UFO Sampler Blocks

In my ongoing attempt to work through some of my old unfinished projects this year, I have been going through a box of leftover blocks each month, pulling out anything that matches the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Our color for January was pink, and for February it was blue. I discovered a very old group of pink/peach and blue blocks, probably made in my first year or two as a quilter, which would date them to the mid-1990's. Here's one of my favorite blocks from the group.

The old pink and blue blocks I'd pulled out appeared to be my early attempt at a sampler quilt. I'd guess that I was working my way through a series of block patterns from a quilting book I took out of the library, my favorite source for quilting information back then. My first attempt to use them now was to put them together into a baby quilt, adding a greyish-blue striped fabric for sashing and border.

That combination just wasn't working for me, so I decided to use each block separately to make placemats. I pulled an assortment of other fabrics to frame and border the blocks, and I even had a couple of those same old fabrics from the 90's still in my stash. The finished size of each placemat is around 12-13" high x 18" wide.

The blocks in the last two placemats were made much later than the sampler blocks. I don't know when the pink star block was made, but the little blue blocks were extras from the recent Project Quilting Challenge: Common Blocks.

Altogether, that's a total of eleven more placemats added to the pile that will be donated to Meals on Wheels through our quilt guild. My goal for the year is to average one placemat each week, and I'm already up to 19 as we near the end of February.

I was looking through some old quilt photos (print photos, not digital) and found a couple pictures of a wallhanging that includes many of the same fabrics. The date on that photo indicated that it was made in 1995-'96. I shared this same photo in a 2015 Throwback Thursday post. I would think that the sampler blocks were made around the same time.

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

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at So Scrappy

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework

Happy quilting!

Julie in GA

Stash Report & Stitching Time 2/23/2025

My stash report didn't happen last Sunday thanks to the wild thunderstorms that awakened us around 4 a.m. There were multiple tornado warnings in nearby areas, but no serious problems for us. Somehow the blog post just never happened after all that excitement. Today's post covers the last two weeks.

For the first time this year, my stash report shows some additions along with a little usage. Our quilt guild had another sale of donated fabrics recently, and I purchased 9.25 yards there. I also visited a quilt shop and picked up 1.25 yards of a blue solid (not shown in the photo) for a current project.

The only usage to report is 1/2 yard for the latest Project Quilting challenge. The theme was Birthstone, and I made a placemat from some batiks that remind me of opals. I posted about it HERE.

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                     .50 yards

Used year to date:              17.75 yards

Added last week:                10.50 yards

Added year to date:             10.50 yards

Net used in 2025:             7.25 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 past two weeks haven't been my most productive, but I've continued to get in some quilting time every single day. I hope to have some finishes to share very soon.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

2/9 - 2/22            14 of 14 days

2024 Total            53 of 53 days

Success rate                100 %   

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

Interlocking Opals for Project Quilting 16.4

Birthstone is the theme for the fourth challenge of Season #16 of Project Quilting, hosted by Kim at Persimon Dreams and Trish at Quilt Chicken.  Participants are required to use the color of our birthstone as a guide for our projects. That gave me two choices because my birth month of October has two different birthstones, pink tourmaline and opal.

It didn't seem like there would be time for me to make anything this week, so I wasn't really thinking much about ideas for the challenge. Then there was a flash of inspiration this morning when I realized that I have some batik fabrics that would definitely work to represent opals. I picked out a favorite block pattern and made this placemat.

Interlocking Opals placemat

The darker batik was used on the back. It reminds me of an Impressionistic map of the continents.

Check out all the different projects inspired by this week's Project Quilting theme at Kim's blog, Persimon Dreams. The next Project Quilting challenge will be posted there at noon CST on Sunday, March 2nd. Come join the fun!

Happy quilting!

Julie in GA

Scrappy Rainbow Hearts

Belated Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! In honor of the day, I pulled out my hand appliqued hearts to audition a possible layout.

The heart blocks have been an on-again, off-again project for several years. They were started sometime in 2021 as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I used to do a lot more hand applique when I was working, getting most of my hand stitching time during my daily train commutes. Since my retirement in 2020, hand applique has mostly become my travel project that I take along when we are going to be out of town.

The collection of hearts has reached a little over 100 total blocks. My layout was inspired by the following design from Fat Quarter Shop called Woven Hearts. 

It turns out that I like the look of the heart layout with the star blocks better than with my heart blocks, although I haven't completely ruled out this possibility. The appliqued hearts have already gone back into their box until the next time I am inspired to try another arrangement.

Be sure to check out all of the wonderful scrappy projects at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge every Saturday, and at Oh Scrap! over at Quilting is more fun than Housework on Sunday. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 2/9/2025

It wasn't my most productive week in the sewing room, mostly because I've been fighting a cold all week. That resulted in low energy and trouble concentrating, plus several afternoons spent napping instead of quilting.

