For the last year or so, I've been trying my best to prioritize working on getting old projects finished up or pass them onto someone else. This has been an effort to make things easier for our move, but also to tie up some of my many loose end projects. For the most part, I've done a pretty good job of this. Now that we've been in our new home for six months (whoa), I felt like it was finally time for a shiny new project.


When my parents came to visit last month, they brought with them the rest of my vintage pyrex and enamelware collections. I used my stash of vintage sheet fabrics to pack those collections. It worked out great, and made the unpacking really fun and colorful. When I was putting away all my sheets, I kept the scraps and small pieces to the side. I decided my next quilt had to be a scrappy sheet quilt.

If you'd like to learn more about working with vintage sheets, check out my post: How to Identify, Shop for and Sew with Vintage Sheets


With all these crazy patterns and colors I knew I wanted to keep the piecing simple. I happened to have a small stack of 5" squares already cut, so I built off of that. I decided to make some four patch blocks that finish at 4.5" to go with them. This was great for cutting up smaller scraps.


There has been a lot of chain piecing to put this quilt together. The day I started it, I didn't have much of a plan other than the basic design. I didn't know how big it was going to be, how many blocks I'd need, or any other details worked out. I just started cutting and piecing. This is a big deal for me, because I almost never work this way. Usually I have everything figured out and the math done before I even iron the fabrics. It was a nice change of pace.

Can't chain piece without my cutting gizmo.


I think I was able to comfortably work spontaneously on this quilt because it was super scrappy. I didn't have to work about running out of a particular fabric or color. I did dip into some of my smaller cuts once I ran out of variety in the scraps, which was fine. I ended making the blocks in three batches.


I stitched the top together downstairs one evening with my vintage singer featherweight, in front of the tv. It's such a quiet machine, it was perfect!


I'm very excited to get this one finished. It has been a great low-stress project for me, and the fabrics are just so cheerful.

Happy Quilting!

May Monthly Report

Happy June! It's time for May's monthly report. See past reports here.


Keeping things short and sweet for this month's report! We've been spending time working outside whenever the weather cooperates. A few weekends ago I made a couple of planters for our front porch. I followed this youtube video. I'm really pleased with how they turned out!


I've pulled together most of the dining room, and now have all my vintage enamelware and vintage Pyrex out and on display! I love having it all together again. Here is my shelf with all my Cathrineholm, Dansk Kobenstyle, and Arabia Finel pieces.


I've been sewing, still working mostly on smaller projects. One of which was another little stuffed mouse! I made one for my Mom for Easter (see it here), and this one I made for myself. Her name is Penelope. I used this pattern, and my favorite tiny heart buttons.


To keep myself accountable for my stash goals, I'm tracking my yardage for fabric and yarn each month. Read more about how I track my here. Here is how I did in May:

May Fabric
Used up: 8.5 yards
Brought in: 9.75 yards
Net: +1.25 yards
Year to date: +23.25 yards

May Yarn
Used up: 0 yards
Brought in: 0 yards
Net: 0 yards
Year to date: +218 yards

In terms of stashing, I did okay this month. I bought a few yards of plain canvas for some upcoming bags, plus a few goodies from Bijou Lovely. The rest was gifted to me, which I do still count! :)


One project from last month was this simple mini quilt that I made for my Mom for Mother's Day. I've been holding onto these panels by Suzy Ultman from Appleville for years. I still have a few pieces left, but it felt good to use up a few!

Two George photos this month, because why not? He's been his usual cute self.

Have a great month!

Patchwork Essentials: Convergence Baby Quilt

Happy Tuesday! This quilt is a long overdue share. I finished it and took photos of it in April last year!


This quilt was made with a leftover variation block from my book, Patchwork Essentials: The Half-Square Triangle. In addition to all twelve quilts included in the book, I made a variation block or quilt top of each design. I've slowly either passed these along or turned them into finished projects myself. This baby quilt was made using a variation block for the Convergence quilt.


Guess what? I've got signed copies of my book available in my online shop again! Get your copy here.


This block was already pretty big, so one wide border was all it needed to make it baby quilt sized. That pink butterfly print is hard to photograph, it's really much more of a red-purple in person!


I kept the quilting pretty simple, just some wavy lines quilted with my walking foot.


I did have fun piecing the back! I wanted it to be two sided, so I pieced a big asymmetrical cross. I needed something that would still look right after trimming away the extra backing, and I'm happy with how it turned out.


Bound it up in a fun print that happened to match well from my stash. I attached the binding by machine to both sides, as always. I find this especially handy for baby quilts, knowing they'll end up getting washed a lot.

For a tutorial on how I attach my binding see here: Machine Quilt Binding Tutorial


As I mentioned, I snapped these photos last year, when we were still in Wisconsin. This spot was really close to our apartment, my favorite spot on Lake Mendota, Raymer's Cove. Missing it for sure!

Happy Quilting!

FIGO Fabrics LookBook

FIGO Fabrics is a new fabric division of Northcott fabrics that launched last week at Quilt Market. They debuted with five beautiful modern fabric collections.

The folks at FIGO reached out to me this Spring to mock-up some of my patterns in their new fabrics and they stitched up a bunch of great projects! Many were on display at the show, and they can all be found in their LookBook! I'm sharing the projects made from my patterns below, but definitely check out the entire thing here, as well as their instagram.


Pattern: Lined Drawstring Bag Pattern
Fabric: Mountain Meadow by Pippa Shaw, shipping December 2018


Pattern: Florette Quilt Pattern
Fabric: Perfect Day by Naomi Wilkinson , shipping December 2018


Pattern: Triplizip Zipper Pouch Pattern
Fabric: Mountain Meadow by Pippa Shaw, shipping December 2018


Pattern: Triangularity Quilt Pattern
Fabric: Special Delivery by Lemonni, shipping December 2018

All images in this post belong to FIGO Fabrics and were taken from their Spring 2018 LookBook.