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November 26, 2024
Yellow Bow-Tie Blocks from Podunk Pretties

Woohoo!  Another 100 Bow-Tie blocks are finished!  I finished piecing them Sunday night but didn't get them pressed and ready to store until Monday afternoon.  Of course I had to play with these pretty yellow blocks.


When I say play, I mean grouping them.  In the Joann Fabrics bunch there is one Hancock's print on the far right.  Since I only had one fabric from Hancock's I added to the Joann's bunch.  And in the poly-cotton group there is one poly cotton thrift shirt on the far right.


When I first started building my fabric stash ...

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November 23, 2024
Yummy Brown Bow-Tie Quilt Blocks from Podunk Pretties

It might be time to address some concerns if your quilting project starts to resemble food.

It's not just any food we're talking about, but the wickedly delightful kind – sweets! 


Brownies, sweet rolls, cakes, cookies and puddings.


As I arrange the blocks for these pictures, thoughts of salted caramels, gingerbread, and pumpkin pie dance through my mind.


The photo shoot was over so the temptation should subside.  As the brown blocks were placed into the finished bin, my mind wandered off to a whimsical world of fruitcakes, M&M-studded chocolate chip cookies, luscious strawberry pies, and fluffy pistachio ...

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November 15, 2024
Finished Or Not Friday from Podunk Pretties

 Hi quilty friends!  Progress is being made on the Twinkler quilt.  The quilting is fairly light with very little ruler work and a lot of free motion.  The quilt police might frown upon skipping the stitch in the ditch technique, but if they think it looks better, they can issue me a citation and move along. 


I'll start quilting row four later this afternoon.   I've got a morning and early afternoon jam-packed with excitement.  More about that tomorrow.


The brown Bow-Tie blocks are also coming along but at a pretty slow pace.


Half of them finished and the ...

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November 7, 2024
Cutting, Cutting And Cutting from Podunk Pretties

I've been on a cutting spree this week, slicing through fabric like I'm the long-lost cousin of Edward Scissorhands.


You see, I got this wild idea to cut all the fabrics for the remaining 400 Bow-Tie blocks.  It was quite the challenge.  But where there's a will there's a way.  I would sit while starching and pressing the fabrics.  When I tired of sitting, I would stand and cut fabrics until the old bones said it was time to sit, starch and press more fabrics.


The plan was a success! In the coming week, I'll ...

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October 31, 2024
Bow-Tie Blocks, Sorting Fabric and Quilting from Podunk Pretties

 I did it!  100 more Bow Tie Blocks.  They aren't all orange but there is no repeat fabrics.  Woohoo!


Just 400 blocks left to make and squeeze into this bin. Back in my 20s, I managed to wriggle my size 10 bum into a size 8 jean—no stretchy fabric needed. So, I'm fairly confident I can tackle this challenge.  HA!


Last weekend, I loaded the Twinkler quilt onto the frame, and that's when the saga began. Basting the top edge turned into an epic three-hour battle of fixing one machine problem and causing another.  Shredded threads ...

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October 14, 2024
Green Bow-Tie Blocks Finished from Podunk Pretties

I spent half an hour gazing at the green Bow-Tie block pictures for this blog post, completely smitten, and all I could muster up was, "I adore these!"   In the wise words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."


So, again I'll share the link to the quilt block pattern I used to make these blocks.  You can find it here. 


Maybe as you scroll you can play a little game of "I spy a fabric I have in my stash too!"


The new green blocks have been added to the others in the ...

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October 13, 2024
More Bow-Tie Quilt Blocks from Podunk Pretties

Hello Quilty Friends!  It's been a couple of weeks since I worked on the Bonnie Hunter Bow-Tie Blocks.   There's something oddly satisfying about making these little cuties.  So, what the heck, let's make a hundred more before putting the final touches on the Twinkler quilt top.


To keep the Twinkler quilt in the rotation and not forgotten I thought it would be a good idea to put it on display.  That way when the green Bow-tie blocks are finished I can easily jump back to working on the Twinkler quilt.  But there was a problem, I couldn ...

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October 1, 2024
Breaking It Up from Podunk Pretties

Hi Quilty Friends!  Come on in and pull up a chair while I dig through my stash.  I'm a woman on a mission to find enough orange and purple in my stash to make 100 purple and 100 orange Bow-Tie quilt blocks.  The hope of only working from the scrap bins isn't doable.  A couple of you graciously offered to send me your scraps.  Thank you so much!  I was overwhelmed by the kindness and giddy at the thought of new fabric.  But I think the best thing for me to do is work with what I have ...

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September 24, 2024
Digging For Scraps from Podunk Pretties

 Hello Quilty Friends!  Raise your hand if you are like me and love digging through the scrap fabrics in your stash.  I love it so much I couldn't stop until it was time for bed.  


