Tag Archives: block of the month

One down, Two to go!

One down, two to go! In my last post I outlined some goals I have for my quilting in 2015. One of which was to finish my three UFO’s before starting a new quilt. So here is the first one, the Aurifil Designer 2014 BOM quilt. You might remember that I only made nine of the Aurifil blocks and then did three blocks of my choosing.

The back (shown here by my lovely quilt model) is a sweet blue polka dot, one of Riley Blake’s La Creme line.

Technically I am calling this a 2014 finish because all I did yesterday was to sew the back of the binding on, the bulk of it was made in 2014. So bright and happy.

You might remember that I only made nine of the Aurifil blocks and then did three blocks of my choosing. To quilt it, I used my walking foot and outlined various shapes within each block. Also I quilted a 1/4″ line inside of each side of the sashing. I ended up using three different thread colors on the top, white, orange and a light gray. I kept white in the bobbin for all three colors though.

We we spent the New Year’s holiday at the Downieville house. Remember, the tiny bungalow we bought after I saw it during a Quilt Retreat weekend up here? Ray has been coming up about every other weekend to work on it. Julia and I have come a couple of times to clean. This weekend Ray made great progress on replacing a large amount of the (very old and unsafe) knob and tube wiring. Lots of this was done from the attic which is sort of unpleasant considering all the dust and insulation up there. Yuk. Julia pulled nails from the exposed studs in the bedroom. She also did some mopping. What a trooper. I sanded a few shelves in the kitchen cabinets and scrubbed down a bedroom that is technically in the basement but is actually one of the more normal rooms in this house. We are definitely making progress.

i think my next project will be to sash the blocks for the RSC2014 challenge. I am setting the finish of this quilt as my goaI for January. I am linking up with Sew Bittersweet Designs ALYOF (A Lovely Year of Finishes) which is a fun challenge for quilters to set a goal or two each month. It is a good way to keep organized and be sure to finish what you set out to do. I will link my goal(s) at the beginning of the month on her site and then report in at the end of the month.

I also plan to participate in RSC2015 as well (as always, this is sponsored by Angela at So Scrappy). This year I am going to follow along with a row quilt BOM that Mari is doing over at her blog, Academic Quilter. She will be posting the block for the first row on Tuesday of next week. I am very much looking forward to see what her plan is. (Completing the January row is another goal for ALOYF). I appreciate that Mari has taken the time to sketch the rows out and do the math for the blocks as that takes time. Since she did it, I don’t have to! It will be fun to work through this with her. If you are interested in using up some scraps, I expect this to be a great project!

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts. If you haven’t read her post today, please do. It inspired me to see all that she accomplished in 2014. Wow!! ALso linking to Sew Bittersweet Designs ALOYF.

RSC14 Win!

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Orange Block for September

What a fun surprise! When I got up this morning and checked email I found a note from Angela over at So Scrappy. Each month she has a giveaway for the participants working on RSC14, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2014. This month I won! The sponsor for the giveaway is Vicki Welsh over at Field Trips in Fiber. Vicki hand dyes fabrics and they are gorgeous. After just doing my first project with batiks and loving it, I am so excited to receive such a treasure from Vicki. Her fabric appears to glow. Check out her Etsy shop here. Thank you to both Vicki and Angela! Actually, thanks also to Mari at Academic Quilter since that is how I first heard of this fun challenge in the first place!

For RSC14 I have been working on 25 patch blocks in all of the colors of the rainbow. I am almost caught up to September. Two months more (green and yellow) and I will be current. Hopefully I will get those done by the end of this month. I plan to sash the blocks with white and add bright corner blocks with the sashing.

Here is what I have thus far:

Linking to Angela over at So Scrappy.

From one project to the next

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Lots of progress has been made on a few projects this week. I had some minor dental surgery done so I have been home taking it easy for most of the week. Much of my time has been spent trying to figure out how many ways I can prepare a diet of oatmeal, smoothies, yogurt and scrambled eggs. The ideas are running low though and it is lucky that I am able to chew things with a bit more substance today!

I posted last week about the Dresden plate table runner. I got the quilting done on that and am so happy with it. I kept it simple and it works beautifully with the Dresdens.

The back looks so pretty.

