Month: February 2026

Good morning all!

Here we go into another week.

It is cold here with freezing temps at night and high wind. But after Tuesday night, I think we will head into early spring here in coastal South Carolina.

My Quilt of Valor is off the longarm, trimmed, and ready for me to check how to organize the binding so I don’t play binding roulette.

And now almost two binding sides are done.

The improv quilt if ready to go on the longarm, and I got a backing last week. I’m thinking about what pantograph to use–something with some curves I think. I really would like matchstick stitching for this graphic quilt, but it’s a bit too long for me to manage with my domestic machine–and I’d still baste it on the longarm anyway. Doing straight line stitching on the longarm is very time consuming and hard to do accurately.

Now the XO scrappy quilt blocks are hogging the design wall, but I’ll start sewing them together today. This quilt block is a joke on me as when they passed out conceptual genes, I didn’t get any–which is why I love to work on a design wall. This block is NOT just an “X” block or an “O” block. When you make either block and put it next to another of its same blocks, it makes an “XO” block–which drives your eyes kind of crazy as they try to focus on either the “X” or the “O” form. How fun is that?

“Flower Pop” needs 2 more blocks for its first row–of a planned three rows, which will make a nice lap-size quilt. The 8th block has fabric ready to cut and sew.

The pineapple blocks are hiding under the “XO” top, but will soon have room to grow.

And then, on the lower left, leader/ender blocks are all ready to lay out for a small quilt. Maybe I’ll make it bigger.

Who knows?

I don’t.

Have a great week everyone!

Good morning to all. I’m not sure where the time has flown to, but I’ve been steadily working on my quilt projects all along.

Here’s “Pistachio,” all finished. She is 50-inches square. She is very green, but so cheerful as spring is on the horizon here in coastal South Carolina. I made these blocks as leader/enders and was in no hurry to make enough to create a quilt, and that is how leader/enders can work out.

Bonnie Hunter designed the block some years back as part of her regular column for Quiltmaker magazine, a column which she no longer does. She called the block something like “X-Plus.” I tried to find links to this block at the magazine to give credit where credit is due, but the archive seems to be gone. Sometime last year Bonnie started making these blocks herself, off and on, and recently she, too, finished a quilt with this block and called it “Sunnyside.” (Bonnie Hunter’s blog is quiltville.blogspot.com and it is a treasure trove of free patterns.)

The very green backing is La Dolce Vita! by Stacey Peterson (Free Spirit, PWSTO 36 seeds). The white dots are little hearts.

The 6.5-inch block is just a 9-patch with a 3-inch center, and I pulled the centers from my bins of 3.5-inch squares and for the most part alternated light and dark centers in the quilt. The other pieces of the block were cut from my strip bins.

I quilted with a green thread, and the pantograph is “Sumptuous” by Hermione Agee.

And here’s a kind of blurry picture of Bonnie Hunter’s “Sunnyside.”

Bonnie’s post is titled “I’m Calling it Sunnyside!,” and she posted this entry on January 19, 2026.

Over the years Bonnie has made quilts from the blocks she created for Quiltmaker, but I have no idea of when her work on blocks reverts to her. In any case, this sunny yellow quilt is lovely.

Have a great weekend. I’m having a lot of fun sewing together the improv quilt I’ve been making for months and months. How fun is that!