My Sew Alongs

 Since we had a worldwide pandemic, I had lots of time to quilt.  I joined quite a few quilt alongs. The first one was the Sewcialites quilt along, hosted by the Fat Quarter Shop.  This sew along began on September 25 and ends on June 25.  A new block comes out every Friday morning, and you can do a 3", 6" or 9" block.  I chose to do a 9" block because I like throw size quilts.  There are only 4 more blocks to do and then I can assemble my quilt!  I'm making my blocks from Bonnie and Camille fabric I've been saving for years :). Here are  my blocks strewn all over the floor in color order.

Next is my temperature quilt that I'm making with my friend Nedra.  I'm using triangles on a roll and every strip is a month beginning with January.  January 1 is at the bottom and you work your way up.  January, February March, April and now May.  The triangles are the highs and the backgrounds are the lows.  The pale blue in January are the days it rained, the triangle is when it rained in the day and the background is when it rained at night.  I live in Arizona, so it doesn't rain much.  The yellow triangles are 81-90 degrees, the orange triangles are 91-100 and there's one pink triangle in May that's 101+!!!  We will soon be seeing a long of pinks!  I have a hotter pink for 111-120 and an even hotter pink for 121+.  You might be thankful it's still cool where you live.  My ideal weather is 75 degrees, my body's thermostat doesn't work anymore and I get cold very easily.  It's very difficult for me to warm up after being cold.  Anyway, this will be an interesting quilt!

Next is the block of the month by Sherri McConnell at A Quilting Life.
Sherri posts her blocks the first Thursday of every month.  Here are my 12" blocks from her quilt along.  I loved the first block in January, the churn dash one.  I patterned the rest of my colors from that block, a sort of vintagey vibe.  I forget the name of the background, but it's leftover from a quilt I made from Fig Tree fabric.

Next is the Red Sampler quilt along hosted by Lori Holt from Bee in my Bonnet.  Everything Lori designs is fabulous, I can't resist anything she does!  These are my week #6 creations.  There's just one problem.....every single week, I make a crazy mistake.  I will admire the blocks, take photos, and I still won't see the mistake unless someone points it out to me.  They are all simple fixes but I think that I must be going out of my mind!!!  Well, week 6 was no different.  I made all three of these blocks 6" when one of them should have been 12"!!!  That's really an easy fix, I'll just make two 12" blocks this week instead of two 6" blocks.  I'm making my quilt my own, lol!

Lastly is the Sunshowers QAL by Megan Collins at Megancollins.com
She designs the cutest quilts!  I made her Love and Stitches quilt and learned how to sew curves.  If you sign up for Megan's newsletter, she tells you when her quilt alongs are and when she has a sale on her patterns and she also gives you lots of helpful tips.  I am thinking of making 3 Sunshower quilts, I love them that much!  I cut out 12 blocks in my American Jane fabric and I have the cutest pink and yellow lemonade fabric that I might make my third quilt out of.  

I also have a short list of some more quilts I want to make for my grandchildren pile and quite a few that I need to machine quilt.  I hope you have a great week and thanks for following along! 😍

Cubes Quilt quilt along

I made this Cubes quilt for the Fat Quarter Shop's quilt along.

This is the quilt top, I still have to machine quilt it :)

I love how it turned out!

I chose Tula Pink's All Star line of fabric.

All Stars is the favorite fabric prints from her Spirit Animal line.

Look at this cute squirrel!

A beautiful owl.

I really love this raccoon.

I never thought flies were pretty, but this one is!

The cutting instructions were very easy for this quilt.

The pattern calls for 18 fat quarters and 2 yards for the background.

This is the layout of one of the blocks, there are 12 of them.

The backing fabric that I chose is by Lila Tueller, and I think it's a perfect match!

I enjoyed machine quilting this quilt, I made swirls on the blocks and feathers in the sashing.

I love this little white church backdrop!

Here's a closeup of my machine quilting.

Here's a photo of the back of my quilt, but it's upside down.

Ooops!

I really enjoyed making this Cubes quilt.

It went together pretty quickly, 

considering it's made of cubes and rectangles.

Thanks Fat Quarter Shop for the opportunity to be in your Cubes quilt quilt along :)

Baby Brit Quilt Along week #5

By now you should definately be thinking about what fabric you want for your sashing and your border.  Solid, print, stripe, polka dots, the choices are yours :)  I have chosen my sashing but I am stumped as to what I will choose for the posts in between the blocks.  Everything I have tried seems too bold.  

This is my fifth block.  I really like it!

This is Rebecca's block.  I like the way the stripes are all on the diagonal in different directions.

Have fun with your blocks and don't forget to post them to the "Baby Brit" flickr account :)

Baby Brit Quilt Along, week #2

If you haven't joined the "Baby Brit" quilt along yet, it isn't too late.

Once you get the fabric cut, these blocks don't take very long to sew together.

Week #1's tutorial is here.

You can upload the photos of your blocks onto Flickr, on

 the "Baby Brit" group HERE.

