Starting a Dresden Bloom Quilt Top

All the prep is done for making a Dresden Bloom Quilt Top, inspired by Jenny at Missouri Star.  I'm just waiting for the Large Dresden Template Ruler that I ordered from them.  Because of the pandemic, shipping is s-l-o-w, all over.  The fabric I'm using is a Jelly Roll of Well Said by Sandy Gervais for Moda.

I've already modified the tutorial, nothing drastic!  The tute calls for the white strips to be 2, 3, 4, and 5 inches.  I decided on 2.5, 3, 4, and 4.5 inches, it's the little things.  I'm also going to make the center disc using a different method.

The ruler has finally shipped, but I'll need to find something else to do until it gets here. Such a problem!

May your bobbins always be full,

A new tutorial for the Bow Tie Block

My quilt guild, The Temecula Valley Modern Quilt Guild, has a 12" Block of the Month program.  A different member presents a block each month.  The guild asks each member to donate a BOM block each month and we then incorporated the blocks into Charity Quilts and donate them to a worthy cause.  We've been donating the quilts to Jacob's House Temecula; they do really good work in our valley and fulfill a need.

This month it was my turn to present a block, I decided on the Bow Tie Block and I wrote a new tutorial.  There are a million Bow Tie block tutorials on the web, but some were pretty weird or confusing, so I did my own.  You can find it here if you're interested.

May your bobbins always be full,

Giving Love Quilt Tops

I decided to come up with another layout for my quilt's charity quilts.  This version is super easy, you need 13 12.5" blocks and 12 12.5" HSTs.  The blocks I used were from the guilds BOM program.  Every month we have a different block and ask members to make one and donate it to our Charity Quilt Challenge.  Every month I make 4, 2 to donate and 2 to keep for my own use.  I really like how these turned out.  If you want to make your own Giving Love Quilt, you can find the tutorial here.

If you're curious, below is the previous version of the TVMQG Charity Quilts.  It uses 12 BOM blocks and 2.5" strips and 1.75 yards of fabric.  This tutorial can be found here.

May your bobbins always be full,

January BOM ~ The Woven Block

These are the Block of the Month for February that I'm presenting at my guild meeting this month.  I got them finished early, so I could write the tutorial and have it posted on the guild blog in plenty of time for the meeting.  This is a fun block, and I'm glad I have them finished early since I'll be in Nashville in February, for Quiltcon and not be able to attend the meeting.

May your bobbins always be full,

The Tile Quilt Top and a Tutorial

This is the Tile Quilt Top.  I made it for the Two Color Quilt Challenge hosted by the MQG and American Patchwork and Quilting magazine.  I based the quilt on the tile work of Athos Bulcão, a Brazillian artist.  Below is a photo of his work.

I kept my blocks large, in the spirit of my inspiration.

I'm very excited about getting it quilted by one of my quilt guild members, Nancy, she normally doesn't do commissions, but I'm grateful she's going to quilt this for me.  I love her quilting artistry.

I had a request for a pattern, and since I don't write patterns, I did a tutorial for this quilt top.  If you're interested, you can find it here.

Quilt top started on 7/20/2018

Completed on 8/6/2018

Measures 72.5" x 90.5"

May your bobbins always be full,

The Plaid Block and a Tutorial

This month is my turn to present the Block of the Month at the Temecula Valley Modern Quilt Guild meeting.  Several of us take turns presenting and there are some who never do it, we're all different, but I love helping out.  My idea for this block came from the Boulder MQG's BOM programs, July Block.  The center of their block is different so I modified it with a new tutorial.  You can find it here.

As usual, two of the blocks will be donated to the TVMQG's BOM program to make Charity Quilts, and two will stay here to be included in future quilts.

May your bobbins always be full,

The Giving Quilts are complete

I'm so happy that I can check these as finished.  I'm biased, but I think they turned out really well.  These are my 4th and 5th finishes for 2018!

 Each quilt is different.  I made the quilt tops in February as samplers for my guild.  We'd been "building 12.5" blocks for a year and I presented these as a prototype for assembly of the blocks into charity quilts.  If you want to make something similar, the tutorial is here.

Stats:

Started: Feb 2, 2018

Finished: July 2, 2018

Size: 59" x 73"

May your bobbins always be full,

A new Tutorial

One of my blog friends asked for a rope coaster tutorial.  I wrote it up today.  you can check it out here.

May your bobbins always be full,

The Giving Quilt

I made another Giving Quilt from my tutorial.  I really like this layout.  Below is my first attempt.

May your bobbins always be full,

I have math skills!

My quilt guild, the Temecula Valley MQG, has been collecting blocks to make charity quilts.  We've selected our recipient, Jacob's House, and we're excited!  BUT, we only have enough 12.5" blocks to make 5 lap size quilts, bummer.  I came across a photo on the Boulder MQG blog that gave me inspiration on how to "extend" our blocks to make more quilts.

