Mosaic Mystery Quilt {Squares and Triangles}

It's time to check in with my progress on the Mosaic Mystery Quilt hosted by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs!

I didn't post an update in September, so I decided that I would combine my September and October clue progress together in one post.

September's clue was to make stitch-and-flip "house" blocks. These were very quick and easy! Since I am using fat quarters instead of yardage, I used three different fabrics for the stitch and flip squares, so half of the units have the pink and burgundy scroll fabric, a quarter of the units have the burgundy mottled print, and a quarter of the units have the dark pink Fairy Frost.

An aside: I absolutely LOVE Fairy Frost. I had a lot of scraps of it years ago and used a lot of the scraps in my Harry Potter quilt, which I realize has never actually been shared as a finish, and I will do that eventually.

For October, our assignment was to make two different sets of square-in-a-square (SIAS) units. These were quick and easy as well; it seems like I have done so much itty bitty piecing lately -- it's so nice to work on something with bigger piecing! All of the green/brown and background fabric SIAS units are the same; there are two each of each of the four different pink fabrics for the pink/background SIAS units.

Now the long wait to November begins!

Stars at Play Mini {Under Construction}

Now that I finished my Good Fortune quilt top, it's back to focusing on things with deadlines -- but that doesn't mean that those projects aren't fun!

While working on finishing up the last of the unit construction for Good Fortune, I was also working on the unit and block construction for my Island Batik Ambassador mini quilt project for February.

Last week, I had quite a few pieces and parts made for the Missouri Star block portion of the mini quilt. The pattern calls for five star blocks and I am very happy with the final color selections I made for the blocks.

Isn't that background fabric gorgeous? It pulls in all of the colors from the block.

Next up was making the snowball blocks -- these four blocks with the five star blocks make up the center of the quilt.

These rectangles are used in the pieced border.

Now the top of this mini quilt is complete and ready for quilting!

What color(s) do you think that I should use for quilting? I've pulled four different colors of Aurifil from my stash.

I'm leaning towards the purple or the aqua -- what do you think?

Sharing at Linky Tuesday!

Good Fortune {Clue #3}

It's time for another Good Fortune update! For clue #3, we are making two units from our green fabric -- units that Bonnie calls "half chevrons" and half square triangles that can be made as bonus triangles!

For my green fabric, instead of pulling from my green scrap pile, I pulled a single green fabric. This fabric was used in the piecing of and as the backing of my "Green in Bloom" quilt last year. I have large chunks of this fabric left over -- I'm guessing I have a little under a yard in scraps which should be more than enough for a half-sized version of Good Fortune. (This is the best picture I can grab of the green fabric!)

Bonnie lists multiple ways to make both of the units -- I decided to test out the method to make the chevron units and then use the "bonus triangles" for the smaller HSTs. I am not usually a fan of the stitch and flip method because it can waste a lot of fabric but this method puts the scraps to work!

I found I didn't need to mark two lines for the seams -- if I marked the diagonal for the first, and used my foot as a guide, my HSTs came out just about perfect, with the exception of just a few! 

By Monday, I was about two-thirds of the way complete with my units. Sewing progress in the evenings is rare and slow for me this time of year so I was worried that I wouldn't get finished before the Clue #4 came out today. However, I did finish Clue #3 last night -- just under the wire!

Even with making half as many units as Bonnie's directions, this clue took a long time for me! However, once I figured out my correct seam allowances, I only ended up with four HSTs that were slightly too small. If I need more in the final layout of my quilt, I will make more units then, but for now, I will continue to shoot for half-ish of Bonnie's directions.

Happy Friday! I'm hoping that Clue #4 (which just came out!) is just as quick and easy as I imagine it to be! I have a pile of secret sewing to sew (and HSTs to trim!) this weekend, so hopefully both will go quickly and without incident.

Blocked Rainbow QAL {Week #5 - Blue Bowties}

The 2018 quilt along is now over and the entire pattern is available as a single PDF pattern on Etsy and Craftsy.

This week is our super alliterative week with Blue Bowties!

This week we're adding in another basic quilting technique - stitch and flip units!

Here are my fabrics and blocks:

If you're a little bit behind, now is the perfect time to catch up! These bowtie blocks in particular go together quite quickly so if there's a week that you missed or you are still working on a previous week, making only nine blocks this week is a breeze! This is half as many blocks as we made in week 1 for our red pinwheels!

