Category Archives: Round Robin

Round Robin Finish

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Today’s finish leaves me slightly astounded. If you have been reading my posts for any length of time, you know I am not one for finishing a QAL in a timely fashion. This is clearly evidenced by the quilt top I made for the Mosaic Mystery QAL back in 2019 which still awaits completion. The quilt top is so pretty too! The poor thing deserves to be finished. Well, this year I have been trying to change all of this. I decided to start finishing up the projects that have languished. Additionally, I have been working really diligently to use up the fabric on hand (of which there is a large supply).

My fabric stack for the Morewood Mystery Quilt

Further illustrating my point is the stack of fabric I had selected for the next QAL I was going to join. This photo was taken in August 2020. I went so far as to cut most of the pieces and stitch up a large number of half square triangles before I realized I just wasn’t into it. Not sure what happened but I didn’t like where it was headed. Then the pieces sat in a project bag until SAHRR 2023 began. Not knowing exactly how this round robin would work out, I promised myself to use as many of these cut up pieces as possible. It worked out well and I was able to utilize every HST I had made! Of the pieces I had cut for the Morewood Mystery, remaining are a large stack of six inch squares cut in the orange and green batik and an even larger stack of 2″ x 6″ rectangles of the polka dot fabric. These three together should work in some design for another quilt so they are bundled together for future use. Overall, I am super pleased with how many bits were used for the round robin.

Here is a shot of the entire quilt. It is quite joyful to me. This quilt is so colorful and a maybe a bit on the crazy side with the variety of pieces and types of blocks included in it.

There are loads of different quilting motifs used on the quilt. My only plan was to treat each border or section uniquely. I haven’t done lots of free motion quilting lately. In an effort to finish some projects, I have relied on quicker straight line quilting.

To ensure a reasonable level of success, I have been practicing a bit. Also, I have been doodling on a large whiteboard I keep in the sewing room for this. (Do you have one? It is a great way to practice the designs before actually sewing. Doodle, erase and doodle some more!) Above you can see some daisies, stippling and my interpretation of ribbon or ribbon candy on the right.

My favorite motif I used is a flower which I quilted on the center of each square in a square block. Those were super fun and once I got going they were not difficult at all. I did a fair amount of stitching in the ditch as well. Not every bit of the quilt has been quilted down which leaves it nice and soft.

For the backing I used a width of this red print leftover from my shop. I have quite a bit of this – maybe another five yards. It is likely you’ll see this on the back of a few more quilts. Because the quilt ended up being 48″ wide, I had to add a narrow stripe of white to each side. I also have about three more yards of the polka dot fabric (leftover from the shop) and used some of it to bind the quilt.

I did not have a quilt holder available because Ray has been down with a virus all week. Instead, I used the front porch here.

This shot is in a wooded area in our front yard. I like taking outdoor shots when it is a bit overcast. The colors are so accurate here.

This round robin was so much fun and way out of my norm. The fact that I didn’t know what was coming next and no sizes were dictated to me was a stretch. Working this way taught me a lot. While I don’t want to pick apart my finished quilt and decide what I don’t like about it, there are a few takeaways that I hope to remember next time. Learning from each project is a good thing though. Isn’t that how we continue to make progress?

Thank you Gail for dreaming up this event back during the days of lockdown and loneliness. I am super happy I joined in this year and am already crossing my fingers you will host it again next year! (Please???)

Linking up with the final link party (tomorrow) over at Quilting Gail’s as well as Oh Scrap!. I hope you will check out the other SAHRR finishes. It is incredible to see the variety of interpretations of this event. Really amazing.

There is still plenty of time to purchase your ticket to the Color Mixer event coming up on March 30th! If you want to read more about this virtual class, the details are here.

SAHRR Round 6

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Woohoo – The final round of the Stay at Home Round Robin is finished and I have a quilt top! This was a super fun event for me and I am so happy Gail thought of this during early Covid days and continued it with a growing popularity.