Above is my version and if you want to make one, I've written a tutorial about how I did it, you can find it here.

May your bobbins always be full,

Adding a Sleeve

I decided to enter this small Modern Patchwork Quilt in the Los Angeles Quilt Show. That meant it needed a hanging sleeve on the back. Since the quilt is two sided, I wanted the hanging sleeve to blend with the design.  I pieced the sleeve, using felled seams, so the hanging pole wouldn't catch on a seam.

This is the original shot of the B-side, sans hanging sleeve

And the A-side.

Here are some links for you:  

How I made this quilt.

How to make a quilt sleeve.

How to make a flat felled seam.

I did my felled seams a bit different.  I off-set the top fabric edge 1/4" from the bottom fabric, then stitched a full 1/4" seam (not scant), using the top fabric edge as my guide.  This saved me from doing the trimming suggested in the tutorial.

I'm entering the other small quilt I made this year,   Fly Me To The Moon.  The sleeve is just plain white!

I hand stitched the hanging sleeves to the quilts, my least favorite thing while watching TV.  For the Modern Patchwork Quilt, I watched 2 episodes of Orange is the New Black, and for the Fly Me To  The Moon Quilt, I watched Straight Outta Compton.  Good times.

May your bobbins always be full,

Half Rectangle Triangle Tutorial

It's been about four years since I made a Half Square Rectangle quilt.  One of the important things I forgot and that I didn't pick up on when I scanned a couple of other tutes about making them, is that you can't do everything exactly the same!

So, here's my tutorial, and if you read it thru, you'll see what I mean.

For my project, I started with 5" x 7" rectangles.  Then I matched them up into pairs.

Place each pair right sides together, and draw a diagonal line on each pair.  If you want all you pairs to be identical, draw all the lines the same.  If you want to be able to form a diamond with your HSR's, draw some top left to lower right, and some top right to lower left.  (This is the part I forgot!)

Now rotate the marked rectangle a quarter turn, so they look like the photo  above.  Take them to your sewing machine and stitch a scant 1/4" seam on each side of the drawn line.

Cut along the drawn line.  Take them to your ironing board and press the seams open.  Go back to your cutting board and true them up to 4.5" x 6.5".

I haven't stitched these together, but you can see how you can turn them to get different looks.

This is my "cheat-sheet".  If I want to make diamonds I need to do half one way and half the other. 

May your bobbins always be full,

Positive Queen Quilt Top, first edition

I take getting a commission for a custom quilt pretty seriously.  When Amy asked me to make her a certain quilt, I knew I could do it, but there was no pattern or tutorial for a similar quilt, that I could find.  I decided that my best course of action would be to make a "trial" quilt top, writing a tutorial as I went.  The quilt Amy wants is made of solids, and very modern.  I wanted to keep the trial quilt top modern, but I wanted to use fabric from my stash.  These are the fabrics I used.

I kept pulling and rearranging fabric, until I was pleased.  Then I got going with the math and writing the directions.  I'm going to post the tutorial a bit later, it'll be here, if you're interested.

The quilt top turned out perfect, to me, and it was pretty easy to put together.  It's just very time consuming putting together a queen size and wrangling all that fabric.  I told Bob we may need a larger house, if I keep this up!  (Just kidding, and he knows it.)

Here's a shot, outside on the grass, and below on my bed.

I'm thinking, this first edition of the quilt, may need to stay at Casa Prytz!

I'm linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday.

May your bobbins always be full,

Double Circle of Squares, 25 Patch Block

Through Pinterest, I found a great block called Circle of Squares, posted by Geoff of the ToeFeather blog. He also posted a great tutorial, over 2 1/2 years ago.   I thought I'd make it my own, by making a Double Circle of  Squares.  I'm really happy with the result.  I used left over bits from the Dolce quilt I just finished.

Here's how I made mine.

You'll need (24) 2.5" x 2.5" squares.  This is a great time to fussy cut if you want.

Strip-piece (12) of the squares to 2.5" WOF, strips.

Cut the units apart and press toward the print.

Still stip-piecsing, attach a 2.5" strip to the side, and cut apart and press.  In the original block, these were 4 patches, I change them up because it was more logical, to me.

Take the four remaining units, still using the strip-piecing method, attach a 1.5" strip to the right and left.

Cut apart, and press to the center.  These units were not in the original block, but I thought they were necessary to keep the movement going for the outer circle.

You're almost to the end of the strip-piecing.  For the remaining units, attach a 1.5" strip to all four sides.  Do this a step at a time.  Attach a strip, cut apart, press, and repeat three more times.  Left, right, top, then bottom.

Lay the blocks out for final assembly.  I first put down the inner circle, 9 patch, then the outer circle, making it a 25 patch.  You can see there was one more patch, a plain 4.5" x 4.5" square, for the center.

A couple of more photos  of the block.  The block measures 21" x 21", so it will finish 20.5" square.

May your bobbins always be full,