I am so excited to see your finished blocks, that I can hardly contain myself :)

This is the color scheme I chose to sew together this week.

I never throw away these scraps, they can be used to cut squares for another quilt :)

I have all four rectangles cut out.  I am really careful to cut two rectangles and then turn the template the other direction and cut two more rectangles.  I would be so upset if the crosses didn't match, I would have to buy three more pieces of fabric, and Material Girls is in another state.  I can't just get in my car and drive there in 5 minutes like I used to be able to do!

The skinny light blue polka dot strips are ready to be sewn onto the rectangles.

The light blue polka dot strips are sew onto the rectangles and pressed towards the light blue polka dot strips.

I cut the edge of the three strip flush with the edge of the ruler so it will be straight.  Notice how the bottom long edge of the fabric is even with the horizontal line on the cutting mat.

I cut the two strips I needed and have a long strip leftover which I will put in my scrap box.

The two strips are ready to sew between each of the two rectangles.

The long red strip of fabric on the left is waiting to be sewn next.

The seams are always pressed towards the skinny light blue polka dot fabric.

Now it's time to sew the long red strip to the two rectangles.

My second block is complete, it looks similar to true Union Jack colors.

I am so excited about my daughters' blocks!  They are part of the reason I began this quilt along.  

Lindsay went to Material Girls quilt shop and chose her six fabrics.

I especially like her greens and gold, and blue houndstooth.

One of the most enjoyable parts about making a quilt is choosing the fabric.  I love to see what different people choose.

Here is Lindsay's finished block.  It is really beautiful.  

I was so excited to see the photo in my email!

This is Rebecca's block, very original.  This is what she said,

"I decided to try something a little different to get a more vintage look (hopefully) and to repurpose some fabrics by using clothes to make these blocks.  I used two pairs of pants, a dress, a nightgown, and two shirts. It took a few extra hours to cut the strips out of each article of clothing and make sure they were the right measurements, so it definitely added some time to my first block.  I think it is worth it if you have some favorite clothes you want to keep a piece of, or if you want to work in some of the details of clothing into the quilt, such as buttons, pockets, or pleats.  Or just for fun."

We will see you next Monday for week #3 :)

Baby Brit Quilt Along, week #1

Welcome to my first quilt along!

We will be using the "Victory Garden" pattern, but only making 6 Union Jack blocks, so our quilt will be called "Baby Brit".

These are the six fabrics I have chosen for my blocks, including the white with red polka dot fabric for the sashing, see previous introduction post to the quilt along.

The first thing you should do before cutting fabric, is to read all of the instructions first, just like you do when you follow a recipe.

Under the heading cutting, it tells you exactly how many strips to cut out of each fabric.

  I cut each of my six fabrics first.  They were all cut into width of fabric (WOF) strips.  

It always helps to have a cold drink of pomegranate lemonade to give you energy!

Don't forget to save your selvages if they are cute or colorful, you can use them in a selvage project sometime. 
 Usually cut mine l  l/2" from the selvage edge, leaving some of the print on the selvage.

By cutting all my strips first, I was able to audition them together and see which ones I liked best together.

As I stated before, I don't really think it's fair to the pattern designer to give you the measurements, so I hope you bought the pattern :)
If you haven't bought the pattern yet, maybe you will when you see how easily this block goes together and how cute it looks !

According to the directions, I sewed the skinniest strip to the widest strip.

Now sew a medium strip to the skinny strip.

Sew on two more strips to make the piece symmetrical.

On the back, pressed the seams flat.  I like the look of the striped strip standing out so I pressed the seams towards the stripes.

The red striped strip is so skinny, it barely looks like there is a seam, when they are pressed.

Lay the template (included in the pattern), on the "five strip" as shown and trim for a total of four rectangles.  Be very careful to line up the corners of the rectangle with the center of the cross fabric.

BE SURE TO FLIP THE TEMPLATE AFTER CUTTING TWO RECTANGLES SO YOUR STRIPES WILL GO IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

Match up your four rectangles.

Next pull the two strips that match the red striped skinny strip.

Sub cut one of the strips into four pieces.

Lay the pieces to each of the rectangles on their inner horizontal edge to  the create the inner stripe as shown.

Sew and press the seam toward the striped fabric.

Pull the strip that matches the cross fabric (light blue polka dot). 

Sub cut ONE piece for the horizontal cross piece and set aside.

Cut the remaining strip in half.  Sew each half to the remaining portion of the striped strip as shown.

Press the seams toward the striped fabric.

Sub cut this trio of strips into two vertical cross pieces.

Your leftover strip will be put in your scrap basket.

Lay out all rectangle pieces as shown.

Sew together top rectangles to top vertical cross piece.

Next, sew top and bottom strips to horizontal cross piece to complete flag block.  

This is how the block should look on the back.

All of the seams are pressed toward the skinny red striped fabric.

The block is finished!

Isn't it beautiful?  I am really pleased with the finished block.

When you have finished your block, upload it to the Baby Brit

flickr account.

Our quilt along will continue next Monday, August 13.