Our winner of last week's prize is Annette! All of her fabrics feature little bugs, isn't that adorable?

This week our giveaway sponsor is Pamela from PamelaQuilts! A little about Pamela:

Pamela Boatright has been sewing since she was a child, but it wasn’t until she was raising her five daughters that she fell in love with the quilting. She is a self taught quilter who loves challenging herself and working with traditional quilt designs. She became a proficient hand quilter, then moved into machine quilting on her domestic machine. After starting work at the local quilt shop 12 years ago she was encouraged to begin writing her own patterns. She loves all aspects of creating quilts, especially the opportunity to work with Island Batik as an Island Batik Ambassador and this past year as collaborated with Aurifil thread as one of their Aurifil Artisans. She enjoys sharing her creations on social media as well as teaching small classes at her local quilt shop.

Don't forget to share your progress photos in the Facebook group or on Instagram with the hashtag #BlockedRainbowQAL! If you haven't joined in yet, don't fret! There's plenty of time to join in because we have multiple "catch up" weeks in the month of May! Sharing at Linky Tuesday and Let's Bee Social!

Schedule:
March 19 - Introduction, Yardage Requirements, Kona Sale with HBD
March 26 - Sponsors, Background Spacer cutting, Color Suggestions
April 2- Red Pinwheels
April 9 - Orange Churn Dashes
April 16 - Yellow Flying Geese
April 23 - Green Sawtooth Stars
April 30 - Blue Bowties <-- That's today!
May 7 - Purple Bear Paws
May 14 - Catch up week/Mother's Day
May 21 - Setting directions
May 28 - Catch up week/Memorial Day
June 4 - Finished Quilt Top Parade/Link Up

Magnolia Mystery QAL {Half Geese Units}

After seeing lots of people post their finished units for this month as part of the Magnolia Mystery QAL, I wanted to get mine done as well!

This month's direction uses the 4.5 x 2.5 inch Fabric B rectangles combined with background squares to make "half geese". I am using scrappy aqua prints for my Fabric B and I followed Cheryl's suggestion to cut these rectangles in sets of four. When making my half geese units, I made sure that each set of four ended up with two right facing and two left facing geese.

I have seven different fabrics -- I think it's a good variety of fabrics that will work well together in a quilt. For now they wait until next month's directions come out!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social and Needle and Thread Thursday!

Blooming Table Runner {Bree Blog Hop and Giveaway}

Update: the giveaway is now closed and the winner is noted below!

Today I am the stop on the Bree blog hop! Bree is the newest line from Nancy Halvorsen, who just happens to be my mom's favorite designer!

Check out this gorgeous fabric line!

For my stop on the hop, I decided to make a table runner that uses a 30 degree ruler from Creative Grids (not an affiliate link!) to make flower blocks! I'm always trying to find new ways to use the specialty rulers that I have.

This tutorial makes a BIG tablerunner -- 15" by 45"! -- perfect for bringing a bit of summer inside!

To make this runner, you will need:

1 yard navy paisley print for backing and binding
1/4 yard grey dot print for background
1/4 yard coral swirl print
1/4 yard coral paisley print
1/4 yard orange swirl print
1/4 yard orange circle dot print
1/4 yard aqua swirl print
1/4 yard aqua/navy check print

For each pair of flower prints (aqua/aqua, orange/orange, and coral/coral) decide which will be your "accent color" (center of the petal block) and which will be your "main color" (sides of the petal block). Trim each 1/4 yard cut to 9 inches wide, or if using fat quarters, cut 9 inch strips.

From each of your "accent color" strips, cut four (4) 30 degree wedges from your 9 inch wide strip. Also cut four (4) 2.5 inch squares from each "accent color". Set these squares aside for now.

From each of your "main color" strips, cut eight (8) 30 degree wedges from your 9 inch wide strip.

Sew a "main color" wedge to each side of your "accent color" wedges. Don't get too worried if your points aren't perfect! Make four (4) petal units in each color, for a total of twelve (12) petal units.

From your background fabric, cut six (6) 4 inch squares. Cut each square in half diagonally once for a total of twelve (12) background triangles. Sew each triangle along the long edge (hypotenuse, for you mathematicians out there!) to the beveled edge of your petal units.

