Project Quilting 16.6 - Button It Up

The last challenge of this year!  I always look forward to PQ season, and have mixed feelings about it being over.  On one hand, I'm sad that it's over.  On the other, it always ends when spring is beginning! 

I'm definitely not a winter gal, so my spirits always rise when I see signs of spring.  I noticed the snow crocuses blooming on the front bank of my yard a couple weeks ago, and the forsythia is in full bloom outside my sewing room window today.  Yay, spring! 

My snow crocuses

I didn't have a lot of time to devote to my project this week because of other obligations, and I am going on a quilt retreat with my guild starting in a few hours, so I needed something quick and simple.

Quick and simple usually means a potholder, but you know what?  I'm TIRED of making potholders!  And the drawer where I store small items for last minute gifts is full of potholders.  Time for something else.

A few years ago, I made a cute pincushion from instructions I found on Joan Ford's blog on her Hummingbird Highway site.  I spotted it sitting beside my machine and realized that it fit this challenge!  Pincushions always come in handy, so I decided to make another one for this challenge.  I had to scroll all the way back to March 2020 to find the instructions.  Her pincushion resembles a chair cushion with boxed corners.  The reason that this pincushion meets the challenge is that it uses 2 buttons through the middle! 

Having decided what project to make, I went digging in my bins to find the fabric.  Lo and behold, I found an 1/8 yard piece of a sewing themed fabric with flower pins all over, and a coordinating one with buttons all over it! Win, win!  

Project 16.5 - Follow Your Arrow

I wasn't too sure about this week's Project Quilting challenge.  'Arrows' didn't seem like something that I would want to put on a quilt. But then I read further, and thought, OK, I can do this!  Especially when I saw that flying geese and chevrons were shown as examples. So I didn't have to put an actual arrow on my project; I could use an arrow-like shape.  

Last weekend I participated in a guild-sponsored  workshop on Seminole Patchwork. A couple of the motifs are basically zig-zags, or chevrons, so I considered doing something with that technique.  But Seminole Patchwork is done in strips, and the patterns that were provided make rather long strips.  This is shaping up to be a crazy busy week, so unless my project is super simple, it's not going to get done. So long strips of Seminole Patchwork would be too big and complicated for me to do for this challenge. While I plan to use my new skills in Seminole Piecing to make a quilt someday, this is not the day!  

But something about 'arrows' rang a bell way in the back of my memory, so I went digging in my UFOs.  Sure enough, I found a bin that contained a copy of the November/December 2010 issue of Quiltmaker magazine.  I save magazines which have patterns that I like so that I can make them at some point.  This particular issue contains the pattern for a quilt made from a block called Anita’s Arrowhead! 

This is a striking pattern that looks way more complicated than it is.  I had a dozen blocks done, and I even put some fat quarters that I planned to use into the bin.  I have no idea what caused me to put it away, but now that I found it, it’s going to move to the top of my ‘to-do’ list. 

Anita's Arrowhead ~9.5" square

But I digress…. back to PQ 16.5!  I grabbed a couple of 10-inch squares left over from a layer cake and made an Anita’s Arrowhead potholder. I feel like I make potholders way too often for Project Quilting, but they are useful and it's good to have a stash of them for last minute gifts.

Project Quilting 16.4 - Birthstone

A few years ago, I participated in a Sulky webinar on making quilts that resemble gemstones. It involved using an interesting technique where you use freezer paper templates to piece together different shades of solid fabric.  The different facets of the gemstone are different shades of the gem's color.  It's like paper piecing, but since you don't actually sew through the freezer paper, there are no tiny pieces of paper to pick out of the final project.

Birthstone series by MJ Kinman

I've always wanted an emerald, but real ones are a bit above my price range.  Quite a bit above! So I bought the webinar kit for the emerald.  That was more affordable than a real emerald, and I could hang it in my sewing room.     

I pieced the quilt top, but never quilted it.  The quilting instructions were a bit scary to me, since they involved free motion quilting using different color threads in each facet. So I put the project aside and figured that I would finish it after I practiced FMQ on other projects.

So this challenge immediately brought that project to mind.  I know that there is lots of left over fabric and I haven't even touched the thread yet.  So I decided that for this challenge I would make another emerald and actually finish this one!

The only problem with that plan is the fact that I have no idea where I put the original emerald quilt top and the extra fabric and the thread.  I know that I put them all together - somewhere.  I've looked everywhere that I could think of and they just refuse to be found.  I started looking on Monday and by Thursday afternoon, I got desperate. In addition to a Friday evening and a Sunday morning commitment, I have a workshop scheduled with my local quilt guild for 6 hours on Saturday. That left me with basically only one day left to get this challenge done.  

