After completing the Jelly Roll Quilts, another donation quilt was waiting to be finished. This was my ‘leaders and enders’ project, inspired by my friend Renate’s idea of alternating light and dark fabrics to create this pattern. Sewing time was limited over the past year, so finishing this top took a little longer than expected. But once it was finally done, I quilted it right away, and it has since been donated to the Ann Davis Transition Society. And, of course, I have already started on the next one!
Whenever I post one of these quilts, people ask about the pattern. There actually is no official pattern – the large squares are simply 4 inches, seam allowances included. From this starting size, you cut them in half to create rectangles and into quarters for smaller squares. I have written a bit more on how to put it together in this post.
You might remember that I won the “Left, Right, Centre” game at last year’s guild Christmas party and ended up with a hotchpotch of 120 jelly roll strips in every colour and pattern imaginable. It only took me a day or two to decide what to do with them – since they were all so mismatched, a Jelly Roll Race quilt felt like the perfect solution. I had never made one before, but I knew of the pattern, and plenty of instructions are available online.
I actually finished two of the tops right away – they were done before New Year’s! The third one, however, had to wait until summer, but as soon as I wrapped that up, I quilted all three of them. I also finally found a method for binding quilts entirely by machine that works well for donation quilts. For my own quilts, though, I’m still a bit picky and will probably always take the time to stitch the binding down by hand – I’m just not fond of the flat look that machine binding tends to create. My trick is to use a decorative stitch instead of a straight one. There’s a lovely curved stitch on my machine that meanders over the binding edge, making any irregularities on the back less obvious.
All three quilts have been donated to a local charity, the Ann Davis Transition Society. One of our guilds regularly provides them with quilts, and I know from past deliveries that they try to give as many quilts as possible to the children who come seeking shelter with their mothers. Supporting this effort means a lot to me.
So where do we go from here? You might have noticed that I didn’t announce anything for 2024 after finishing the HedgeHUGS BOM. And that’s because I need a break. Even though I pretty much stopped posting and abandoned some social media platforms, it feels like I didn’t get anything done this year. I have pattern samples finished that have been lying around for almost a year and a half with no time to actually write and publish the pattern. And let’s not even talk about the long list of half-finished designs and design ideas. Longarm quilting is still my main business and eats up most of my time but I also have quite a few medical appointments and am involved in the two local guilds. And I did quite a lot of traveling which of course I don’t want to give up either.
I have also not come up with “the” idea for a new BOM. I have played around with several ideas but I found nothing really satisfactory. So here is where you come in. I would like to start another project later in 2024 but I haven’t been hit by inspiration so far with anything that might work as a block of the month. What would you like to see? Leave a comment, and maybe inspiration will hit me.
So instead I will show you a few of the things that kept me busy this fall. I did the registration for the quilt show again and organized the quilt intake and return which is a huge, very time-consuming task. But I love a good spreadsheet and well organized events, and I had a lot of fun doing it. The guild had not enough people for setting up the frames, so this year the quilts were displayed in the sanctuary of the church where we hold the shows.
Picture courtesy of Lyn R.
I usually don’t participate in the show challenge (if the day just had more hours!!). But this year inspiration suddenly hit me in late September, and I whipped up an entry in a few days. The theme was a “song with a colour”, and I suddenly had this vision of “Red Roses for a Blue Lady”, and it turned out pretty much the way I saw it in my head.
Two guilds means two Christmas parties with lots of activities. At the Chilliwack Quilters Guild we played Bingo with fabric cards, and the blocks were collected afterwards and will be turned into donation quilts.
We also made a bobbin blossom brooch which is a very quick project, especially when you use a magnet instead of a pin. It looks really nice and is easy to do although the instructions looked quite intimidating at first.
