than I would have otherwise!  I felt like it deserved it's own post, so here goes:


This week's prompt was stars, and I happen to love Friendship stars.  I thought they would be nice to add a little twinkle to this border.  The tricky thing about Round Robin quilts is that as you add rows, sometimes you have to deal with measurements that don't break up into the correct increment for the design you want to use.  This row was a little short of being able to add a center block, but instead of adding a small border to bring it up to size, I thought it would look nice to just put background fabric in the gap.


In fact, I thought about just adding blocks to two corners, but I decided that I preferred to keep my design symmetrical.  I realized that I needed 25 friendship star blocks for the border I wanted to do - that's a lot of half square triangles to make.  Here is where the good fortune comes in!  As I was looking for fabric for the triangles, I found a bin with many more triangles than I needed!  At some point I was planning to make a basket quilt in purple and started to make half square triangles with all of my purple scraps from Island Batik and my Accuquilt cutter.  What a fortunate discovery, and they were the perfect size for my blocks!  There was enough scrap of the background fabric I used for my row as well, I just had to pick out a yellow for the centers.


Truthfully, I like my quilt much better now that this border is on it.  I think it definitely improves the look of it!  Plus I've rooted out another UFO!  I think that I am going to change my plans, though.  I don't think I'll make a basket quilt from the rest of my triangles.  Maybe a medallion of baskets, and the rest of the triangles in borders around them.  We'll see!


Let's see what the next week will bring for this project - so far it measures 40 inches square!  These Round Robins start getting big after a few rows - not sure how big I want this to get, but we'll see.  As you can see, I managed to beat the sunset for this picture, but not by much!  Just happy to have had a dry day to take a picture outdoors in better lighting!

p.s. I've tweaked a few settings on my blog, so hope to be able to respond to comments once more.  I have missed out on being able to do that over the past month!

Project Quilting 16.3 Common Blocks

This week's Project Quilting prompt was really a good one, to make a project with three common blocks.  I've been wanting to make a red and white quilt for my front room table, so all I needed to do was figure out what blocks to use and how to set them.


So, I pulled up Electric Quilt and started working with some ideas!  I came up with several different ideas, but settled on this one.  Ohio Star and Churn Dash are two of my favorite blocks, and I like the Chain block to make a border around them!

I pulled out my bag of red scraps to see what I had to work with - lots of nice pieces!  (These are from my Island Batik stash!)



I stitched up the Chain Blocks first,


Then the Ohio Star blocks....


And finally Churn Dash for the center!


And then today, I set my sights on sewing it all together! It wasn't too long before I had the top finished, and layered.  I got to the quilting, racing the sun in the hopes to be able to get a nice outside photo of the finished quilt.  I was down to the wire as I stitched the binding on, but I made it!


I quilted it with hearts and loops, using a light pink thread.  It measures about 40 x 40 - a nice size for the table.  It would make a cute wall hanging as well.  I like that it doesn't scream Valentine's day, but the red and white make it a great way to celebrate February all month long!


I like it so much that I decided to write it up as a pattern!  Actually, it was my goal to write some patterns this year for smaller quilts, so it was a win/win to write this one up. Plus, I was down with a cold this week, so it gave me time to work on the writing part as well! Garnet Star is available as a pdf in my Etsy shop now!



This was a fun challenge!  Garnet Star measures 20 x 20 and was made here in Coos Bay, OR!

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Sunday, February 02, 2025

What's finished for January?

 It's been a productive month for me - lots of time in the sewing room which makes me happy!  I did get the next round on my SAHRR done yesterday - and I'm really happy with it!  The prompt of half square triangles was a little tricky since I did pinwheels last round, but I came up with a fun idea!

I thought a ribbon border would be a good way to use half square triangles, not a bunch of tiny piecing and it makes a great frame!  I got to pull in that pink that I've been wanting to use at last, too!  Now I'm ready and waiting to see what the next round will hold.  It's up to 28 x 28 inches at this point.


I also finished my UFO project for January!  So cheerful - I am delighted with it.  I did a simple meander on it because soo many seams - and anything more just would not show up with all the piecing in this quilt.  I think I'll use this one on my bed in March - that's our anniversary month and these were our wedding colors!


My project for February will be to finish this UFO! (Number 2 on my list is what the random number generator came up with!) This is a mini version of my Memories of the Titanic quilt.  I have all of the outer border pieced, so I just need to make the center medallion and the storm at sea blocks.  Don't ask how I ended up making this one from the outside in - maybe because I wanted to paper piece the outer border? I'll be pulling some fabric out of my blue stash for this one, so it should be fun!  It will be a challenge to make those storm at sea blocks, but I'm ready for it!


I'm also still working on the blocks for the Hometown Nostalgia Row quilt.  Just four more and I'll sew the first row together.  The next row will be revealed in two weeks!


I had three small finishes - this little quilt made from the leftovers of Blue Skies.





PamelaQuilts: Project Quilting 16.1 - Nike

I also had three quilts completed for the next Island Batik Catalog, I'll show you those soon.  A good month of quilting all in all, my sewing room is getting decluttered and I am getting a grasp on all the unfinished projects that take up too much room in my room and my mind.  Looking forward to seeing how much I can accomplish in February!

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