We are sew excited to share our ultimate guide on how to make a crazy quilt! From planning to stitch type, we've got everything you'll need!
A few months ago, I let the kids choose the next book for us to read together. Makenna excitedly convinced her brothers to pick Fablehaven and even though it was a little rough getting into the first book, they absolutely love it now. No, I'm not still reading the first book, we finished it some time ago and are now in the middle of the 3rd (I didn't realize I was signing up for 5 books when we got started). After finishing the 2nd book, I thought it would be fun to do a group book report and after looking through the ideas I'd found earlier this year, I picked out the perfect one. I found this quilt book report on the internet, copied the instructions and saved them in my book report folder. Unfortunately, I did't save where I found it so I can't give correct credit, if someone knows who came up with this brilliant idea, let me know, I'd love to acknowledge them! I think it turned out pretty darn good! Each column is the work of a different child and each row has a different theme. Our top row is all their favorite characters (Vanessa, Seth and Kendra). The middle row is their favorite part and the bottom row (from left to right) is the setting (he chose one part of the larger setting of Fablehaven), the plot and the conclusion. One of the things I love is the opportunity to customize, you can have your kids make any kind of square(s) you'd like! As you can probably tell, I adapted it a little for each child's ability (although it was still pretty easy for my 6th grader). James only wrote a sentence or two, Ben wrote a litte more and Makenna wrote a lot. They loved making it and love showing it off to anyone who comes anywhere near our house (okay, I might be exaggerating, but only a little bit). We only have one more book report left until our school year is over and we'll be getting started on them this week (I'll show them to you when we get'em finished). Do you have a favorite book report or activity? I'd love to hear about them!
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A while back I saw this image on Pinterest: You know how excited I get about op-art and 3D images, and turning them into quilts. So this one was very intriguing. After much digging, I determined that it was the work of Victor Vasarely, a major force in 20th century op-art. You can read more about him and see other of his pieces by clicking here or here. However, I could not find anything specifically about this piece! It is not on any of the Vasarely sites...I do not even know its title. I tried contacting the Museo Vasarely en Hungría, but they never replied to my email. Looking at this piece, you can see that it is a variation on the standard tumbling blocks pattern. The main differences are a) some of the blocks are rectangles rather than squares (actually, the tumbling block "squares" are really hexagons!), and b) there are black filler pieces in between each "block". These fillers separate the blocks and add extra depth. So...how to turn this into a quilt? Actually, the design was rather easy! I printed it, drew horizontal and vertical lines through all the vertices, and got a very well-defined grid. It was easy to transpose this grid, including the diagonals, into Excel and then use its tools to shade appropriately. To get the dimensions, I started with 1/2" x 1/2" as the size of the center square. That meant the intersecting middle row and column were also 1/2" wide. From there I worked the dimensions until I got to the last row and column which are both 3" in size. This resulted in 37 columns and 31 rows, and a finished size of 43" x 58"! Certainly a large work (no idea how big the original is), but I felt this size was necessary to create the depth required for the best effect. Here is my finished piece: I chose to use 4 shades of purple (plus black) rather than the blue of the original (although some of the shades look similar). So the pattern, plus the judicious use of light, medium, and dark colors seems to pull the viewer into the center of a distant pit. You feel like you are falling inward. On the other hand, if you look at the outer edges, they almost appear as a street view of apartment balconies and buildings. Or are they prisms fracturing the light into various shades? (Hence the name: Purple Prisms.) But