And then we played the “Left, Right, Centre” game. Everyone starts out with three Jelly Roll strips, and the one who ends up with the last strip(s) when all the others have been placed in the centre wins the whole pile. Only that this year the winners of each table played a final round against each other with the winner taking all the strips. Well, guess who the (reluctant) lucky winner was… yes, I went home with about 120 strips of fabric. There is a huge variety of patterns and themes, and nothing is coordinated. I folded them, and they found a home in my big Fisherman’s Friend tin, and I have decided I will make (probably three, depending on how many strips there actually are) Jelly Roll Race quilts and donate them back to the guild’s We Care program.
The Chilliwack Piecemakers Christmas Party was even more hilarious (you would have loved it, Joanne). We played some games, had lots of door prizes, and the President made all executive members sing a quilty version of “Twelve Days of Christmas”. I was lucky (and maybe everyone else too because I can’t sing very well publicly) and managed to get the twelfth verse that I only had to sing once.
We also made Healing Heart blocks for a member going through some rough times, and a nice collection was gifted to her as a “fabric hug”.
And then my husband needed a new Dinkelmaus (the German version of a bean bag, if you want to know more or download the free pattern, check here). His was wearing thin after about 15 years, and he would leave kernels of spelt all over the house. Since they make such great gifts and don’t take long to sew, I made a whole collection and gave them away to my quilty friends.
Last but not least I spent almost all of November on my Christmas Cards, they were all finished in time and mailed out in early December.
I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday season, take some time to slow down and relax and enjoy your friends and family. See you all in 2024!
I was so busy in January that I didn’t even have time to take a few detail pictures of the Hunny Bunnies blocks in the finished quilt. I published the full pattern on January 1st together with the last block and the bundles but I never got around to actually announce it here. So here we go, the complete pattern with all twelve blocks and finishing instructions is now available both in English/Imperial and German/Metric. I only added a crosshatch for the background of the blocks, I thought the background fabric provided enough texture. The sashing fabric was super busy, and the quilting doesn’t show much but I went with some spiral pattern that looks a bit like a stylized rose (at least if you have my imagination). For the outer border I used a pantograph design called “Let It Bloom!”. I finished the quilt a long time ago and it was actually displayed at the quilt show last October.
For those of you who missed most or all of the blocks last year, this is your chance, and if you enter HUNNY20 during checkout you will get an additional 20% discount. The code will be valid until February 12, 2023 11.59 PM PST.
Für die deutsche Version mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem Kauflink unten für die englische Version folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung in der gewünschten Sprache.
Previously I posted pictures of Cynthia’s version of this beautiful Susan Smith pattern called “Fleur”. When her friend Lisa finished her top, I got to quilt another one of these beauties. Lisa had of course seen Cynthia’s finished quilt and liked my quilting, so I didn’t really change much, especially since I quite like it too.
Karen made this modern quilt as a gift for her granddaughter who was involved in the design process. She had seen a similar quilt on Pinterest and liked it a lot, she helped pick out the fabrics and also requested just straight lines for quilting. Her original plan was to have vertical parallel lines all over. I suggested the diagonal parallel lines, following the seams in the herringbone pattern. The idea was approved by Karen’s granddaughter, so that’s what I did, and I believe it adds a bit more interest to the quilt.
This colourful modern quilt was made by Lynnette. What a great setting to showcase some pretty fabrics, and I especially like how the black sashing brings out the bright colours even more. I quilted it with a leaf pattern called “Ground Cover”.
Here is another one of those quilts that I am particularly fond of where your brain starts seeing secondary designs when you look at it for a while. This one was made by Kelley, showcasing a pretty floral fabric. I quilted it with “Azaleas”, a floral design with a bit of echo quilting.
This Double Irish Chain quilt was a guild project a while back, and Ellen asked me to custom quilt her version. She gave me a drawing of the feather wreath she wanted in the alternate blocks, and I filled the chain parts with diagonal lines. We were both quite happy with the way it turned out.
“Quill” is the name of the fabric line (by 3 Sisters for Moda) that Liz used to make this quilt. Liz likes swirly patterns, and this quilt is more about showcasing the pretty fabrics and didn’t need elaborate quilting, so we chose the pattern “Whisper” to finish her project.
