Do you remember the Canadian Mystery Quilt? It was designed by Shania Sunga and started in 2015 with the goal to have it finished in 2017 for Canada’s 150th birthday. I signed up for the program, and my finished quilt can be found here. It is still hanging in my hallway, and I love looking at it every day, it is such a wonderful quilt, celebrating Canada’s diversity. Lynnette was inspired by the quilt as well and bought the kits back then without being a quilter. She had always wanted to make a quilt, and her mother-in-law is an excellent quilter, so she had someone available to ask for advice but I still think it is a huge feat to even attempt this quilt as a beginner, let alone finish it. The pandemic gave her the time to work on the blocks, and she did a great job putting it all together. For quilting, we chose the pantograph “Maple Sugar”, an allover maple leaf design.
“Jelly Snowflake” is the name of a mystery quilt sew along that was run on the Fat Quarter Shop blog a couple of years ago. As the name suggests, it is a great pattern for a Jelly Roll but any assortment of fabric strips will do. This is Diane’s version, a lovely blue and white ice crystal in cool winter colours. We auditioned snowflake patterns first but then Diane decided to go with stars instead and picked the pattern “Ginger Star” for her project.
Who still remembers my Rainbow Butterflies quilt? Or actually, even both of them? I made them a long time ago, before I started my first BOM here, so many of you probably weren’t stopping by at the time. The first Rainbow Butterflies quilt was made as a donation at the request of a local care home. You can read all about it here. I really liked what I came up with and decided to adjust the quilt size a bit and make a second one as a pattern sample. This is the final version of the Rainbow Butterflies quilt:
While I usually plan my quilt designs meticulously, I took a different approach for the Rainbow Butterflies and just made blocks in all colours, using whatever I could find in my scraps. When I had enough blocks, I started laying them out and shuffling them around until I was satisfied with the way it looked. This was still the original quilt that was donated later on. I had one pink block that I couldn’t fit in, it just didn’t work with the rest of the colours. I finally ended up stitching it to the back of the quilt with the label, and when I made my pattern sample I did not make another pink block.
But I still love pink and wanted to have a pink butterfly, so in December I finally made another pink block and turned it into a pillow. What a simple solution, and I should have come up with it a long time ago. Of course you don’t have to limit yourself to just one pillow or to a pink one, this is an excellent pattern to use up leftovers in any colour. Just sort them into light and dark values, and off you go.
I have also created a bundle with special pricing for those who would like both patterns for the quilt and matching pillow.
Für die deutsche(n) Version(en) mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem/den Kauflink(s) unten für die englische(n) Version(en) folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung(en) in der gewünschten Sprache.
Penny made this quilt as a gift for her niece. She used a panel, added foundation-pieced letters to spell the girl’s name and several borders. There was a lot of negative space to fill for the wide inner borders, so a more intricated pantograph was called for, and we chose “New Delhi” which has a lot going on with paisley shapes, curls, pearls and a bit of echo quilting.
I hope you all had fun with the first block of this year’s BOM. Before we get to the next bunny, I have a favour to ask. If you purchased any of my patterns through my website, you probably noticed that I make you read a paragraph about a PayPal error message during checkout. Most purchases go through just fine, and we have never been able to determine the cause of the error. The weird part is that even though the error message appears, the purchase goes through, and that leads to a lot of confusion and extra work. If you encounter this error, I’d appreciate if you could take a screenshot and send it to me. When we put the pattern store in test mode, it all works fine, and we never receive an error message. My son who has a BSc in computer science went through a huge log file of communication between my store and PayPal over the weekend, and he says it all works the way it is supposed to work. So seeing the actual error message would be extremely helpful and maybe give him a better idea of what is going on, and any help you can give us is very much appreciated.
And now let’s move on to the second Hunny Bunny. This month’s block is much easier to assemble, it doesn’t have as many pieces. Some spring activities are quite obvious but after a while I had to think about what else the bunnies could do. Well, bunnies hop around, so jumping rope seemed like a good idea, and I came up with this little guy. The rope is embroidered, I figured we didn’t really want to handle skinny, curvy pieces, and the fabric would be mostly covered by stitches anyway. If you add embroidered details by machine as I do, don’t forget to put some stabilizer underneath the fabric, you really need it for the rope, or the fabric will pull. As always, the February block will be available for free download until the end of the month and then move to the pattern store in March when the next block is published.
EDIT: The month of free download is over, and the block has moved to the pattern store where it is now available for purchase. If you just need the finishing instructions, they are still available for free download.
Für die deutsche(n) Version(en) mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem/den Kauflink(s) unten für die englische(n) Version(en) folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung(en) in der gewünschten Sprache.
Wer nur die Anleitung zur Fertigstellung sucht, kann diese nun auch auf Deutsch kostenlos herunterladen.
This lovely bluish-purple quilt was made by Mary. Isn’t it interesting how the dark and light colours merge in the centre for the overall effect? I love clever quilt designs like this. Mary requested a pattern with leaves and chose “Wedding Vine” for her project.
Shirley made this quilt as a gift for a little animal lover. She started with a panel and added borders to achieve the right size. There was a lot of negative space to fill, and the pantograph “Deer in the Woods” was just right for Shirley’s project. Lots of animals to discover in the panel and the quilting, and the quilting shows nicely on the outer borders.
This pretty quilt was made by Karen as a gift for a friend. The batiks she used had floral and leaf motifs, so we went with “Wedding Vine”, a leafy pattern, for quilting. This quilt pattern and similar ones have been around for a while, and you have probably seen several variations. I especially like this one because it extends into the border in some places which always adds interest.
This quilt was also made by Thomasine. I am not sure what pattern she used but I’d assume it would be a great pattern for a batik charm pack. Sometimes it’s not easy to figure out what to do with all those different bright squares, and turning them into tropical fish is a great idea. And “Champagne Bubbles” was the perfect choice for quilting Thomasine’s project.
I have been planning to make a matching pillow for the Penguin Promenade quilt for quite a while, and I finally got around to it. I also made a second pillow featuring a curling penguin. This was suggested by Linda and her sister who thought that in Canada winter activities need to include curling. And of course they were right! In Germany, curling is something that you see every four years at the Olympic Games and then forget about it until next time, so it never even occurred to me when I was designing the blocks for the Penguin Promenade quilt. But I was happy to follow up on their suggestion and came up with this little guy.
I emailed Linda the pattern a few weeks ago, and she surprised me by putting the block together quickly and sending me a picture. Isn’t he cute?
Linda’s Curling Penguin
Patterns are available for both pillows in English and German. I have also created two bundles with special pricing, one with just the two pillows and one with both pillows and the full Penguin Promenade quilt for those who missed the free downloads in 2020.
Für die deutsche(n) Version(en) mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem/den Kauflink(s) unten für die englische(n) Version(en) folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung(en) in der gewünschten Sprache.
