Criss-Cross Stars

When the precut scraps accumulates to a point of bothering my mind because of lack of space in my small sewing, then another scrappy quilt is in need to be assembled.After watching Lori Hold tutorial on Criss Cross Star, I wanted to sew an entire quilt with that block.

Choosing a Palette of Colors

Selecting precut squares avoided repeat boredness or prevented a lack of accent for each scrappy block. The process of choosing the precut scraps didn't linger, for my goal was to sew, sew, sew scrappy blocks.

With each block done, I laid them on my design wall. All the background fabric is from my stash and has a different tone, from white to dark eggshell tones.

 Borders

I used EQ8 custom quilt to design a half-triangle border for the border. Another tool I used is Borders by Design by Paulette Peters. It's an "easy-to-follow resource guide that provides the how-to for designing more than 30 borders." Learn how to divide the side of your borders to make the unit. A bit of fun math involved.

Quilting Time

Sometimes, I wing it and quilt my top with a simple design. For Criss Cross Star, I waved diagonal lines throughout the quilt and a few circles inside some lines.

Close-up of the quilting

Interestingly, the finished Criss Cross Star prompted me to make another one. Refrain from letting the precut scraps go to waste. Use them—another quilt for the perfect gift for someone.

Let's Go Quilt!

Quilt # 5: Tangerine

With its spectacular Fall's display of colours in the reds, oranges, yellows, and browns, October could inspire anyone to make a quilt. My tendency is instead in the cold colour palette. So, when it came to making Tangerine in the orange and brown fabrics, it wasn't appealing to me in the least. But once done and quilted, I love it!

                                           Tangerine Pattern quilt by Cynthia Brunz can be downloaded.

To my joy, it was pleasant for this beautiful top to be quilted. The Tangerine top was sewn in 2018—one of the 18 modern quilts I did as a challenge.

Now that I think about it, I should have kept this one for myself, but I gladly gave it to my oldest son as a gift. 

Let's Go Quilt!

Pumpkins

How was your Thanksgiving? I hope you had a wonderful time with family and friends. We spent our Thanksgiving with another couple and kept it simple. It was more important to support our friends who were going through a difficult time. 

We are thankful for the plenty we had from our garden this year, even if it was a rainy summer. We cultivated many cucumbers, tomatoes, spaghetti squashes, beans, and lettuce.  

 

 New List of Projects

 

When it rained, I quilted tops and finished a long-term project. I went through all the tasks and organized them in Plastic Clear Bins with a label indicating their completion—the new list was in order of priority for each one.

Each project has the pattern's name, and a label on the right indicating what is done inside: Top, backing, binding & label.

 

The bins all fit great in the upper-opened closet in my sewing room. From the left to the right are the priority order. As you noticed, one quilt is already sandwiched and ready to be quilted. I have two sewing machines. One for assemblage and the other for quilting. Whichever organization system works for you that would encourage your sewing- mojo to move forward.

Pumpkins

For the last three years, I followed Pat Sloan: I love to Make Quilts to keep my sewing mojo creativity alive. Seeing many of her simple patterns and gorgeous fabric inspired me to make one of my quilts using the EQ8 software. While watching her progress with her choices of materials for her pumpkins, I ordered my fabrics and started sewing mine.

                                                          Oupsy! I sewed one row upside-down

Using one wall to visualize our progress is excellent. For this pumpkin project, I used only two pumpkin blocks. One is applique, sewing on the tip with stitches. The other pumpkins were sewed with 2 1/2" strips. The pattern was modified for more straightforward sewing purposes and cutting.

                                                                 Pumpkin 1

Quilting

I modernized the look by quilting straight lines about 1/2" - 3/4" apart, and I didn't mark the top and used a walking foot on the Janome 7700.

                                                 With the extra blocks, I made table runners.

I'm so glad this Pumpkin quilt is completed before the end of October and hung on my hallway.

I used Halloween-themed fabrics for the backing, which I don't care about. It made an excellent backing and was not a waste of material. This collection fabric is All Hallows Eve FQ from Connecting Thread.

 On the Wall

The hallway is a great area to display seasonal quilts and I'm looking forward to do more of them of that size. It brings colours to our home. We both love it!