I did some stash diving and found a half yard of a green tone on tone that really called out to me.  I let it sit on my ironing board for a few hours to see if it would tell me what it wanted to become.  

My PQ16.1 project was a leprechaun that I named Cornelius, and he is hanging near the ironing board in my sewing room.  So under Cornelius's influence, the green tone on tone decided that it wanted to be a lucky four leaf clover pillow for my living room.  Here is my new birthstone colored pillow, just in time for St. Patrick's Day!

Project Quilting 16.3 - Common Blocks

This week's theme didn't really excite me.  In fact, I considered skipping this week altogether.  Don't get me wrong, I like common, or traditional blocks.  I have made lots and lots of quilts with common blocks.  I've even designed a few.

But for some reason, I kept picturing a block of the month program for beginner quilters.  Something that starts with very easy blocks, (probably 12 inches) laid out 3 X 4 with sashing.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with a quilt like that, but I just didn't want to make one. And for the life of me, I just couldn't picture anything else.

Also, I'm in the middle of working on two different UFOs, and I didn't want to take the time to make anything very big. 

So I kept procrastinating and mulling over options.  I could make a table runner.  Or not.  I could make a wall hanging.  Or not.  How about another potholder? (Always my PQ fall-back option!) Nah. Sometime midweek, I realized that time was running out, so I was REALLY going to have to 's*** or get off the pot' as my mother used to say.  

When I received an email on Thursday asking me to do a demonstration on quilt finishing techniques for our next guild meeting, my decision was made. I volunteered to show how to make faux flange binding and two sided binding.  I needed to make a small sample quilt to use as a sample to demonstrate a faux flange binding, so I could also use it as my entry for PQ 16.3!  And maybe I will use the two side binding on my entry for PQ 16.4.  That would give me samples for both techniques! No pressure, Trish, LOL!

I also did a little 'creative reading' of the challenge.  It said that we have to use at least three common blocks.  But it didn't say we needed to use three DIFFERENT common blocks.....

For my sample, I used four small churn dash blocks, set them two by two and finished the edges with a faux flange binding.   When I was done, I realized that they formed a four patch, which is a  common block.  Then I looked closer - the corners of the churn dash blocks are 'half square' triangles, and when you set four churn dash blocks together, they form a 'small square in a square' block right in the center.  So technically, I did use three common blocks ^.^

10 1/2 square small quilt or hot pad

PQ 16.2 - Ombre

I was thrilled when I saw the subject of this week's challenge!  I was introduced to the concept of ombre (though it wasn't specifically called that) when I took a class taught by Karen Combs.  The class was about Optical Illusion quilts and it employed shades of colors to simulate light and shadow. I made a few blocks, but had never actually finished a quilt with the technique. 

But the class opened my eyes to the power of using shades and gradients of colors in quilting.   A few years after the class, I was a member of the Quiltmaker Magazine's initial "Scrap Addicts".  That group was charged with making scrap quilts based on Bonnie Hunter's column in that publication.  One of the quilts that I made was a queen sized log cabin made from 7 1/2 inch log cabin blocks from 1 1/2 inch strips from my stash.  I used purple blocks as an off-center focal point, then used blue, green, yellow, etc.  blocks shaded  to pinks in the corners.   It actually won a ribbon for Best Use of Color at my guild's quilt show that year.

I made Pat Sloan's Rainbow quilt during the pandemic, which also used the technique of color gradients.

So while I knew that I 'could' make another rainbow quilt for this challenge because a rainbow is after all, a gradient, I ultimately decided to go in a different direction.  Combining black and white with a 1/2 yard of teal ombre fabric that I found in my stash, I decided to make attic window blocks and set them light to dark from top to bottom and right to left. Using white on the bottom of each block and black on the sides gives the illusion of depth.

When I took a picture, I was surprised to see that another optical illusion showed up.  The teal blocks are all 2 1/2 inches finished, but they look shorter toward the bottom than they do at the top. I'm sure that there is a scientific explanation for this, but I'm running out of time to get the picture linked to the PQ 16.2 blog page, so it will have to wait!

Attic Windows
36 inches square

Project Quilting 16.1 - Mythical Creatures

True to form, I am back to blogging only because it is Project Quilting time! That means that I need to remember how to do all the settings to make the formatting on this post consistent with the way it's been since I started about 10 years ago. Ten years? Really? Wow.  I'll think about that later.  In the meantime...

Project Quilting has changed a bit this year. There are still bi-weekly challenges, but no prizes. I'm ambivalent about that. I really don't need anymore 'stuff'. But the fact that you had to finish on time in order to qualify for a prize gave me the extra incentive to actually finish on time! Which I didn't this for this challenge.  In a way, I like it - no sleepless nights with ideas rolling through my brain, so much less stress!

