“Flower Pop” is one of the prettiest quilts I’ve ever made, if I do say so myself.
The pics don’t do it justice. The colors are so rich, and the texture of the quilting just works so well. The pattern is from Sew Kind of Wonderful and involved a speciality ruler and a fairly intense learning period to get the feel of the pattern and the ruler.
It took me a fairly long while to make it as I would choose colors for each block as I went along, and sometimes I needed to just see how the colors were working together before I added another block. Of course, blocks got moved around rather a lot along the way. And a blog reader helped me think outside the box of the pattern and mix up the tall and shorter flowers. In the end, color drove the block placement, not the size of the flowers.
The backing is “Tomales Bay” by Katie O’Shea from Art Gallery Fabrics. The panto is “Check and Chase” by Hermione Agee. And the cotton thread I used is Mustard, from Signature threasds. The quilt is a good lap size at 56 by 75.
The binding is from my stash of solids. I wanted a soft color that wouldn’t draw the eye away from the quilt itself, and I think this soft dull green works well.
Here we go into another week. It has been hotter here, but the topical pattern of late afternoon thunderstorms is in place alongside the heat. We’ve gotten something like 8 inches in a span of 4 or 5 days. The grass and plants are so happy and lush and our ponds are almost full again.
I had such fun making these color-drenched placemats for a friend.
I alternated solids and prints in diagonal rows–using 2-inch squares from my bins.
The backs are all from the same fabric as I had enough of that fabric on hand.
Here’s my friend with her placemats. She recently bought a new home in this area and told me she “needed more color” in it. I knew she liked blue, but didn’t know she also likes yellow, so the placemats’ backing was an accidentally good choice for her.
My friend is my DIL’s mother, so my DIL and my son had both of us mothers over for a sweet gathering of the four of us–and so that I could gift the placemats.
It’s hot here, and so far no thunderstorm in the late afternoon to feed plants and grass. Maybe today…
My six placemats are done, and I’ll post a pic when they are gifted.
“Flower Pop” (Sew Kind of Wonderful) is having its binding sewn on at night. I’ve almost finished two sides. I am really really loving this quilt.
“Bright and Beautiful” is on the longarm.
The design wall is…happy, and so am I.
On the bottom left, the Bonnie Hunter “Patches and Pinwheels 2” top is done. I have a backing for it. On the upper right, Rachel LaBour’s “Spinny” that I’m calling “Umbrellas” is growing–it has become more of a primary project at this point. I bought a backing for it the other day. It will be 4 rows by 4 rows. I may not add a batting as it is…heavy. I’m still tempted to make a warm center with cool borders as a table topper, but time will tell.
On the top left are my growing number of Lelia Gardulnia’s “Scrappy Stars,” each with a different foundation pieced center. I make one, then kit one, and sew it when the mood strikes. (I use Tara Faughnan’s foundation piecing method, so no paper to rip out.)
Under “Umbrellas” is a trial block for Quilty Love’s “Cross Tiles.” It’s a big block and this quilt will make up fast when I really get cranking on it. I saved one of my Tara Faughnan’s palettes to use in this quilt, and I can add from my stash if needed.
Bonnie Hunter released her 2026 “leader/ender” project the other day: “Tulip Swirl.” She does that in July. It’s a free pattern on her blog: quiltville.com.
Of course I had to make the 4-inch trial block. And then, of course I had to make more of them. Bonnie explored so many ways to combine this block–I’m not yet sure which one I’ll choose, or if I’ll go with the stars and use a sashing to unify the project. I’ll make some blocks first. They are so easy–just 2 half-square triangles and 2 squares cut from two 6-inch rectangles, one light and one dark. Each block can use up a lot of small scrap pieces, so that’s a win-win for me. (The pattern has pressing instructions which are needed to best combine the block with others.)
I’ve been AWOL from this blog, I know. But I have been busy, and it’s summer, which means more gardening duties outside. I’m not complaining, for the most part, as I enjoy being outside.
