Quilter's Planner August Blocks

I carved out a bit of time yesterday to put these easy August blocks together for the Quilter's Planner Sew-Along. With each month's latest addition, I find myself very eager to see this quilt coming together. I absolutely love my pastel florals from Lecien fabrics. Just three more months of block-making, then in December, the quilt construction takes place. Looking forward to this finish!

The folks at the QP headquarters have a Facebook group as well as an Instagram group. If this interests you, search these out to feast your eyes on all the various interpretations being made in this sew-along.

What if I decide to work ahead?? I don't think that would be a terrible thing, just saying...

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Quilter's Planner May Blocks

I took some time Wednesday afternoon to make the two blocks for the Quilter's Planner sew-along. I'd been keeping up really well, so I didn't want the month to get away from me before getting these done.

I really have enjoyed making these blocks, and have done a good job of keeping the mess under control. My past experience with sew-alongs is that they result in fabrics and messiness strewn from one end of the sewing room to the other. I have made the extra effort to keep this project under control this time. The picture below shows my storage tub; I keep all the fabrics and finished blocks contained in the tub.

The blocks are getting bigger! This month they measure out at 10.5 inches. Below are all the blocks to this point. May's blocks are the biggest. (There are two of each except for that star on the bottom.)

Here are some closer looks at just May's blocks.

The fabric I am using for this project is Memoire a Paris by Lecien. It is all left over from a 9-patch quilt I made in early January. The resulting quilt will have a wonderfully soft, dreamy, romantic quality; perhaps my anticipation of this is what keeps me on deadline with this sew-along.

That's all for today, Peeps! Have a great Thursday!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Quilter's Planner Sew Along

When the year began, I wasn't particularly interested in participating in the sew along being sponsored by the Quilter's Planner. I had splurged on the planner, and really enjoyed the goodies that came along with it, but from previous experience with BOMs and quilt-alongs, I really did not have a very strong track record.

The top picture is my planner, which came with two cover options. Because I had some of the Bonnie and Camille fabric, second picture, I selected the one featuring their navy floral. My collection of it is limited, but the whole line is quite scrumptious,.

At about the same time I was getting used to using my planner, I was making the quilt you see above. It's a simple 9-patch quilt using an entirely different sort of fabric, this from Lecien called Memoire a Paris. I had begun with a whole fat quarter pack and plenty was left over when the 9-patch top was completed. Those leftovers remained folded ever-so-neatly on the cutting table, and while I was dreaming up my next project, the pretty QP January blocks began appearing on my social media feeds. Without even thinking, I grabbed some Memoire a Paris fabric and made the January block.

Ah!! I loved the way this block turned out! It is so soft and feminine and I could make a whole quilt using blocks like this! As impulsively as I made the January block,  I decided to use those leftovers to make the blocks for this sew along.

And I love making them! Each month I devote an afternoon or an evening to making two blocks, and because I adore this fabric so much, I just love doing it. Take a look at my additional blocks.

January only required one block, but February, March and April have each had two blocks. Above are the blocks for February.

These are the March blocks. You can sorta' see a glimpse of the quilt on the cover of the accompanying QP magazine.

And now I have finished my April blocks. I am enjoying creating this quilt, and I look forward to the blocks for the rest of the year. I may even go all rebellious and work ahead! *grin*

The fun is in the creating. I have no grand plans for this quilt, yet I know I am going to love it when it's finished. I am definitely loving the construction. All the creativity of fabric selection, fabric placement, designs and maybe even substitutions - I get a thrill from this whole range of decision-making. It may well be the part of quilt-making that I love most.

An additional fun element with this particular sew along is that the folks at Quilter's Planner have a Facebook group and an Instagram account; they invite sew along participants to share their blocks each month. I love seeing the vast variety of blocks - fabric choices certainly are all over the quilting spectrum. You might go online and snoop around for them to see what you think.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Memoire A Paris 9-Patch

Yesterday afternoon I happily took my final stitches on the first quilt of the new year. To have a finish so fast this early in the year gives me quite a boost; I feel like this year is going to be awesome with (hopefully!) lots of finishes this satisfying.

The fabric for this simple 9-patch quilt is a collection called Memoire a Paris by Lecien. I had a FQ pack of 14 prints and combined them with some plain white from my stash. If you looked at the post from a few days ago, I explained that my inspiration came from an Instagram picture. If you click back, you can find the IG link to it and compare results.