In addition, I started (another) Block of the Month project. Recently, I came across Mari’s blog, Academic Quilter . As I was reading through some of her posts at Academic Quilter I saw that she is working on two rainbow block of the month quilts. She has some gorgeous blocks pictured and I was intrigued. As often happens, one thing led to another and there I was looking at (another) blog, So Scrappy. (I swear I just get sucked in and lose all track of time when I start reading these quilty blogs.) Angela, the writer at So Scrappy is hosting the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2014. I decided to join in and start creating some rainbow blocks for myself. Again, a little late to the party so I need to work to catch up. My family was off and about on Saturday so I used the day to sew. I got the January (blue) and February (pink) blocks done. I have the scraps collected and prepped for March which is teal blue. Because I am getting going on this a bit late, I decided to do simple patchwork blocks using 2 1/2″ squares, ending up with 10 1/2″ blocks. I will sash them with white and put corner blocks in. Making two of each color will provide 24 blocks, enough for a quilt at the end of the year. It has been fun using up all of the strips that I have been so faithfully sorting and saving. Also interesting to see what colors I have an abundance of and which I have very little (the dark blue for example…. not too much of that available).

The other block of the month that I am working on is sponsored by Aurifil. I posted about this earlier this summer. I am just about caught up on this one. Two more blocks done! The bear claw took some time…. When I finished it, the block was only about 10 inches square. I stared at it for what seemed like forever, wondering why it was so tiny. I left out the interior border strips. So I had to spend a little time with my seam ripper and fix that up.

Here are the six blocks:

That is my quilting week in review! Summer is already more than half way through for us. My daughter returns to school on August 14th!! It’s going by way too fast. Hope you are all enjoying your summer!

Linking up with all of these lovely blogs:

FreeMotionbytheRiver, FabricTuesday, ShowandTellTuesday, and BlossomHeartQuilts. Also with NeedleandThreadThursday hosted by the lovely Kelly @ My Quilt Infatuation.

Aurifil Block of the Month

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I have never taken part in an on-line bee or a block of the month quilt activity. Not for any real reason, it just hasn’t happened. Well, I decided to join up and do one. I follow Amy Smart’s blog, Diaryofaquilter, avidly. I love her style and her genuine speak. She has wonderful tutorials. When I first got started quilting I stumbled on to her website and I never left. My first few projects were items made from her tutorials.

Like this tabletopper:

Valentine Table Topper
(Amy Smart Tutorial)
February, 2014

and this little table runner:

Pinwheel Tablerunner
April, 2013

If you are new to quilting or want info on the basics, I cannot recommend her enough!

Anyway…. lately Amy has written some posts about the Block of the Month activity sponsored by Aurifil Thread. They are featuring various designers each month and along with an interview of that designer, they post the block that the designer created for this activity.Amy is one of the designers that was featured and interviewed by Pat Sloan. You can read about it here and here and here. The more I read about it, the more I saw the look of the different blocks, the more I wanted to do it. Really, by making one 12 1/2″ block per month, you’ll end up with a quilt at the end of the year. What’s better than that? It doesn’t really get in the way of other projects that are in progress. It all started back in January so I am a wee bit late to the party. But, better late than never! This week I got everything together and started. I chose to use a collection of fabric called Stitch in Color, designed by Malka Dubrawsky for Moda. I saw pieces of this on clearance (the line came out in 2012) during a shop hop I did earlier this year and snatched them up. I love the bright colors. Plus it is wayyy out of my norm for colors and value. Much bolder than what I usually choose. I supplemented the set with a solid white and solid orange, as well as the blue stripes and dragonfly fabric. I don’t think I have enough of Malka’s line to do all twelve blocks and really, I wanted some solids in there.

What do you think??

I have finished four of the blocks so far. The thing that pleases me most is that my triangles worked well and my points line up!! Yay – that is something I have been working on. These blocks were a great place to practice. It provides the opportunity to make blocks that are different and it is kind of fun to make something where you don’t know what the finished result will be (since you don’t see all of the blocks at once). I look forward to placing the blocks come December!

See??

I love how this is coming together. The colors match absolutely nothing in my house but I am keeping this one anyway. It is going to be so bright and spirited. Just in case anyone out there decides to join up, I will tell you that the March block, called Borders (upper left block) was designed to by 12 x 12. The rest of the blocks are 12 1/2″ square. So I will have to modify it and add a 1/2″ border to it so it fits with the rest. Luckily it is an easy one to fix! If you participate, post pictures of your blocks to the Aurifil Flickr site. They are randomly picking one participant per month and sending a box of Aurifil thread. Ahhh…. love that stuff and it is spendy. I can only hope – pick me, pick me!

If you are making blocks, leave me a comment and a link so I can see yours!!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced as well as Let’s Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts. Also linking to Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation.