Tag: Group project

Completed Sew Day Tops

Sew Day donation top
Sew Day donation top

The two tops that I worked on at Sew Day with Sue and Lee Ann are completed tops.

After I did some Pre-Sew Day work, we were able to put together a total of two quilt tops in addition to the larger top that the rest of the group put together. I am much better at working on my own. I was pleased that Sue and Lee Ann joined me without me having to say anything.

Lee Ann was kind enough to take the blocks for this one home and put the quilt together. 

Sew Day donation top
Sew Day donation top

The blocks I made also became a quilt top very quickly, thanks to Lee Ann. The blocks are 8 inches by 8 inches, so the quilt ended up being about 40 in. x 40 inches, which is about the size I like to hand in. 

Lee Ann has kindly agreed to quilt them.

Finished: Patchwork Palooza

Finished: Patchwork Palooza
Finished: Patchwork Palooza

I finished the Patchwork Palooza top in January and now the whole quilt is complete: top, back, quilting, binding, sleeve. Done.

I am pleased with how I finished the edges. I think completing the diagonals looks nice.

There are blocks that I wish I had moved, but that will probably always be the case. 

DH actually commented that he really liked this quilt. Maybe it will be a gift for him?

I will be entering this quilt into the Fair.

It must be some kind of record! I started this quilt on about September 6, 2025. Here it is, 6 months later finished. I am really happy and kind of stunned as well. 

Finished: Patchwork Palooza-back
Finished: Patchwork Palooza-back

BAM BOM QSTs

BAM BOM March QSTs
BAM BOM March QSTs

I found a tutorial for a 3 color quarter square triangle block while reading the Love of Quilting magazine. I decided to try it for my Bay Area Modern Block of the Month for March blocks.

The tutorial includes a 1.5 minute video with jaunty music. 

I made two first just to see what I thought of the technique. I thought it was fine and something different, so I cut some squares and went to work. I went a little crazy and made quite a few QSTs!

BAM BOM March QSTs
BAM BOM March QSTs

As I was laying them out I realized that I could make pinwheels since I used the lime green in all of the blocks. I don’t know that I’ll do that in the final layout of the quilt, but it was kind of fun to see what such a layout would look like.

I just got a Technique Sheet from Studio 180 Designs for the Split Recs Ruler**. I love that ruler and may make some Elongated Hourglass units. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this website.

 

More Creative Play

BAM January Creative Play - March updates
BAM January Creative Play – March updates

Joelle brought the January Creative Play packet to Saturday’s workshop to exchange with someone else. 

Some interesting Flying Geese and Sawtooth border have been added since the last time I saw it.  The orange has really taken off as a color. It is so fun to see what people do with a little piecing.

Finished: White Strips #3

White Strips #3 with red
White Strips #3 with red

I last spoke about this last month. In between time, I finished this quilt and posted about it on the February Donation Blocks and Quilts post. I haven’t spoken about it in general as a finished piece.

This piece is a little different from #1 and #2, because of the red. I have been feeling like I have a lot of red fabric I am not using. I decided just to put some red sashing on this quilt and see what happened. It is not a favorite of the series, but it isn’t ugly either. Next time, I’ll stick with the monochromatic look. 

I like making these strip quilts, as I have said, as they use up scrap and make great leaders and enders. The problem with the white is that I have A LOT of white scraps and I can’t seem to use them up quickly enough. I am pleased that I didn’t use any white background fabric in Lupine. It loaded up my black scrap drawer, but stayed away from the white.

 

Sew Day Blocks

Sew Day quilt in process
Sew Day quilt in process

A week ago was the Community Sew Day at the Guild. After doing some pre-sewing, I also sewed another quilt using the same pattern at Sew Day. SueG sat next to me and followed my lead on sewing blocks my way. 

Sue used her own materials, which was a lot better for precision. We sewed quite a few blocks, but Lee Ann took them all to sew together before I could take a picture. 

I tried to keep the packs I chose in the same color family as Sue’s blocks, but I was really distracted and am not sure I succeeded. when I get a photo from Lee Ann, I’ll share it.

Pre-Sew Day Blocks

Diagonal 16 Patch donation quilt
Diagonal 16 Patch donation quilt

My preference at Community Sew Days is to bring a top (+back, etc) ready to be quilted and work on my own projects. Since I am now guild president, I decided I needed to be a good citizen and work on the project with everyone else. Still, I worked ahead to make some blocks.

I used 3 mini-charm packs and what’s left of my white fabric to make the blocks for the quilt top. I thought they would be incorporated with everyone else’s blocks, but I made the wrong pattern, so Sue and I put the rest of the blocks needed for a quilt together using this pattern.

I worked with the Community Quilts Team’s materials to start a second quilt and wasn’t as happy. I prefer my own cutting, so I know what problems I might encounter with cutting mistakes. I’ll go back to my original plan if there is another Community Sew Day. 

Lupine Top and Back Finished

Lupine top finished
Lupine top finished

Lupine is ready to go to Colleen for quilting. Not a great photo, but the quilt is large and doesn’t fit well on my design wall.

I am really pleased with how it came out. It is a but pink and purple, but doesn’t scream ‘little girl’ to me. I think the black really helps give it a good over all feel. 

In addition, black can be depressing. It did make my workroom a little dark, but overall the pink, purple and Carousel blue keep the black from creating a look that is too depressing.

Lupine back finished
Lupine back finished

I also finished the back. Mom said it looked a little brown, but I definitely used colored dots on black for the most part. One of the prints, a large-ish piece, middle bottom, does have dots that have more brown in them than I would normally use. 