The plan for this quilt is 100 different prints in each color.  Only pulling from the scrap bins. No cheating and cutting from fat quarters or yardage.  I knew purple and orange would probably not be able to follow this rule.  I need 57 more purple.


And 50 more orange.  Even if I cut from fat quarters and yardage, I don't think I ...

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September 23, 2024
Pretty In Pink from Podunk Pretties

 Hi Quilty Friends!  The calendar said yesterday was the first day of Autumn.  Most quilters are stitching up fall leaves, pumpkins and bat quilts, not me, I'm loving the bright happy colors of Spring.

The weekend started with the search for 100 pink fabrics in the scraps.  Between the two scrap bins of pink fabrics, 99 different pinks were found.  I could pull a pink fabric from the fat quarter stash or the yardage stash, but I decided it would be cheating since this is supposed to be a true scrap quilt.  I was hoping to have no repeat ...

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September 20, 2024
100 Blue Bow-Tie Blocks from Podunk Pretties

 Hi Friends! It's so exciting to have 100 more Bow-Tie blocks completed.  These little blocks are addictive.


I don't know why it makes me smile to think of someday finishing a quilt with (900) three inch Bow-Tie blocks.  As the work area was being prepped I took a step back to admire the many prints.  It's hard to believe I had 100 different blue prints in my scrap bins.  My fabric stash building didn't start until 2005.  Before 2005 I was making quilts from upcycled and repurposed fabric.  I had never heard of building a stash ...

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September 17, 2024
Jumping From This To That from Podunk Pretties

 Remember the baggies full of HST's created over my quilting lifetime?  It's time to add a few more to the baggies from my current Twinkler quilt.  Tackling them in small batches as they are produced is easier than doing them all at once after the quilt is finished.


The quilt will produce 336 bonus HST's!  I used my handy dandy homemade locking HST ruler. It makes the process so much quicker.  If you would like to make one of your own, I made a YT video a few years ago.


The HST's from this project are ...

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September 3, 2024
Quilting By Candlelight from Podunk Pretties

 Last week our power went out twice due to thunderstorms. The first outage happened during the daylight hours and there was no property damage we could go about business as usual as long as it didn't require electricity.


I chose to open the curtains in the studio and sort through the blue scrap bins for fabrics to use in my scrappy Bow-tie quilt.


100 different blue fabrics is needed.  (2) 2" and (2) 1.25" of each print.  Somewhere around 70 fabrics the power was restored.   


It didn't take long to find the last 30 prints.  There's ...

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August 23, 2024
Oopsies Happen from Podunk Pretties

"The true measure of a quilter is not how perfect the quilt but how well they hide their mistakes"

Even the most seasoned quilters make some of the most common mistakes from time to time.  I think it's important to share the mistakes and how they were fixed.  


Sometimes the fix is pretty simple like this one.  These were sewn together wrong.  


The fix was to rip out the stitches and sew them together correctly. 


And sometimes the fix is more about hiding the mistake.  In the picture below I accidentally sewed my flippy corner onto two background squares ...

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August 22, 2024
Bow-Ties, Tomatoes And SPIDERS from Podunk Pretties

 In my quilting lifetime I've heard many quilters say they don't like scrap quilts.  How is this possible?  To me they are works of art even if it's a just a bunch of squares sewn together.  The joy of a scrap quilt is seeing the different prints. 


Let's be honest, they are a pain to make.  It's understandable why someone would not like them for that reason alone.  Digging through the scraps to find the right size fabric pieces. Pressing and cutting tiny pieces.  It takes 10 times longer to make a scrap quilt.  Cutting ...

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Ready, Set, GO! from Podunk Pretties

 That's right, it's pedal to the metal time.  The last of the red Bow-Tie quilt blocks were cut yesterday and they are ready to be sewn together today.  


By my estimation these should take about three hours to complete.  Since underestimating is a problem for me, let's bump that three hours to five or six.  The first set of blocks are on the design wall in front of my sewing machine for inspiration.  It's my way of telling myself to keep stitching.


The top drawer of my sewing table has been pulled out and a design ...

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August 19, 2024
Starting A New Scrap Quilt 3 Inch Blocks! from Podunk Pretties

Hi Quilty Friends!  I'm so excited today to share my newest quilting adventure. Three inch finished Bow-Tie blocks.  


The plan is for a 90 x 90 quilt.  That's 900 Bow-Tie blocks.  


Assembling the blocks is a breeze.  The challenge is digging through the scraps.  It's going to be 100% scraps, even the background fabric.  You see, I have this large tote of white scraps.  Different shades of white fabric and a few white on white fabrics.  If I had to guess I would say there's about 12 years worth of fabric in here.  


For the white ...

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  • bow-tie quilt
  • Page 1 of 1 ( 17 posts )