A New Project--Improv Alphabet

The last thing I need right now is to start a new quilting project, especially with the busy holiday season upon us, but that's exactly what I did recently. Our November guild meeting featured a presentation by Elaine Poplin of Huntsville, AL, who shared many quilts she has made, including her inspiration and design process. Here are photos of a couple of her beautiful quilts with amazing quilting on them. You also get to see Elaine in a great jacket made from a pattern she designed. See more at her website HERE. 

Elaine Poplin

The next day was our "Outspoken" workshop with Elaine, where we gathered to learn her methods for making scrappy improv letters. 

Be Strong by Elaine Poplin

Elaine had samples of a full set of letters, numbers, and symbols up on the wall for us to study. We started with an easy one, a capital "E", to learn the basics, then continued from there. Here's what I had completed by the end of the day.

Some people were making letters for specific phrases, but I decided to shoot for making the whole alphabet, and I might make numbers as well at the end. The blocks will get joined together into horizontal rows, and some will need background added to get them up to size, like that small "w" needs an addition at the top to make it tall enough. 

As you can see, I'm using bright colors on scrappy black and dark grey backgrounds. The colors for my letters made in the class were chosen randomly from the scraps I had brought with me. After I got home, I wrote out the whole alphabet and assigned a color to each letter in order to get a fairly even distribution of the colors. Getting ready for Thanksgiving limited my quilting time, but I was able to complete one short phrase that seems appropriate this week. 

I was able to spend most of Black Friday in the sewing room, and I am very thankful for that. Here's where I am on my alphabet after my marathon of scrappy stitching. I count 26 letters done, which means I'm halfway there!

I'm currently working my way through each color separately (i.e. making all the red letters at the same time before moving on to another color.) That approach seems to make the process a little more efficient. I'm having a great time digging through my bags and bins of scraps to find pieces that will work together. These orange letters are nearly done, just needing some background added around them, then I can move on to another color today.

I'm  linking up with:

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at So Scrappy

 Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework on Sunday. 

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs

Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 11/23/2025

It has been a very busy week, with limited time for quilting due to appointments and holiday prep. We are hosting Thanksgiving for the first time in several years, and that seemed like a good reason to get the Christmas decorations up early. I even pulled out a Christmas quilt top, with the goal of getting it quilted before Thanksgiving, but that seems unlikely to happen now.

The only change to the stash for the week was 3/8 yards used for one more orphan block placemat. This was the last of the blocks from the National Quilt Museum's 2023 block of the month, and it's also my last placemat made for donation to Meals on Wheels this year. I think I ended up with a total of 50 placemats donated in 2025, just shy of my goal of one per week.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                 .375 yards

Used year to date:             69.0 yards

Added last week:                 0.0 yards

Added year to date:        74.375 yards

Net added in 2025:       5.375 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of quilting time. The week included a quilt guild meeting, plus a workshop on Friday, along with the projects mentioned at the beginning of this post. Quilting time is sure to be limited as the holiday activities get ramped up, but I'm hoping to continue squeezing in at least a little time every day.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

11/16 - 11/22           7 of 7 days

2025 Total         322 of 326 days

Success rate               98.8 %   

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. Thanks so much to Donna and Kate for continuing to host these link-ups. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 11/16/2025

There were still more placemats finished this week, but this set is not meant to be donated. I'm keeping these daisy border-stripe placemats to use along with the matching tablerunner and napkins made earlier this year. 2.5 yards of fabric was used to make these placemats.

As suspected, I had enough of the sunflower border-stripe fabric to make three more of those placemats for donation, using 1.25 yards of fabric. I didn't bother taking any new photos of them; this is a repeat of last week's photo.

 

That brings my total fabric used for the week to 3.75 yards, with no new fabric added to the stash. Unfortunately, I gave in to a sale at Connecting Threads and placed an order, but I don't expect it to arrive for another week or two.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                3.75 yards

Used year to date:         68.625 yards

Added last week:                 0.0 yards

Added year to date:        74.375 yards

Net added in 2025:         5.75 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of quilting time. This week was the usual mix of working on several different projects: making placemats, catching up on blocks for my Temperature Quilt, and prepping the layers for my next machine quilting project. 

