I'm In! Falling Stars Sew-Along / Beauties Pageant 330

April proved to be a time of RPI: rapid project initiation. This phenomenon had nothing to do with me and my weakness for the thrill of a new fabric pull. It had everything to do with the limited brick-and-mortars in my area.

This bout of RPI all started with my next crafty production-line obsession: drawstring bags. Two friends swear by their heat presses for speeding up the interfacing process, and I was intrigued. After investigating buying a commercial heat press secondhand, I placed an order for a more-compact new unit.

What did I do while I waited for the heat press? I started Stara—that colorful project from a few weeks ago. Once I discovered its issues with shadowing, however, I had to place an order for new background fabric.

What did I do while I waited for the heat press and new fabric? I started Falling Stars, the current sew-along from the Modern Quilt Guild (MQG). 

Falling Stars is a fun sew: It’s all about 2.5-inch squares and half-square triangles (HSTs), and requires an eye for value. I used the opportunity to bust through my low-volume scraps, pairing those mostly white and off-white fabrics with blacks and grays from my stash.

At first blush, the block seems humble enough. Once you pair two together, however, you can see the magic at work ...

If you’re an MQG member and considering joining, it’s not too late (learn more here). And I have some advice for you: I’ve been streamlining the cutting and piecing processes with great success. First, instead of making two-at-a-time HSTs per the pattern instructions, I used the HST die on my Accuquilt Go. This means I’ll be sewing bias edges, but still, I won’t have to trim anything—and I’d take bias edges over trimming any day. If you don’t have an Accuquilt Go, may I suggest making a friend who does?

I am also using the web-piecing method. Although I first heard of this technique a decade ago, I only recently tried it out. This is not the technique where you use a thin layer of interfacing to lay out and sew a block together. It’s the one where you chain-piece the first-column pieces to the second-column pieces, cut the thread, chain-piece the third-column pieces to those units, cut the thread, and continue until all the pieces are attached. (Then, that’s the point where you press and sew the rows together.) As a gal who has a habit of zoning out for just long enough to mix up the order of a patchwork block, I’m sold on the web-piecing approach. 

I know the linky focuses on finishes, but I want to hear about your new projects, too. What have you started up recently?

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A Quilt Trade / Beauties Pageant 329

There’s something special about owning projects made by other makers. You can find such projects throughout my house—I have mini-quilts, pouches, and other items I’ve either been gifted or have purchased from other sewists and quilters. 

A few months ago, I laid claim to a friend’s finished Folk Blooms quilt (pattern by Lindsay O’Neil of Pen and Paper Patterns). "Laid claim" is the appropriate phrase. My friend didn’t offer to gift it to me. I didn’t offer to purchase it. But I was immediately smitten with the throw-size project and asked whether she had a recipient in line. When she said didn’t, we agreed to a trade.

Now the only question was, what would I make for this friend in return? At some point in the months that followed, she saw my in-process scrappy Quilty Stars (pattern by Emily Dennis of Quilty Love) and decided it would be perfect for her.

Pictured here is Quilty Stars, all quilted and bound and in the hands of its new owner. This project had been a WIP for a few years, just waiting for some free time in my sewing schedule to become a priority.  

Quilty Stars was my opportunity to use up dark-blue and low-volume prints from my scraps and stash. Some prints appear once, maybe twice, in the quit top. Many others appear in many more blocks. That’s how I like my scrappy projects: Repetition creates much-needed cohesion for me.

To counter all the scrappiness on the quilt top, the backing is a solid pale green. A friend quilted a figure-eight edge-to-edge panto over the collection of blue and white fabrics, and I used my last remnants of Denyse Schmidt’s Hope Valley for the binding.  

For the first time, my guild has organized a more formal quilt swap this year, called Secret Buddies, and I’m excited to take part in that. It’s not a person-to-person trade, though: The person you’re making a quilt for isn’t the person sewing for you. In addition to making a throw-size quilt, participants surprise their partners with a few gifts throughout the year. The quilt and buddy reveal isn’t until November, though, so don’t expect to see anything around here for a while! : )

Have you ever swapped finished quilts with another quilt maker?

Event Tomorrow!

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Pivot! Pivot! / Beauties Pageant 328

I can’t use the word "pivot" without thinking of the episode of Friends when Ross convinces Rachel and Chandler to carry a couch up flights of stairs to his apartment. (Spoiler alert: Things do not end well for the couch.) The story I’m about to tell you about pivoting, however, features neither furniture nor nineties TV-show plot lines ...

 

I started a new project! After finishing four baby quilts for charity, I thought I deserved to embark on something new, despite the small pile of WIPs staring me down each day. I chose Stara, a pattern by Taralee Quiltery because I had already purchased the corresponding acrylic templates from Cut Once Quilts back in 2025. 

