There are FIVE quilts in progress on my design wall.
Why on earth? you might ask…
Because two of them are intense (pineapple and Flower Pop), so I keep engaged by making a few blocks each day rather than just completing a whole quilt first.
Note: the star blocks above Flower Pop are Leila Gardunia’s design, and, LOL, they are intense too! But all three projects are so much fun. I have been using Tara Faughnan’s folded paper method for the foundation pieced centers, and so far, that method has worked just fine on the more intricate centers.
Flower Pop, designed by Sew Kind of Wonderful and which uses their speciality ruler, was a BIG learning curve for me–but I am down to two blocks now and one is already cut. I can make these blocks (7.5 by 19.5) pretty fast now. The slow part is chosing the fabrics and cutting the block parts. I’m not entirely happy with the size: about 63 wide by less than 60. But I will sew these blocks together before I make any other decisions about size and potential borders. As a mostly modern quilter, I don’t usually use borders now.
The pineapple block is 10 inches finished. It’s fun and is using up a ton of solid scraps. It will be 60 by 60 minimum, and maybe more. So a ways to go… Bit by bit, block by block, leader/ender progress.
My current obsession is this scrappy block (16 inches finished) designed by Rachel LaBour of Stitched in Color, called “Spinny.” Mine will at least be 4 by 4 blocks, which is a good lap size at 64 by 64 inches.
Here’s what Rachel did–she made some blocks for a donation quilt and combined those with blocks made by others in her quilt group meant for a donation quilt.
Rachel and her sewing mates alternated cool and warm block centers with cool and warm edge pieces–and the fabrics are almost all prints. I was drawn to the star that forms in the center so decided to make all cool centers and warm edges made from solids so the stars would, I hoped, become more dominant.
Before Rachel finished her pattern–on her blog we begged her to make and sell her pattern so we could try it–I tried to guess measurements and made this trial block–which has some errors due to not trimming well and the edges are too narrow and it is VERY big. But I do like it so am hand quilting it and will use it as a table topper or gift it.
Boy! Talk about using up scraps, especially the strips in bins which I now have separated by colors! I don’t know, I might have to make another block with warm centers. Or…mix the warm/cool centers, like Rachel did. I think the stars would stand out as they are solids and would be more graphic than prints. Or, maybe, put 4 warm blocks in the center surrounded by cool blocks. One never knows…
The pile of blocks on the bottom left of the design wall are blocks for another “Patches and Pinwheels” donation quilt. Bonnie Hunter designed this pattern. These blocks are waiting for room on the design wall. Here’s one I made earlier this year.
And I have other projects that I am dying to start, but I am making myself wait until this design wall is wrapped up or, LOL again, mostly wrapped up.
I am having fun, and that’s the whole thing of it for me.
Louisa Enright's Blog 
Wow you are having fun!!!
You always inspire me! I have a bin of scrap strips and the Spinny shawl is calling to me. I love the colors you used for the outer triangles. I love the Flower Pop quilt–I think I’d be tempted to make it one block narrower and make some more blocks to add an extra row so that it would be a more usable size. However, I also know the relief of being almost done making complicated block, so adding more might not be appealing at all to you.
Thanks for thinking about this Flower Pop size issue with me. The problem is that at 9 blocks wide, the width would be about 63 inches wide. But at 3 rows long, the length would be just under 57 inches long–or a 7 inch difference in the wrong direction AND it is just inches shorter than a good lap size quilt. So I don’t want to make the width more narrow–and the flower arrangement is balanced with tall and short flowers on the sides. So, expanding would require two more blocks per row, to make the quilt 77 wide. The length expanded one more row would make the length 76. BUT that would mean making 17 more blocks. I’m not sure I want to spend that amount of time… But I’m thinking. The other way would be to put some sashing between the rows and on the top, bottom and sides. I think I’ll sew rows together and think about that…
Thanks for replying. I hadn’t noticed that the flower blocks were balanced so if you want to keep that balance, you’d have to add two more blocks to each row. For me, the balance would be less important than only having to make 5 extra blocks if it is 8 blocks wide and four rows long (so 56×76–a nice lap size). That’s one of the things I love about quilting–it keeps my mind busy doing the math and figuring out how to make it all work and then seeing how other people figured it out differently. Can’t wait to see how it turns out.
No, thank you for helping me think this issue through more deeply. There is no reason to balance the short and long flowers. Indeed, it may be way more interesting to unbalance them. Thanks so much. I’ll play with that idea on the design wall and will post a new pic. Hope you see it! Many thanks!! It takes a village, right?
Yes, it does take a village. I’m looking forward to seeing your finished quilt!
Those pineapple blocks really are intense. I was thinking they looked difficult, but then I realized that they are basically like a log cabin, but with trimmed triangles instead of rectangular strips. And Spinny, too, is a similar concept.
I made log cabin blocks for the first time a decade or so ago, when I was working on our oldest son’s Tardis quilt. More fun than I expected!
Hi there. The pineapple blocks are not at all difficult if made with a ruler used to trim each round. For this 10-inch finished block, I use the big pineapple ruler. There are also rulers of various kinds for a precise log cabin block that make sewing them pretty easy as well. It is also fun to make log cabins in a more “improv” way. I love log cabins.