Morning walks are taking place around 8 am–to avoid the heat that starts to crank up starting mid to late morning. July is our hottest month here, and it is going to be really hot today. But for the most part, our spring has been so cool and lovely–if way too dry.
The BIG, DIFFICULT, and DIRTY garden job is finished. To recap, the Asian Jasmine (not a true jasmine) I planted turned out NOT to be a ground cover, but a vine. In its 4th spring, it went NUTS and started invading parts of the house and porch screens in ways that let me know it had to come out. It was also sufficating the roses and azaeleas at the root level. The vines built on each other, so the depth of the plant was now six plus inches of strands that had to be cut out in sections and ripped out by force. Then many roots had to be dug out.
Here’s a picture of the vine. It’s so pretty, but it is a bad actor in a setting this close to the house.
It took me several weeks, even with some help from neighbors and a lot of help from my lawn mower lovely person for the final big push. Getting this vine out was a nightmare physically.
But, now the roses and azaeleas are free, and a heavy application of pine straw has been applied–which should keep this plant from coming back. If it does in places, I’ll be able to see where right away. Without its leaves, it can’t live.
And the azaleas, where we narrowed the bed. The Centipede grass will fill in the gap, and Alex will then make a new border line.
I had to rest for almost a week and to catch up with household projects left dangling. But this past week, I got back to my beloved sewing.
Flower Pop is still waiting for the longarm, though her backing is cut. (I need a better picture.) I don’t have a border fabric yet.
Pineapple, now “Bright and Beautiful,” is ready for the longarm and will probably go before “Flower Pop” as she is going to be mailed to a friend in Colorado. I have a backing and binding for her.
Here’s the design wall right now, filled with a growing “Umbrellas” quilt designed by Rachel LaBour of “Stitched in Color” and the set of “Patches and Pinwheels” blocks designed by Bonnie Hunter that have been waiting for design wall room.
But, you know me I hope by now. I also had a project on hold for six placemats for a friend. So I got to that very creative effort this week, and five are made and the last one is laid out to be sewn today. Pictures to follow when they are all done. I am hand sewing the bindings at night.
…for a blog leader asking for help with Rachel LaBour’s “Spinny” quilt.
I do not want to upstage Rachel’s pattern, so those who want to make this quilt need to buy her pattern for directions. Rachel’s pattern prices are very reasonable, and you would be supporting her awesome design talent and ability.
I am currently making blocks as leader/enders that I set up.
Lay a strip on the starting line you have marked
Iron your first strip down.
Lay your next strip along the edge of the first strip.
Iron second strip after sewing, and so on.
This method is a basic form of strip piecing, and it is very useful to know.
I loved Rachel LaBour’s “Spinny” quilt when she showed it to her substack readers. She designed the block for her local fellow quilters and each made two blocks for this donation quilt. The blocks are cool centers with warm borders, or warm centers with cool borders. Rachel organized the blocks, quilted the quilt, and bound it.
While I was waiting for her to release her pattern, I tried to guess her measurements. My trial experiment below is a warm center with cool edges. It is WAY bigger than Rachel’s block, but I liked it as a table topper, so I hand quilted it and installed a border. Voila.
I made some trimming mistakes before Rachel released her pattern. I lost some of the pointy centers as I didn’t keep the 45 degree line on my ruler along the diagonal seam of each quarter block. Shhhh… Don’t tell. It’s so pretty, and I hand quilted it. Some glittery thread was involved here and there.
Once I got the pattern I decided to make all cool centers with warm edges done in solids–as I was interested in how the graphic nature of solids all in warm colors would bring out the star at the center of 4 blocks. I love it! And boy does it use up my stash bins of strips–now arranged by color families. And each individual segment sews up pretty fast–I’ve been using those as leader/ender sewing.