 

I planned to use some black Starry scraps for the spiky triangles (see them in the full design here), leftover Ruby Star basics for the nine-patches, and white-on-white Punch Hole Dots from my stash. Are you picking up on the theme here? All the fabric was from my stash or scrap bin, and everything was Ruby Star. What could go wrong?

 

I started with piecing the white background with spiky Starry triangles and, after an hour or two of sewing, realized Something Very Bad was happening. Because of my light background and the sharp angles of the triangles, the black Starry would show through my pressed seams. 

 

In the past, I haven’t realized comparable shadowing issues until the project at hand was quilted. In other words, it was too late to address the issue. I knew I wouldn’t be pleased with my finished Stara, so I pivoted. My order for different background fabrics should arrive on Monday.

 

Often a snafu like this one would call for a time-out—I would need a break from the problematic project. The issue with placing a quilt top in process into time-out, though, is that it will most likely become just another WIP. To maintain the momentum I had built up for Stara, I persevered with the nine-patches. Playing with colorful fabrics did my heart good, and I made good progress while waiting for the new background options to arrive. Phew—background-fabric crisis and potential WIP averted!

 

Are you able to pivot mid-project like that, or are you more of a time-out kind of quilter?

 

Also, something else I’m curious about ... The Starry scraps were from wideback yardage. I know that fabric manufacturers use different gray goods to produce widebacks and that widebacks tend to shrink more than standard-width quilting cottons, so I treated these scraps with Retayne, a color fixative, and dried them on high. Have you ever used wideback for piecing? Please share your insight in the comments!

 

As for the other quilt of mine with shadowing issues, it was my own design: Set to Spin. I was able to come up with a workaround for that particular pattern, but I noticed the problem too late in the process to save my sample. Of course, you don’t notice the shadowing unless you’re curled up with the quilt ...

 

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One Weekend, Two Quilt Shows / Beauties Pageant 327

In general, there are not that many big quilt shows in New England. This is disappointing on many levels—first, because this area was once a hub for textile production and, second, because I live in Massachusetts and it’s nice not to have to trek states away to hang out with a quilty crowd! Last weekend, however, there were two quilt shows happening simultaneously. 

On Wednesday, American Quilt Society (AQS) opened its first-ever show in Hartford, CT. By the time the show started, however, I was already beat! I had trekked down the day before to help my friend Taz set up her Camberville Threads booth in the vendor hall. I cannot express how much physical labor this was. We pushed and pulled and lifted so many bins of fabric, and man, fabric is heavy.

But the effort was well worth it. It was a joy to hang out with Taz and watch quilters interact with the collection of fabric and notions she has curated. (Camberville Threads is an online retail shop, so seeing it as a physical store was a treat that happens only at shows like this.) From Bolt to Beauty was well represented in the booth, too. Five of my designs were displayed, alongside my book, Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts, and the complete line of printed FBTB patterns.

There were also, of course, quilts hanging at the AQS show. I had time to visit some of them. The modern section was QuiltCon in miniature, and I was delighted to see work by Audrey Esarey, Betsy Vinegrad, and Susan Braverman displayed at the show with ribbons. (The full list of winners can be found here.)

Then I headed back to Massachusetts for a day to recuperate before venturing north to the New England Quilt Expo in Manchester, NH. There I taught Five-Star Experience, the cover quilt from my book, as a three-hour workshop. 

It was a great teaching experience! Because students received their books the day of the class, I started our time together with a mini trunk show, looking at many of the book projects and explaining how my take on jelly rolls differs from other patterns out there. Then we segued to the talking about the challenges of working with jelly rolls—including those annoying pinked edges—and how to overcome them. Finally, we started on our own throw- or baby-size version of Five-Star Experience.   

Would you believe that I headed back to Connecticut on Saturday for another day of vending with Taz and then breaking down the booth? It’s true!

A big thank-you to everyone who made the effort to seek me out at either show. I saw guildmates I didn’t expect to run into and quilty friends from way back when. I even got to meet one blog friend—Kathleen from Kathleen McMusing—in real life! 

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A Happy (Patriotic) Accident / Beauties Pageant 326

Ideas for my quilt designs spring out of all sorts of situations. Sometimes, I see something—in nature or architecture—and immediately identify the kernel of a quilt project. So I take a picture and file the idea away for a future design session. Other times, I sit down with a particular objective in mind—I want to use up a bundle of fabric or create a project with a specific theme—and that gets my brain going in one direction or another. 

On two occasions, however, I have set out to design an American flag quilt, and both times I failed. I chased multiple ideas in these sessions, but the results were not compelling enough for me to pursue. There are a lot of great patterns for American flag quilts already, and the ideas I came up with didn’t bring anything new to the table.

Both times, however, I realize that I had already designed an American flag quilt. Here are the details ...

Accidental Patriotic Quilt: Love Boldly

Years ago, inspired by one of my older son’s t-shirts and motivated by a QuiltCon stripes challenge, I designed Love Boldly. I love Love Boldly’s bright, oversize hearts sitting against a white background. I finished my sample quilt by quilting a giant X through the center of the quilt top and then echoed in each of those quadrants. 