Fortunately, I was able to finish up one project before the cold really took over. That was the latest Quicker Strippy baby quilt, this time made from batiks. Click on the name to go to the blog post with more photos and info.

Quicker Strippy baby quilt

38.5" x 44"

This baby quilt used 3-1/4 yards of fabric, and no new fabric was added to the stash last week. 

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                    3.25 yards

Used year to date:              17.25 yards

Added last week:                    0.0 yards

Added year to date:                0.0 yards

Net used in 2025:            17.25 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 wasn't able to get much done last week thanks to that nasty cold, but I did spend some time in the sewing room every single day. Any progress is good progress, right?

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

2/2 - 2/8                  7 of 7 days

2024 Total            39 of 39 days

Success rate                100 %   

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

Two Challenges in One Placemat

Blue is the color of month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I had pulled out plenty of pretty blue scraps. The theme for this week's Project Quilting Challenge #16.3 is Common Blocks. I started by making a few different very basic blocks from my blue scraps. These 9-Patch and Bowtie blocks measure 3.5" (3" finished,) and the Log Cabin blocks were made with 1" strips and finish at 4".

I considered some layout options for using these blocks to make placemats, but nothing really inspired me. I ended up simplifying my plan and making one each of four very basic blocks that I tend to use over and over in different quilt projects. I set them in a stair-step arrangement with a light blue paisley print as the setting fabric.

Each block has the same background fabric combined with some of my favorite blue batiks. My block choices were 9-Patch and Churn Dash...

plus Bowtie and Pinwheel. The blocks all finish at 4".

For the back of the placemat, I used a very old Jinny Beyer fabric. I've been using up lots of older fabrics on the placemats I've made for Meals on Wheels.

Check out all the different projects inspired by this week's Project Quilting theme at Kim's blog, Persimon Dreams. The next Project Quilting challenge will be posted there at noon CST on Sunday, February 16th. Come join the fun! We also have a great time sharing projects at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework.

Happy quilting!

Julie in GA

Another Strippy Baby Quilt

The quilt guild sewing day was held last week, and we had about a dozen members in attendance working together to make baby quilts for a local pregnancy center. I decided to use some older batiks from my stash to make another Quicker Strippie quilt. Like my previous version of this pattern, I changed some of the strip sizes, cutting all of the widest strips at 9.5".

Quicker Strippy baby quilt

38.5" x 44"

My fabric choices for this quilt top were based on the beautiful flannel print that was used on the back. I remember buying this fabric when the Hancock Fabrics chain was having their going-out-of-business sales, probably 8-10 years ago.

I might have enough of these fabrics to get one more baby quilt out of them if I reverse the placement of the green and the peachy/orange batiks. Maybe I'll go ahead and cut the strips to keep together as a kit for when I'm in the mood for a quick and easy project.

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!

Julie in GA

January Blocks for Temperature Quilt

All of the January blocks for my temperature quilt were finished on February 1st and gathered together on the design wall. Here they are arranged like a calendar page.

The diamonds in the blocks indicate the high temperature each day, and the backgrounds are the lows. We had a stretch of very cold nights (for Georgia) with temps down in the teens late in the month, indicated by the second last row with mostly dark purple backgrounds. That was followed at the end of the month by a few much warmer days, with a high of 70 on the 30th.

I haven't yet decided on the layout for my quilt. I've seen photos of a few with their blocks joined together in diagonal sequence and decided to try that with my blocks.

That looks okay, but I'm not ready to make a decision yet. Of course, the easiest setting would be joining the blocks into straight horizontal rows. If I decided to go with that, I could keep adding blocks to the rows as they were made. I'll hold off on that decision for a little while yet.

You can read more about this quilt and see my whole range of fabrics in this post.

Linking up with:

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA 

Stash Report and Stitching Time 2/2/2025

The past week was a busy one, with something going on every single day including doctor appointments, a guild sewing day, and buying a new laptop, something I've been dreading. There's still a lot for me to figure out on the new one, but I should be able to manage a blog post.

All of that running around meant less time in the sewing room. The only thing I have to share for the stash report today is a new set of fabric napkins. We have several sets of different seasonal napkins, but didn't really have any for winter. I came across two 1-yard pieces of a giant paisley print in my stash and decided they would be a good choice. This napkin measures about 18" square and should give a good idea of the scale of the print.

I was able to make eight napkins from the two yards of fabric (two of them are already in use.)

 

2025 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                      2.0 yards

Used year to date:                14.0 yards

Added last week:                    0.0 yards

Added year to date:                0.0 yards

Net used in 2025:              14.0 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. Despite the very busy week, I was able to spend some time in the sewing room every single day.

15 Minute Challenge for 2025

1/26 - 2/1                7 of 7 days

2024 Total            32 of 32 days

Success rate                100 %   

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