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

11/9 - 11/15             7 of 7 days

2025 Total         315 of 319 days

Success rate               98.7 %   

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. Thanks so much to Donna and Kate for continuing to host these link-ups. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Daisy Placemats

The placemat production continues, but this set of placemats will be staying here with us instead of being donated to Meals on Wheels. These are my finished daisy placemats!

The border-stripe fabric came from a guild auction a couple years ago. I had already made a tablerunner from the same fabric and six napkins from a coordinating print earlier this year.

I didn't have enough of the same daisy print for the placemat backs, so I used some bold black and white prints there. We won't have any daisies blooming around here again until next summer, but these placemats will be waiting to brighten up our dining table.

Here's what we can look forward to in our front yard again next summer.

Linking up with:

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 11/9/2025

The placemat production line continued for another week, with three made from a sunflower border-stripe print. I might still have enough of this fabric to make three more of these.

The fabric on the back is a strange shade of yellow that I've had a hard time using before, but it seemed like the perfect match for those sunflowers.

The sunflower placemats used 1.25 yards from the stash, and no new fabric was added this week. I'm chipping away at getting my numbers back to even, but it seems unlikely that I will reach my annual goal of using at least 100 yards for the year.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                1.25 yards

Used year to date:         64.875 yards

Added last week:                 0.0 yards

Added year to date:        74.375 yards

Net added in 2025:        9.50 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of quilting time. Besides the sunflower placemats, I've been working on a set from a daisy border-stripe fabric. I also made two months worth of blocks for my Temperature Quilt and finished a couple of blocks for my Jane Stickle sampler. That all definitely added up to more than 15 minutes per day.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

11/2 - 11/8               7 of 7 days

2025 Total         308 of 312 days

Success rate               98.7 %   

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. Thanks so much to Donna and Kate for continuing to host these link-ups. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

A Plethora of Placemats

There are two different local quilt guilds that I belong to, and both of them collect placemats for donation to Meals on Wheels as community service projects. We had a guild sewing day last week to work on placemats together, and I've managed to get quite a few done at home over the past month too.

One member shared a tutorial and pattern from Shabby Fabrics for making Self-Binding Placemats, and I had to give it a try. They were quick to make, but they don't have any batting in them, which seems less useful to me.

I made multiple sets of quilt-as-you-go (QAYG) placemats, using strips of varying sizes. These are the type of placemats we made at the group sewing day. I have a pair in brown and blue with the addition of a pieced section.

Here are three more QAYG, these made from my favorite colors of teal and turquoise.

The next four feature berry print fabrics left over from making fabric napkins a few years ago.

I had a Christmasy border-stripe fabric that was planned to become a couple of tablerunners for the guild's holiday craft market, but we decided not to participate in the market this year. The border stripe worked nicely for a set of six placemats.

The last set of six placemats began as blocks from the National Quilt Museum's 2023 block of the month. I made a few of the 12" x 24" blocks, but there were other block designs that I didn't want to make. I divided each finished block in half and added side borders to turn them into placemats.

As a point of comparison, here are the blocks from that BOM , including one that hasn't yet been used in a placemat.

There are several things that I enjoy about making placemats. It's fun to have a small project that doesn't take months to complete, and I like the chance to play with different design ideas. They are also a great way to burn through some of my stash. I ended up with 23 finished placemats and used a total of 9.25 yards in the process. Our deadline for turning in placemats is the guild meeting on November 20th, and I hope to make even more before then.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                9.25 yards

Used year to date:         63.625 yards

Added last week:                 0.0 yards

Added year to date:        74.375 yards

Net added in 2025:       10.75 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of quilting time. As you would probably guess, I definitely spent more than 15 minute per day on quilting last week, although some of those placemats were made earlier in October.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

10/26 - 11/1             7 of 7 days

2025 Total         301 of 305 days

Success rate               98.7 %   

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. Thanks so much to Donna and Kate for continuing to host these link-ups. I'm also linking up with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework, Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, and Monday Musings at Songbird Designs.

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Bonus HST Pinwheels Quilt Top

Our guild's UFO challenge ended at the October meeting, and this is the last goal that was completed from my list. This is my Bonus HST Pinwheels quilt top.

Bonus HST Pinwheels quilt top

43.25" x 50.75"

This project originated from a prize I won at the guild's brown bag auction in 2022. My prize was a shoebox-sized bin, plus another container, of triangle cut-offs. They were all neatly matched up in pairs, print and background/muslin. There must have been hundreds, maybe thousands of them!

