What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

My end of the year cleaning almost always results in a new year project.

My bin of “little bits of background fabric” was overflowing. Fortunately, there are patterns for that.

Like THIS ONE. I am making 6″ blocks using only 4 HSTs each, rather than the 12″ she shows. But the rest of the measurements are the same.

So, I am busy sewing bits and pieces and creating blocks. There is a long ways to go. I am currently planning for a 72″ square quilt and that will take 144 blocks. Maybe I’ll do more, but that is the ...

A hand-me-down bag had a lot of fairly large half-square triangles in it. They weren’t all the same size, but the colors looked nice together. Some were already stitched across the diagonal, some weren’t.

First, I stitched the diagonals as needed, then pressed the blocks open and trimmed them to 4″, the largest size that would fit the blocks.

TIP: When working with Half Square Triangle blocks (HSTs), it is completely worth your time to trim and square up the blocks. There are many good tutorials out there and a variety of methods. Try a few and decide ...

A butterfly is the pickiest of guests. 
Invite her for brunch, and she won’t eat a bite—unless you serve her favorite food. (Milkweed for monarchs; white cedar for hairstreaks.)

On evening strolls, the weather must be perfect. If it’s too chilly, your fluttery friend will simply stop, drop, and nap. 

And no matter how lovely the guest room, it won’t tempt Miss Butterfly. Oh, she may request a posh butterfly house. But rest assured she’ll never step inside.

This week Jenny is stitching up a layer cake butterfly quilt fit for a queen. She’s ...

Hand-me-down projects are so much fun to work with. I try to approach them with an attitude of curiosity: What can this be?

Still thinking on this, but in the meantime I can start ironing those half square triangles open and squaring them up.

It will be exciting to see what happens next.

I saved the idea a long time ago. The movement of the floating blocks really caught my eye.

But I didn’t know how funky and cool it would look finished. Yes, it is different, but different is good.

The “cracked” quilting is just what I wanted and makes even the large background spaces interesting. I plan to gift the quilt to a teacher friend.

PS–For your information, I used 2-1/2″ half square triangle pieces. The individual blocks finish at 8″. The entire quilt is 56″ x 72″.

Some of all of those half square triangles are now in a finished top.

I found a great starting point HERE: Joannes Designs Week52 (all-about-quilts.com)

Obviously I changed the solid color squares to half-square triangle blocks. I also sized the blocks up to 8″ so the top finishes as a nice size throw (56″ x 72″).

It went together quickly. It is a little quirky with the very traditional color scheme and the wild layout, but I do like it. It would be a fun quilt to show off free motion quilting.

I hope to have a completed project ...

The half square triangles are turning (at least some of them) into a quilt.

The blocks are ready. And assembly is started.

I hope to have a finished throw by the end of the weekend.

ps–My blocks finish at 8″. The throw will be 56″ x 72″.