February 2021 WIP Update

Wow, after making so many blocks in January, I only made two in February! It was a busy month, between the release of the Love Code quilt pattern and QuiltCon; I'm also doing a little bit of part time work too, which leaves less time for quilting!

There will be no more Nebula quilt blocks until the next installment of the kit is released in April, and I didn't make any Gravity blocks this month! That leaves my progress on the Patchwork Sampler - there were four Sundays in February but I only made two blocks. I'm going to keep doing one block a week until I'm done with the large blocks, then I'll make two blocks a week for two weeks to make up for the weeks I missed this month.

The best part of making blocks for the Patchwork Sampler is cutting into fabric that I love so much! I'm making this quilt for myself, and I imagine how much fun I'll have looking at all this beautiful fabric in the finished quilt! I'm trying to use a lot of Tula Pink fabric for this - I love Tula Pink so much but I always am worried about "wasting" the precious fabric. I keep reminding myself that it can't be a waste if it's going into a quilt that I love!

Patchwork Sampler Block 46

Patchwork Sampler Block 45

Love Code Quilt Pattern Available!

I am so excited to announce the the Love Code quilt pattern is available in my Etsy store!

Love Code!

Love Code uses background squares and half-square triangles to spell out "I love you" in binary code! (In the spirit of full disclosure, the quilt actually reads ILoveYou with no spaces between the letters!)

This quilt combines a sweet message and a secret code to make a modern quilt, what could be better than that! It is easy enough for a beginner but interesting enough for an advanced quilter. It can be made pretty fast, in case you need a last minute baby gift! (This pattern can totally be made by a beginner quilter, but I've said it's beginner friendly because I don't explain some of the finishing steps of making a quilt - this pattern does assume you have basic quilt knowledge.)

This pattern was originally published as the baby size in Make Modern Magazine (where it is still available here.)

I've expanded the pattern to include 5 sizes! It comes in mini, baby, small throw, large throw, and queen size. Here are the sizes and fabric requirements:

Although I had such a strong vision for this quilt in pink, I knew it would look great in pretty much any fabric combination. I made a version in blue too!

I made a small throw size without borders

My friend Elizabeth (instagram @sew.orcutt) tested the pattern for me and made this beautiful mini using a floral background - isn't it amazing! I love her fabric choices.

Quilt and photo by Elizabeth Orcutt!

This pattern was based on a quilt I made that was shown at QuiltCon in 2019. It was made for the two color quilt challenge, and in that quilt I used binary code to write my favorite quote: let the beauty of what you love be what you do. I love the idea of binary code messages in quilts and so I made the Love Code quilt with the most important message of all, love. It's been a hard year, and I think we need all the love we can get right now!

Love Code is 50% off for today only, and 25% off for the rest of the week - no coupon code needed! So grab your copy now!

January 2021 WIP Update

A very picture heavy update on the quilts I'm working on!

Nebula - I have no willpower so I finished all the blocks that were available in the first installment of the kit. Now I have to wait until April to work on this again! Which isn't a bad thing - I really thought I could alternate working on Nebula blocks and Gravity blocks, but once I got started on Nebula, I wanted to keep working on it.

Nebula Block 1A (actually made in December)

Nebula Block 1B (actually made in December)

Nebula Block 2A

Nebula Block 2B

Nebula Block 3A - I want to redo part of this to change the orientation of the striped triangles

Nebula Block 3B - I don't consider myself a huge fan or orange, and yet after making this block, I had to buy more of these two orange fabrics so I can use them for something else!

Nebula Block 4A - I had to carefully fussy cut these to make sure I got all the hands in the block. The bottom hexagon makes it look like it's winking at me!

Nebula Block 4B - I ended up buying more of the Homemade print so I could fussy cut the hexagons the way I wanted

Gravity - After I finished the Nebula blocks, I was able to work on some of the Gravity blocks. I'd like to see how much I can get done before the next installment of Nebula blocks arrive, now that I know I can't resist making them once I have the kit. It was interesting to make these right after making the Nebula blocks - Nebula is cut from fat eights and Gravity is cut from 10in squares. I think it might be a little easier to cut from the fat eights, but I love the variety of colors for the Gravity quilt. It's funny to work on both at the same time and see the differences and similarities.