Gail chose the block for the last round and it is pinwheels. Without any sort of plan, I separated any remaining HST’s from that stack of old prepared bits I have been trying to use up. Then I made pinwheels with them.

After this set of pinwheels I also made some with red/polka dot HST’s. Each set of pinwheel blocks finished at different sizes. I decided the green and blue pinwheels were too small, the blue and polka dot were too big but, of course, the red and polka dot were……………… Just Right! Next I set aside the tiny green/blue version – they will be used elsewhere because they are super cute. The blue pinwheels were trimmed down to 4 1/2″ to match the red version. While I do have quite a bit of the batiks remaining from that previous project, I used each and every HST I had already made. That is a big win for me!

To add length, but not width, I made a top and bottom border with the pinwheels.

The finished top! Next up for this project is to give it a solid pressing and baste it. I prepared the backing already. The width is 46″ so I had to add two narrow strips to my backing to have a wide enough piece.

This was a very fun project – one I learned a lot from. I will be back before the March 13th deadline with a finished quilt!!

For now, linking up with Oh Scrap and Quilting Gail.

Just in case you didn’t know, March 1st was National Pig Day (don’t worry, I didn’t know either). But you can bet Julia knew. 🙂

SAHRR Round 5 – Square in a Square

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Square in a square quilt block – that is my kind of block. Easy peasy. It is also the block of choice for round 5 of the stay at home round robin event. Emily at The Darling Dogwood chose this round. Her example of the block is extra adorable because she appliquéd flowers to the center of each block. I strongly suggest you take a look if you haven’t seen them yet. She is so creative!

This is where my quilt is so far. It is kind of wild but I am enjoying it. It has been a long while since I have used any batiks and I forgot how much I like them. For this week, I did two plain 4 1/2″ strips up each side. Then I attached a row of square in square blocks to the top and bottom.

When I made the S in S blocks I chose to use a green center (because they were already cut in the stack of fabrics I am using up). Then I used blue smaller squares for the corners (because, guess what – they were already cut)! I did have to trim the polka dot squares for the fourth corner – they were cut but were a 1/2″ too big. These came together so quickly since I didn’t have to cut fabric.

Wonky Flying Geese

You might notice I haven’t yet incorporated the flying geese blocks. They are a little bit weird looking and I can’t decide if I want to use them or now. For now, they can sit and wait. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t???

We had a lot of fun helping our son and his wife move into their new house last weekend. It is so exciting to see them settling into the house. Still lots to unpack and organize but they made huge progress last weekend.

Of note is the quality packing job I did with their tray of flatware. Haha.

We had hoped to see the girls this week but the never-ending virus has descended upon their house once again. Big sister had a fever Saturday through Tuesday. We thought it was one and done but little sister decided to join in and spiked a fever today. Ugh. I remember those days of seemingly endless viruses, fevers and runny noses. I feel for the girls (and for their parents).

Rather than close on that dreary note, I will instead share this cutie pie. Little sister has it in her head she must get out of the car and watch the bus take her big sister off to school. This slays me. She truly loves her big sister.

OK – back to the sewing room. I am going to baste a comfort quilt and get it finished up. I will share it soon.

Happy Sewing everyone!!

Linking up with the usuals – check them out at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Flying Geese, Mountain of Mulch, Woodland Gardens and Baby Gifts

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This has been a fun week. I like when there is a little of this and a little of that. Maybe I just have a short attention span. Actually, I don’t have a super long attention span so it is likely that is why these sort of weeks appeal to me.

We had dry (but cold) weather this week so Ray and I did a lot of work outside. My muscles are feeling it but that is a good thing. The perimeter of our property is surrounded by wooded land. The previous owner went with the ‘au natural’ look which is fine to a certain extent. But we wanted to clean up the many, many trees that were down and left to rot. That way we could have some walking paths through the trees. To that end, Ray did loads of chain saw work and even pulled a dead tree down using his car. (That was a bit unnerving!)

We have had an arborist out to take out some larger trees and to clean dead limbs off of others. He and Ray struck it off well and now we have a source of free mulch when we need it. This week the arborist dropped off another load for us. This is so useful when there is lots of property to be maintained.