perhaps you see something else altogether. Construction proved to be much more of a challenge than the design phase. This involved cutting and piecing many half-square triangle and half-rectangle triangle pieces. Half-squares are easy; it was the half-rectangles that gave me fits! For certain of the smaller finished dimensions you can not follow the standard tutorial instructions. Why? Because the seam allowance is such a large part of the actual piece that you have to account for it when putting the two halves of the rectangle together. I am not exactly sure at what point this happens. If anyone is interested in solving this mystery I have a full write-up available and would love to hear from you! Unfortunately, I did not realize this issue existed until I had finished several columns! Hey! The points aren't meeting up correctly! Rip...rip....rip...rip!! One good aspect of the construction is this: when you make the half-square and half-rectangle pieces, you get 2-for-1! That is, cutting, 2 black pieces and 2 purple pieces, then slicing, dicing, and sewing back together, results in 4 finished pieces! So, as I cut and pieced one column, the corresponding column on the other side of the center was simultaneously being built! Made it seem like a faster process. The other nice feature of this pattern is that every other column is made up of simple square or rectangular pieces. That is, the "halfsies" are in the even numbered columns and took a lot of time to do, while the even numbered columns are simple fabric pieces that went up quickly. To quilt it, I used clear monofilament thread, and ditched it on both sides of the even numbered rows. You can see that the seams on these rows go uninterrupted from edge to edge, while the seams in the odd rows are broken up by some of the vertical solid blocks. The "wow" is in the pattern....why distract with any kind of noticeable quilting? When the body was done, it was time for the border. Like many of my op-art pieces I wanted that extra POP!, so I figured a black border would be best. As I played with the fabric to see what size to make it, I was not satisfied. Since there are black pieces on all four edges, it looked like they were bleeding into the border. Hmmmm..... I consulted with a quilting friend and she suggested no border at all! She felt that anything would present too much of a frame that would detract from the illusion. Perhaps Vasarely felt the same way as his op-art pieces all appear to be unframed! As with some of my more recent pieces, I knew I wanted to mount this on stretcher bars. Having it just hang loosely from a sleeve would lessen the impact; it needs to be taut. So I still had to add fabric to allow the piece to be mounted. I sewed on 2" of black fabric to facilitate the wrapping around the frame. However, it is only seen from the sides, not on the front, so it is completely functional and not part of the finished work. Note: The piece is mounted on the rectangular frame; the apparent curve in the photo above is just camera distortion. And there you go. To see more of this wonderful artist's work, go to Artsy. One more treat: to demonstrate how the piece actually came together, I created a slide show of photos after each two columns were added. It's a pretty cool thing! If you have two more minutes, click on the link to see how it went: Construction Slideshow
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Never made a quilt as you go block before? This tutorial will show you all about quilting as you go method - easy and for beginners!
Looking for quilting quotes? Get inspired by some of the best quotes about quilting and download our free quilting quotes wall art.
“Yep, you can never have too much fabric! Who else thinks so? #mondaymeme #sewinlove”
Making string blocks might be my very favorite way to use up scraps of pretty much any size! And these aren’t only good for quilts. Use them for hot pads, Christmas stockings - whatever you can...
The Quilt as You Go technique is a lot of fun. Whether you are trying it out for the first time or becoming pretty good at the method, it's something everyone can do.
Looking for quilting quotes? Get inspired by some of the best quotes about quilting and download our free quilting quotes wall art.
The quilt as you go technique (QAYG) simplifies quilting for beginners because it is an easy way to join quilted pieces by machine.
Feel like getting creative? Got a stash of fabric and some left over pieces of batting? Let’s face it, if you’re a quilter, who hasn’t! Well it’s time to get those bits and pieces out of the cupboard and turn them into a fun, reversible quilt as you go scrap quilt and we have the perfect pattern, The Humming Bird Quilt and the best news is that it’s new to our instant PDF pattern range so no need to wait, you can download it and get started straight away. So, this is the front view........This
Are you thinking about making a temperature quilt? I made one in 2020...well, okay, my temperature quilt represents 2020, but it wasn't actually finished until almost the end of 2021. Even though it took me much longer than I thought it would, it was a lot of fun to make and I'm really glad I decided to go for it. Even more, I love how it turned out and plan to soon hang it up in my new sewing room. Since we're nearing the start of another new year, I have a few tips to share if you're thinking about diving in to make your own temperature quilt. And, I have a free workbook you can download to help you keep track of everything you decide. Enter your email address here to have the workbook sent to your inbox. Data source First things first, where will you get the daily temperature information you're going to use? Look for government agencies or weather apps or websites that show historical weather (meaning just weather before today, lol, not necessarily from what we'd consider History). This is important so you can check to see what the high temperature actually was yesterday and so you don't have to worry if you forget to check for a day or two while on vacation or if you fall behind - you can just go back and look it up. Also, I recommend you have a backup plan for getting the temperature. I used Environment Canada for my temperatures, but there were a few days throughout the year when some kind of glitch happened that meant the temperature wasn't listed and I had to use a second source. Which temperatures and which shape? These next two decisions kind of go hand-in-hand. Will you track both the high and low temperature for each day or only one of them? And, what shape will you use to display the temperatures? Some shapes, like HSTs and flying geese, naturally lend themselves to tracking two daily temperatures, though they could certainly be used with a background fabric instead if you want to track only one temperature. Other shapes, like the circles I used, are only one fabric, so they work better for tracking one temperature (the high, in my case). I've seen people use hexagons to track the daily high temperature, and I've also seen half-hexagons used to track both. All of that to say, choosing what to track and what shape to stitch are both entirely personal decisions and there's no right or wrong answer. Another part of choosing which shape to use is how they will be stitched. By machine or by hand? If by machine, is your machine always set up for piecing? Or do you sometimes switch it over to machine quilt something that will take a while to finish and it would be a pain to have to constantly switch back and forth to stitch your temperature blocks? Or are you okay with making the blocks in batches, once the machine is set up for piecing again? In my case, I decided to go with hand appliqued circles because my free motion quilting can often take a week or more for a quilt, so I didn't want to fall that far behind on my blocks, since I intended to make a block a day (for the day before). The joke was on me, though, since I fell way, way, waaaay behind and didn't actually finish making my 2020 blocks until the fall of 2021. Good thing I could go back and look up what those high temperatures had been! What size for the blocks? Once you know what shape you'll be using, it's time to figure out what size the blocks should be. Keep in mind, there will be 365 of them, so you probably don't want to go too big! Start by thinking about how big you want the finished quilt to be, just in general terms. Do you want a throw size? A baby quilt? A wallhanging? Each one will require a different size for the blocks. Graph paper would be a great way to help you visualize how the finished quilt would look with different size blocks. I knew I didn't want my temperature quilt to be big, so I decided my blocks would finish at 1 ½". When you're planning what size to cut your blocks, don't forget to account for the seam allowances! My blocks are arranged in a 19 x 20 layout, which gave me a 28 ½" x 30" quilt center. That layout also left me with some leftover blocks, which I distributed so one was at the start of each month and two were at the end. I embroidered the initial for each month and the year on those leftover blocks. How many fabrics? How many fabrics will you need? This is going to be determined by two factors: the variation in temperature over the course of a year (just how low and how high do your temperatures go?) and how many degrees each fabric will represent. Here in Newfoundland in 2020 our daily high temperatures ranged from - 15°C to 29°C. I had each fabric represent 3 degrees, except for the fabric that only represented 0°C, which means I used a total of 16 fabrics. Which colours? Now the most exciting part! Which colours will you use? Keep in mind that the colours you choose for the temperatures in the middle of the year will be more prominent in the finished quilt than the ones for the temperatures in January or December. When I was planning my quilt, a lot of the ones I looked at used a colour range from blue-green-yellow-orange-red. That meant the middles of the quilts had a lot of yellow and orange, which really didn't appeal to me. I much preferred the ones with a blue-purple-pink-red progression, so that's what I went with. In hindsight, I could have done a better job arranging the fabrics into the gradient. There are a couple that are not quite right and should have been moved to slightly cooler temperatures to make the gradient flow better. I would caution you to take your time here and make sure you get that nice flow between fabrics. Sticking with it A year is a long time to commit to a project! It helps to have a plan for when you'll stitch your blocks. One a day? A week's worth every weekend? A dedicated day now and then to get caught up? In order to stick with it, you have to design the project in a way that fits into your life and the way you like to work. There's no sense in designing something that you won't be able to keep up with or that you won't enjoy. We want this to be fun, after all! That being said, there will probably be times when the plan goes awry. Life will get in the way no matter how well you design the project because that's just what life does. It's good to go in knowing that disruptions will happen so you don't beat yourself up when something does come up. Then, it's just a matter of deciding if you need to adjust your plan going forward or if it was just a brief disruption that won't impact things once you get caught up. And if, like me, you end up so far behind schedule that you stop working on it entirely, know that the blocks will be there waiting when you're ready to come back to them. And you can always join me for WIPS-B-GONE to get it finished! WIPS-B-GONE is my annual project finishing challenge, the first of which was exactly what got me to finish my own temperature quilt. Now I'm hosting the challenge for the second time and working through some of my other WIPS. Have fun! Make sure your download the How to Plan Your Temperature Quilt worksheet so you can keep track of all of your decisions and your fabric gradient. Whatever shapes and fabrics you decide to use, I hope you have fun planning and stitching your temperature quilt.