This project used up most of my dots on black fabrics.

I am waiting for a black solid in order to make the binding. I was going to use a pink that matched the border (AGF Cherry Lipgloss), but Lil Sissy pointed out that a black (AGF Caviar) would contain the piece. I think she is right.

Playing with the BAM BOM

BAM BOM blocks - Feb. 2026
BAM BOM blocks – Feb. 2026

Lil Sissy was in town last week for 12 hours on her way to a sun, sand and scuba diving adventure. She called me a few days before and I cut her in on my day’s plans: museum, GF Chinese food lunch. Then we did some things she wanted, namely getting supplies for some jackets she plans to embellish.

Once we were back and my house she saw my BAM BOM blocks and I let her play with them. We used the ‘design floor’ (LOL) since the design wall was full to bursting.

BAM BOM Flying Geese -Lil Sissy arrangement
BAM BOM Flying Geese -Lil Sissy arrangement

It is always interesting to have an artist who uses a different medium play around with quilt blocks. I laid them out in a more or less conventional way. She immediately saw diagonals in places I hadn’t noticed.

She wanted me to make a bunch more Flying Geese so I can really lean into the diagonals. I’ll think about that. 

BAM BOM HSTs -Lil Sissy arrangement
BAM BOM HSTs -Lil Sissy arrangement

She also played with the Half Square Triangles (triangle squares) a bit. Again, she leaned into the diagonals. This arrangement has good possibilities even if I do have to make more HSTs. I think it would look cool to weave the diagonals behind the other blocks. 

BAM BOM Friendship Star Wreath
BAM BOM Friendship Star Wreath

Finally, we talked about my big Friendship Star Wreath and whether I should re-make it with a dark background. She said no, but I might still do it. That white shrieks at me.

BAM BOM Friendship Star Wreath

BAM BOM Friendship Star Wreath
BAM BOM Friendship Star Wreath

This block (for Month 3) took me a long time and I had some detours along the way. Finally, I finished it.

I am not 100% happy with it. I would have liked to use the grey Pearl Bracelets, but I didn’t have enough. 

Using the white Pearl Bracelets as the background introduces another color of background into the piece and I had hoped to avoid using white for the blocks. Since I have not used white in any of the other blocks I have to figure out how to make it work. 

First step: go see if I can find more grey Pearl Bracelets. Doubtful, but you never know.

Lupine Border Decisions

I chunked the Lupine quilt top, then sewed the spacer border on. The next step was the Flying Geese border.

Option 1:

Recommended Lupine border
Recommended Lupine border

The directions were to assemble two Flying Geese so it looks like the above. The look was ok, but didn’t grab my attention.

Option 2:

Zigzag Lupine border
Zigzag Lupine border

I saw a zigzag border that someone made and tried that with my fabrics. This option looked more cohesive to me. 

Option 3:

Alternating chevrons Lupine border
Alternating chevrons Lupine border

Just to see if another configuration would be better, I tried alternating chevrons. This wasn’t terrible and created a lot of movement, but I thought it was a little confusing for the viewer.

I went for option 2 and started sewing long rows of Flying Geese together.

February 2026 Donation Blocks and Quilts

I have decided to combine donation blocks and quilts into one monthly post. We’ll see how that works this year.

I didn’t make any donation blocks or quilts in January, so here we are in February.

Blocks

I am collecting black and red donation blocks to make another Quarter Square donation top for the guild donation project similar to QST 16 Patch #4 Blue. I have more green squares after a couple of sessions of scrap processing. I want to make another Sidewalk quilt, but I don’t have enough of the half blocks to make a green one yet. The blocks above are being added to the pile.

Quilts

I might have posted the *bound* Blue Improv before, but I don’t see it. It was getting folded up to be donated at Sew Day and I took a quick snap of the finished piece. More scraps off to do some good.

I also finished White Strips #3 (with red) and handed it in at the meeting last weekend. It looks different than the other white strips quilts, but I like it.

BAM Creative Play

January 2026 Creative Play
January 2026 Creative Play

I started a project at the guild called Creative Play. This was loosely based on a concept I had during COVID that kind of petered out. It was also inspired by a quote I read in Libs Elliott’s newsletter. The quote is “I have made a promise to myself that I will make time for creative play in 2026. Because, when work gets overwhelming, I find joy in taking even just a bit of time for myself to experiment and try something different without an end goal in mind.”

I am determined to have it take off this time and so far, so good.

I started out by handing out the rectangles in the center. Cyndi took it and added the orange border. That is an amazing choice. I don’t think I would have thought of it, but I love it. The orange has an interesting texture as well.

I handed the piece to Sue next and she added the half square triangles. I am really pleased with the work so far.

Chunking Lupine

Lupine center complete
Lupine center complete

I had to stop chunking when I realized I had to fix a couple of block mistakes in Lupine. I fixed those quickly and got back to chunking, which is easier than putting a quilt together in rows, but still tedious. It seemed to take me forever. Finally, I got all of the blocks together! Yay!

I was worried about the density of the dots in some of the black background, but looking at the quilt in the photo, I think it looks ok. I can see a couple of places where the dots are really dense, but the background pieces don’t make the blocks look wrong. 

Lupine with spacer border
Lupine with spacer border

After the blocks were together I put the spacer border on. Also, tedious, but necessary. 

I really like that Melody Miller Carousel blue. I am glad I bought more of it so I have enough for the borders.

Now I am on to the Flying Geese border. 

I noticed that Bonnie has taken down the directions on her blog for this quilt. I almost had a heart attack when I clicked on the link to look at the border directions and it was broken. Fortunately, I had saved the PDFs.