I kept those bins of triangles next to my sewing machine and stitched triangles as my leaders and enders for many month. After awhile, I began joining matching triangles together into pinwheel blocks. The blocks were trimmed to 3" (2.5" finished size blocks.) Here are the first blocks to have been completed from August of 2023. I blogged about this project for the first time HERE.

After many months of sewing triangle pairs, then making them into pinwheel blocks, I finally ran out of pieces. I ended up with a total of close to 370 blocks. I sorted my pinwheel blocks into color groups, then figured out a layout that would feature rings arranged by color. The layout used 340 blocks, set 17 across and 20 high. The colors in the next photo are very different than the shot at the top of this post because this one was taken indoors.

I never figured out who donated all those triangle pieces to the guild auction, but I sure am glad that they did. It seemed a little crazy when I first started sewing those little triangles into pairs, but I'm so pleased with the final result. 

Linking up with:

Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

16-Patch Blocks on the Design Wall

The past weekend turned into a mini quiltathon for me as I tried out the 2.5" strip die for my new AccuQuilt cutter. I got totally carried away with making 16-patch blocks, pulling out all of the brown and blue prints I could find in my stash. After completing the first 15 blocks on Friday (shared in THIS POST,) I made 20 more blocks by the end of Saturday and put them all up on the design wall together.

35 blocks

The blocks will finish at 8" square, so those 35 blocks would have measured 40" x 56" if joined together as shown. However, a slightly larger size would be more useful, requiring another row both across and along one side, 13 more blocks total.

I wasn't happy with the way those lighter and brighter blue blocks jumped out at me in the 35-block layout. The choice was to either get rid of them or make more in similar colors and spread them across the quilt. I decided to go with the second option, and I think it helps keep your eye moving around the quilt.

48 blocks

I took some closer shots to let you get a look at the fabrics in my blocks. Many of the brown/blue prints date back to a project I started in a class back in 2002.

The goal now is to get these blocks joined together into a top by the end of the week. The top should measure 48" x 64", and I'm not planning to add any borders. After that it joins the to-be-quilted collection.

I'm  linking up with:

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs

Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 10/26/2025

It has been two weeks since my last stash report, mostly due to our recent trip to Wisconsin to visit family. We had a great trip, spending time with my mother and many other family members. We also visited a wonderful new quilt shop in Madison, Sew Much More. They have a very large space with an amazing selection of fabrics, tools, Bernina machines, and maybe the largest variety of threads I've ever seen in one store. Check them out if you are ever in the Madison area. They also have another location in Waukesha, WI, but I haven't been there yet.

The original plan for our trip was to fly to Madison, but the recent challenges with flight delays and cancellations convinced us to drive instead. As usual, our route took us through Paducah, which meant a stop at Hancock's, always a dangerous place for my stash report. I wasn't looking for anything specific, so I chose a few pieces just because I really liked them, but I don't have definite plans for any of them.

One thing that limits my purchases at Hancock's lately is the fact that their minimum cut is now 1 yard on all fabrics. In the past it had been 1/2 yard, except for sale fabric which was 1 yard. The majority of my quilts are scrappy, and I prefer to buy pieces that are 1/2 yard or less.

My husband caught me gazing at this beautiful fat quarter bundle of a full rainbow of colors, and insisted on buying it for me as a birthday gift. The colors are so beautiful, and I love the geometric designs. The line of fabrics is Foundation 2 by Shayla Wolf. You can get a better look at the designs at the Windham Fabrics website. 

The total additions to my stash from that stop at Hancock's came to 12 yards. I don't have any usage to report this week. I need to buckle down and use up some fabric if I'm going to get back to even by the end of the year!

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                  0.0 yards

Used year to date:         54.375 yards

Added last week:               12.0 yards

Added year to date:        74.375 yards

Net added in 2025:        20.0 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of quilting time. I missed one day in the past two weeks, but managed to do some hand work on my Jane Stickle Sampler blocks on the other travel days. I've been working on a new project since we got back (check it out HERE,) and I also have a stack of placemats waiting to be finished.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

10/12 - 10/25       13 of 14 days

2025 Total         294 of 298 days

Success rate               98.7 %   

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. Thanks so much to Donna and Kate for continuing to host these link-ups. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA