Vintage Flower Sampler Quilt Book

 Sometimes a quilter just needs a new book full of pretty pictures.  I've been eyeing this quilt book since before it's release in 2023.  

I had to have it for no other reason than it's so darn cute.  The chances of me making anything from this book is slim but I do enjoy flipping through the pages.

There is one block I would like to make.  Not just one but an entire quilt.  It would be quite the undertaking for me as I don't like curved seams. 

So the templates have been traced, cut and are waiting for me to take the plunge.  Maybe next year.

And of course this block caught my eye.  You know how I love anything with cherries.

The book also has few project patterns for using the blocks.  Of course you could use any of the blocks in the projects.  The pillow below would look really cute with cherries in the middle of the applique border.

Atsuko Matsuyama is also a fabric designer.  The most darling fabric you have ever seen.  I've found it in a few Etsy shops.  The cost is a little higher than the typical quilt shop quality fabric.  Here's a few of my favorite prints found at an online shop called Sunny Day supply.  Sunny Day also has her books.

Well that's enough daydreaming for one day.  It's time to get busy!

Jumping From This To That

 Remember the baggies full of HST's created over my quilting lifetime?  It's time to add a few more to the baggies from my current Twinkler quilt.  Tackling them in small batches as they are produced is easier than doing them all at once after the quilt is finished.

The quilt will produce 336 bonus HST's!  I used my handy dandy homemade locking HST ruler. It makes the process so much quicker.  If you would like to make one of your own, I made a YT video a few years ago.

The HST's from this project are trimming to 1.75 and 1.5.  Obviously my second stitch line wasn't consistent.  That's okay, the first stich line was important.  These little guys are bonus blocks to hopefully be used someday.  Now that I think about it I should put a note in these boxes of thousands of HST's.  Should I die before using them I need to let my family know these should be given or sold to a quilter.  All the work is done!  Someone could sew them into a quilt.

Trimming this smaller batch was quick and painless.  Before I knew it they were finished and in their new home.

Before moving onto my next quilting project I needed to do some outside work.  We have to small veggie garden beds for things like garlic and onions.  As you can see we actually have a weed bed.  A critter of some sort destroyed the garlic and onions early in the year.  Why weed it if there's no produce growing? 

The weeds were easy to pull.  It only took about 30 minutes.  I left this one small tree.

I'll need to dig it out with a shovel in this  morning when it's not so doggone hot.  Pulling on this one is not an option.  Take a look at the thorns.  You should see the size of them on a full grown tree!   Horrible trees in so many ways.  Invasive, thorny and hard as rock.  

It was time to get back to my happy place.  Our porch project is almost complete.  Mr. Podunk still has some work to do under the stairs and we still need to paint the railings.  The wood railings need to cure a bit before painting.  They were oozing liquid when screwed into place.  If we paint them now the paint will peel off.  So it could be this fall or next year before they get painted.

After getting back in the studio I decided to work on the Bow Tie quilt.

The blue fabrics were pulled a couple of weeks ago and have been waiting to be cut.

The rest of the day was spent ironing and cutting about half of the blue Bow Tie blocks.

Of course there was laundry, cooking and cleaning to be done also.  I may finish these up today and I may not.  First thing on the list today is digging up the tree. 

Khaleesi update.  She's a constant work in progress.  We're always trying to teach her something new.   She's not a fan of standing in water.  I bath her in my small shower.  It's messy and not fun.  I've been teaching her to like water in a wading pool.  The training has been going well.  Today it was time to clean the wading pool but someone decided to take a dip!  Click on the video to play.  It won't take you another site, it will play here on the blog.

Twinkle, Twinkle And More Twinklers

 A few more Twinkler blocks were finished in yesterdays sewing in my jammies session.  The morning session was cut short for a visit with family. We had a great time at our little pitch in dinner and catching up on the kids new adventures.

They are always up to something, and jaunting off to here and there.  I don't remember my life being so exciting when I was younger.  Well that's because it wasn't.  Being a housewife and raising kids is an adventure but it's just not quite the same as traveling and seeing the world without kids.  

After our family time it was back to the studio to finish a couple more quilt blocks.

My Twinkler quilt block is my design, or so I thought.  It's nothing more than a variation of a variable star block.  The star points are a taller and not made with flying geese.  I thought I was being clever with the points. Many hours were spent searching on the internet and in my books for this block and I came up empty handed.

Well, the internet somehow remembers and helps you out when you least expect it.  The Jelly Roll Illusions video popped up in my YouTube feed.  You can watch the video by clicking on the video below.  The block is a tad bit different with snowballed corners and color placement, but has the same star points.

The maker of the video, Carol Thelan, was making a variation of Moda's FREE Illusions quilt.  Link to that pattern.  Moda's block is larger, has less snowballed corners and the color placement is different.  The chances of there being older versions of this quilt block out there is pretty good.  Anyway, I just wanted to give credit where credit is due and to say I'm not as clever as I thought. BOOHOO!  What a shocker! HAHA!

Sewing In My Jammies

    It's a good day for sewing in my jammies.  There's a lot going on in Podunk today so if I want to sew it needs to be done first thing this morning.  Wishing all of you a blessed and beautiful Sunday!

See you tomorrow!

Fuzzy Offenders

Hello Quilty Friends!  The Flea Market Jelly Roll Strips are all cut, de-pinked ready for action.    

