Doris made this hockey-themed quilt as a gift for a little boy who loves his sports. The feature fabric tells enough of a story, and we decided the quilting should stay in the background. The pattern is called “Celtic Scroll”. It gives texture to the quilt and also picks up the shape of the hockey pucks.
This Bear Paw quilt was made by Brenda. Isn’t the fabric placement interesting, with the Bear Paws in the light colour and different scraps making up the background? I should try that with a scrap quilt, I really like the look. Brenda chose the design “Swirling Feathers” for her project.
You might have noticed that I didn’t post a picture of my sample block this month. I don’t have a huge fabric stash, that’s not the way I work. I come up with a design first, and then I hunt down the fabrics, and sometimes it just takes a while to find the right ones. But my first block is finally done and ready to show.
And I also managed to find backing fabric for the quilt. I don’t usually buy a lot of novelty prints but I like my backings to match the theme of the quilt, and of course I had to order this cute penguin fabric when I saw it online. And they even wear hats and scarves!
This gorgeous machine embroidery quilt was made by Lynn. She started working on the blocks years ago and was very happy to finally finish the project. She asked if I had a quilting design with butterflies, and “Butterfly Tango” worked well for her quilt.
Sharon made this “Farmer’s Wife” Sampler Quilt. If you are not familiar with the story behind the pattern, I have quilted one of them before and written a little about the background in that post. Click here, if you would like to read it. It is a very traditional quilt, and since the design “Swirling Feathers” worked well the last time, there was no need to change it, and I used it again for Sharon’s version.
This is the other quilt Shelly dropped off for quilting, her modern take on a traditional pattern. The same could be said for the quilting design she chose. “Continuous Baptist Fan” looks a lot like the traditional design but was adapted for longarm quilting and can be stitched without starting and stopping in between.
This is the first of two quilts that Shelly asked me to quilt for her. Isn’t this a great scrap pattern? Shelly’s version is definitely an autumn quilt, and she chose “Acorns & Oak Leaves” as the quilting design, but it could easily be adapted to any other season, depending on the feature fabric.
Okay, here we go. I was a bit faster than I thought, and the first pattern is ready for download. “Penguin Promenade” has nine blocks, each featuring a penguin. These are cartoonish penguins as you can tell by the scarf and hat the first one is wearing. His friends in the months to come will all be participating in some kind of winter activity. They will all be wearing accessories. Use your scrap bin and imagination for these, they don’t have to be in the colours that I chose for the design. The finished block size is 8″, and the finished quilt size is 38″ x 49″.
There is one major difference this year: The finishing instructions will NOT be included with the last block, and I
will NOT provide them for free download. Of course you are welcome to just download the free patterns and assemble them any way you like. If you do the math, nine 8″ blocks do not give you a quilt of 38″ x 49″, and I added a couple of filler rows. These are pieced (no appliqué, no penguins, just plain old patchwork), and it takes a lot more time to write instructions for this than to just place sashing around the blocks and add a border. The finishing instructions will be available separately for a nominal fee. If you collect all the blocks there will be no need to purchase the full pattern if you decide you want to assemble them the way I did. I will however send the finishing instructions for free to anyone who makes all nine blocks and sends me a picture of all of them before April 1, 2021. That gives you a whole year to make nine blocks, and I enjoy seeing what other people do with my designs.
If you want to use the same background fabric for all nine blocks, you will need approx. 7/8 yard. The background fabric does not appear anywhere else in the pattern. For the pieced elements you can pick coordinating fabrics later on. My design is rather monochromatic, I chose only blue fabrics in different values from light to dark for the pieced parts. This is just to give you a general idea, I will post more information on this when I have double checked the math.
The free pattern will only be available in Englisch/Imperial this year. I haven’t decided yet if I will publish a German/metric version but if I do, it will not be for free download. The rest of the rules are the same as last year, and I copied them from last year’s post:
A new block will be published on the first day of every month at 9 am Pacific Standard/Daylight Time. This means it will already be the second day of the month for some of you. Please be patient and please don’t email me asking when the next block will be published. I don’t like to schedule posts to be published in the middle of the night. There can always be a problem with one of the pattern files, and I would like to be able to fix it within minutes instead of waking up to dozens of messages complaining about the bug. If you find an issue, then please don’t hesitate to contact me, so I can fix it ASAP.
Each block will be available for free download during the month of its publication. It will be moved to the store section when the next block is published. If you miss a block, you can still purchase it for a small fee. Please do not email me asking me to send you the pattern for free. I will ignore these requests. I only charge $2 per block (and that’s Canadian dollars, so it is even less for you in the US), and I will make bundle packs available again for three or six blocks, once we get there, that will give you an additional discount. Please respect my copyright and don’t pass your copy of the pattern on to your friend who might have missed the free download. This will just result in designers not offering free patterns anymore.
And now I think I have talked enough, here is the download link for the first block. Enjoy 🙂
EDIT: April is over, and the block has moved to the pattern store where it is now available for purchase if you missed the 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.
Here is a preview of my 2020 BOM that has nine blocks and will start in April. I can’t promise yet that the first block will be ready for download on Wednesday but it should be no later than the end of this week, so stay tuned. I had good intentions but then got a bad head cold last week and had to take some time to rest. Luckily it was just that, a head cold, and I am much better now. I played around with lots of ideas, and at some point came up with this funny little guy who made me laugh. He will be the first block, and eight of his pals will be joining him through the rest of the year. I hope you will enjoy my Penguin Promenade as much as I do.