You can imagine my surprise when I looked at the pattern a few weeks before its scheduled release and saw the stripes of the American flags in its lines. A quick mock-up in EQ8 verified my suspicion: There was a flag hiding in those hearts!

At first, this patriotic flag heart existed as a bonus block to the Love Boldly pattern. But over time, it became more popular than the original, so I spun it off into its own pattern, calling it Patriotic Love Boldly. There may not be a huge market for heart quilts, but there is definitely demand for patriotic hearts on quilts.

Accidental Patriotic Quilt: Twin-Star Cabins

I was certain this accidental-design phenomenon was a fluke. Then it happened a second time.

With the 250th anniversary of the ratification of the Declaration of Independence coming this summer, I was once again thinking of patriotic quilts. I played around with a paper and pencil but couldn’t develop anything unique.

Then, once again, I considered an existing pattern: Twin-Star Cabins. This design, released earlier this year, is built upon stars. All it took was a blue-and-red fabric collection—I chose Sweetwater’s Independence Day—to transform Twin-Star Cabins’ Ruby Star-studded original ...

into a patriotic quilt ... 

I have heard quilters talk about the upcoming 250th anniversary and express an interest in patriotic quilts. Have you heard any buzz along those lines? I’m going to compile a list of patriotic quilt patterns. If you have a favorite—something you’ve already sewn or have on your quilty bucket list—let me know!

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Two Baby-Size WIPs: Done and Done! / Beauties Pageant 325

I’ve been in a weird state of quilty purgatory lately. With two new patterns already under my belt this year (see them here and here), I’ve moved on to the less-fun tasks I’ve been putting off ... I dug out my long-neglected bin of batting scraps and sewed frankenbatting for seven small quilt projects. I’ve been organizing what I can only accurately describe as scrap mountain. And I’ve been quilting and quilting, with something tangible to show for my efforts! Meet two baby-size versions of I Heart Rainbows, from Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts ...

 

Originally, these two quilts were part of the same big quilt top. When word came through my guild that we would be donating baby quilts to a United Way event, I chopped it up, creating four little projects. Perhaps that sounds silly. After all, I was planning on donating the larger version somewhere, too. Finishing four projects that met an organization’s needs and would be used right away seemed smarter than finding the right home for a twin-size quilt, though.

These projects feature fabric from Lucky Bugs, a collection by Sugaridoo for Benartex. I love how these prints read as solids, making them more modern and versatile ...

 

The challenge with I Heart Rainbows is that its blocks are wider than they are tall. A four-block quilt, then, would also have been longer horizontally than it would be vertically. I solved the problem by adding thick top and bottom borders, which resulted in two square quilts. Now that I see the projects quilted and bound, however, I wonder whether that was necessary. Would these quilt have been weird without those thick borders? That’s not a rhetorical question: I have two more of these to finish. Please chime in!

Linking up to Favorite Finish at Quilting Jetgirl ... 

Upcoming Event in West Newbury, MA 

 

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Master of Small Projects / Beauties Pageant 324

Over the past six months, I have become the master of small projects. The phenomenon started last fall with thread catchers that became so addictive that made almost two dozen of them. (I foolishly gifted the lion’s share of them at QuiltCon without taking any pictures!) It continued with the Hudson pouches I made for a family trip and then for teacher holiday gifts ...

What is it about small projects? I think it’s the nice hit of dopamine I get from finishing something. Quilts, on the other hand, seem to take forever.

At least, that was my mindset when I signed up for the Sewtopia Galentine’s Day mug-rug swap. I hadn’t participated in a swap in years, and I couldn’t resist the idea of plotting a small project to gift to another quilter.

The picture at the top of the post is what I made for my partner, Laura. It’s the Sawtooth Star with Log Cabin by Joe, June, and Mae. I originally embarked on sewing the Bear Paw Quilt Block by the same designer but quickly determined it required a bazillion pieces. The Sawtooth Star was a better option—more simple but still visually interesting. 

I was so pleased with the top that developing a quilting plan was intimidating—I didn’t want to mess up my beautiful foundation paper piecing! Some simple stitching in the ditch worked well and created the effect I was going for. Check it out on the back, which also features what’s become my finishing signature: chunky-stitch binding ...

What did I receive from the quilter who was sewing for me? Heidi sent me this gorgeous, scrappy strawberry mug rug. I didn’t have the heart to put a drippy mug of tea on this beauty, so it has joined other mini-quilts on the wall in my kitchen.

I am always looking for small projects—ones that will put the fabric and notions I have on hand to good use. (The thread catchers used up scraps of linen and batting. The Hudson pouches busted through a ton of zippers.) What are your best recommendations on that front? Let me know in the comments!

And on a completely different note, if you’re in New England and want to talk jelly rolls ...

 

 

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