I like to find backing fabrics for my projects that match the theme of the quilt. That doesn’t always work out but I was lucky and found some cute penguin fabric for the back of my Penguin Promenade sample quilt. I ordered it online and didn’t even notice it was flannel. I usually go for flat cotton but didn’t mind a flannel backing. What I did mind though was the leftovers. I do not have a flannel scraps collection, and I definitely didn’t want to start one. So I cut all the remaining fabric into the largest possible squares and contacted the We Care committee of my local guild. The guild has a huge stash of fabric donations for quilts, and I was sure there would be some flannel pieces that would work with my little penguins. The ladies promptly delivered flannel fabrics for me to use, and Gail even donated a super cute penguin flannel from her own stash for the backing.

I came up with some kind of layout, very simple, really, probably too simple, because I ended up sewing the rows together in the wrong order and spent some time taking it all apart again. When the top was finished I decided to just use a pantograph for quilting and chose “White Out”, a snowflake pattern that I have in my collection. And for the first time ever I ran out of backing fabric on my longarm frame. I could have kicked myself… remember that old saying about measuring twice before cutting? Well, the same goes for measuring before loading a quilt, and while I would never, ever not measure a customer’s quilt, I *thought* I knew how large my quilt top was.

Turns out I was mistaken. Because I cut different sizes of squares from the penguin flannel (I am going to make at least one more donation quilt from the leftovers, possibly even two) and had come up with different layouts, apparently I remembered the wrong finished size. Anyway, to make a long story short, there are tutorials out there on how to join another piece of backing fabric with the one on the frame without ever taking the quilt off of the frame. Let me tell you, that’s not as easy as they make it look in the video tutorials. I managed to do it with a satisfying result for a donation quilt but I will make sure that I properly measure and lay out every quilt from now on because I sure don’t ever want to have to do this again! But it is finished now, even the label is stitched on, and I will drop it off to be donated soon and get started on the next one.

Donna made this quilt for an avid fisherman. What a lovely gift this is going to be! The fabrics speak for themselves, and the quilt is already quite busy, so we chose a pantograph that adds texture and went with “Kristin’s Maze” for this project.

Isn’t this a neat pattern for Jelly Rolls? Kelley made this quilt using a free pattern she found online. It is by Jordan Fabrics, and you can easily find it using your favourite search engine. It also comes with a video tutorial on YouTube. I am a big fan of symmetry, and the structured layout really pleases my eye. And I love the colours Kelley chose, what a fabulous quilt. The pantograph I used is “Champagne Bubbles”. All those straight lines in the quilt top needed some curves to pull it all together.

This quilt by Lyn has a definite autumn feeling, and she asked for a leaf pattern when she brought it to me. We settled on “Acorns and Oak Leaves” which works great with the theme and colours of this quilt.

Susan made this blueberry themed quilt and asked if I could custom quilt it for her. This quilt is one of those rare ones where I think that custom quilting doesn’t make much sense. The fabrics and blocks are quite busy and the quilting gets lost, the irregular shapes in the blocks don’t really ask for specific custom patterns, and on top of it all this was a king size quilt, so custom quilting would be quite expensive without much of it showing in the end. We discussed a few ideas and then decided on a semi custom option with a pantograph in the block area but different designs for the two borders. I used “Wedding Vine” for the centre but couldn’t find a pattern that I liked for the outer border and finally designed my own blueberry vine to use on Susan’s quilt. We were both quite happy with the way it turned out.

Spring is here, albeit a bit reluctantly, and my early veggies are growing nicely. In addition to peas and spinach I also planted corn salad. I found it listed in the West Coast Seeds catalogue and had no idea what it was. I looked it up and it turns out that it is the German “Feldsalat” (literal translation would be “field lettuce”), a cold-hardy salad green that is well-known in Europe and was super popular back in the 90s. None of my Canadian friends knew what it was. I highly recommend it. It is a bit like spinach, has a very mild taste and is harvested and eaten as a rosette of leaves. I am looking forward to a nice salad with a few mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. I have no idea why it is called corn salad, I don’t think it has anything to do with sweet corn. In any case, it is growing nicely already, and if you are looking for a new veggie to try, corn salad is definitely my recommendation.

In Monkey news, this month’s little guy is ready to play tennis. Doesn’t he look like a regular Björn Borg? Ugh, I think that reference is showing my age… I stopped paying attention to tennis after Boris Becker and Steffi Graf retired, so a long time ago, and I have never played myself, but it seemed like a nice activity for our monkey pal. As always, the pattern will be available for free download until the end of the month and move to the pattern store in May when the next block is released. Happy Easter!

Click to download Monkey Business Block #4 pattern (English/Imperial)

Bonnie made this cute quilt featuring alternating blocks with ducks and stars that create an interesting secondary pattern. I like how it creates the illusion of on-point blocks with a diagonal sashing. For quilting Bonnie chose the design “Swirling Feathers”.

It’s almost April, and this is a quick reminder to those of you who were planning on sending in pictures of their penguin blocks to receive the free finishing instructions pattern. There are only five days left, you need to get it to me by March 31, 2021 which is next Wednesday. I am in the Pacific time zone, so behind most of you, and I will accept any pictures that are in my inbox when I first check it on April 1 in the morning. I am an early riser, so don’t leave it until the very last minute 😉

If you haven’t checked out the Penguin Promenade Show & Tell Gallery, grab a cup/glass of your favourite beverage and head on over, lots of cute little penguins are waiting to be admired.

Click to view Penguin Promenade Show & Tell Gallery

And if you missed the free downloads last year, the full pattern including all blocks and finishing instructions is available for purchase in the store section.

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade Quilt Complete Pattern (English/Imperial)

(Kauf)Anleitung Penguin Promenade Quilt Komplett (Deutsch/Metrisch)

This is another quilt made by Ruth using a traditional pattern, this time “Trip Around The World”. One of her fabrics had small ivy leaves which made the design “Ground Cover” an easy choice for quilting.

Ruth made this pretty Log Cabin quilt, and when she dropped it off she told me in no uncertain terms that she did not like it at all. I couldn’t see what was wrong with it as it turned out very nice in my opinion. Ruth told me that this quilt was going to be a wedding gift, and someone else had chosen and bought the fabrics, and I began to see the problem. If I don’t love the material, I don’t love working on the project. A long time ago I made a store sample that was all brown and dark blue, and it is no secret that I love bright, bold colours. Making that dark quilt felt like a chore, so I knew where Ruth was coming from. We chose “Starburst” as a quilting pattern in a large size, Ruth wanted just light quilting, and I think it turned out quite lovely, and I hope the recipient will agree and enjoy Ruth’s gift.

There are lots of Japanese logic puzzles out there, Sudoku is probably the best known among them, and you can use the idea behind Sudoku to create a quilt layout. This Sudoku quilt was made by Barbara and showcases pretty batik fabrics. And for my fellow OCD peeps, yes, I checked too, and Barbara’s layout is not a true Sudoku but it is still a pretty quilt. And since the fabric is definitely the star of the project, we went with a simple pantograph and chose “Taj Mahal” for nice texture that stays in the background.

This cute little quilt was made by Terri for her grandbaby. Her daughter selected the fabrics and chose the ruffles that are incorporated in every block. These ruffles made it impossible to do an allover pantograph pattern, the foot of the machine would get caught and possibly flip them over and stitch them down. So we decided that I would just free-motion around the ruffles, and I filled the block section with loops and daisies and added a separate daisy design to the border where the almost solid yellow border fabric makes the quilting much more visible.