Quarter Cabins in Mesa Verde {Log Cabin Blog Hop with Island Batik} + {Pattern Premiere}

Today is my day to share as part of the Island Batik Ambassador Log Cabin blog hop!

I have been hard at work on this quilt this month -- featuring the new line, Mesa Verde! As an Island Batik Ambassador, I am provided with samples of various lines of Island Batik fabrics, Aurifil thread, Accuquilt products, and Hobbs Batting to use and share with you!

This line is a fun Western-inspired collection featuring greens, creams, golds, and browns!

For my quilt, I am using our new Honey, Bunny, and Doll pattern, Quarter Cabins, to show off these lovely fabrics! 

I used the 20 fabrics to make 25 blocks for this quilt, which finishes at 51" square.

For the quilting, I used a gold-brown Aurifil thread for the quilting and did meandering across the quilt. For the batting, I used a wool blend Hobbs Batting. Thank you to Aurifil and Hobbs Batting for sponsoring the Island Batik Ambassador program!

Frankie the bunny had to inspect the quilt after it was trimmed before the binding was added!

I used one of the dark brown prints for the binding.

This pattern is also now available on our Etsy and Payhip sites! Pick up a copy of this super easy and fun pattern for your next quick project!

I also have a giveaway today -- of a big pile of my Mesa Verde scraps!

Update: the giveaway is now closed and Stephanie is our winner!

You can enter up to twice, leave a comment for each entry! Giveaway will close on March 1st.

1. Leave a comment telling me your favorite new Island Batik collection. You can see all of the collections here.

2. Leave me a comment telling me which fabrics (any maker is fine!) you'd use to make your own version of our new Quarter Cabins pattern!

Make sure to check out all of the lovely Log Cabin quilts made by my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors!

At A Snail's Pace {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

I am still slowly (so slowly) but surely making little bits of progress on my Frolic mystery quilt.

Last year I finished the top of my Good Fortune quilt top on (or about) February 13th. Now, I did do a half-ished sized quilt last year and I am doing the full quilt this year in addition to this being a much more complicated quilt and not feeling my normal motivation in December and January.

However, I have completed all of my navy blocks!

This includes the stray block that I shared last time in the lower right hand corner. And once again I found a block that I need to fix -- can you find it? It should be very easy to fix.

So, if I wanted to make the quilt as directed, I would stop here and then use the rest of my sets to make the half and quarter blocks. But because I'm a certified overachiever and over-complicater of projects, I am going to make 16 more full blocks out of the block sets that I have left. I don't plan to make half blocks for my setting triangles at all.

I will be stepping back to make more units for blocks -- flying geese and half square triangles -- with my dark teal fabrics. My plan is to work on units and blocks in small batches so I don't get overwhelmed with a lot of trimming at once (which happened a lot in this mystery quilt!).

The parts for the "ring" of dark teal are done, and the parts for the "star" in coral and dark teal will be what I am making next. All of the dark teal blocks will have the same yellow dot fabric used throughout.

Happy Wednesday -- what works in progress are you working on today?

Sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday!

Stitching Shenanigans {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

After posting my last Frolic update, the first thing that I did was to fix the block that had the mistake. It took prepping that blog post to realize there was even a corner unit twisted around -- oops!

After a fairly productive few days of sewing, I am now up to a total of 17 blocks. I snapped a pic of the first 16 together before I finished number 17.

I have less than 10 navy blue blocks to go. I have sewn up all of the side flying geese pairs...

... except that I need to press the remaining pairs.

I still have quite a few corner units to sew as well. This will be my first task this weekend.

Once I use up all of these units, that means I have reached the end of the navy blue set of Frolic blocks. If I was going with the original quilt plan, I would be switching over to making the half and quarter blocks, however, I am going to make an additional set of full blocks and skip the half and quarter blocks. I have to switch gears and get back into unit making but I will be taking a break to work on my February Island Batik Ambassador project.

Happy Friday! What are you working on this weekend?

Head of the Class {My First Teaching Gig}

Last week, I taught my first quilting class! I taught "Introduction to Paper Piecing" at Capital Quilts in Gaithersburg, MD. I had eight students in my class and the vast majority had never done any paper piecing before!

Here are some of the finished blocks that my students made!

I'm also excited to share that I will be back to teach TWO paper piecing classes in April and May! I'll be teaching a second session of the beginner paper piecing class and an intermediate/advanced paper piecing class too! If you are local (or semi-local) to Gaithersburg, MD, I would love to have you in one of my classes!

Log Cabin Blog Hop {Island Batik Hop Schedule}

Today kicks off of the start of February's Island Batik Ambassador blog hop! Our theme this month is Log Cabin quilts!