The first challenge of PQ 16.1 is Mythical Creatures. I remembered an applique that was created by Karen Montgomery which is either a gnome or a leprechaun, depending on which hat and beard you use. I had used a variation of that applique when I made my 'gnome' take on Any Which Way, which itself was a take on the Wicked movie poster. (P Q 12.4  - https://myquiltymusings.blogspot.com/2021/02/project-quilting-124-snails-trail.html)

I've decided that I am going to have seasonal wall hangings in my sewing room this year. I don't have one for March, so I decided to make the Leprechaun for this challenge.   It's so rare that I actually finish a seasonal project before the season!  I'm happy that I finished in time for St. Patrick's Day even if I didn't  finish this project in time for the challenge. 

I decided to name him Cornelius, after my Irish great grandfather.  Cornelius the Leprechaun looked a little lonely sitting there with his feet dangling over the bottom border, so I gave him a giant shamrock to keep him company.  I cut some hearts out of the border fabric, and put four of them together to make the shamrock. I had a few left, so they became the leaves. I used a straight stitch on my sewing machine to make a gentle curved stem and just went up and down the original stitching to make it thicker.  

I thought about trying to free motion quilt shamrocks all over the border and background, but chickened out and just did loop-de-loops. 

Cornelius the Leprechaun
13.5 x 17.5 

Now I just have to wait until after Valentine's Day so that I can put up  my new St. Patrick's Day wallhanging!

Project Quilting 15.6 - Irish Chain

How fitting that a challenge issued on March 17 involves something attributed to the Irish!  Although, from a quick search on the web, it appears that the pattern may have originated in the US. Apparently, in Ireland, it is called the American Chain!!

Regardless of where it came from, it is a traditional quilt pattern.  It is listed as a block in many reference books, but you really need two blocks to make the single Irish Chain design - a nine-patch block and a plain background block.  Alternating them makes the typical diagonal chain.  It was historically made as a two color quilt, which really emphasizes the 'chain' pattern.  Given the name, green with a white background is a popular color combination. 

On a normal PQ challenge week, I try to make a baby size quilt.  But this week was shaping up to be a crazy busy week, and my PQ time would be limited.  So when I saw that the challenge was Irish Chain, I have to admit to being less than excited about it.  (Sorry, Trish!)  All I could envision was a scrappy nine patch with a white background.  

Quiltober 23

I have recently completed two  quilts that are scrappy with a white background.  

The first one is called Quiltober 23 from Karen Montgomery's Nine Patch A Day Facebook group. As you can see, it is very similar to an Irish Chain.  It's has the  '23' designation  because she published another Quiltober quilt pattern in 2022.  And probably will have another one this year, so that one will be Quiltober 24! If you are on Facebook, check out the Nine Patch a Day group. 

Karen owned a quilt store for over 20 years before she 'retired' to Florida.  Now, she designs fabric, rulers and patterns and teaches other quilt store owners how to run their business. She occasionally posts patterns that she designs, but more importantly, she posts a video every Sunday evening where she answers quilting questions from group members.  She is a veritable fountain of information!

Circling the Nines variation

Here is the other scrappy-nine-patch-with-white-background-quilt that I recently completed.  It was inspired by a free pattern that I saw on the Quilted Twins website called Circling the Nines.  That one was set on point; I chose a straight set, and made it somewhat smaller.

As you can see, both of these quilts use scraps, a white background and lots of nine-patch blocks.  So it's not that i don't like nine patch blocks with a white background. I'm just a little burnt out on the theme. The thought of working on even a baby size Irish Chain just left me apathetic.  And with all my other commitments this week, I knew that I wouldn't have the energy or time to put into something creative. 

So after a few semi-sleepless nights  of mulling it over, I decided to just do a small, traditional two color single Irish Chain project.  Since I had used up most of my stash of 2 1/2 inch squares and strips on the two previous projects, I dug into my bin of 1 1/2 inch strips.  There, I discovered two strips of a pretty coral with white flowers fabric.  I paired the coral with a scrap of a white-on-white fabric that was printed with small white flowers.

I quilted straight diagonal lines through the coral fabric, and used a decorative floral stitch through the white background squares.  My biggest challenge was the binding.  Because I started with a 1 1/2 inch wide strip, the binding is barely 1/4 inch wide. This was the narrowest binding that I have ever made!  But I like it on a small project like this. 

My Coral Irish Chain project is 9 1/2 inches square. I'm not sure my Irish ancestors would approve of coral instead of green. Coral might be a little too close to orange for their taste!  ^.^

Coral Irish Chain

It's not my most creative venture, but it was quick and easy. It didn't tax my brain on a busy week, it's pretty, and I like the way it turned out.

It has been a great Project Quilting season, and I'm already looking forward to next year!