Daisy Chain QAL {Featured Bloggers}

We are just a few days away from the kick-off of the Daisy Chain Mystery QAL!

On Monday, the first set of clues will be released: our fabric requirements as well as tips and tricks for picking your fabrics! The fabric requirements will be posted in their own blog post here on the blog but they will also be available to download for free from our PayHip site.

We also encourage you to join our Facebook group -- where we'll be sharing our fabric pulls, block progress, and have an open space for questions and comments! We hope that you'll join us whether or not you're planning to sew along!

I'd also like to highlight some of the wonderful bloggers who are joining in for the quilt along!

Christina @ Christina's Handicrafts

Gail @ Quilting Gail

Gene @ Gene Black

Jessica @ Desert Bloom Quilting

Kate @ Life in Pieces

Michelle @ Creative Blonde

Pamela @ PamelaQuilts

Stephanie @ Quilt'n Party

Vasudha @ Storied Quilts

A few of these bloggers are fellow Island Batik Ambassadors for 2019 and some are just lovely blog-land friends! They'll be sharing about their own Daisy Chain quilts on their blogs and I'll be highlighting their progress here as well.

Have I convinced you to jump into the fun yet? Don't forget to enter to win my Island Batik giveaway in this post -- the giveaway closes Sunday!

Schedule
Fabric Requirements - February 4th
Cutting - February 18th
Block Units- March 4th
Block Units - March 18th
Block Units - April 1st
Block Units - April 15th
Catch up week link up - April 29th
Top Construction Part 1 - May 6th
Top Construction Part 2 - May 20th
Link up/giveaways/quilt parade starts: June 3rd
Link up/giveaways/quilt parade ends: June 17th

On My Pinboard

Now I am sure that most of you are all on Pinterest yourselves, but I thought that I would share a few of my recent favorites today in case you might have missed them (I hope not!!)

Improv Trees via Stash Bee by TwinkleToes

I was never interested in modern/improvisational piecing until more recently and I am in LOVE with these trees! 

Bumblebee by Bee In My Bonnet

I also LOVE bumblebees. This pattern was designed as the label for a row along quilt, but I would love to make a baby quilt of all bumblebees!

Round Cut Birthstone Pattern from No Hats In The House

How cool is this block? WAY COOL. I already got a copy of this one and I can't wait to start making some beauties!

And here's my quilt board if you need more quilty inspiration. Happy Sunday!

Accountability!

Rhonda over at Quilter in the Gap is hosting a quarter-by-quarter Finish-Along to encourage the finishing of UFOs! I missed the first quarter link-up entirely but I decided that this would be a great way for me to try to push forward and finish some projects once I get this exam over with (16 days, people!)

This is sort of in order of "closest to being finished" to "probably won't happen."

1. X-quilt
It has been machine quilted and is waiting for me up in Michigan. All it needs is binding!

2. Mystery Quilt
Again, all machine quilted and just needs binding. I'll be picking up these two quilts in May when I go up to Michigan for my sister's college graduation.

3. Snowflake quilt
Top is all done, needs quilting and binding.

4. Seville Quilt
Same thing, quilting and binding.

5. Shoes
Top needs to be finished, need to find and buy border fabric for this one.

6. Civil war quilt
Again, need to buy and find sashing and border fabric and finish putting the top together.

7. Railroad Quilt
HAND QUILTING. Seriously, I just need to take the quilt into the living room and work on it when I watch TV, instead of pinning on Pinterest.

I know that I can finish 1 and 2 before the end of June, and I think that getting 3 and 4 done is possible. Getting 5 and 6 all the way finished might be a stretch, but I will definitely get the tops done. 7 is the thorn in my side from long, long ago and I am going to get it done before the end of the summer because now that I have a queen sized bed, I can make good use of it!

One step at a time...

How is it Monday already?

Saturday I spent nearly the whole day grading and getting my teaching stuff ready for this week, but I did manage to get all of my strip blocks done for the Seville quilt.

Sunday I did all of the half snowball blocks in the evening, which went a lot faster than I anticipated, which was very nice.

And so I laid out the whole quilt on my living room floor on Sunday night and it’s still sitting there. It has to, because otherwise I don’t know how I would be able to get everything just right again.

So the next thing to do is to sew four half-snowball blocks together so it looks like a white x, this will take lots of patience and matchy matching. Then I can start sewing things into rows (with even more matching, of course.)

My stairstep quilt has taken up residence on my couch and stares at me while I eat dinner (tacos tonight, baby!). Tonight is long-distance House date with Park Ranger Boyfriend, so I will work on it some during that. 

Here's to a productive evening and next couple of days!

Also, check out Quilt Story to see other neat-o blogs and get info about a superawesome Valentine's blog hop!

And check out WIP wednesday at Freshly pieced!

Civil War Blocks 31-39

Most of these were done on Marathon Harry Potter/Quilting Boxing Day Extravaganza!

31. Empty Spools

Simple dimple.

32. Carolina Lily

If you remember, I Y-seam like a boss.

33. Indiana Puzzle

I can definitely own curved seams as well.

34. Rosebud

Pinwheel flowers!

35. Star of the West

Stars. Again.

36. Kentucky Crossroads

Another quick and easy block. Other than mine turned out like 10 inches wide. Hmmm.

37. Confederate Rose

Love the colors on this one.

38. Ohio Star

More stars, more awesome color combos. No big deal.

39. Hovering Hawks

If you squint, you might see birds.

Hope you all are recovering nicely from your hectic holidays!

Civil War Blocks 26-30

So I've actually had most of these done since I left for Cleveland on Thursday. More blocks tomorrow, and progress on epic Harry Potter/quilting day.

26. Barbara Frietchie Star

This quilt has tons of stars. Tons.

27. Irish Chain

More green and red...tasty.

28. Next Door Neighbor

I"m getting to a point where I've used up a lot of my original stash.

29. Railroad Crossing

I love the ones where I can use very small pieces!

30. Peterson's Stars and Stripes

The applique ones slow me down in a major way.

Hope you had lovely Christmases!

Civil War Blocks 21-25

I can't believe that I am almost halfway done with all the Civil War blocks! I have to take a quick break from Civil War blocks to get a binding finished before this weekend.

21. Underground Railroad

This one would be a fun quilt on its own as well.

22. Blockade

The red, green, and yellow paisley is one of my favorite fabrics ever.

23. Illinois Roads

Easiest one so far! I didn't even have to cut the 2.5 inch strips.

24. Ladies Aid Album

Another with fabrics destined to be together.

25. Calico Puzzle

Not the most traditional colors, but pretty nonetheless.

Civil War Blocks 17-20

Too many Christmas parties = not enough time to sew.

17. Comfort Quilt

I'm starting to run out of my cream/white fabrics already...yikes.

18. Union Square

Another with fabric from my charm pack prize.

19. Missouri Star

These fabrics were made for each other.

20. New England

This one let me use a lot of the little tiny pieces that I have.

 

I also got a machine quilted project mailed to me from my mom, so I am going to sew the binding on that and get that all ready to show off in the next few days. Merry Christmas!

Civil War Blocks 9, 10, 11

These ones are fancy.

9. Birds in the Air

The only bad thing about some of these simpler blocks is the huge pieces they require, which I don't have very many of. So I make due.

10. Lincoln's Platform

I'm in love with the colors in this one.

11. London Square

This one is another that would make cool designs on its own.

Civil War Blocks 6, 7, 8

More blocks! In real life, I have 13 (!) completely finished now and 3 cut and ready to sew tonight. I'm starting to wonder if I can catch up to the current block (through 50 is on the blog currently, and I have completed 13 in three days, at this rate, I should be done by Christmas day!)

#6. Richmond

This one is pretty bold, but whatever.

7. Log Cabin

There might end up being more than one of these in the final product because these are so easy.

8. Cotton Boll

I'm not really a big fan of the directions on this one, I think making partial snowballs might be easier.

Have a great Wednesday!

Civil War Blocks 1 and 2

Sunday, I started from block #1 from Barbara Brackman's sesquicentennial Civil War Quilt Blog. I intended to do one or two or three blocks, but I ended up doing 10.

While I was home over Thanksgiving, I went through the scrap bin of glory and picked out a bunch of fabrics that I thought would work well in a Civil War-style quilt. I mostly picked things that were the right styles of prints (or close enough if I liked them a lot).

This project is awesome/addictive: it is super easy to get to a "stopping point". Lots of projects get put by the wayside because you get to a point that makes you say "ugh. I have to iron 288 half square triangles" or "blech. I have to sew sashings to match up to the 8 star points for 12 blocks." Maybe that's just me.

For this, I just looked at the block, picked out a stack of fabrics I thought looked good together, and cut the pieces for that block. Not a ton of any one thing at at time.

And they go together so fast! This is probably why I got so many done. It definitely has nothing to do with how much of a professional procrastinator I have become in the last 6 months. Grad school does terrible things to your brain. Seriously.

But you get that high of "I-got-a-block-done-now-I-need-to-start-another" and then you've done 10 of them but maybe that's just me and because I didn't start this thing until nearly all of the blocks had already been published. And now I'm a really big fan of some of the blocks and want to make entire quilts out of some of them. More projects to put on the quilting bucket list.

I started making the blocks in order and so that's how I will show them off, with a few each day this week.

#1. Catch Me If You Can

This block would make an awesome scrap quilt and went together rather easily.

#2. North Star

Paisley is one of my absolute favorites, so I am going to use as much as possible in this quilt.