My photography skills are quite poor compared to Helen Philipps' - hers are amazing! I know nothing about proper lighting and effective editing. For example, the picture above looks a bit washed out - we had a sunny day when the picture was taken - probably had something to do with it. These next couple of pictures are from other rooms in the house, and I have tried editing; it's the best I can do.

This picture above was taken in the family room which is a good bit more shaded as it is in the back (north) side of the house. No direct sunlight and a covered porch keep this room dark.

Draped over the front room sofa on the south-facing side of the house, the sunlight is more predominant. I think this picture is the best representation of the true colors of the prints.

Okay, enough with the photography analysis. The topic at hand is this super-fast and super-easy quilt. I did all phases of it with strip-piecing methods, and did not obsess about fabric placements too much at all. I pieced the blocks in two batches so that my centers would  have variety. I thought I had made way more blocks than I would need, but as I neared the finish of the quilt top, I actually had to make 3 or 4 more blocks to finish out the final row.

I pieced the top in two sections (shown above) and then attached the two halves. It prevented me from having an unwieldy mountain of quilt parts on my sewing table. I will do this on future quilts, as it was much less effort in managing an ever-growing quilt top.

One final seam attaching the two parts, and she's done! I didn't work terribly hard to make all my intersections perfect, but I was careful from cutting to stitching and most have matched up satisfactorily. All in all, I am quite pleased with my finish.

And I say finish, but technically, it might not be. To border or not to border? That is the question.

I had no yardage of this fabric with which to make a border, so today I ordered a 3-yard pink floral from an Etsy shop. It is one of the prints in my quilt, and while it might be too pink for my taste, I will probably use it anyway, just because I think in the end it will look great. If not, then this quilt will be a borderless quilt. And I would be okay with that, too.

So, January 2019 is off to a grand start! Wouldn't it be great if I can continue this pace? With classes beginning next week, that isn't very likely, you know?

Hope your January is off to a grand start, too! Next for me: get my Christmas put away, and then re-introduce myself to that longarm machine in the basement. Ahem. I know. I have ignored it long enough. I am ready to dive in. This week, hopefully!!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

More Memoire 9-Patches

As is normal for me, I am working on making a quilt without a pattern. I do this often, and this usually does not pose a problem for me, with the exception that I never know if I have cut enough of things or have I estimated fabric amounts accurately enough to complete the project.

Great unknows!

In the case of the current project, I believe I am going to be fine. I had a fat quarter pack of Memoire a Paris fabric and several yards of the background. I started by cutting 2 strips off each fat quarter - 14 fqs x 2 strips = 28 strips cut at 2.5 inches. Then I cut enough 2.5-inch strips of the background to make as many 9-patches as possible with those 28 floral strips. Below are the results - 38 9-patch blocks that stitched up just as easy as can be.

My plan is to set them together with alternating background blocks, and (after doing some math,) I realize I need many more 9-patches.

And to that end I have repeated the exact same cuts from all the fabrics, and will begin stitching those this afternoon. Before too long, I will have 76 9-patches, and that will likely be too many, but oh well. I am sure I will find a use for any extras.

I hope your new year is off to a rousing start! I am completely satisfied with my first project of the year, and already find myself thinking about the next one. I love starts!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Pretty Beginning

Way back in April of last year, I found a deal I couldn't resist on a fat quarter pack of Lecien fabric called Memoire a Paris. It is soft, feminine, dreamy and romantic.

I have petted, patted, played and auditioned it frequently in these intervening months, yet nothing really grabbed me until just this past weekend when I saw this gorgeously simple 9-patch quilt from Helen Philipps' Instagram (@helen.philipps) feed. Since I haven't figured out how to copy/paste the picture from IG, just click here to see it.

I have followed Helen's blog for a long time, and since I enjoy her beautiful blog photographs so much, I began following her on IG. More pretty pictures, you know. *wink*

The inspiration was instant, and I began straight away. I am using 2.5-inch strips to make the necessary units for fast results. I am liking the look already! And I have only completed 2 blocks! It will be so much fun to work on this in the next couple of days.

My plan is to be as random with the placement of the prints as I can be, and I am not going to obsess if two squares of the same fabric happen to end up in one block. As the quilt will be covering a bed, this will be insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I may only get one or two more blocks made today, and tomorrow is booked, so maybe on Friday I can get a whole stack of blocks made.

Happy Quilting, Friends!