Sister's Choice Quilts

Moda Blockheads. Week 7 and a Little Change Up

Week 7 of Moda Blockheads 5 was designed by Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life, and I love it. This is a great block and I will definitely be making it again for other projects. 

I am making a little change to my color palette for this project. I was originally using some brighter oranges in the blocks and I decided I just wasn't loving those tones. The bright orange seemed a bit jarring, which wasn't what I was going for. Then a kind lady commented on my Instagram post that she loved my "Halloween quilt" and that pretty much cinched it for me. Halloween is not what I want this quilt to be. I want to play up the darker rusts and butternut colors and take the bright orange out.

This is what I am talking about. I absolutely love this block, but the colors aren't working for me. If you compare it to the block in the top picture, you can see the difference. I plan to remake it, but it will take a bit of effort, as it is all paper pieced. Man, that one came out great too...

These are the fabrics I took out of the mix.

This is what I am left with. I also ordered some butternut shades from a Pam Buda collection called Butternut and Peppercorn that will work in well.

Do you ever do that? Jump headlong into a project and after making a few blocks, decide that your color mix needs changing up? A quilting instructor once told me that if a color you are using in your quilt seems jarring to your eye, you either need to take it out or add a lot more of it!

Sampler Spree Blocks are Done!

My 100 Sampler Spree blocks are all done. I actually have probably made 120 blocks, but not all of them made the cut. I put the ones I like best on the design wall, but they will need to be arranged somewhat more. Those two lightning bolt/zig zag blocks on the bottom two rows are way too close together, for instance.

It is amazing how effective taking a photo of your quilt blocks is to show you what needs to be positioned elsewhere!

I showed my husband the photo and his reaction was "Well, that's rather busy". I guess it is, but I think the setting will calm things down a bit. There will be a separation strip of the cream background fabric in between each block, and then the blocks will be latticed in groups of four, which will provide more separation.

It's been a very fun project to work on and I think I will enjoy the finished quilt. I need to order more fabric for the lattices, so I am stalled until that arrives. 

How was your weekend?

 

Sampler Spree Light Blue and Dark Orange Blocks

Monday was productive in the sewing room. I finished my fifteen light blue blocks.

Then I finished my dark orange blocks! Now, I have been working on this project for a couple of years and had many of the blocks already made. For most of my colorways, I only needed to make less than six or so more blocks. I need 15 blocks in each of 7 colorways, and I find it helpful as I near the end of the project to put each color up on the design wall and evaluate if I have repeated fabrics, left out fabrics, or used poor fabric combinations. Some blocks might be eliminated, some might need to be re-made. 

For instance, in the dark orange group, the third block in the second row is kind of "meh". The flying geese would be better if made in a darker orange. I may re-do that one. I have three different Basic Grey collections that work great together: Cider, Persimmon, and Nutmeg. I have plenty of fabric for three quilts! Which isn't happening. LOL

This quilt is going to be incredible once I get it all together. What fun I have been having making the blocks and planning my fabrics and colors.

No post from me tomorrow. I have to go to the Bay Area for my annual physical, so I'll miss a day of posting this week. I hope my doctor will be pleased with me. The good news is, my cholesterol is down to normal, which I attribute to my recent weight loss. Yay. That is a first in over 20 years! I'm getting my flu shot too. 

So, we'll meet up on Thursday and talk about house cleaning, a subject that is weighing on my mind. 

 

Brown Blocks for Sampler Spree QAL All Done!

This Saturday I finished all the brown blocks for the Sampler Spree Quilt Along. Going forward, I am going to work on finishing up the blocks for each color one at a time. That way I can be sure not to duplicate fabrics too much, or leave out anything good. It's fun to see them all together. I have seven different "colors" (navy, light blue, teal, gold, light orange, dark orange, and brown). I plan on making 15 blocks of each color for the quilt top.

I did veer away from the Sampler Spree book for four of the blocks shown above. I have a Judy Hopkins block book that has instructions for making tons of blocks in various sizes which I used for inspiration and measurements. If you don't have a quilt block pattern book with loads of block ideas, it might be a good idea to get one. 

In other news, the big event of the weekend was Eva's first 7th grade dance, which had a 70's theme. I am so proud of how well she was able to nail the outfit. I'm pretty sure I had a blouse that was just like hers back in the day. She said she had a great time, but that "it was really loud".

I hope your weekend was excellent. I spent mine sewing and planning on how I am going to take charge of cleaning my house. More on that later this week.

 

Moda Blockheads 5 Has Begun!

I am very excited about the latest Moda Blockheads sew along. I pulled all my fabrics from my stash, didn't have to buy a thing. I chose colors that give me a pumpkin spice latte vibe, in butternut, black, rust, orange, and cheddar. Are you sewing along? The patterns are free, so at least be sure to download the latest one every Wednesday!


This is the first official block to kick off the sew-along. It is "Bright Star" by designer Betsy Chutchian. Betsy made the block entirely out of half-square triangles and squares, but I am a flying geese girl and substitute those in when I can. Joanna Figueroa did her version with flying geese and what she calls "ribbon blocks". A ribbon block is essentially the same as a flying geese unit, only with the corner squares sewn on to form a diagonal of center fabric rather than a triangle. 

All of the blocks in the sew-along are supposed to have some sort of star design, which would make this sew-along fun to do in Christmassy fabrics. 

I think things are off to a good start!
 

 

Double Flying Geese

The Designer Mystery 2023 project finishing kit involves a lot of flying geese. Big ones, 3 1/2 x 6 1/2". I like to use the method of making four at a time, making them a bit oversized and then trimming them down.

One thing that has been throwing folks for a loop is that we need to turn 17 of our big flying geese units into double flying geese. Have you ever made these? It was pretty easy and I'm about to show you how I did mine. If you are at all confused, hopefully, the visual will help.

Start with one of your trimmed flying geese. Mine is 3 1/2 x 6 1/2. What you need now are two 3 1/2" squares of the lighter "sky" fabric.

Draw a diagonal line on it and place it as I have shown. Stitch on the line, flip the corner over and trim.

Do you see where we are going with this? My unit is flipped upside down, but you see I have slapped on the second square, drawn a line and am about to stitch on it.

And there you have it, a double flying geese unit. All we did was add two more corner squares.


Here is my first row all completed! You can see how the complicated finishing procedure really sets off the blocks. I am so glad I decided to attach the block surrounds as I go, rather than leave it all until the blocks are made. That chore could well cause me to procrastinate for who knows how long!

 

 

 

 

 

Lots of Sewing Going On

I joined the Designer Mystery 2023 block of the month sew-along, but up until this weekend, I had not made a single block. I spent Saturday and Sunday starching all my fabric and got two blocks made. I decided to make the block frames and latices as I go so I don't end up with a ton of work to do when the sew-along is finished. 

Are you making this project? I have a word of caution for you. If you are making your half-square triangles and flying geese any other way than in the pattern instructions, you probably will be short the blue background fabric. This is a first with a Fat Quarter Shop project, as they are typically so generous with their fabric cuts. 

I like to use Star Singles half square triangle papers and make my flying geese units slightly oversized and then trim them down. I can tell I am not going to have enough of that blue fabric for my lattices. Fat Quarter Shop is sold out of it, but I found some on Etsy. Heads up if you are going to wait until the sew-along is over to cut your finishing kit. By then it will be too late to get any of that blue fabric. 

As you can see I have a lot of projects in the air right now. That is typical for me since I can't seem to work on one thing at a time. My goal this week is to sew those Flea Market blocks on the large design wall together this week, then put that project away for now. There will be one more border of small blocks called "primrose" and I can work on those when I am in the mood. They are a simple 4-inch block and there are a lot of them.

There is another upcoming project in the works: Moda Blockheads 5! I've got my fabric all pulled and starched and the first block made. I am using all fabrics from my stash and did not have to buy a single thing. I'll share my fabrics tomorrow. I tell you, I have gone through 10 cans of starch in about three days!

Hope you had a great weekend.

Post Labor Day Catch Up

For about half a day yesterday, I was in the sewing room and completed four more Sampler Spree blocks. I am especially happy with the navy lightning bolt block. I was delighted with how the points all came out!

I spent the long weekend with my sisters at our dad's house. We organized all the remaining decorative items in one room on bookshelves so the family can have one more go at choosing anything they might want. The remainder will all be donated. We also went through about 1,895,000 photos that my parents had in a large cabinet. That was a project.