Gravity Block 1A

Gravity Block 1B

Gravity Block 2A

Gravity Block 2B

Gravity Block 3A

Gravity Block 3B

Patchwork Sampler - There are 51 blocks in the quilt, so it's perfect for doing one block a week and making it a year long project. My goal is to post one block every Sunday on Instagram. My original vision for this quilt was just as scrappy as possible in warm colors. When I made the first block, I ended up fussy cutting a sleeping princess. The first 9 blocks are larger and are perfect for highlighting fussy cut fabric, and I've kind of developed a fantasy/fairy tale story in my head for these blocks. Now I'm making fabric choices based on that! I'm fussy cutting Tula Pink and Heather Ross fabric, so there's lots of magical stuff to choose from.

Patchwork Sampler Block 51 - I love this sleeping beauty princess! I didn't realize it when I made this block, but she would set the tone for the rest of the large blocks!

Patchwork Sampler Block 50 - The center bee is from Tula Pink All Stars

Patchwork Sampler Block 49 - Fussy cutting Tula Pink Slow and Steady and Homemade

Patchwork Sampler Block 48 - With the fairy tale theme, at first I thought Elizabeth (from Tula Pink) might be an evil queen, but I happily realized that she's a fairy godmother!

Patchwork Sampler Block 47 - I love the boat animals from Heather Ross. I went a little overboard (ha ha) with the water theme by using the raindrops, and the waves from Tula Pink's Zuma too

It's a little strange to have sewed so much but not have a quilt top this month! I'm still trying to shift my outlook away from finishing 12 quilts like I did last year. These three quilts are big projects, and it will be fun to see them come together over the course of the year.

2021 Quilting Goals

With a new year comes new quilting goals! My 2020 goals were to finish 12 quilts (which I did!) and to be better about sharing my finished quilts, which is a work in progress. It was a little more difficult than anticipated to finish those 12 quilts - obviously 2020 was a year that was totally unprecedented, and although I stayed home all year, with everything that was going on, it wasn't always easy to get some quilting time in. I think it was a reasonable goal, but I don't want to make it my goal again this year.

This year, some of the quilts I want to make are pretty ambitious, so I am not going to set a goal for a number of quilts to make. Instead, my goals are:

1. Make the Nebula and Gravity Quilts
2. Make the Patchwork Sampler Quilt
3. Finish 6 WIPs
4. As always, be better about sharing my progress and finished quilts!

Gravity and Nebula quilt patterns

Goal 1 - Nebula and Gravity Quilts: When I first saw the Nebula Quilt BOM announcement by Julie at Jaybird Quilts, of course I was immediately and totally in love! Tula Pink fabric and a Jaybird Quilts pattern? It's almost a no-brainer! But I almost didn't buy the kit because it is so similar to the Gravity Quilt by the same designer from a few years ago. I'm not unhappy that it's similar, it's just that I've had the kit for a few years and it's always been my "someday" quilt, but I've been too nervous to start it. I love it so much and I don't want to mess it up! So I thought, I can't buy the Nebula Quilt kit when I haven't even made the Gravity Quilt kit yet! But as I saw more pictures of Nebula, I knew I couldn't resist, so I promised myself that I wouldn't buy the kit and not make it (I am the queen of buying quilt kits and not making them) - if I was going to buy the kit, then I HAD to make it this year. And then I felt weird because why did I think I could make the Nebula Quilt but I was still afraid to start the Gravity Quilt? So the only logical/crazy thing to do is make both quilts this year. I'm so glad I committed to it because every time I see a picture of the Nebula Quilt I am so happy, and I would have been so mad at myself if I missed the chance to buy the kit! (One thing that helped me is that I've made a few Jaybird Quilt Patterns in the last few years, so I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of how the quilts are constructed and how to use the rulers. Also, the Journey to Nebula projects were super helpful too in maintaining my confidence in my abilities, and also kept me super excited for the BOM to start!) I am just over the moon excited to make these two quilts! I was surprised and excited to get the first installment a few days ago; I have no willpower and have already made the first block! (I have used the word excited too many times in this paragraph but... I'm really, really excited to make this quilt!)

