Sampler Quilts and Show and Tell

do these look familiar? They are Jo Morton colorway blocks from last years Saturday surprise sampler.

it's that time of year when I'm looking forward to the show and tell to see what people have done with their blocks from last time!   It is on Saturday at the store at 10 AM, if you are in town and want to pop in and get some inspiration.

I had quite a few blocks from sewing up the prototypes. I have one large quilt sewn together, but I also had a lot of six-inch segments leftover after it was sewn.

Each of the blocks were designed so that you could use it as one 12 inch block or as four 6-inch blocks.

today I'm working on a smaller sampler that uses the 6 inch blocks.

(sorry if the photos are a little blurry, I'm taking them on my iPad and noticed that I'm a little wobbly today.)

I used 35 blocks and sewed 1 inch frame around each of them. Then I sewed them into a horizontal grid of five columns and seven rows.

I have a lot of scraps left over from when I was making up the patterns so I decided to add a pieced border around the edges.

I recently designed a row pattern that had a braid segment, so a braid border was on the top of my mind.

I started with 4 1/2 in. square that will finish at 4 inches when sewn into the quilt.  

then, The side rectangles are cut  at 1.5" x 5"... each braid needs two of these...

then you add two more rectangles, cut at 1.5" x 6" long.

i'll just keep adding sections to the braid sections until they are long enough for the top and side borders. I think I'll have to also add a plain border in between the center and the borders.

(of course, the edges of the borders are trimmed straight before sewing them onto the quilt)

i'm not sure if I'll have this top together before Saturday, since something exciting should be happening in my life tomorrow, but I'll take what I have to the show and tell on Saturday.

I hope to see you at the show and tell at Periwinkle in Saskatoon at 912 Broadway Avenue at 10 AM whether you have blocks to show, or a quilt top,  to show from last year or not. We will also have refreshments!

The show And tell  will be on the main level of the store, so you don't need to navigate the staircase. Also remember there is a parking lot at the back of the store. See you then!

Block 12, Housetops

Block 12 is an old favorite of mine, Housetops:

this is the block, but not in the kit colors......

these are the colors in the Jo Morton kit, -- I only had enough of these colors at home to sew half of a block

and these are the colors in the Cotton and steel colorway,

this shows the block before it is cut into four smaller blocks.   I am keeping my options open for this one.  I might keep adding rounds to it and use it in the center of my quilt... who knows,   

Mosaics, Block Three

todays block of our Saturday Surprise Sampler is this Streak of Lightning, 

I had first sewn it with these colors, but since the first two blocks already had green in them, i decided to liven things up a bit with the purple!

cutter quilt project, placemats

A couple of years ago we used 1930s reproduction fabrics as one of the colorways for our Saturday surprise sampler blocks.  At that time i sewed some pieced blocks from my scraps thinking I would make a baby quilt.  

When I sewed the units together it didn't really excite me. So, I just folded it 

up and put it away. I think that I would have liked it more if there had been more white in it.

A few days ago I pulled it out and looked at it again, wondering what else I could use it for,

One possibility was to turn it into a cushion cover, just by folding it in half horizontally to make a large cushion.   It measures about 30" x 35"

I decided to quilt it while I was still thinking about possibilities. I just sewed a series of vertical lines over the top.

I folded it around a pillow to get an idea of what it would look like as a cushion, but I decided against that.

In the end I cut it into four main pieces, with a little bit left over down the center, in order to make placemats.  Of course I still had lots of scraps so I used them for binding.

Here are the two that I have finished selwing the binding around.

Of course I still have that little leftover strip,  Who knows what I could use it for in the future

block 16 Four Winds

This block came out last Saturday.  I really like the way that the square seems super imposed over the darker brown cross, 

Saturday's Block, Many Roads, #15, plus #12

Saturday was the pick up day for Block # 15 of our Saturday surprise Sampler Program, It is called Many Roads:

I did in fact sew it, but I forgot to take a photo of it before I took it to the store.  
Speaking of forgetting,
I also forgot to post this on Feb 15th, it was block 12 for the Sticks and Stones Sampler Blocks:

Block 11, Star in the Window

Today's block!