We kept any decent photos of people. Our plan is to scan them and give a digital copy to everyone in the family. Do any of you have experience doing that? The majority of the photos were of landscapes of various trips our folks had taken. And they traveled a LOT. There was the African safari, the trip to the Arctic to see polar bears, and trips to France, England, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Korea. Omg, it was a lot. In the end, we just couldn't justify keeping those photos of all their trips. The photos represented important memories to our parents, but they were their memories, not ours, so we decided to let them go. All three of us felt kind of sick about it though. But no one has the room or interest to hang on to boxes of photos of someone else's vacation trips. 

Here is a little Archie update. We started puppy training classes last week, and since no one but us signed up, we are having private lessons! This week's big success was the "leave it" command, which has been working brilliantly. Not just for getting him to leave something nasty alone on our walks, but to get him to stop the puppy nipping. When he starts chomping on my bony wrists, I say "leave it", and good heavens, he stops! It's a miracle. Now for those bruises to heal up and fade!

In the photo of him above, he is napping in his crate. When he naps, he arranges all his stuffed toys around him in the crate. He uses them to cuddle with and as pillows. He is such a sweetheart. We got a good one I think.

 

Sampler Spree Week Aug 28- Sept 3

These are the Sampler Spree blocks I made the week of Aug. 28- Sept. 3. I have just under half of the 100 blocks made!

Oh my gosh, were these ever fun to make.  Some are ridiculously easy, others call for more precision. Know which ones are my favorites? Well, the pear is adorable. But the spider web looking block in the top row, far right? That was so much fun to make. And the brown basket is adorable. I think the pattern is called "Cherry Basket". 

I liked it so much I made it twice.  lol. 

So, what do you think? I made the gold background block first and was disappointed in the lack of contrast. That little block was a bear to make and took a long time to get right. I wanted to show off my sharp points and all that. So I re-did it in brown against the cream background. I am better pleased with the second attempt. Do you agree? 

Hope you all had a lovely long weekend. It was Labor Day weekend in the US, so we all had three days to say goodbye to summer. Our weather was cool and drizzly, and I spent Friday and Saturday sewing blocks. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday my plans call for me to go to Palo Alto and work on packing up the remaining books at my dad's house. Who would have thought a Stanford professor could accumulate so many books? Guess it goes with the job. You can see where I get my love of reading!

Remember Sampler Spree?

Do you all remember the Sampler Spree Sew-Along? It is based on a book by Susan Ache that has patterns for over 100 6 inch quilt blocks that are sewn into a sampler quilt. I had joined in this sew-along a couple of years ago, but of course, set it aside for various family obligations. It has been patiently waiting for me.

So, today it all came back to me when I was browsing Instagram with my morning coffee, and came upon Thelma's post on her quilts of August. Each month she changes out her gorgeous quilts that she has on various bads and walls in her home, and she shares photos on Instagram. And there it was, her glorious finished Sampler Spree quilt. Go take a look, it is amazing.

The idea of this sew-along is to make blocks in various colors that will harmonize together in the end in a gorgeous sampler quilt. Blocks are 6 inches finished and there are plenty of small pieces, so starching, pressing seams open and sewing carefully are part of the challenge.

Moda Fabrics did a weekly posting with photos of various people's weekly blocks, which is really inspiring. I encourage you to take a look at that too. 

There is also a gal on Instagram, Tina Taylor Ockey, "@girl231t" who is still working on her blocks and has frequent posts on her progress. Interestingly, she is using the same fabrics as I am. She is very prolific and has tastes very similar to mine. She is worth following, I think.

Back in the summer of 2021, I finished some navy blocks,

some orange blocks,

and some light blue blocks. I finished additional blocks in gold, light orange, and brown.

After seeing Thelma's quilt and being reminded of what a gorgeous quilt these blocks could become, I had to take the project out of its bin and revisit the situation. The four blocks at the top of the post are what I made yesterday. 

I am using three different Basic Grey fabric collections: Persimmon, Cider, and Nutmeg.

I highly recommend "Sampler Spree" the book, which is less than $15 on Amazon.

Were you like me and did you start this sew along back in the summer of 2021? If you want to sew along with me, let's do it. I think this is a quilt worth finishing.