I will make 3 other sets of these wheels to make a quilt. I also love the warm center version… And I am already wondering where that idea will go…
All my blocks for “Flower Pop” from Sew Kind of Wonderful are done. They are resting on the design wall for a few more days as I still seem to be moving blocks. I swapped two more blocks since I took this picture, not 30 minutes ago. The right side was too dark.
The pineapple blocks are almost done–just 9 more to make. It will be 60 by 60 inches. They are the primary quilt right now, with the “Spinny” blocks as leader/enders.
I spent some time yesterday cutting squares for “Spinny,” cutting them on the diagonal, and marking the first sewing line.
Still no rain here. It is, right now, cloudy, so maybe…
Ann’s comments really helped me to make decisions about how to manage the Flower Pop quilt so that it has better proportions and doesn’t overwhelm me with needing LOTS more blocks and growing really big. My mind had been turning over mixing up things when Ann commented and made some suggestions about shortening the rows and using those blocks to make the quilt longer.
I’m loving the mix of tall and short flowers, rather than lining them up short and tall. Now I’m working more with color placement than height placement. And I’m reminded that I loved my Maine garden which had all sorts of flowers of varying heights and colors.
Now, five more blocks to make, and they are going much faster now that I’m well over the learning curve. And note that I’m sure I’ll be moving blocks around as I go.
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.
When conceptual genes were passed out, I didn’t get enough of them–which is why I like to work on a design wall.
I thought this “XO” block, seen on Rachael LaBour’s blog “Stitched in Color” (one of my very favorite blogs), would be two separate blocks: an X block and an O block. Nope, putting two X blocks side by side makes the O block in between–and once your eye “sees” the O block, it travels down the row of O blocks.
I was happy to see when I showed this quilt at a recent quilt meeting that many people had trouble seeing the O block as well–until I pointed it out.
So, this quilt has a little “magic” involved.
This quilt is 60 3/4 inches square–a nice size for a donation quilt. The block is easy to make: cut a 6.5 square, lay a 3.5 inch square on two diagonal corners (after marking a sewing line from corner to corner), and sew with a scant seam. Trim and press. Sew four of your blocks together to make a 12-inch X block.
The backing and binding is Rashida Coleman Hale’s “Metallic Turquoise” (Ruby Star) 752106503175. (I guess I do like one fabric for the backing in a scrappy quilt, most of the time.) The thread is Signature 40 wt cotton “Misty Jade.” And the pantograph I is Hermione Agee’s “Check and Chase.”
As I posted earlier, I couldn’t throw out the larger half-square triangles that landed when I trimmed the small squares. And as I had TWO of each combination, I sewed them together and made this little table topper–which I think is just so, so cute. I love it! But I’m a sucker for flying geese.
This little piece lives on my dining room table at the moment.
The backing is a VERY very old print from my stash that finally found a home.
I quilted it with straight lines on my domestic machine.
First, the Drift white roses are in bloom. How fun is that!
The “XO” quilt is off the longarm, at last. It got ignored for almost two weeks.
When they passed out visual conceptual genes, I didn’t get many. I thought this “XO” title meant an X block and an O block. Nope. The X blocks make an O block as soon as they are put next to each other.
Now this donation quilt is trimmed, bound, and is getting its binding sewn down by hand at night. I was going to machine sew the binding, but I needed some night time tv hand sewing. Otherwise I get restless and do things like making popcorn.
What has been fun is that I couldn’t throw away these larger half-square blocks made when one trims and sews the diagonal corners of the XO big rectangle. Each. rectangle produced two half-square blocks in the same colors. So, I made flying geese with them as a leader/ender project–and then made this little table topper piece.
The backing is a cute one of sheep that has been in my stash for years and years.
I am so enjoying this piece on my dining room table. (So far I have not killed that poinsetta gifted to me at Christmas.)
I made several table toppers these past months, and I have enough now to change them out seasonally. Or when I get bored with one.