Trim each of your petal units to 8 inches square. Use the stitch and flip technique to attach the 2.5 inch squares to the center of each petal block with a contrasting color.

Sew your four petal units into one block, making three total blocks. Sew your blocks in a row.

Quilt and bind as desired. Enjoy your summery table runner!

I love this backing print so much! It's so cheery and festive.

Ready to win a fat quarter bundle of Bree for yourself?

1. Leave me a comment with your favorite print from the line -- click here to see them all!
2. Leave a second comment if you follow me -or- if you share this post on social media!

Two entries maximum -- additional entries will be deleted!

Our winner is Shirley!

Thanks to Benartex and Nancy for having me as part of their hop!

Sharing at Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, and Free Motion Mavericks!

Gathering Mystery {Weeks 5, 6, & 7}

While it's already time for the Week 10 directions to come out, I'm still a few weeks behind, but have made a dent in my backlog! Over the last week, I've been able to make a lot of progress on making these units and could potentially get caught up this weekend!

For Week 5, our assignment was to make "half snowball units" -- blocks with stitch and flip corners on corners opposite from one another. We made large and small half snowball units. Stitch and flip corners aren't my favorite type of unit but sometimes they are a necessary evil in a pattern! I saved the corner cut-offs from the large units, but not the small units.

I was a little bit worried about the contrast between my corner fabric and center fabric for my larger units, but the blocks turned out well given the prints are so different. For the Queen sized quilt, I had to make 64 of each unit.

For Week 6, we made "house units" which is essentially a half square-in-a-square unit and made 80 units. More stitching and flipping on these units, and I also saved the corner cut-offs from these units as well.

Week 7 was our first week of building bigger blocks -- hooray! We used our two sets of flying geese units from Week 3 and attached them to our house units from Week 6 and to our square in a square units from Week 4. All of these units had precise matching of points, but they actually ended up going together quite well! There are 64 of the units with the green and 80 of the units with the blue!

Here are my two different Week 7 units:

Week 8 and Week 9 are taking the units we've been making in Weeks 2-7 and combining them to make larger block sections. Hopefully these will continue to go together quickly and I'll get all the way caught up before the final week of the quilt along!

Sharing at Finished or not Friday!

Gathering Mystery {Weeks 1, 2, & 3}

Because I am a crazy person and can't resist joining in new quilt alongs, I have started working on another quilt as part of the Gathering Mystery QAL hosted by Shelly at Cora's Quilts. I've actually watched from the sidelines for both of her previous mystery quilts and finally decided to jump in myself.

Before we moved, I pulled the fabrics for this project from my stash -- entirely from my stash other than the background fabric -- wahoo! This color scheme is completely different than the example color scheme, but I did actually follow her suggestions for which fabrics were light/medium/dark other than one fabric.

Here are my fabrics other than my background when I pulled them starting at fabric #1 at the bottom, and fabric #8 at the top. My background is Kona Oyster (which you can pick up in the HBD fabric shop on Etsy!)

When the cutting directions came out, I decided to swap the fabrics I had chosen for #3 and #4 because I didn't want to chop up my beautiful day lily print up any smaller than was necessary! I will still likely use that fabric for the binding (because I don't have enough left of my green ziggy print).

I like cutting new projects because I can cut while I watch TV with my husband in the evenings without the sewing machine noise interrupting things. Our week #1 assignment was cutting so that was perfect! Here's everything cut up for other than my background fabric:

Our week #2 sewing assignment was to make a lot of stitch and flip rectangle units using our background fabric and fabric #7 (my dark teal floral). I spent a whole baseball game drawing diagonal lines on my small squares for stitch and flip corners.

Our week #3 assignment was to make two different "flying geese-ish" units using a stitch and flip method. After a few that were a little wonky, I actually zipped through these without having to redo too many! Needless to say I have done a LOT of chain piecing over the last week.

Here's the first two weeks of units, the top row is Units 1a and 1b, and the bottom row is Units 2a and 2b.

Did I mention that I'm making the queen sized version? Those piles have 64 units for 1a, 1b, and 2a, and then I made 80 2b units. I also ended up making a lot of pretty trash! There's still plenty of time to join the party if you're intrigued by my block units! Hop on over to Cora's Quilts to read all about it. :)

Sharing at Let's Bee Social and NTT!