Happy Thanksgivings to all of you,

Let's Go Quilt!

Lost & Garden Flower

The continual challenge of using orphan blocks or unfinished projects to make one quilt extraordinaire has pushed my creativity overboard. For this to happen, I learned how to use the EQ8 custom quilt. I need to become more savvy about any software, even this one I have had for many years. I don't use it often, but it's so valuable when I do. Here are two examples of quilts done with orphan blocks using the EQ8 custom quilt tool.

 

Lost

 

The name for this quilt isn't original, but I had to give a name to record the project in the Quilting Journal. The truth is, I was at a loss for words for this one.

 

Lost: top finished August 2023

For this finished top, I used:

 

•  3 Criss Cross stars (top corners and one at the bottom right)
•  2 Large blocks (middle top/bottom)
• The Center is four blocks done by my daughter in the grade 9 sewing project.
• Lower left is another orphan block and added a shashing.
• 3 Dash churns are new
• One orphan block in the middle right of the quilt.
•  

Because all the blocks were of different sizes, I needed to figure out the cutting size of each sashing to fit correctly between those blocks. At first, I drew the design on a grid paper with each block in its proper area to visualize the entire quilt. Also, putting those blocks on the design wall helped, but my frustration grew with the sashing pieces I had yet to choose as a background. 

 

Design Wall at Work

                                                  I'm using mostly fabric scraps and precut squares.

EQ8

Eventually, I went to my laptop and brave myself to learn how to use the Custom Quilt program. After watching a few YouTube on it, it became easier to maneuver the program, and I learned how to create my pattern.It was simpler than I thought it would be.

It gives all the size dimensions of each block, and you must add the seam allowance to your pattern after printing it out. This picture shows my progress and how I used some of their included blocks to make my quilt top. It helped visualize the entire finished project.

Flower Garden

Flower Garden completed June 2023

 

For this finished top, I used:

• 3 Grandmother Flower (They are hand-sewn and about 35 years old!)
• Three squares from another project
• A Tree (Times & Season by Piecemaker 2002)
• Large Dresden I did use a new ruler
• A medium size Dresden
  

 

All those orphan blocks are over ten years old and stored in one of my bins. I quilted this top with many different free-motion designs. Unfortunately, I no longer have a close-up picture of the quilt.

What are your goals with your unfinished blocks? And if you're wondering if I still have some orphan blocks in a bin, this will be another project next year.

In Progress:

• Abide in Him
• Superlative   
• Homestead
  

Links

EQ8: Design Custom Quilt Tutorial:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B317hglzs94

Piecemaker:https://store.piecemakers.com/piecemakers-2002-times-and-seasons-calendar-and-quilt-book-p389.aspx

 

Rabbits & Bears

 Hello Everyone,

 

 

Getting Back on Track 

Getting back to a routine regarding this blog was quite challenging. But because I wrote pretty much all the information on each quilt into my Quilting Planner, it did help alot.

 

Rabbit/Bear Panel 

So here is what I did with this cute panel with rabbits and bears I purchased years ago. This was another idea that got lost in a bin with other UFOs. So, when I restarted quilting, I used that panel to turn it into a cute baby quilt and practiced free-motion quilting.

Panel turned into a small quilt

 

                                                  Backing was in the same orange fabric.

                           The quilting was done with straight lines, swirls, and wavy designs.

 

 

Spinner #2 

When you take a long break from motion quilting, those little projects are perfect for practicing. Then I finished Spinner #2, another small quilt.  

 

                                      The quilting was done with an overall simple design.
 

 

In Progress:

• Pumpkin
  
• Abide in Him
• Superlative 
  
• Homestead
  

 

 Orphan Block

This block of twelve, was part of a BOM pattern I never completed. This one was three of four blocks I hand-sewed in 2005  Times and Seasons 2002. What did I do with this orphan block?  I'll share it in my next blog.

 

This block comes from Peacemaker: Times and Seasons quilt:

 https://store.piecemakers.com/piecemakers-2002-times-and-seasons-calendar-and-quilt-book-p389.aspx

 

 

What about you? Do you still have orphan blocks or UFOs that need to be donated or back into your list of priority? 

 

Let's Go Quilt!