My blog hop day isn't for two weeks, but I will show off the start of my project! I am using the Mesa Verde collection and I will be making a new version of my Quarter Cabins quilt! All of my cutting is done and I'll be sewing it up this week.

Check the Island Batik Blog regularly so you do not miss a thing! The full list of Ambassadors’ names, collections they will be using in their projects, and their post dates are as follows:

Monday, February 10

Leah Malasky

Sharon Riley

Tuesday, February 11

Joanne Hart

Jennifer Thomas

Wednesday, February 12

Mania Hatziioannidi

Emily Leachman

Thursday, February 13

Carla Henton

Suzy Webster

Friday, February 14th

Blog Hop Round Up Week 1

Monday, February 17

Gail Sheppard

Janet Yamamoto

Tuesday, February 18

Carolina Asmussen

Michelle Roberts

Wednesday, February 19

Gail Renna

Jennifer Fulton

Thursday, February 20

Sally Manke

Megan Best

Friday, February 21

Blog Hop Round Up Week 2

Monday, February 24

Denise Looney

Alison Vermilya

Tuesday, February 25

Connie Kauffman

Sandra Walker

Wednesday, February 26

Pamela Boatright 

Maryellen McAuliffe

Jennifer Strauser 

Thursday, February 27

Vasudha Govindan 

Carol Moellers 

Friday, February 28

Blog Hop Round Up Week 3

Visit the Island Batik blog to enter to win a 10" stack and a 2.5" strip pack of Ancient Etchings!

Block Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

I am so excited today to show some real, tangible progress on my blocks for Frolic!

To refresh, I am planning to make all of the block sets into full blocks to make a bigger quilt and not make the half blocks. I have all of the units made for over half of the full blocks (these are featuring my navy fabrics) but I will need to go back and make flying geese and HSTs for my dark teal fabric blocks.

I now have 9 blocks completed! And of course, now that I am posting this picture, I am realizing that one of my corner units is turned 180 degrees -- oops! I will have some time with the seam ripper tonight!

I have been making my block parts in batches before making my blocks -- sewing together the flying geese as well as sewing together the four patch corner units for a set of blocks.

I've been using the coral and navy pinhweels as my leaders-and-enders. Since these are the same for all of my navy blocks, this seemed like the best choice.

I have only been making one block at a time to make sure that I am keeping all of my parts straight. This is slightly slower than working on multiple blocks at a time, but I haven't had to rip anything out yet (knock on wood).

I also realize that my plan to enlarge my quilt will require a LOT more sashings. I will have to do some math and figure out if I have enough coral fabric to cover a slightly larger quilt. I should have enough, but I want to make sure before I go boldly into this plan.

Happy Friday! Today I am teaching a class on foundation paper piecing! I am so excited!

Show Me Something {with Triangles}

February's theme for Show Me Something with Sarah is triangles!

Here are the three projects I am adding to Sarah's link up:

1. Faceted Churn Dash wall hanging -- This scrappy quilt is lots and lots and lots of little half square triangles!

2. Pink Stars baby quilt -- I made this quilt as an Island Batik Ambassador challenge last year. There's only one square in each block -- the rest of the piecing is all triangles!

3. Good Fortune quilt -- this was the Bonnie Hunter mystery in 2018, featuring quite a few triangles!

I hope you check out what everyone has linked up and link up a few of your own blog posts too!

Brutal Honesty {February 2020}

Much like November and December, January was a blur! My biggest accomplishment was getting my sewing room painted, a non-quilting but necessary project!

Completed tops:
1. Breezy Blooms C2C Bee -- No progress
2. Radiant Jewel Quilt -- No progress
3. Daisy Chain Quilt -- No progress
4. Rail Fence Baby Quilt -- No progress

Tops partially finished:
5. Romantic Garden Quilt -- No progress
6. Monthly Wall Hangings -- No progress
7. Pineapple Stash Bee Blocks -- No progress
8. Not Quite Christmas Ribbons -- No progress

Just blocks and units:
9. Sew Kitschy Blocks -- January UFO -- No progress
10. Cubicle Quilts -- No progress
11. Happy Houses blocks -- No progress
12. Birthstone blocks -- No progress
13. Jingle Bell Square -- No progress
14. Big Block C2C Bee Quilt -- No progress
15. Marigold Quilt -- No progress
16. Pave the Way Quilt -- No progress

Quilt alongs and long term projects:
17. Monthly Island Batik Ambassador projects -- I made a set of scrappy placemats using scrap fabrics, scrap batting, and scrap threads! I actually finished two different spools of thread in the process!

18. Mosaic Mystery Quilt -- No progress
19. Frolic Mystery Quilt -- I have completed clues 1-6, parts of clues 7-8, and have started making the blocks.

My UFO for January was my Sew Kitschy/Sew Retro blocks.
My UFO for February is to work on my birthstone blocks.