Block 10, nancy Cabot 1938

This is blocked 10 of the Saturday surprise sampler.

It sort of echoes the  design of Block six, the shaded pinwheel

I think it's quite an interesting block and it would be fun to Play around with it a bit more…

Block 9 World's Fair Block

I really like blocks that use four patches. 

You can get variations by rotating the elements that have light and dark

Right now there's a popular pattern by Lissa Alexander in the February 2014 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting called "tone it Down"

This is the version by Camille Roskelly, from her blog post http://www.camilleroskelley.typepad.com/

I think if you used four of the worlds fair blocks you could get a similar effect, hmm, I think I must go play with my quilting design program now.....

Block 8 whirligig

This is block eight of the sticks and stones color way of our Saturday surprise Sampler program. It is called Whirligig:

I mentioned yesterday that I was doing some backstitching on the cotton linen blend that is new at the stoRe.  I  Did make some hexagon frames for the two birds that I stitched.  now I need to decide which background to use, the gray or the blue. Right now I am prewashing them to see what they look like washed.   I backstitch around the edges so they won't fray in the wash.

I was sorry that I had to cover up a little bit of the owls tail. I suppose I should have made the frame first and then made the stitching to fit within it.  Oh well, I'll know for next time.

Enjoy the process

Have you ever heard that saying "he went riding off in all directions."?  That describes me the last couple days.  I have been working on all sorts of different projects. However I have finished a couple of small gifts for Christmas. Remember the lavender sachets?

Remember the Dottie quilt top?

I put the borders on, and was preparing the backing fabric, (that's the zigzag fabric in the photo above), when I realized I could make small pieced border for the quilt as well. It's not on the pattern, but I think it would be nice edging for it. I was thinking of just some gray and white half square triangles all around the perimeter.

I'm up to four blocks done for the Swoon quilt:

And I decided to try some simple embroidery on one of the cotton linen fabrics:

I traced a couple of black and white images of birds on to  6 inch squares on the fabric and I am backstitching the outlines.   

So far I have done a sparrow, and have started on a screech owl

I'm thinking that I might make papers pieced frames to put around the birds.

Not quite too sure about this project, where it's going.  I guess it's one of those that evolve. I'm not sure if I'll use just the linen fabrics or maybe use one of them as a background and use printed fabrics for the hexagons.....

Well I hope you are getting some Christmas projects done, just enjoy the process!

Dottie

When I first saw this pattern, I really liked it.  I love quilts that Use a simple repeated block like many traditional quilts. But this block is so cute and modern looking!

It is called Dottie by Click Cluck Sew:

After some consideration I decided to make it using cornflower blue and gray blocks against a white background.

You cut the pieces for the blocks from either a 10 x 9" Square or from a fat quarter. In my case I used a fat eight which gives me two 10 inch squares.

Yesterday I got all the blocks completed and now I'm ready to sew the Sashing between them.

Does this color combination look familiar?

Or how about this one

Again, I am so interested in how we are influenced by colors we see every day around us played out in nature.

Anyway, I like the pattern so much that I asked the girls at shop to cut a kit for it using another group of fabrics that we got in recently by Holly Taylor.

I think it will give a totally different effect but equally as beautiful. I love all these fabrics with the falling leaves on them,

I hope to get my blue and gray quilt finished by January sometime, I'm not quite sure how I'll do the quilting  yet. After that I think we will probably cut kits for that colorway as well.

Pieced Borders

Just added a new link to the Tutorials section on the sidebar, called Pieced Borders,  it is from Quilter's Cache, by Marcia Hohn.

I was just on the site looking for an idea for a border to add to the quilt pictured above, that I worked on in December. 
I felt the need to finish  some projects, so yesterday I went to the quilt store to shop for backings and came home with enough fabric to back three! quilts. 
However, as I was laying this one out on the floor to baste, I wondered if I should add another outer border. 
That brings me back to the website I visited.  It turns out that it has had over 21 Million! visits.  Wow! 
Briefly looking over the site, I can see that it is a very extensive resource,  so it is a really good one to keep in mind when you want some ideas for trying new blocks with some good instructions.
this is the link for pieced blocks,  here