Monday, January 13, 2020

Clue #4, #6, #7 Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

Slowly but surely I am making tiny bits of progress on my Frolic mystery quilt. I was able to dig deep in my stash to find two fat quarters to finish the cutting for Clue #4!


Yay for not having to go to the store and buy more fabric! I started drawing lines on the back of the small squares to pair each with a navy or dark teal small square to make the half-square triangles for Clue #4 and this will be the next thing I sew. Most of my aqua fabrics are left over from my April Shower Medallion quilt and my Pineapple Log Cabin quilt. 

For Clue #6, I am making part of my flying geese using my navy fabric and part using my dark teal fabrics. I started off making the navy fabric geese with yellow scraps for the background triangles and had shown some of the sewn but untrimmed geese in my last Frolic post. 


I have really, really used up my yellow scraps -- so much so that the yellow batik in the upper right hand corner was a fat quarter hanging around in my stash from long, long ago that I originally didn't think I would end up using for this quilt. Some of these fabrics were also used in my On Ringo Lake quilt, too. 

For the dark teal set of geese, I am using a single yellow print fabric -- something I had bought on clearance years and years ago, which I think looks really lovely with the coral dot print. I used three of my dark teal prints for these flying geese.


Making and trimming these geese went much faster than the batch that I made with the navy and scrappy yellow fabrics!


Now I am officially *done* with Clue #6! I also started the cutting for Clue #7:


I still have a pile of coral squares to cut for this step, that will be paired with the navy or dark teal to make half-square triangles and pinwheels or used to make more flying geese in Clue #8.

While a lot of people are itching for another clue to be released, I am happy that we haven't had any additional bonus clues! If I could get through finally finishing Clue #4 and making a dent in Clue #7 before Friday, I would be really, really proud of myself.

Are you Frolicking? How is your progress? I applaud those of you that decided to do half sized quilts this time around because sometimes I am regretting going full-scale for this one!

Sharing at What I Made Monday and Oh Scrap!

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Announcing the 2020 Island Batik Ambassadors!

I am so excited to share that I am returning for my fourth year as an Island Batik Ambassador!

This year, I am one of 25 lovely ladies chosen by Island Batik to work on monthly challenges using their fabrics and products from our partner companies!

Image may contain: 25 people, people smiling, selfie and closeup, possible text that says '2020 ISLAND BATIK BRAND AMBASSADORS'
As a reminder, you can see all of my Island Batik Ambassador blog posts by clicking on the "Island Batik Ambassador" tab at the top of my blog. I have recieved my first box of Island Batik goodies for 2020 and I will be sharing an unboxing video in a few weeks. This month's challenge is scrappy sewing -- and I have a few ideas up my sleeves!

Here are links to everyone's websites!

Carolina Asmussen ~ Carolina Asmussen
Megan Best ~ Best Quilter
Pamela Boatright ~ Pamela Quilts
Jennifer Fulton ~ Inquiring Quilter
Vasudha Govindan ~ Storied Quilts
Joanne Hart ~ Unicorn Harts
Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for Quilts
Carla Henton ~ Create in the Sticks
Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs
Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood
Denise Looney ~ For the Love of Geese
Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights
Sally Manke ~ Sally Manke
Maryellen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack's Blog
Kathleen McCormick ~ Kathleen McMusing
Carol Moellers ~ Carol Moellers Designs
Gail Renna ~ Quilt Haven Threads
Sharon Riley ~ Sew Riley Designs
Michelle Roberts ~ Creative Blonde
Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail
Jennifer Strauser ~ Dizzy Quilter
Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations
Alison Vermilya ~ Little Bunny Quilts
Sandra Walker ~ mmm! quilts
Janet Yamamoto ~ Whispers of Yore

Here are all of the wonderful program sponsors for 2020! 






We have some great project themes planned for 2020 and I am excited to get sewing on some new projects very soon!

Monday, January 6, 2020

Clues #4, #5, & #6 Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

While I am going to talk about three clues today, I'm actually only done with one out of the three!

When we got home after Christmas, I had some time to do the cutting for both Clue #4 and Clue #5.

For Clue #4, our assignment was to cut pieces and parts for HSTs and for triangle parts to be used later. I had plenty of my navy fabric and my dark teal fabrics for my required number of sets, however I only had enough aqua fabrics for about 75% of the required number of sets. I will need to either dig deeper into my stash or buy about a 1/3 of a yard of fabric. I decided to hold off on sewing my HSTs using these units until I have more aqua.


Clue #5 was a complete diversion from Clue #4, which was very helpful for me! We made more HSTs, this time using background and raspberry, so mine are white-on-white and my coral dot. There was lots of trimming for this clue too but it was good to just have a completely completed clue.


Clue #6 was our bonus clue that came out on New Year's Eve, and is a highly complicated clue that uses some of the units we cut for Clue #4 to make flying geese. For my quilt, I will be using the dark blue and dark teal fabrics combined with yellow to make my flying geese. I prefer to use the fast flying geese method, but this time around I am using a regular piecing method. So far, I have 8 sets sewn (but not trimmed), so I am about 20% of the way done sewing these units. 


Clue #7 came out on Friday and I haven't touched it yet. I should easily be able to start it because I will use my coral, navy, and dark teal fabrics, however, I would like to get all of my flying geese sets sewn and trimmed first. I will still need to go back and finish Clue #4 once I find or buy more aqua fabric.

Happy Monday!

Sharing at BOMs Away!

Friday, January 3, 2020

Scrapping Around {Jingle Bell Square}

In the month of December, I was using my Jingle Bell Square blocks and block parts as leaders-and-enders for my Frolic unit sewing and my "I only have 15 minutes to sew" project. Now that it is the new year, I decided to pack up this project temporarily to clean up my sewing space slightly.

Since I last posted about this project in mid-November, I picked up a few Christmas-y fat quarters and fat eights at the quilt shop and made seven blocks between then and January 1st.

I made four green and three red blocks this round -- which means I have only six green and four red blocks left to go for this project. I didn't run out of background fabrics -- I have about a fat quarter and a fat eighth left currently -- but I was just ready for a break from this project. 

The goal originally was to get this entire quilt top done in time for the Christmas that just passed -- so maybe I will have a Christmas quilt for my bed next year. 

Happy Friday! 

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Show Me Something {Purple} with Sarah Goer Quilts

While a lot of the online quilting community has migrated to Facebook and Instagram, there are still quite a few of us that still love to blog and love to READ the blogs of others. My friend Sarah of Sarah Goer Quilts has come up with a great idea for a new monthly link up and I am hoping you will check it out, share your posts, and enjoy reading some posts!


Each month Sarah is going to pick a theme for the link up -- this month's theme is PURPLE which I happen to know is Sarah's favorite color! You can link up one to three posts at any point in the month centered around that month's theme.

Here are the three posts I am adding this month:

1. Ohio Star Baby Quilt -- This is one of my Island Batik Ambassador projects from last fall, made with my Accuquilt cutter.


2. Tutorial: making Wonky Cross blocks in bulk -- This is a tutorial from a few years ago on making wonky cross blocks in batches rather than one at a time, using strip piecing.


3. Pansy Garden Traveling Quilt Bee -- I realize that purple is not a color I use frequently looking through my older posts! This is a finish from 2018 of a traveling quilt bee-created quilt top.


I hope your new year is off to a good start! I am excited to get back in the groove of sewing and blogging after a very busy November and December!