This mountain of mulch won’t last too long around here!

Lenten Rose, Primrose, Astilbe, Caladium and Snowdrops

Here is the start of my woodland gardens! Not pictured are a bare root rose, two hydrangeas and a rhododendron. All of this was planted except the caladium which will be started in small pots and transplanted when the weather warms up. I am so excited to see some blooms come spring time.

For now, the primroses give me a little burst of color.

SAHRR 2023, round 4

This week’s round for the Round Robin event was decided by Anja (AnjaQuilts). She has declared it to be the week of flying geese blocks. I decided to get all fancy schmancy and try making the Stroked Flying Geese that I saw on a tutorial at Art Gallery Fabrics. They are super cute but the middle stripe is uneven which is a bit bothersome. So…… this is my plan. Today I will try making them again today and if I can get that stripe to be more even, great. If not, I will declare this was on purpose and these are improv geese. More on that as I make some progress. Either way, I am not going to sew this border on. Instead, I’ll wait to see what next week’s round is and decide if I want to combine the rounds.

Who likes a striped binding??

I am sticking to my plan of sewing my stash but come on…. I am out of stripes and who doesn’t love a striped binding? I ordered a 1/2 yard of each of these and they are set aside for use as binding.

On a recent Instagram post I asked everyone if this wall quilt should be finished with a circular quilting design or matchstick quilting. Most people called for circular and I was going that way as well. However when I looked closely at the fused arrows, it seemed like the fuse was not super tight. Matchstick to the rescue. This quilting will reinforce the fused arrows and it looks cool too! The quilt won’t be handled or laundered so this should be great. (Not sure if you remember but I bought this Alison Glass kit of laser cut, fusible pieces at a quilt show last fall – for a buck!!)

Another project that happened was stitching and assembling two cloth books. My niece is having her first baby this spring and I plan to send these off to her. I love these soft books for babies. The colors are bright, the pages won’t tear, and the story is simple. I had the pieces all cut out so this was super quick.

Well that was my week in a nutshell, or a blog post. This weekend my husband and I are heading north a bit to help my son and daughter in law move into their first house. I am so excited for them – home ownership is a huge step in life.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Linking to my favs – check them out at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Stay At Home Round Robin

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The third annual Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR) is starting this week and I am joining in. I have never done any sort of round robin but I am looking forward to playing along with Gail (Quilting Gail) and the other bloggers that are presenting during this event. Several years ago, Gail decided to do a riff on the traditional round robin (where a quilter makes a center block, it is passed along to the next quilter who adds a border of their choice and passes it to the next quilter who does the same). Instead, Gail has lined up five other quilters who have each designed a border for us to use as we see fit. It is very flexible in that a person might choose to use part of the border, to change it a bit or skip it altogether if it doesn’t work for them.

This is my center block. I had a stack of these HST’s and made this star block with them. They were from a quilt I started a couple of years ago and decided I didn’t like where it was headed. In the project bag, I have loads of cut pieces. Several colors of the batik (red, orange, blue, green and purple) and tons of the polka dot fabric cut into various size rectangles and strips. I am hoping to repurpose many of the pieces in this project. If I need to tame it down a bit I may add some solids to the mix. The star block measures eight inches square.

This feels like a mystery quilt since I don’t know what is coming next week. Because I don’t know the plans for the five rounds we will be offered, I have no plan for the size of this project. Wall hanging? Baby quilt? Lap quilt? Who knows! Not being one who is known for spontaneity, this is a reach for me. But this is a way to use lots of pieces that have been sitting patiently waiting to be put into a quilt!

If you want to join in, below is the list of bloggers who will be posting for one round each. If you click through, you’ll be able to see their starting block. For more information on the event itself, click here.

For those who are participating, there is a link up to share your center block. Click here to find that link. I am excited for the next set of instructions which will be provided in a week by Roseanne and Sue. Join in and sew with this group. It is going to be a lot of fun!