I couldn't resist making the first block!

So I had to make the second part of the first block too!

Patchwork Sampler quilt pattern, and all the warm color cards

Goal 2 - Patchwork Sampler Quilt: The Patchwork Sampler Quilt Pattern by Lori Smith of From My Heart to Your Hands is another pattern I've had for a few years now that I'd really like to make. The quilt pictured on the cover is a different style than the kind of quilts that I like to make, but I think that this pattern can be made with bright and modern fabrics, and I look forward to trying it! I've been really wanting to make a scrappy quilt with warm colors - pinks, purples, yellows, and oranges. I can't decide if I want to include red yet! I pulled out my color chips from the Quilter's Field Guide to Color Workbook by Rachel Hauser of Stitched in Color and separated out all the warm colors to find the hues I wanted to use. When I saw ALL the warm color chips together, I thought, yes! That's how I want the quilt to look! So I am going to use as many different fabrics that I have in these colors, and hope for the best! I am looking forward to cutting into some of the fat quarter bundles I've bought over the last few years, especially the fat quarters that I received as part of my subscription the the Fat Quarter Shop's Sew Colorful club from this last year.

My work in progress Journey to Nebula projects

Goal 3 - Finish 6 WIPs: As part of a general "get organized" effort I've been working on during the pandemic, I made a list of all known WIPs that I have. I've been sewing for over 25 years now (off and on) and for most of that time, I've been a serial starter of quilts but not much of a finisher of quilts. Which is not necessarily a bad thing - people should work on what they love and makes them happy! But I would like to actually finish the projects that I start. "A goal is a dream with a deadline" is kind of a corny thing to say but I have found (especially this last year) that setting a goal really does help me accomplish what I'd like to do. That's partially why I set a goal last year of finishing 12 quilts, just knowing that I set that goal helped me finish the quilts instead of starting a new project. And so I only have 2 WIPs from 2020, my Quilter's Field Guide to Color Bear Tracks quilt (which is a long term project anyway) and the Journey to Nebula projects. I really wanted to finish the J2N projects before I started Nebula, but as I mentioned previously, I have no willpower and had to start Nebula once I got the first installment. So I still have to do the J2N projects but they are small and I am confident I can get them done sometime soon. I'm happy that I only have 2 WIPs from 2020, because I counted and I have *26* WIPs from pre-2020! *26 that I know of!* There is a real possibility that there are more buried in a bin in the garage that I've totally forgotten about by now. They are projects abandoned because something shinier came along, or I made a mistake that I didn't feel like dealing with, or they got stalled out after the quilt top was complete because I didn't know how to quilt it. And it's not a quilt until it's quilted! I used to not like the actual quilting part of making a quilt, but ever since I learned the technique of quilting with serpentine stitch/multi-stitch zig zag, quilting got a lot easier for me, and therefore, more doable! It's still not my favorite part of making a quilt, but I don't fear the quilting stage anymore. At least six of the WIPs are quilt tops that just need to be quilted, so I am setting a goal of finishing 6 quilts off of the WIP list by the end of the year. 

Goal 4 - Be better about sharing my progress and finished projects: Sometimes I get a little anxious about posting on Instagram or writing a blog post about a quilt. It's silly but I do. I love reading about other people's quilts, and I'd like to share my work too! This is a little more nebulous than a firm goal, but it is something I'm working on so I am listing it here too!

And so these are my 2021 quilting goals! I read quite a few people are not setting goals this year - after the year we've experienced, I totally understand that sentiment. But I've found it really helps me to write down what I want to accomplish. It's not written in stone and I'm not going to be upset with myself if I don't do everything I say I want to. I'm open to priorities changing. But I know I am more likely to do it if I make it a goal and write it down. It was very helpful for me to have goals in 2020, and I think that will continue into 2021.

Happy New Year! I hope that you have a great start to your year, whether you are setting goals/resolutions or just seeing where the year takes you!