September 2014 - QA Creations

September 30, 2014

Summer Stash Bee Blocks

I kept up with my summer bee blocks, but not with sharing them! Hive 12 of the Stash Bee has had some great blocks since March (the last time I shared), so enjoy 🙂

April was Michele’s month, and she wanted bright dresden plates with dotty fabric. Her April Hive 12 tutorial is here. She found a video that gave instructions to make the blades from charm squares! It is a good way to use up those charm squares that everyone has laying around. I would like to try this block again with a traditional ruler someday to see the difference in how it turns out. She has put her quilt top together, and you can see “A Wee Bit Dotty” here.

May was for me, and I have the quilt top put together, but need to make a backing so I can quilt it. My Square Dance Tutorial is here. Below are the blocks I received from the group, and then I made what seemed like a million more (but was really somewhere in the 30’s) to make this a decent sized lap quilt. Lesson learned: This block should be make in groups of 10, but no more than 12. I think I did one round of 16 at a time, and that was too many for me.

June was for Kristel from Work in Progress Girl. Her June Hive 12 Tutorial is here. She wanted brightly colored solid churn dash blocks to help finish up a WiP.

July was for Laura from SewFrouFrou Quilter. Her July Hive 12 Tutorial is here. She called her block ROYGB Geese. This is going to be a colorful quilt!

August was for Toni. She wanted a double pinwheel variation, as shown below. Her August Hive 12 Tutorial is here. I can’t wait to see this top put together, I think the patterns created when these are assembled are going to be fantastic.

September was for Genevieve. She wanted any style block that went with a variety of blocks she already had made to turn into a sampler quilt. I saw a lot of orange, turquoise, some blue and green, and some pink, so I tried to make a block that hit those color ways. I used the Corner Star tutorial from Modify Tradition. Her block has the star centers as white, but when I laid the block out, that just looked like too much white for what Genevieve already had done so I changed the centers to be colored.

Thanks for the fun ladies!

– Heather

Linking to:

Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story, Sew Cute Tuesday @ Blossom Heart Quilts, Let’s Bee Social Wednesday @ SewFreshQuilts, Whoop Whoop Fridays @ Confessions of a Quilt Addict, Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Ft. Worth Fabric

September 15, 2014September 18, 2015

Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt Swap

Round 2 of the Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt Swap finished up awhile ago, but I never shared my project until now. I was checking the draft section and realized this post never got published, so here’s to catching up!

My partner likes bright rainbow colors and the simplicity of Alissa Haight Carlton, the colors of AMH and Allison Glass, and Tula Pink’s quilt designs. I hope this lives up to all of that!

I was very inspired by “Every Color” by Alissa Haight Carlton.

I also included a little pouch made from the Open Wide Zippered Pouch Tutorial by Noodlehead and some bits of True Colors by Anna Maria Horner.

From my “stalking” I discovered my partner’s favorite colors are aqua and pink, so I included that on the back. I also tried printing on fabric for the first time for the label, and it was so easy! I used this tutorial for printing on fabric using an inkjet printer. I am not sure how this works for labels that need to be washed, but for a mini that will hang on a wall, I think this method works great!

I hope you liked this partner!

In return, I received this sweet heart mini with some treats from Pure Joy Creative. That aqua fabric was used up with a week or two, so never fear that it is sitting unloved in a stash somewhere! Thanks for the wonderful mini quilt swap!

-Heather

Linking to: Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story, Sew Cute Tuesday @ Blossom Heart Quilts, Let’s Bee Social Wednesday @ SewFreshQuilts, Needle and Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation, Whoop Whoop Fridays @ Confessions of a Quilt Addict, Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Ft. Worth Fabric, and Sewjo Saturday at My Go-Go Life.

September 5, 2014

Starting the Journey: Round Trip Quilts

During the Plum and June New Blogger Hop, several bees were started all over the world. I’m taking part in a US/Canada based round robin bee called Round Trip Quilts. We are starting this long journey this week as we mail the start of our quilts to the first person.

I went through many ideas for what I wanted this quilt to be. I considered an ode to North Carolina (where we’ve lived for 5 years now – amazing for an Army family!), a sewing themed quilt for me, but landed on a quilt for my daughter.

While preparing for a different idea, I decided I wanted to paper piece the phrase “be strong”. Once my husband and I saw how great it looked, we started coming up with tons of other ideas for these phrases to include in the quilt. Then, I realized that instead of just one of these phrases in my quilt, I wanted the theme of my quilt to be based on this.

While trying to come up with some more possibilities, I googled the phrase “wishes for my daughter“. That’s when I knew what this quilt was going to be. This quilt is going to be called “Wishes for my daughter.”

I have provided paper pieced phrases to be scattered throughout the quilt. I want the other members of the bee to create blocks or sections to separate the phrases.

This isn’t really the traditional “center” that usually start a round robin, but I really loved this idea and hope everyone else enjoys working on it as well. I don’t have a preference for how they separate the phrases – it can be pieced blocks, paper pieced designs, row by row style blocks, or anything else I can’t even dream of! I think this will turn out really cool. Then at the end, I will hopefully be able to size this up to a twin size quilt by adding some of the longer phrases that I did not have time to paper piece before the first mailing.

I suggested filling in the spaces with things a little girl would like… such as animals (red fox is currently a hit in our household), flowers, fruit, flying objects (birds, butterflies, airplanes), deer, dogs, outdoors, and traditional pieced blocks. To include Mom and Dad, I mentioned that I like sewing and Dad likes fly fishing.

In case anyone wants the details of these phrases, I used the “Just my type” alphabet pattern from Quiet Play. It looks great, but takes quite a bit of time! I printed the pieces at 120%, which makes them 6 inches tall. I wanted the letters inside of the words closer together so I cut the edges off 3/4″ from the edge of the letter. I usually used the full width of the pattern for letters that started or ended words.

My contribution to the “center” is this sailboat. I was fortunate enough to sail quite a bit growing up (although on nothing near as fancy as this boat!), and so counted it as something I like to fit in with the phrases. This pattern is from Daisy at Ants to Sugar, and she will be releasing this pattern on Craftsy soon.

I’m super excited to see what everyone comes up with. There are already some amazing things floating around on instagram and flickr. Round Trip Quilts now has a Flickr group and you can follow us on Instagram using #roundtripquilts! You can also find a summary of all of our posts on Never Just Jennifer’s Round Trip Quilts page! Eventually, I’ll get this on my blog too – but for now check out how organized she is and marvel 🙂