Trimming off the pinked edges was a little more tedious than expected.  And OH MY WHAT A MESS it made. A pretty little mess, don't you think?  Am I the only one that admires the bits of scraps in their trash can?  

After tossing the cute little visible scraps in the trash it was time to tackle the invisible scraps.  It's shocking how much lint couldn't be seen but would've shown up on the white background fabric.  A quick rolling with a sticky tape lint brush took care of all the fuzzy offenders.  Now it's safe to start cutting the background fabrics later today.

Twinkler Test Block ~ Jelly Roll Quilt

Oh how you sparkle and oh how you shine!  So simple and sweet.  She's a little wonky but once in the quilt no one will ever know.  I knew this would be the case for these blocks since I decided not to starch the fabrics.  Starching jelly roll strips can cause shrinkage and waviness during the pressing of the fabric strips.  Not a chance I was willing to take.

Another thing I did to safeguard against  inaccuracy was to layout my block on the mini design board and mark the diagonal stitch lines for the stitch and flip method.  Instead of drawing the line, a small dot was made on two corners of each background fabric for the star points.

You can see the small dots in the image below.  Adding the dots was faster and easier.  Now I could stitch in the proper direction every time. There's very little scrap fabric left on each Jelly Roll strip after cutting for one block.  Not much room for errors, so I want to insure proper stitching and cutting every time..

Because I don't like to waste even the tiniest bit of fabric another line was stitched about 1/2" away from the first line.  Then I cut in between both stitched lines to make the bonus half square triangle.

These will be trimmed to a usable size and stored after the quilt top is finished.  After trimming they will be stored with the thousands of other HST's waiting to become a quilt.

I hope this bowl is big enough for 336 HST's.  Oh my!  That's a lot of trimming! 

Jelly rolls are never the perfect 2.5" wide.  This roll was a little too wide.  Too big is better than too small.  Instead of trimming the excess I centered the background fabric on top of the print fabric as best as I could.

When stitching them together I used the edge of the background fabric as my seam guide as suggested by so many quilters out there on the internet.  I'm sure it worked great for them and I appreciate them taking the time to share the tip.  However, from this point forward I'm trimming off the excess before stitching. Not all tricks and tips work for everyone.

Todays goal is finish cutting is to finish the cutting for all the blocks and piece as many as the day will allow.  

If you would like to make your own Twinkle blocks I'm providing a simple cutting chart for one block.  

Background Fabric

A (13) 2.5 x 2.5

D (4) 3.5 x 3.5

E (4) 2.5 x 3.5

Print from one Jelly Roll Strip

B (4) 2.5 x 2.5

C (8) 2.5 x 3.5

Below is the layout for my quilt and background yardage requirements to make a quilt with

(42) 12" blocks 

 2.5" sashings

 2.5" outer border

 The yardage was calculated by EQ8.  I added a half yard more for mistakes in the program and for human cutting errors.

7 1/4  Yards of Background Fabric

Finished quilt size 

86 x 100

I'm linking up this blog post at the following linky parties.  If you're a quilt party kind of quilter then you'll love all the inspiration.  So hop on over! 

Finished or Not Friday

TGIFF

Off the Wall Friday

Starting A Jelly Roll Quilt

 There's a quilt partially quilted quilt on the frame and a quilt top almost finished on the ironing station.  Why not start another quilt? HAHA! Yep, this is how I roll.  The other two quilts have been UFO's for years so what's a few more days or weeks?

This Lori Holt Flea Market jelly roll was pulled a few weeks ago during a fabric organizing session.  It was purchased at our local quilt shop a years ago.   These smaller precuts are cute but they take up much needed fabric storage space.  I vowed to never buy another precut smaller than fat quarters.  Again I laugh...HAHA!  It sounds good, but seriously, sometimes you just need a small bit of the cutest fabrics ever.  Since the fabric stash is so large maybe I should vow to only buy smaller than a fat quarter cuts.  We all know neither will happen.  So I'm embracing the fact that obsessions come with impulsive behaviors and that's part of me being a quilter.

Well lets get back to these lovely fabrics and the plan for using them.  The quilt will be 42 blocks.  A 6x7 layout, with 2" sashings. 

The Flea Market roll has 40 strips, so a couple of Lori fat quarters have been added to the mix.  I choose red because it's my favorite quilting color.  A simple solid white background fabric to allow the prints to shine in all their glory.  The bolt of white has been hiding in my stash in the plastic for 4 yrs!  I bought it wholesale before closing my pattern store.

Today I'll make the a test block using the cutest fabric in the roll.  The adorable little crossing tulips on this strip make me smile.  After making the test block the rest of the blocks will be cut in preparation for a chain piecing marathon and hopefully a quick finish.

Want to see the pattern? Awe, sorry.  You'll have to wait until tomorrow when I'm sure my math is correct.  Okay, I'll give you a hint.  I'm calling this one Twinkler.  Any guesses on the block?

I didn't plan to make this quilt for National Sew A Jelly Roll Day.  But after seeing a video yesterday it made me think, why not start a new quilt.  I told myself to sleep on it and see how I felt in the morning....And here we are!

  

 Anyway, National Sew A Jelly Roll Day is on September 21, 2024.  Moda has hosted Project Jelly Roll for a few years.  I like to follow along every year for  fun and admire the creations. 

I've added the video below.  If your looking for Jelly Roll quilt inspiration this video is for you.  It's fun even if you don't like making Jelly Roll quilts.  I watched it several times yesterday while eating supper and again this morning.