Sorry partner, I couldn't help but name it. It just spoke to me! I'm not sure if you'll like this and I do have something else in mind, so tell me what you think......please??? It's 12 x 17".
What quilting skills intimidate you? There are some techniques that have a reputation for being hard, even if they're actually pretty simple, and the partial seam definitely falls into that category. It sounds confusing and scary, but I promise it's not! Gaye Glasspie (ggmadeit on Instagram) has a saying I love, "It's not hard, it's new." Isn't that a great shift in perspective? I'm excited to open the Stash Artists membership for Founding Members on Tuesday, June 27th (get on the waiting list, to be sure you don't miss it!), and Reverberate will be the first pattern available to members. The Reverberate block goes together with a partial seam, so this seemed like a great opportunity to share a tutorial. Let's dive in! I'll be sharing my full Reverberate cover quilt soon, but after a friend suggested the Reverberate block would look great with bright stars on a black background, I had to give it a try! I love it as much as I thought I would, so making more blocks has been added to my 'someday' list. That list never grows shorter, no matter how many quilts I make, and that actually makes me happy. I love knowing I'll never run out of things to make. Here are the units for my Reverberate block. You can see how it wouldn't be possible to put the block together with normal seams, since all of the outside pieces are longer than the center square. This is the same problem you'll see with any block that needs a partial seam, and the method for assembling the block will always be the same. So these steps apply to any block with a partial seam, not just the Reverberate block! Starting with the unit on the top of the block, sew the first couple inches of the seam, backstitching a couple stitches where you stop. Press that portion of the seam open. Now we'll add the unit on the left. With the first part of the top seam sewn, the left side of the center square unit is now the same length as the outside unit, so we can sew this seam normally. Press the seam open. Add the bottom unit the same way. And then the unit on the right. Now it's time to finish the top seam. Fold the top unit down so the raw edge lines up. Start stitching where you stopped earlier, overlapping the stitches slightly, and backstitching again to secure those first stitches. Then just stitch the rest of the seam. Press the seam open, and your block is finished! I hope you'll give partial seams a try, and discover just how doable they are! Remember, "It's not hard, it's new!"
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You may think this is all about Garden of Quilts but WAIT!!! That's just the intro and a quick summary of my time spent there last week. Stay with me to see what the title of this post is really all about . . . Wonky Wonder Block-in-a-Block! I just got back from the Garden of Quilts in Lehi, Utah and boy oh boy it did NOT disappoint. If you have NOT been, you definitely need to grab a friend or two and head there next year. They've already announced the dates so you can plan and save for the best time ever! Next year's Garden of Quilts will take place from September 11 - 14, 2024 in Lehi, Utah at Thanksgiving Point where lots and lots of quilts will be displayed throughout the entire Ashton Gardens (below). I had the opportunity to share my latest designs, Twist and Turn, Galaxy of Stars, Galaxy of Stars II and several of my Heartfelt quilts with fellow quilters during my lecture segment. Before I started my lecture, I teased the group that I had a quilt that would blow their minds BUT they had to wait until the very end because I knew it would generate a lively discussion. Before I go any further, you'll need to familiarize yourself or RE-FAMILIARIZE yourself with my NO CUT - NO TRIM Block-in-a-Block that I shared here back in November, 2022. Don't take my word for it, please please please click on the link above and check it out because the rest of this post will make NO sense. OK, all up to speed and all on the same page now? As I had anticipated, the group went nuts when I showed them "how" to make a single NO CUT - NO TRIM block. Their creative juices started flowing and before you knew it, comments were being shared, questions asked and the conversation got very lively! I wish I would have gotten the quilter's name because she had the BEST question, that got my creative juices flowing, that generated this post. "Can you OFF CENTER the 5" square and still be a NO CUT - NO TRIM design?" Yes! Yes! Yes! and here's the proof . . . . . Can you see how I've randomly off centered the 5" center square? Check out some of those "skinny margins"! And they still line up perfectly with each other! And with the WONKY method you can skip creasing both your 5" and 10" squares completely! Yep, save yourself a step. I LOVE me some WONKY sewing! AND you want to know another "benefit" of the WONKY method? NO SEAMS TO MATCH UP! Just grab your blocks and sew them in rows then sew your rows together and ta-dah; done! Show of hands, who is LOVING this new twist on an already very popular design? There's no pattern. Just a quick glance back to THIS blog post for the step by step illustrations MINUS creasing of the 5" and 10" squares for your very own Wonky Wonder! Who's running to their sewing room now? Me too! I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot of Wonky Wonder quilts. In case you're wondering, I used a Floret 5" and 10" Stacker for the blocks above and I'm loving how it looks. If you want to capture that same look, you can purchase both stackers here. Happy Wonky Wonder Sewing! Gerri
I think it’s the time of year but I have Valentine Quilts on the brain. I am working on one with pink scraps (that I will show you on a Facebook live tomorrow) but here are some others that I am putting on my to-do list. Most of them are simple quilts to make […]
So you’ve made a quilt that you love and now you are wondering how to display it so that you can see and enjoy it every day… or you want a way to quickly and easily change out your wall hangings for the seasons… OR you’re thinking that you are ready to enter your fabulous […]
In the final week of the Shine sew along we finish our quilt tops. The grand prize is a free EverSewn sewing machine!
Quilt-as-you-go projects come together so quickly! And even easier with this @junetailorinc pre-printed batting! #quultasyougo #mugrug #mugmat #agftheflowerfields #maureencracknellfabric...
Sharing some Quilt-as-you-Go projects I’ve been working on including some new classes! Sorry that i’ve been MIA on my blog – it’s been a crazy week. I was up until 3:30am th…
"Attic Stairs" is one of the quilt patterns in my new book. It's a no-thinking-required scrap-buster. As you generate scraps from other projects, cut and toss into 2 piles: one dark and one light. Sew pairs, then trim into final size. Before you know it you'll have that gift you've been meaning to make. See the book, and then comment to enter the fat quarter giveaway.
In the final week of the Shine sew along we finish our quilt tops. The grand prize is a free EverSewn sewing machine!
I know, that you have probably seen this one before. But its Blogger´s Quilt Fetival and I participate with my poem quilt. I made this a few months ago, because I like any kind of art with little poems or words. I browsed the internet and found this one by the irish poet "Samuel Lover" (cool name isn´t it?). While I was piecing the letters I noticed that I coul have been more effective with cutting the fabric, but so for the next time I know it. It was a bit stressful to quilt this huge one, but when I finished it, I was really happy. Now this quilt is one of my favorites to be laid on my bed. I used some grey solid cotton and a layer cake of Tula Pink´s Plume collection. I love her collections, because they are so full of phantasy and creativity. Happy Blogger´s Quilt Festival for you all! And a wonderful weekend!
Never made a quilt as you go block before? This tutorial will show you all about quilting as you go method - easy and for beginners!
